I have always been...

...domestically challenged.

My house is a mess, I loathe washing up and when I think about cooking properly I tend to come over a little faint.

I just don't have a very tidy life. When I do try to have a tidy life, or when someone tries to help me have a tidy life, things I need tend to vanish. (Like the sewing threads we spent 15 minutes looking for last night that had vanished after Anthony cleared up the living room) (they turned up behind the radiator...neither of us knows how they got there).

One of the things I am determined to do (apart from buy a dishwasher) is to cook actual proper meals. Not that I live on microwave rubbish, but it is mostly whack-it-in-the-oven-and-forget-about-it food.

So today (after drooling over it for four months) I finally bought this book.



I had intended to buy it post-Christmas (when it was half price) with some of my Christmas/Birthday vouchers (that I never got - wahhh!) but couldn't. But since with my discount it was only £16.75 I decided that I'd waited long enough. (and yes, it is still cheaper on Amazon and on Waterstones.com but buying it from my store helps to pay my wages).

So now I am trying to decide what I should cook on Sunday...

Cheese and Corn Pudding?
Ragout of Venison with Wild Mushrooms?
Creamy Tarragon Chicken?

Or I could always try the dish I talked about with Anthony during our first ever MSN chat...Beef Wellington.

Probably not

I love the fact it has all the basic dishes in, as well as some fancier ones that it makes sound easy. I love the DVD that comes with it containing step-by-step techniques on everything from chopping herbs, to cooking pasta, to making caramel, to gutting and boning fish. (and they're all in the back of the book too).

I especially love the shopping list book that comes with it. Pocket-sized and containing the ingredients and serving sizes for every single recipe. It's gone straight into my bag and will be perfect for the inevitable time when I haven't thought out what to cook and we're in the supermarket looking for something for dinner.

My grand plan (and it's cunning too) is to try and cook something every Sunday. It'll be for Sunday lunch on 3 of them, and then something quicker and easier on the Sunday that I work. This way I can still have a sense of achievement after one of those Sundays where we don't go out and just flake out and watch the Grand Prix/Numbers/CSI / play WoW / sew.

I shall even try and take a picture of my weekly dish, possibly even with Anthony's flash camera!