Lesbeans

Beans are great. Which are your favourites?

French beans: Les beans, Charlotte's favourite.

Runner beans: a bit stringy and boring in my opinion and far too athletic-sounding.

Black beans: best known for that Chinese restaurant favourite black bean sauce.

Broad beans: these delecterble beans have another name. Click here to see what my alter ego (with a suitably foody name) has to say about them.

Butter beans: I love these - my favourite. Do them Greek style in tomato sauce and serve with stuffed vine leaves and tzatziki. Ambrosia.

Haricot beans: better known as baked beans; store cupboard essential. But don't buy Heinz.

Lesbean: a misspelling of the word that describes us Sapphic sisters.

Has bean: was a lesbean, but now prefers meat and two veg.

Says bean: says they like les beans but really they prefer les saucisson.

Baby, now that I've fondue!

We went to a fondue party last night. Who would have thought that a warm pot of melted cheese could cause such mirth....especially when I spilled a load down my cleavage.

I can't even blame it on the drink, seeing as I was on the wagon after a somewhat over-indulgent previous evening at a regional communications managers meeting in Birmingham. Well, it would have been rude not to join in with tequila slammers on offer from the Cambridgeshire representative. I tell you, those East Anglian women can drink! At the end of the night it was only Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and me standing. Plus I was born in Essex and my parents live in Suffolk, so I'm East Anglian by default. And they always say it's the Northerners that have staying power!

Anyway, back to fondue. We had a steaming pot of Emmenthal and Gruyere mixed with white wine, kirsch, lemon juice and tiny bit of garlic, a pinch of nutmeg and black pepper. Very retro and actually very filling. I felt the need to release the top button of my jeans from their tight grasp and collapse on our friends' sofa with their menagerie of cats.

Match that with a "name that tune" board game, a long conversation about trumping (it must have been the veg we dipped in the fondue) and more cava for the girls, it turned out to be a very memorable night.

And the cheese didn't give me nightmares!

Credit Crunch Biscuits

Well, we mentioned it weeks ago - the term Credit Crunch to describe a low budget biscuit, but finally I've seen a variation of it being used out there in the real world. A restaurant near London Bridge has a poster outside describing Credit Munch.

Has anyone else seen any other variations of this? There should be loads by now.

Sandwich shops should be selling the Credit Lunch
Greasy spoons should be offering the Credit Brunch
Struggling bars and pubs could serve a special Credit Punch

We were going to dream up a recipe for the Credit Crunch biscuit, but something like this will do. The secret to making it isn't the recipe - it's the cost of the ingredients and here's the ruse:

Biscuits need sugar right?

Do you take sugar in your tea or coffee?

If you do then you'll need to recruit someone who's "sweet enough" to help you, but if you don't then listen to this:

When you buy a tea or coffee, have you ever stopped to think about the fact that you're paying for the sugar, even though you don't have it?

Probably not, but you're thinking about it now aren't you? Yes, you've been robbed. So, instead of refusing the sweetness in future, take it and save it up. Eventually you'll have enough for your Credit Crunch biscuits. Sounds extreme? These are extreme times.

And, if you can't wait that long to save the sugar then get a cup on loan from a neighbour and pay them back when you have saved it up - that's what credit is all about after all.

Rice and spicy

I made the most amazing rice dish last night, Persian Jeweled Rice (omitting the chicken). It was simply divine.

It formed part of a special meal I prepared in honour of the fact that we had a rogue bottle of Israeli wine in the bulk selection we purchased a couple of weeks ago. Israeli wine calls for some delectable treats from my Jewish cookbook, The Jewish Kitchen by Clarissa Hyman, so hence the rice and a nice and spicy leg of lamb (which was my own creation).

I roasted the lamb in the oven for one hour in a mixture of orange juice, cinnamon, ground cumin, ground ginger, coriander seeds, honey, garlic cloves and bay leaves.

The basmati rice was steamed together with dried apricots, sour cherries, fried onions, raisins, orange peel, a pinch of sugar, julienne carrots, saffron and sprinkled with pistachio nuts. Together this was served with some green beans in yogurt and mint and we finished the meal with fresh figs.

Go on, give it a go and give your taste buds a tickle!

You Must Try This - Chicken in Blackberry Sauce

Following last week's blackberry pickin's, Charlotte created a delicious dinner for me the other night. It was a wonderfully seasonal dish of chicken breast in blackberry sauce, served with saute potatoes and green beans.

It was delicious and I recommend you give it a try while the blackberries are still readily available.

According to Charlotte, the blackberry sauce consisted of chicken stock, creme fraiche, fresh blackberries and salt & pepper. Simple. Of course, it was also made with love - that extra special ingredient, so make sure you put a load of that in there too. Yes Charlotte does indeed put her emotions into her cooking, just like the protagonist in that fabulous book Like Water for Chocolate. Enjoy.