I've never had meatloaf before. It's a dish that you know about because it's often mentioned on American sitcoms. But I've never actually tasted it (or even seen it!) before. It was the perfect dish for a cold winter's evening.

This is the last recipe I'll be sharing from Jamie's Ministry of Food. The book has been a winner so far. I'm really looking forward to cooking more recipes from this cookbook. I think it's a great addition to any cookbook collection.

Pot-roast Meatloaf
Serves 4-6 (this was 2 meals for Andrew and me)

2 medium onions olive oil sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 1 level teaspoon ground cumin 1 heaped teaspoon ground coriander 12 Jacob's cream crackers (like Sao's) 2 teaspoons dried oregano 2 heaped teaspoons Dijon mustard 500g good-quality minced beef 1 large egg, preferably free-range or organic 2 cloves of garlic ½ - 1 fresh red chilli, to your taste 1 teaspoon smoked paprika 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce 1 x 400g tin chickpeas, drained 2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary 12 slices of smoked bacon or pancetta, preferably free-range or organic 1 lemon

To make your meatloaf:
Preheat the oven to full whack. Peel and finely chop one of the onions - don't worry about technique, just chop away until fine. Place in a large frying pan on a medium high heat with 2 lugs of olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper. Add the ground cumin and coriander. Fry and stir every 30 seconds for 7 minutes or until softened and lightly golden, then put into a large bowl to cool. Wrap the crackers in a tea towel and smash up until fine, breaking up any big bits with your hands. Add to the bowl of cooled onions with the oregano, mustard and minced beef. Crack in the egg and add another good pinch of salt and pepper. With clean hands, scrunch and mix up well. Move the meat mixture to a board, then pat and mould it into a large, rugby ball shape. Rub it with a little oil. You can either cook it straight away or put it on a plate, cover and place in the fridge until needed. Place the meatloaf in a casserole-type pan or baking dish, put it into the preheated oven and turn down the temperature immediately to 200°C/400°F/gas 6. Bake for half an hour.

To make your meatloaf sauce:
Peel the other onion and chop into 1cm pieces. Peel and slice the garlic. Finely slice the red chilli. Place the onion, garlic and chilli in a large pan on a medium high heat with 2 lugs of olive oil, the paprika and a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook for around 7 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds until softened and lightly golden. Add the Worcestershire sauce, chickpeas, tomatoes and balsamic vinegar. Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down and let it slowly simmer for 10 minutes. Taste the sauce and season with salt and pepper if needed.

To finish off and serve your meatloaf:
Pick the rosemary leaves off the woody stalks and put them into a little bowl. Remove the meatloaf from the oven and pour all the fat from the pan over the rosemary leaves and mix up well. Spoon your sauce around the meatloaf. Lay the slices of bacon or pancetta over the top of the meatloaf and sauce. Scatter over the rosemary leaves. Put the pan back into the oven for 10 to 15 minutes, until the bacon turns golden and the sauce is bubbling and delicious. Serve with a mixed leaf salad and some wedges of lemon for squeezing over - this will add a nice sharp tang.

If you know me well, you might know that sometimes I can be a little OCD. Especially when it comes to food. For example, at each of our favourite restaurants, I have a favourite dish that I pretty much order each time we visit. If I said I was feeling like Singapore Laksa or Prawn Pad Thai or Udon Noodle Soup for dinner, Andrew would know where we were eating. (NyoNya, Thai takeaway or Feng Sushi.)

I also get stuck on chocolate bars. Sometimes in the afternoons, I like to award myself a little treat. It helps me get through three o'clock syndrome (why is 3pm such a struggle?). When I started my new contract, I was going through a smarties phase. I like the chocolate in smarties better than M&Ms and they seem to last longer than a chocolate bar. In the UK, the orange smarties are jaffa flavoured and are a bit of a treat. I would always save them to eat last. After eating a few packets of smarties, I noticed that there always seemed to be less orange smarties than the other colours. I wondered if this was actually the case. Were there always less orange smarties? I decided I should find out.

So, for 30 days, I counted the colours in my smarties packets. I recorded the information in a spreadsheet. Never one to do things by halves, I also created a graph.




oooooer, pretty colours...

The results? Well the results are inconclusive. In the beginning I was averaging around 2 orange smarties per packet. Then I swapped to a different batch and suddenly I was averaging 5 orange smarties per packet. At the end, and another batch, I was back down to 2 orange smarties. Maybe it depends on how the orange smartie machine is feeling on the day of distribution. (I'd do another 30 days of data collection but I'm beginning to feel a bit meh about smarties.) In the beginning, my theory was orange smarties cost more to make because of the flavouring. I wonder if that's true.

Each day I've been declaring my orange smartie count on Twitter and the Twitter community have also become interested in the project. (They probably just think I'm a bit of a nerd.) One friend, who is a primary school teacher, even got his kids to do the same experiment. I'm waiting to hear his results.

Some smarties trivia:

• Purple is the colour that appeared most frequently with an average of 5 per pack.
  
  
• The most of any one colour in a pack was 11 purple smarties. I also got 10 yellow smarties in one pack on two occassions.
  
  
• After orange (average of 3 a pack), blue is the colour that appears least frequently.
  
  
• I had two packs that had no (zero!) orange smarties. Pink was the only other colour that failed to appear in a pack.
  
  
• The averages were: orange 2.9, blue 3.6, pink 4.1, purple 5.0, yellow 4.4, green 4.7, brown 3.9, red 4.0.
  
  

This week's recipe was brought to you by wine, cream and butter. How can you go wrong? It was in the twenty-minute meals chapter and is supposed to take you 19 minutes to cook. I think it took me around 25 minutes including preparation time. Not bad for such a tasty meal.

Chicken and Leek Stroganoff
Serves 2 (this was 1.5 meals for Andrew and me with a little bit of extra rice)

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 150g long-grain or basmati rice 1 large leek a big handful of chestnut or oyster mushrooms 2 chicken breasts, preferably free-range or organic olive oil a knob of butter a glass of white wine a bunch of fresh parsley 285ml single cream 1 lemon

Pour boiling water from the kettle into a large pan, place on a high heat and add a pinch of salt. Add your rice, bring back to the boil, then turn the heat down slightly. Cook for the length of time given in the packet instructions. Cut both ends off the leek, quarter length ways slice across thinly, then wash well under running water. Slice the mushrooms. Slice the chicken breasts into little-finger size pieces.

Put a large frying pan on high heat and add a good lug of olive oil and a knob of butter. Add the leek to the pan with the white wine, a small glass of water and a good pinch of salt and pepper. Let it bubble away for 5 minutes, covered loosely with a piece of foil. Meanwhile finely chop the parsley, stalks and all. Remove the foil and add the chicken strips, most of the parsley, the cream and the mushrooms. Stir, bring back to the boil, then turn the heat down to medium and simmer for 10 minutes. Drain your rice. Just before serving cut your lemon in half and squeeze the juice of one half into the stroganoff. Season to taste.

Spoon some rice on to each plate and top with the stroganoff. Scatter with the rest of the chopped parsley. Serve with the other lemon half, cut into wedges.

I'm not sure which city started the Christmas market trend, but Vienna's have been the best so far. In Vienna, there were many stalls and lots of beautiful items on sale. Unfortunately, Prague didn't cut it; there was mainly junk on sale.

The most interesting items at the markets were the Christmas food and drink treats.

• Trdelnik -- a sugary donut type item which was cooked by wrapping the dough around a wooden spit and spinning over an open fire. At the main market there were six stalls selling trdelnik. Each of stall had a line about 20 people long. Obviously a very popular item at Christmas time. Makes sense, because they were yummo.
  
  
• Grog -- on our first evening we were intrigued by a menu entry which read "Grog". In Australia, grog is just another word for alcohol. We had to give it a go. Unfortunately, we discovered that grog is a disgusting concoction consisting of rum and hot water. Only Andrew was able to finish his cup of Grog (he loves a challenge!).
  
  
• Czech Spa Wafers -- They are delicious! A very thin wafer sandwich with a sugary filling. They are delightful toasted or heated in the microwave for a couple of seconds.
  
  

It is fitting that the location of much merry-making (read drunkeness) in Ireland is named the Randy Leprechaun. Paddywagon own this hostel/bar in Annascaul and decided that the perfect colour for this building is fluorescent green (they have also painted a huge leprechaun on the side of the building. Initially the locals were less than happy about this addition to their village).

The cause of said merry-making was an evil yet tasty concoction called a car-bomb. How do you make a car-bomb? Take 150ml of Guinness and a shot of whiskey with baileys. Drop the shot into the Guinness and scull. The trick is to drunk the contents before it curdles. It tastes like a chocolate milkshake.

Not sure why it's called a car bomb. Maybe because the drink "explodes" when mixed. Or maybe because the aftermath of several car bombs is very messy and very difficult to clean up.



More Photos on Facebook