Happy New Year!

Well hello there strangers! Or rather, should you be the one saying that to me? I know, I know, I disappeared for a bit, but with work to do before the end of term and then a Christmas holidays spent travelling the length of the country (and generally just vegging on the sofa and eating copious amounts of food before I had chance to photograph it) meant I haven't had the time to blog for all you beautiful people, but I promise that I'll try my best to start posting a bit more regularly now 2012 is upon us. 

I spent Christmas at my brother's flat in Bournemouth with our parents and Bruce the border terrier, and it was lovely (thankfully having my mum there meant that Christmas dinner wasn't left to my brother to prepare- although he did do a good job of carving the turkey with his brand new knife, I'll give him that). I shall now leave you with some obligatory photos of delicious Christmas food that makes me drool over my keyboard and long for next December and the days when it is acceptable to put cranberry sauce on everything and drink wine at any time of the day. It's fine, me and my flask of coffee and clingfilmed sandwich are getting by alright. I don't even like chestnut stuffing and Christmas pudding. Much.

Starter of smoked salmon and prawns- which is my main responsibility for Christmas dinner every year (one I take far too much pride in).

The main event (and my bother tucking in). Delicious turkey. All the trimmings. Standard.

 Italian meal we made a few days after Christmas, inspired by the new cookbook I got as a gift- Jamie's Italy, and the hamper of Italian food goodies that my parents received as a gift. Crostini with various toppings, including a cannellini bean and garlic affair that I made using a recipe in the book; antipasti with mixed meats, buffalo mozzarella, roasted peppers, olives, semi-dried tomatoes and bread, and pasta with homemade pesto. Not quite Christmas food but made using Christmas pressies so I thought I would include it. Plus it was too delicious not to.

So there you go, a snippet of my Christmas. I hope you all had a lovely one and ate far too much amazing food. Now onto 2012 and the culinary adventures that await!

Tomato, spinach and mozzarella gnocchi

There are few things more comforting to come home to after a long day in the (underheated) library and a walk home in the rain than a pasta bake. Oozy cheese, stodgy filling pasta, hot sauce and those delicious almost burnt bits that I love so much. However, I've been on a bit of pasta overkill session at the moment, working my way through a pack of eggs and some pancetta by making carbonara (one of my absolute favourite dinners) rather repetitively over the past week. So I decided to mix things up (a little), and bought some gnocchi. I was inspired by this recipe, but to be honest I didn't really use it, I just used the same kind of idea- sometimes you really don't need a recipe. 

I would love to tell you that I made my own tomato sauce (which I would usually do, I promise), but there are times when the soothing sound of a popping jar is called for. Last night was one of them, as I just really couldn't be bothered- I blame that end of term feeling. So I heated some of my (Tesco discount brand- I really am a classy lady. You won't find any food snobbery over here) jarred sauce, mixed it with some boiled gnocchi, threw some spinach in for a bit of greenery (and to generally make me feel better about the insane amount of comfort food I seem to have consumed lately), dotted ripped up mozzarella and a sprinkle of parmesan over the top and threw it under the grill. And within minutes I was in warm, carby (is that a word?), stodgy, cheesy, comforting heaven. So blissful that I shall be repeating the process in a couple of hours.