Almost a domestic goddess

I love to cook and I love to try new recipes. I love to taste other people's cooking and I love people to cook for me. I am a collector of cookery books, although I tend to have 'old favourites' that I go back to time and time again. I cannot resist a new cookery book, especially once it is half price in Waterstones ;-)
There is a new book coming out by Nigella Lawson which is being serialized in one of the Sunday supplements. I was browsing through it at the weekend and came across her version of Toad in the Hole. {I suspect this may be a British dish, so if anyone from overseas is horrified by the name, it has nothing to do with toads or frogs of any kind! It involves sausages!} As the weather on Bank Holiday Monday was horrible, cold and cloudy with outbreaks of showers, it seemed a perfect dinner. I dashed outside between raindrops and picked some runner beans from the garden and set to work. My husband is often taken out for meals by building contractors and various agencies that his company uses and frequently gets taken out to very posh places in London. Only last week he was taken to the Park Lane Hilton for lunch in their rooftop restaurant. Thank goodness someone else was paying the bill! But despite enjoying all that fancy food, he is the kind of man who absolutely loves traditional food. When I suggested Nigella's dish with heaps of creamy mashed potato, veggies off the garden and onion gravy, his eyes glazed over and he gave a contented sigh!
Now, I'm not Nigella's greatest fan. There's a bit too much finger licking and looking seductively under eyelashes while pouting for the camera (it may not do it for me, but my husband is entranced!) but I do like her recipes. The toad in the hole wasn't that much different to my normal recipe except that she de-skinned the sausages, halved them and flattened them into little burger shapes that she browned off before pouring over the batter. It made quite a difference, and is something that I will do again.
So tonight I am trying her 'My mother's praised chicken' recipe which sounds lovely and then there should be enough left overs for tomorrow for her 'Thai chicken noodle soup'. I like the idea of cooking one dish that makes two days worth of dinners! I'll let you know how it goes ...