This is the first recipe for the month of December, the end of a very eventful and busy year…and it’s cold. Well, not as cold as parts of continental Europe – it was a balmy 18°C today on this little island – but the temperature does go down a bit as soon as the sun goes down. This, to me, means snuggling on the sofa, cosy throws, candles, Christmas lights (something of an obsession of mine), binge-watching episodes of The Crown, roasts, baking and bowls of soup with warm, crusty herb bread.
Dear reader, I hope you know me by now. If you don’t mind, kindly let me begin with a little disclaimer. For me, a book review is not just a book review. It’s not as simple as that. It’s about liking a book so much that it makes it on this blog, on my kitchen counter and in my current reading stash, and everywhere else where I can have it to hand, all at once.
Before I start writing a post for this blog, I also browse through my old photos as well as the more recent ones. There’s always a throwback in there which for some reason has either escaped my noticing it, or has lost its turn to be replaced in line with a new recipe or an exciting book review. There’s nothing I like best other than to spend my winter afternoons and early evenings in my study, reading or writing and sipping hot chocolate. In summer I just can’t get my mind to concentrate much. Aprile dolce dormire, the Italians say, dolce dormire roughly meaning a sweet sleep. So while C&T HQ keeps on working on the writing, recipes and other miscellaneous photos, I can spend some time sorting through my archives.
A little while ago I went crazy with the oven and roasted anything and everything I could think of. OK, not exactly everything, but pretty close. Hopefully, because hope never dies down, the weather will start cooling down very soon and the oven will start working on overtime. I know I’m not the only one who thinks that oven roasted food is not only convenient but also always seems like a proper meal. It’s homey, cozy and comforting in a good way.
Although the temperatures have reached what I would now call scorchio levels (and I was told never to go live in the desert), some readers are still asking me for cake recipes. Of course, I will always do so when I have a few lined up. I made this a few weeks ago, before my almost-baking embargo. I just can’t have the oven on for too long when it’s in the high 20s. Inside.
Chorizo & Thyme 