Puff Pastry Christmas Calzones - Paul's Christmas Post - part 2

Hi Guys,

One of the things I love about this time of year is that you get to go round and see so many people, and as soon as you walk in the door you are offered some food and a nice drink (if this doesn't happen then you've probably walked into my Nan's house, in which case my only advice is to get on with it and make your own refreshments - only joking Nan!). Finger food, or party food can be brilliant and I love being offered home made sausage rolls or little tasty combo's spiked on forks - things like fresh figs wrapped in a little prosciutto with a sprig of mint and a small drizzle of balsamic vinegar , or some smoked salmon (responsibly sourced) with a little bit of watercress, some creme fraiche  and a squeeze of lemon are heavenly. The downside of party food is that alot of the stuff that is ready made from the supermarket is horrible. Sometimes it gets served to you in the same packet it was bought and cooked in, which makes it even worse!

As I promised at the end of the last post, here is a little Christmas recipe for you to try. Sage, cranberries and stilton are all classic Christmas flavours and I've brought them together in a pastry parcel - it is Christmas, so a little pastry treat is allowed! Use the all butter puff pastry you can get from the supermarket and roll it yourself. I've made my own sticky cranberry jam, but you could buy a jar, just make sure it's chunky. You can also use any cheese you want, but just make sure it's one with lots of flavour which is why I've used stilton, but a lovely mature cheddar works really well too.

Sticky Cranberry Jam

300g fresh cranberries

2 tbsp light brown sugar

Juice of 2 clementines or 1/2 an orange

flat teaspoon of ground cinnamon

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tbsp red wine

Add all the ingredients to a frying pan and simmer over a medium heat for about 7 minutes until dark and sticky, but the cranberries still retain their shape. 

Allow to cool.

This makes about 25 calzones:

plain flour for dusting

500g all butter puff pastry

heaped teaspoon dried sage

1/2 my Sticky Cranberry Jam recipe - use the rest alongside your Christmas Turkey!

wedge of stilton (or your favourite strong cheese - or even a mixture!)

1 egg, beaten

Preheat the oven to 220℃ / gas mark 7

Roll your pastry out until it is the same thickness as a pound coin, as you do so dust both sides with the dried sage. This will give you a lovely subtle flavour to your pastry. 

Use the rim of a pint glass (or something similar approx 8-9 cm diameter) to cut the pastry into little circles.

Place a little cluster of cranberry jam in the middle of each of the circles. 4-5 cranberries is the ideal amount. You are going to fold the circles in half, so place the cranberries towards one side, but leave a 1 centimetre gap between the filling and the edge.

Crumble the same amount of cheese over the cranberries and then brush the egg in the 1 centimetre gap you left.

Carefully fold the pastry over the filling and press down to seal.

Now you can be as fancy as you like with this next part, you need to crimp the pastry to keep the filling from coming out. I like to fold and pinch all the way along to create a little calzone shape. What this means is that I start at 1 end, fold over a little triangle of the pastry and pinch it down, I then take the next piece and fold it over into another triangle, and then pinch that down. This follows on until I get to the end where I finish it with a big pinch, making the finished calzone look a little bit like an ear! (the big pinch at the end looks like an earlobe to me!) You could always just press down the edge with a fork, like you would a sausage roll, if you prefer. Try to make it as tight as possible without getting any holes in them. You will probably find that the cheese will still manage to find a way to bubble and ooze out a little as it cooks, but that doesn't matter too much, you want them to look rustic and homemade!

Brush the top with some more egg and place on some greaseproof parer on a baking tray.

Do the same with the rest and bake in the oven for about 15 minutes or until golden.

You can adapt this recipe any way you like. It's really nice to do a batch using different cheeses, just keep them separated on the tray as you bake them and remember which is which! 

You could also try using some leftover turkey instead of cheese, or using a different herb, like thyme in the pastry. 

I hope you enjoy the recipe, do let me know what you think, as it all helps with future recipes that I'll be posting in the new year.

Have a brilliant Christmas, and thank you so much for reading my blog over the past couple of months.

Paul's Christmas Post - part 1

Hi Guys,

This week there really is no escaping the fact that Christmas is upon us. Hopefully you are all organised in terms of what food you are cooking and serving. I am pretty sorted, although I don't actually have that much that anyone wants me to do! This year we will be staying with Esther's family over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day before visiting my Aunty Lyn on Boxing Day and my Cousin on the 27th. My "Christmas Day" with my Grandparents, Parents and my Sister isn't until the 28th (yes that is 5 solid days of Christmas!) and we are going alternative, so I'll be coking a beautiful lamb rogan josh with fluffy rice and making some fantastic lime pickle and a few other bits and pieces. Apart from a retro pale ale fondue that has been requested for a late evening Boxing Day treat, the only other cooking that I'll be doing will be any desserts that might be requested from me (there usually is!) and of course I will be available as a sous-chef for anyone who needs any help.
I can't wait for Esther and I to be able to host a proper Christmas Day, as I usually end up lugging half of my kitchen around with us and when you live in a second floor flat, it is a nightmare going up and down the stairs so many times! I love it really!
I also want to be able to start some proper Christmas Day traditions, things like a good breakfast and a little homemade alcoholic drink to get you started, that sort of thing. It would also be nice to be able to do a few "get ahead" recipes and keep them in the fridge. Anyone who saw Jamie's Christmas with Bells On on Wednesday will know what I mean by that. There are loads of jobs you can do in advance of Christmas Day to tick off your list and leave you free to enjoy yourself instead of being a slave to the kitchen. This includes a fabulous "get ahead" gravy and brilliant stuffing recipe. You can find these recipes on the channel 4 website if you are interested, and believe me you should check them out as they are genius!

While I am on the subject of Christmas food on TV this week, I have to write a bit about Jimmy's Grow Your Own Christmas Dinner which was also on channel 4. I love Jimmy Doherty and think he is brilliant. This week he decided to try to grow all the components of a traditional Christmas dinner and compare them to ones that most people would buy from a supermarket. This meant that he would be cooking 2 Christmas dinners at the same time . . . . . . Jimmy has always been a bit crazy!
The other thing Jimmy has always been is a really fair person, and he told the stories of both his homegrown and the supermarket produce in a very non-biased way, even when he was in a Bernhard Matthews turkey farm, something he should be commended for.
Along with rearing his own free range turkey, he grew sprouts, carrots and a really traditional variety of potato that sadly we don't see very much anymore. He also made his own Christmas pudding using a very old recipe using suet. This looked incredible and is definitely something I will be doing next year.
I love programmes like this, they get you excited about growing your own stuff (all I need now is a garden and I'll be all over it) but I also now know a lot more about the food I buy in the supermarket.
Jimmy has taught me so much over the years and he really inspires me. In his last series he used heavy duty power tools in his barn to create his own versions of supermarket food, it's pretty easy to understand why I like him so much! I don't think I would be any good at running a farm, but I love visiting the farm shop at his, as he has some amazing meat amongst all the other nice things.
The outcome of the programme really didn't matter that much, as you already know that free range meat tastes better,  allotment grown veg always tastes better and the pudding will be either a "love it" or "hate it"
kind of thing with the suet. What was important was the idea that we should try to preserve some of the traditional varieties of things like potatoes that are being lost. Apples are another example of this and it's astounding to learn how many different varieties of apples there are, but only a few are readily available to the average consumer. I think that is really sad, and something should be done to actively push these things back into our shops.

As the title of this post suggests, there will be another Christmas post coming in the next few days. This hopefully will be a little recipe to try out. I have been experimenting in the kitchen over the last couple of weeks in an attempt to give you something really special to do. Not everything has been as successful as I would have liked and there have been a few disasters, but I'm confident that you'll love what I'll post!

In the meantime get as much of your shopping done as possible. Christmas is the worst time for food shopping and if you can have all the cupboard stuff already so all you need to pick up are the fresh items then you'll be reducing the supermarket stress for yourself big time! Just stay calm and it'll all be fine, I am hoping not to be pushed out of the way by an angry lady looking for parsnips this year - there isn't the need for it to get to that stage!

Happy shopping!

. . . . . Leave them kids alone!

Hi Guys,

This week I was more than disturbed to hear of the governments plans to relax the nutritional standards in the food sold and served in over a third of schools in England. This is truly shocking and will only lead us back to a very dark place with the health of our kids and ultimately the country as a whole.

Seven years ago when Jamie Oliver started his campaign to improve school food we were in that same dark place. Sub standard processed food was being fed to the children of this country with horrific consequences to their health. Something that stuck in my head whilst watching the TV shows was the fact that this generation of kids would be the first to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. Every day, by sending your child to school with their lunch money or their packed lunch full of crisps and chocolate, you were slowly killing them. In my mind, the argument for healthier food in schools was a complete "no brainer" to be honest, but both money and politics did what it always does and caused a whole load of problems. Money is a horrible thing, I would love a world where important things didn't have to be compromised because of profit margins and contract negotiations. The health of our country (the worst in Europe and not too far behind the worst of them all, the U.S.A) has to be one of the most important issues. A quarter of kids under the age of 10 are obese, and a third of all teenagers. This is putting an enormous stress on an already overworked NHS. This costs our economy £4,000,000,000 a year. Diabetes costs our economy £10,000,000,000 a year. If you want to talk about saving money, that's a good place to start. If standards start to go backwards, as the government are pretty much pushing that way, then those figures, which are enormous, will only increase further. They are already predicted to double in the next 15-20 years.
The other shocking thing I learned 7 years ago, was that there were more standards to comply with in producing Dog Food than there were for food served to kids in school. That meant that so called "meat" products could be sold with as low as 20% meat content and 80% anything else. I think we all remember Jamie blitzing up all sorts of nasty stuff in his food processor as a demonstration as to what that 80% was made up of. Processed food is bad news, and Jamie's campaign managed to rid schools of it, take away sweets, crisps and chocolate bars from vending machines and educate kids about food and nutrition at the same time.
I saw a news report from a school in Greenwich the other day, which asked the kids (and remember we are now talking about a new batch of kids who didn't grow up with the turkey twizzlers) about their school dinners. These kids were happy and healthy and statistics also show that they are performing better academically. They enjoyed their healthy food and were not bothered by the lack of the unhealthy stuff. To relax the standards and ask schools to self assess is crazy, and the kids don't even miss it in the first place!

In a perfect world these schools would only serve the healthy meals and kids health would improve, grades would improve and it would be sunny all the time. Unfortunately, it seems that these schools are having pressure heaped upon them to make a return to unhealthy profitable snacks in vending machines and low standard processed products that fall well below the acceptable level. Schools need money, it's a simple truth and the temptations are obvious. Having strict guidelines mean that high standards have to be maintained, and success stories like the one I saw on the news might not have happened without them.

We cannot allow this relaxing of standards to happen. Lots of my friends and family have some fantastic little kids and I want all of them (and mine when we get around to it!) to have fantastic futures . If we take a stand and make some noise, then I have every faith that they will.

Creamy Mushroom Tagliatelli, Crispy Prosciutto and Zingy Rocket

Hi Guys,

This is bit of a big moment for me. After years of doing other people's recipes (well  . . . . Jamie's) I have started to come up with my own. This is the first one that I wanted to share with you, it's a simple and quick pasta dish that is totally delicious. Give it a go and tell me what you think. Vegetarians can just leave out the prosciutto.

Serves 2

4 slices prosciutto or parma ham

300g mushrooms - I like shittakke, but it's up to you

1 clove garlic, finely sliced

good pinch of crumbled dried chilli - but adjust to your taste

a few sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves picked

250g tagliatelle

1 heaped tablespoon mascarpone cheese

zest and juice of half a lemon

a big handful of rocket

olive oil and extra virgin olive oil

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

parmesan for grating

Heat a large frying pan on a medium-high heat and add a little olive oil. Put your kettle on to boil and put a large saucepan on the hob. Once the frying pan is hot, add your prosciutto and fry on both sides until golden and crispy, then remove from the pan but keep the small amount of beautiful leftover oil in, as this will add an incredible flavour to your mushrooms.

Tear or slice your mushrooms in half and add to the pan with a touch more olive oil, give the pan a little toss.

Once the mushrooms get a little colour on them add the finely sliced garlic, the dried chilli and the thyme leaves, everything will start to smell amazing.

Toss everything in the pan for a few minutes until the garlic has softened and has a nice golden colour. If the pan starts to look a little dry, add a touch more oil.

Pour the boiling water from the kettle into the saucepan and add a good pinch of salt and the pasta.
Cook the pasta according to the packet instuctions, until al dente.

Once the pasta goes in, turn the heat down under the mushrooms and add the mascarpone. Once the mascarpone is half melted, add a ladle of the water from the pasta pan. This will not only stop your finished pasta from going claggy and sticky, it adds a gorgeous creamyness and silkyness to your sauce. Then add the zest of half your lemon. Season to taste with pepper and give it a good stir.

Roughly chop the crispy prosciutto.
Put the rocket into a bowl and halve your lemon.

Once the pasta is cooked, drain it but reserve a bit more of the pasta water. Add the pasta to the mushroom pan and give everything a really good toss.
Add a little of your reserved pasta water and the chopped crisy prosciutto. The sauce should be nice and creamy, add a little more pasta water if it needs it. Toss again and divide onto warmed plates.

Squeeze one half of the lemon over the rocket and dress quickly with your fingertips.
Divide the rocket on top of the pasta and grate over some parmesan and finish with a drizzle of good quality extra virgin olive oil. The rocket will wilt a little because of the heat from the pasta, something that I really like, but feel free to serve it on the side if you prefer.

Eat straight away and hopefully you'll enjoy it as much as me!

All I want for Christmas . . . . . .

Hi Guys,

This week I started thinking about Christmas. The TV adverts have started, the lights are going up in the high streets and my family have been putting their Christmas lists up on the fridge at my parents house.
I haven't started putting the food ideas together yet, but it did get me thinking about any new kitchen kit that I wanted to ask Santa for.

Having a well equipped kitchen can make a big difference to the food you are cooking. Blunt knives wont chop or slice things properly, cheap pans don't hold heat in the same way that good quality heavy bottom ones do, and a food processor that can't cope with what you ask it to do, or just snaps when you try and take the lid off it (ask Esther . . . . I'm not saying anything!) is pretty useless. To be honest, these 3 areas are the ones that in my opinion people should be spending decent money on, and will prove to be a lasting investment at the same time. There isn't really much to gain by spending a fortune on a mixing bowl for example, as long as you have some good sized ones, they will do the same job no matter how cheap they are. If they break? Who cares, they were cheap anyway.

With this in mind I thought I would share with you a few things that I have and use in my kitchen all the time, and if you don't have them already, you might even consider putting them on your Christmas list. For my money, everyone can and should be cooking at home more, it's cheaper, healthier and is good for the soul, and a nice new shiny piece of kitchen kit might be a push in that direction, you never know!

I've mentioned them already, so a great place to start is knives.
Great knives will last you a lifetime if you look after them properly, and will make your cooking life a complete pleasure. You really only need 3 or 4 knives, so stay away from the huge sets with 10 or 12 knives in, as I promise you that you'll never use them all. The 3 that you will use are pictured below. The chef's knife, the small paring knife and the bread knife. 95% of the time I use my chef's knife and I love it.

So what makes a good knife? Well you want a decent weight, with the balance in the right place, the handle should feel good and comfortable in your hand, and the blade should be solid and not bend.  To keep them sharp you'll want a decent sharpener that you use regularly to maintain that sharpness. Blunt knives wont do you any favours.

The revelation of the past 12 months for me was my garlic crusher, and now I don't know how i survived without it. Peeling garlic is one of those jobs that I don't enjoy so much, especially if I am doing a lot of it. All I do now is place the unpeeled cloves in the crusher and squeeze out all of the lovely garlic - brilliant! It saves so much time and also gives you an intense garlicky paste, similar to grating it, which gives a tiny bit of extra spark in your food that chopping doesn't always have.

Speaking of grating, every home needs 2 quality graters. A good box grater and a small microplane one too. They need to be sharp or they are pretty pointless - I always take my small grater with me when I cook at my parents house. I tried zesting a lemon with theirs last week . . . . . . . . . . didn't happen!

A brilliant thing to have in your kitchen arsenal is a variety of boards and plates to serve things on. Good presentation wins you half the battle, and there are lots of "sets" of food things that are around at this time of year that come either on a wooden board, or in a basket that you can use years after you've eaten the cheese or jams or whatever else it came with. It makes a difference, I promise.

I use my pestle and mortar all the time. I make dressings, rubs and curry pastes amongst other things in it and it is fantastic. Food tastes better when you put love and attention into making it, and that is what the pestle and mortar is all about for me. I love bashing up herbs and spices, mixing in oils and other ingredients as the smell you get is incredible.

So what do I want for Christmas? The same thing I've wanted for the last few years, a Magimix food processor in silver. I tried to make a meringue in our old Kenwood processor a couple of weeks ago and it couldn't cope with mixing the egg whites and the sugar. In fact it was jumping around all over our kitchen surface and turning itself off, as the force of the vibrations were loosening the lid!
The meringue turned out lovely in the end, but lets just say that the whisking attachment for the processor ended up in the bin . . . . . . . . . which was the best way round for that story to end.

Happy shopping!

All images in this blog belong to me and cannot be used without my permission.

Esther and Paul do Venice

Hi Everyone,

This week, the post is all about the amazing honeymoon that Esther and I had a few weeks ago.

Venice gets a bit of bad press in terms of it's food, but I'm here to tell you that if you stay away from the tourist hotspots and follow your nose to where the locals go, then you'll be eating some of the most incredible food in the world . . . . . we did!

I love Italian food, I love the simplicity of it. Using a few beautiful ingredients and getting the best out of them is what cooking is all about for me.

Venice itself is a magical fairytale of a place. The endless canals with their bridges, leading to little squares with tiny residential pathways or small allyways make it seem more like a film set than a city.
The touristy places are full of bars and restaurants that charge you a fortune to sit down at, and this is where Venice gets it's stigma. Everything in these places is overpriced. You are paying to be where you are, not for what you are being served. The problem is that to find the best places to eat, you need to be a bit brave. You need to move away from the main tourist strip and go where the locals go. It's not being brave really, as by doing so you are experiencing more of the real aspects of the city. Lets call it being that little bit more like Indiana Jones - exploring a little bit further to find the treasure.
Esther and I were never going to eat or drink in one of the tourist places as it's just not who we are. We went to Naples a few years ago and were blown away by the food we had. Most of which came from street vendors on the sides of the roads. The food was fast, the ingredients were high quality, it was all fresh and it was insanely delicious.

Venice, when you dig a little deeper, is incredible, and we found some amazing places.
I could start telling you about every meal, what we did every day and stuff like that, but I think that'll make this a diary rather than a food blog, so instead I'll keep it to a few things that were truly amazing.

The Rialto Market is a fabulous place to visit. We were up early one morning and headed down to see what they had going on and were both completely awestruck. I have never seen so much beautiful fresh fish. It was endless. The fresh fruit and vegetables were incredible too. Lots of which are grown on 2 dedicated islands in the lagoon. We bought some fruit, but I was gutted not to be able to buy any fish.

On our first day we walked over the Rialto Bridge after coming off the little ferry and found ourselves in the hustle and bustle of market stalls and street food vendors. We picked up a plastic cup full of fresh fruit because they looked amazing and were not disappointed. It was delicious.

The Trattoria al la Madonna is in a backstreet pretty close to the touristy places around the Rialto Bridge. It has a really vibrant atmosphere and beautiful food. Esther had black squid with white polenta which was incredible and I went for the Venetian classic spaghetti vongole which was fantastic. Squid ink has a fabulous depth of flavour and is something not to be missed, especially in Venice.

Il Sigillo is a small cafe with retro-diner style seating. We loved this place! We stopped there for breakfast one morning and had some beautiful speck rolls with rocket, oregano and some delicious olive oil. The coffee was awesome too. We had our final meal of the trip here too, which is pictured below. A beautiful fried pizza base topped with delicious vegetables, rocket and cured meat.

We took a boat trip to the islands of the lagoon, not in search of Venetian glass or lace (which is what the islands are most famous for), but in search of the best risotto in the world.

Signor Ruggero is the top man when it comes to risotto. His restaurant is called Trattoria al Gatto Nero and is located on the island of Burrano (the one that makes the lace - in case you were interested).

I can't even tell you how excited I was to get there and order the risotto burrano. The risotto is flavoured with these little fish that are caught in the lagoon, and it was truly amazing. I tend to get a little over excited at times when it comes to food, and how good it was, but the risotto and also the tiramisu that I had as my dessert were out of this world.

Esther followed her risotto with some beautiful cheese. The real genius with this was the pot of sweet honey served in the middle of it. The next time you do a cheese platter, get yourself a small pot of nice honey and drizzle it over the cheese just before you pop it in your mouth. It is totally gorgeous.

The last place to tell you about is a small cantina called Gia Schiavi. It was full of bottles of wine on one side, and had a counter on the other side filled with lots of differently topped crostini and antipasti. Each crostini was priced at 1 euro each and to be honest, we could have spent a fortune in there. We settled on 6 and took them outside to share next to the canal with a couple of beers. They tasted as good as they look, and as you can see from the picture below, they look pretty tasty! The one at the front, with the pear and gorgonzola was my favourite.

Venice was the perfect honeymoon destination for us, we had amazing weather, were in an incredible and magical city and ate some of the most beautiful food we have ever tasted. What a brilliant way to start our married life.

Ciao!

all food images belong to me and cannot be copied or reproduced

Not just an excuse to show off . . . . .

Hi Guys,

This post is all about something I love doing.
By using a bit of love and affection in the way I present my food, the more pleasure everyone has when they tuck into it.

I have always wanted to impress Esther by serving up food for her that looks as impressive as I can make it. I think it makes me seem like a better cook than I actually am. Not that it never tastes good, but I let her have have the first mouthful with her eyes.
It gives me a huge amount of satisfaction when I manage to make my plates/platters/boards or bowls to look like they do in the pictures in Jamie's cookbooks. It's not just me showing off though, as I really do believe that if the food looks delicious then the taste battle is half won.

With this in mind, I thought I would share with you a few pictures I have taken over the years. They were all taken using light from the window and are all of food that I have cooked at home, in my little kitchen in my little flat.

I hope you like them, and if they make you at all hungry, then what I am telling you is true!

OK, I'm a professional photographer, but I have no training in food preparation or presentation at all. I just put a whole lot of love into the way my food looks. I don't try to achieve anything too fancy with it. I like rustic looking proper food. All the images above are all about the food and how it's going to taste. I'm not a fan of those chefs who are into small angular pieces of food stacked up or arranged in such a way that the finished plates look like they belong in an art gallery, I don't know what to do with that, it looks far too precious. Food should look delicious . . . . . simple.

I want to share a little story with you because it is something that I just can't let go when I am on the subject of food presentation. I gave myself a massive job to do at our wedding a few weeks ago when I decided to make the dessert for everyone. I know . . . . . . I'm crazy, but to be honest the catering company were hog roast specialists and the desserts they were suggesting were uninspired at best. That's probably a little unfair, as it was pretty standard for wedding food . . . . . . . but I guess that is the whole problem. Anyway I decided it would be a really nice touch if I were to make the dessert. I chose to make individual chocolate pots served in cappuccino cups, as they are simple to make and heavenly delicious to eat. They also look really sweet. I was serving them with some local seasonal fruit and the best homemade shortbread in the world, which was made my friend Ruthie. All the catering company had to do was serve them . . . . . easy right? Wrong! In their infinate wisdom they decided to "ponce up" my dessert by plonking half a strawberry in the top of my chocolate pot . . . . . not cool. If that had been what I had asked them to do then fine, but it wasn't. I was pretty annoyed, you can probably tell that I'm still a bit annoyed now. It's not that I don't like the idea of the strawberry, just that I wanted it served simply, and I had provided all the fruit to serve with it on the side. The pot was all about the chocolate. Had I have been in the kitchen serving them, I would have added a few flecks of shaved chocolte and some grated orange zest . . . . . . . . but at that point I was being the Groom, so I decided a simple presentation was fine. I promise I will let this go now!

I guess what I am trying to say with this story is that there is a danger that things can be overworked when ultimately it's just better to let the food speak for itself most of the time. A few small herb leaves and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, or some grated lemon zest over your food can be enough to take a dish from looking nice, to looking amazing. . . . . . In my opinion anyway!

Thanks for reading. 

all food images belong to me and cannot be copied or reproduced

Welcome to my food blog!

Hi Guys,

Welcome to my new blog!

It's been a few months since the end of the cycle ride and about time that I started blogging again. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about (seriously? . . . . . . where have you been?) I will quickly get you up to speed. In the summer, I cycled 312 miles from London to Cornwall with 3 of my best friends and raised over £1700 for the British Heart Foundation. It was a massive achievement and a huge journey for me personally. I started a blog during our training, and tried to keep everyone who read it involved and up to date with how we were doing. It's still online and can be viewed at www.paullovesesther.blogspot.com if you want to see what it was all about.

This blog is about a different side of me, the side that is obsessed by food. I love cooking. I love eating fantastic food and I love sharing the fact that I love it so much with as many people as possible, irrespective of whether or not they want to listen to me.

This blog is going to be a way of me expressing the enormous passion I have. I have got loads of ideas as to where I want this to lead, and the sorts of things I want to upload, but I'll save those as surprises for the not too distant future. This post is all about me - well sort of!

I've had a bit of a crazy relationship with food over the years. I was a nightmare baby, throwing my food all over the walls. I was a nightmare kid, reducing my Mother to tears when it came to trying to cook for me, telling her that I hated everything, killing her confidence in her cooking abilities. I also hated watching other kids eat, and had to have a separate table at school for me and 1 other "approved" person to sit and eat at. How crazy is that by the way? (and my school let this happen!). I was of course an awful teenager, with a terrible diet consisting of supermarket pizza, pasties, crap chocolate and having salad cream with everything. I didn't eat salads or vegetables very much either.

So what changed? . . . . . . Two words . . . . . . . . . . Jamie Oliver.

In 1999 "The Naked Chef" TV series hit our screens and the world was introduced to a bloke from Essex who had a passion and a way with food that was infectious. For the very first time food became "cool" for me. It was being made by a guy who was just a little bit older than I was, and it was being knocked together in a way I had never seen before. A way that I just fell in love with.
We used to watch "Ready, Steady Cook" in our house, and I always enjoyed seeing what the chefs were going to do with the little white bags of ingredients the contestants would bring on, but the food itself was never anything that I saw myself doing, or would have any reason to do either. Jamie changed all that. The Naked Chef always had a story, either his mates were coming over, he had a party to throw or he was trying to impress Jools and her family. He made me understand that food wasn't just for eating, that it was also a social thing that could bring people together. Food wasn't just fuel anymore, and at 19 that really was how I looked at it. Food was also a potential party and flavour explosion in your mouth. I certainly never got that with the food I was eating. The other thing Jamie did was to explain not only what he was doing with the food and why he was doing it,  but why I was going to love it, and how easy it was for me to do it.

All I needed to do then was to do it. I started small and did a few of Jamie's pasta dishes before moving on to cooking steak. Steak was a big breakthrough for me as I would then have the confidence to cook tuna and swordfish steaks too. I also discovered rocket. What a brilliant salad leaf rocket is! It's got a fantastic peppery flavour and got me into salads big-time. From never eating salads, to always eating them was incredible, and made me feel so much healthier and better for it.

Then I met Esther. Esther is now my beautiful wife, but when we started going out in 2005 my life would change forever. Not just because now we are married, but because I finally had someone to cook for and to try and impress. Food when you are dating is pretty important, you go out to restaurants for dinners or lunches and stuff. I wanted to do all that, but at the same time try and live out my Jamie Oliver fantasy that had been brewing inside of me for the past few years.
The first meal I cooked for her? Steak! (sticking inside the comfort zone early on) Well my new favourite way to cook steak at the time anyway.
Paprika Sirloin Steak Wrap from "Jamie's Dinners" to be exact. And apart from getting paprika all over everything in the kitchen (nightmare! . . . . . especially in someone else's house!) it turned out brilliantly!
I'll admit that I can make it better now, and quicker too, but I was properly chuffed. Esther loved it and I guess it's fair to say that I've never looked back. I loved cooking for her, and she was enjoying eating it. I had hit the jackpot! Knowing that what you are doing is making someone else happy is what it's all about.

My relationship with food was finally positive, it had helped make everything in my life positive and it's no coincidence that Esther and I got together when we did.
Food is something to be loved, looked after and treated in the right way, if you do that properly it will look after you in return. With Jamie's guidance, it certainly has done that for me.