Sausage and Tomato Linguine and a 6 Word Tag!

I recently found this gem of a recipe in my Good Food 101 Cheap Eats Book and I knew from the get go this would be scrumptious, and I was right! This is a simple dish but the flavour stems from using sausages packed with different herbs. I found some wonderful Pork with parma ham, garlic & red wine sausages at my local store that I knew would suit this dish perfectly. Another choice of sausage that you could use is Toulouse Sausages that are also packed in flavour. My hubby and son enjoyed and loved this pasta dish and it is one that will become part of our monthly repertoire.

Sausage and Tomato Linguine
Serves 4
Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
450g Toulouse or herby sausages
400g can chopped tomatoes
1 bay leaf
Pinch of sugar
350g linguine/spaghetti
50g grated parmesan or mature cheese

Heat the oil in a pan, then fry the onion for 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until golden. Remove the skins from the sausages and discard. Add the sausages to the pan and cook for 10 minutes until they start to brown, breaking them up with a spatula.

Add the tomatoes, bay leaf and a pinch of sugar, and season. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 15 minutes until cooked.

Meanwhile, cook the linguine/spaghetti in salted boiling water according to packet instructions. Drain, then stir into the sausage sauce with half the cheese. Serve hot with the remaining cheese sprinkled over.

6 Word Tag

The lovely Vi from Flowers in the Kitchen has tagged me for a 6 word description of myself.


1. Sensitive
2. Fiery
3. Caring
4. Considerate
5. Mad...but in a good and fun way
6. Strong willed


I am supposed to tag another 6 people but I am going to be a rebel and nominate all my blogger friends and leave it up to you if you want to be tagged.

Store Cupboard Chocolate Orange Cake and a 6 Word Memoir

I came across this delicious cake on Brenda’s blog, Tea and Wheaten Bread (a beautiful blog and worth visiting) and I knew there and then that this would be a cake my family would love and enjoy, especially my son who adores the chocolate/orange combination. The recipe is from How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson, a book I have but for some reason never remember seeing the recipe, or maybe I did, there are so many wonderful recipes in the book. I have to say this was one of the easiest and quickest cakes to date, everything is just thrown together. This is a gorgeous light and moist cake, and the orange comes through delightfully against the chocolate.


Store Cupboard Chocolate Orange Cake

Ingredients:
125g of unsalted butter
100g of dark chocolate
300g of good quality orange marmalade
150g of sugar
a pinch of salt
2 large eggs
150g of self-rising flour

Melt the butter slowly in a heavy-bottom saucepan. When it's almost melted, add chocolate pieces, stir and take off the heat. Stir with a wooden spoon, until chocolate has melted. Add the marmalade, sugar, salt and eggs. Stir thoroughly (it's okay to leave small visible chunks of marmalade in the batter). Add sifted flour, stir and pour into a buttered and floured 20-22 cm loose bottomed cake tin or 2lb loaf tin. Bake at 180˚C/350.F/Gas 4 oven for 45-50 minutes, until the cake has set (test with a knife or wooden stick). Leave to cool in the tin for about 10 minutes and transfer to a cooling rack. Once cooled dust with a layer of icing sugar.

Six Word Memoir

My sweet friend Rosie from Rosie Bakes a Peace of Cake has tagged me for a 6 word memoir. So here goes:

Sensitive
Loving
Caring
Glamorous
Girly
Perfectionist

I am going to be a rebel and tag 6 people (as it seems fitting with it being a 6 word memoir tag) and will be choosing the following:
Mrs B from Mrs B Baking
Gigi from Gigi's Cakes
Ruth from Ruth's Kitchen Experiments
Pixie from You say Tomato I say Tomato
Jules from Domestic Goddess in Training
Emiline from Sugar Plum

Rules:
1. Write your own six-word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
3. Link to the person who tagged you in your post.
4. Tag five or six (choice is yours) more blogs with links.
5. Remember to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

I've been MeMe'd

The gorgeous Pixie from A Sweetart has tagged me for this MeMe ;o)

What were you doing 10 years ago?
Ok well to start off I was still in my 20's. My son was 5 and at Primary school (gosh and now his towering over me and taking his GCSE's in May). I was preparing to say a sad goodbye to my parents who decided it was time to sell up and move back to Spain and retire. I was living in London and in a flat.

What were you doing 1 year ago?
Preparing to move the "beep" out of London flat and into a Surrey based house with a garden, garage and all the trimmings!

Five snacks you enjoy:
1) Fruit (who am I kidding)
2) Crisps
3) Home-made bread with butter
4) Chocolate
5) Ice Cream

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
1) Buy a huge house in the country with a huge kitchen
2) Buy my hubby an Aston Martin DB9
3) Give my family money and see them right
4) Take a world cruise
5) Become the next Imelda Marcus (my hubby claims I'm already there)

Five bad habits:
OK were moving into dangerous grounds here..hehehe
1) I suck my thumb to relax ("blush")
2) I'm true to my star sign (Virgo), a perfectionist
3) Must be the spanish in me but I have a fiery quick temper
4) Impulsive shopper
5) Lose patience with people who walk slow in front of me (aarrgggggg)

Five things you like doing:
1) Shopping
2) Cooking and Baking
3) Listening to music
4) Did I mention shopping?? Ok, ok. Visiting National Trust places (yep were members)
5) Entertaining and eating out.

Five things you would never wear again:
1) Puff ball skirts, omg I think the 80's has to be the worse fashion era of my life-time.
2) The green manky school uniform, we couldn't wait to get to year 11 when it changed to black.
3) Bleached jeans and wait for it the ones with zips at the bottom!!!
4) White frilly ankle socks.
5) Anything neon, especially the tight lycra mini dresses, like the ones Whitney Houston wore in one of her music videos.

Five favorite toys:
1) Cupcake, my pink Kitchen Aid, I love her!
2) My computer
3) My ipod
4) My Treo PDA Phone
5) My Canon digital camera


The five people I am tagging are the following:

Indigo at Happy Loves Strawberry

Dell at Cooking and the City

Ruth at Ruth's Kitchen Experiments

Sandy at My Baking Blog

Janice at Farmer Girl Kitchen

Meme (5 facts about me)

Madison my boy!

Coco my little princess!

I've been tagged by Rosie (Rosie bakes a peace of cake) to do a 5 facts about me:

1: I'm the oldest of 4 girls, yes my dad went grey early!

2: I'm bilingual and speak fluent spanish. Both my parents are from Spain.

3: I'm a cat lover and have 2 beautiful cats, Madison and Coco and they are spoilt rotten.

4: I love cosmetics, favorite brands are Chanel, MAC and Nars. I have A LOT of cosmetics and could open my own counter!

5: I would say my best feature are my big blue eyes and long eye lashes!

Above are pics of my 2 kitties ;o)