Chef!

In retrospect, I'm not entirely clear how I survived the period at university during which I was self-catering. I can only remember being able to cook one meal, which was the odd soup that I'd devised, which included milk, fresh carrot, a packet of dried soup and an egg. I made it for my brother once and I remember he was quite churlish about it (and especially horrified by the egg). It was only years later that it dawned on me that he was simply being honest about this culinary bad dream that I sprang on him, when he'd just come to stay for the weekend and enjoy himself.

A couple of years later when I got married, my favourite wedding present was a vegetarian cookbook, given to me by our friend Judy. It was from this, at the ripe old age of twenty-four, that I finally learnt to cook*. By which I mean follow a recipe. Over the years I have met many great cooks, including the Minx, who can rustle up something delicious out of a disparate collection of ingredients, whilst carrying on a conversation, sipping their wine and occasionally tossing a handful of herbs into a pot.

I'm not like that. I need a recipe, the exact ingredients and a generous amount of time for which to prepare and then a distraction free period in which to cook. (Actually, what I really need is a Prince 2 trained project manager equipped with a spreadsheet and a watch to oversee matters and to talk me through the whole proceeding.)

One way or another, I haven't cooked much for a long time. There are a few dishes that I rustle up regularly, such as my rather good chilli, but that's about the end of it. Today, though, I spontaneously decided to make broccoli soup for lunch - see here, here and here - which the kids (I had four of them over) promptly devoured.

Emboldened, I decided to make a roast for dinner, including a nut roast for Abi. This, I can see in retrospect, was a tad ambitious and it's a small miracle that we ate this side of midnight. But the roast chicken tasted just as it ought and Abi seemed to enjoy the roast. Only the potatoes were a minor disappointment but the Good Food recipe for 'best ever roast potatoes' involved ingredients I don't have plus an extended preparation and cooking time that suggests one would need a sous chef to include them in your dining plans. But in the end, they were edible and I counted the whole meal as a victory.

*In fact, I use it to this day, twenty-four years later.