TODDLING TOWARDS THREE

So I, at least in the world of blogs, turned two years old yesterday. Last year this was marked with this, this year it was marked with an Ottolenghi recipe for chicken with sumac and za'atar and an Ottolenghi inspired dish of roasted beetroot with baby spinach just moistened with olive oil and lightly seasoned. Ottolnghi seemed the obvious choice, it's always a good choice for a delicious dinner, the food usually looks beautiful, and since moving to London Ottolenghi has swiftly become a firm favourite. Even with 30 minutes marinading instead of 24 hours and chicken breasts instead of a whole chicken quartered and left on the bone it didn’t disappoint. Oh and memo from last night, roast more beetroot.



In the last two years I have learned a bit about blogging and a bit about myself through writing down my thoughts on food:

1) It is possible to have too many frozen bananas.
2) A dark kitchen with no natural light makes for a frustrating photographic experience.
3) A little bit of light pressure is good for motivation (and minor cuts).
4) You can waste a lot of time reading food blogs and getting blog envy.
5) I respond well to pressure so if there is ever a too long quiet period just shout at me or give me a deadline (see 3).
6) My list of things to make is getting longer rather than shorter but the growing (groaning) shelves don't help.
7) My go to dinners are oven cooked marinated chicken or meatballs in pitta.
8) When I'm tired I can easily succumb to the joys of potato waffles cooked in the toaster and made into sandwiches with cheese and ketchup, waffly versatile indeed.

I've already told you about some of my plans for 2009 but here are a few just for my third year of blogging (can you tell I'm in the mood for a few lists today?):

1) Practice taking better photos. I tend to get frustrated if I can't do something perfectly immediately (if anyone can tell me how I managed to crochet so that all the stitches were upside down then I would be delighted to hear from you) so am determined to practice this photography lark.
2) Write without any huge chunks of absence, to be fair there was a reason for this in 2008 so assuming we don’t move to the other end of the country again I should be okay.
3) Make new recipes. Don’t just pull Nigel Slater off the shelf whenever a roast chicken goes in the oven, more of a comfortable habit than a recipe requirement but anyway…

There, I think that's enough to be getting on with, after all I am still just a toddler.