Author: minceandskirlie

Writer, poet, musician, and sometime IT professional in the North East of Scotland.
Thoughts

Holiday highlights part 1 – Nice and Monaco

minceandskirlie

Ah France. How I love thee. I’ve been to France a couple of times before (a stag weekend in Paris for the 6 nations and a bus ride through the country on a school trip to Switzerland) but this was different. This was a whole week in that most foodie of countries and I had something important planned while I was there.

I was going to do a detailed report of the whole week but I’d already gone onto four A4 pages by the start of day two which a) took far too long to write and b) no-one really wants to read. So instead here are the highlights part one: Continue reading “Holiday highlights part 1 – Nice and Monaco” →

Food and drink

Smoked mackerel and chilli fishcakes

minceandskirlie

Fish-cakes are a favourite in this house. Usually I just follow the recipe in Nick Nairn’s cook school book which produces excellent crisp on the outside, moist on the inside cakes. However this time I thought I’d go a little off-piste and spice them up a bit. Continue reading “Smoked mackerel and chilli fishcakes” →

News

Back from holiday

minceandskirlie

The sharp-eyed among you may have noticed some tweets on my twitter bar mentioning places in the south of France over the last week. We’ve been on a well-earned break to Nice for a week with a couple of little day trips while we were there; including a fantastic day in Monaco (where I got all caught up in the moment and proposed to my girlfriend).

I’ve got a couple of special posts coming up about the trip but for now here’s a couple of pics of the first thing I did when we got home. Aside from wine I took home some jars of tapenade and rillets so when I got home and had some time to kill I decided that some freshly baked bread would be perfect to try with the tapenade.

Health and fitness, Thoughts

Lochnagar

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We finally climbed our first munro on Saturday – the majestic Lochnagar on the Balmoral estate near Ballatar. Continue reading “Lochnagar” →

Food and drink

Chicken in parmesan and herb breadcrumbs

minceandskirlie

Here’s a quick post that’s a little bit more seasonal than the last one! Chicken breasts in some Italian influenced breadcrumbs. Continue reading “Chicken in parmesan and herb breadcrumbs” →