Finally.....

Well, it's taken me a hell of a long time but here I am again. At last. Back on the blog, in an effort to convince myself that I am in fact in possession of at least a small amount of staying power. I'm pretty sure I do possess it, it's just not always very consistent and sometimes hard to find. I'm finally settling into 2012. It's never taken me quite so long to get into a new year before, (I keep awkwardly wishing people a happy new year, it's very embarrassing) but I think I just about know where I'm at with this one. It's been a busy January and to be honest food, supper clubs and blogging have been taking a definite back seat. But for better or worse here I am, back again.

I have actually been doing stuff in the last few months. I like to think of my online sabatical as proof that I've been too busy doing stuff to be writing about it (apart from that week over christmas where I just lay on my couch watching endless bad quality television and stuffing my face with even worse quality snacks), so I'm not going to be too hard on myself for my neglect. It's a new year now and there's lots of new things to try out so it's time to get cracking.

First up on the agenda, tonight's dinner. I'm very excited. There's a bit of background to this.

One of the many things I've neglected to blog about over the last few months was my last supper club. It was a Christmas party for a lovely sculpture group. They were great guests, incredibly friendly and surprisingly comfortable with the whole concept. As they were a group there was none of the initial awkwardness as they arrived into the house. They took to my living room like it was one of their own and settled in for a great evening. Even nicer than the atmosphere was the Christmas present I was given on their arrival. Totally unexpected. There's nothing nicer than a totally unexpected present from people you barely know, or from anyone for that matter. Except maybe when you open it and realise that it couldn't have been better suited to you than if you'd picked it yourself. They'd given me a copy of Casa Moro, one of my favourite cookbooks. Despite being one of my favourites I didn't own a copy. During my last traumatic move of house I had to go through the painful separating of the things with my sister. Painful because of the stark realisation that all of your most cherished possessions, your favourite plates, the cookbook that never fails you, the cosy blanket on the couch, they were never actually yours in the first place. Turns out I never really bought anything, it was all my sisters doing. So after much sobbing and failure to convince her of my right of ownership, I lost 'our' copy of this great book. Living alone I'm finally filling my house with my own things and this time I'm pretty sure they're all actually mine. And now this book can be added to the collection.

What I like about Moro is that it's real family style food. It's all about getting people together, serving up big plates and getting stuck in. On the menu tonight is Chicken Fattee, which is basically a big plate of chicken and rice. Seeing as I don't have a big family to feed (in fact I'm cooking for two), I'm going to do a smaller toned down version but hopefully it will be just as tasty. For those of you who'd like to try it, you don't even need to buy the book. Here's the recipe from the lovely folks over at the guardian.

And here's how it turned out. It was delicious. And I've turned the leftovers into chicken curry for tonight, so it was a bargain to boot. Winner.