Kate Donovan

OK, so I know I promised you some more details on speedy cooking with a pressure cooker in the next blog, and I assure you this will follow soon, but today I got the urge to cook a meatloaf. I’ve already spoken of my new-found obsession with Nigella and as soon as I caught sight of the recipe for Ed’s Mother’s Meatloaf in Kitchen I just knew I had to cook it and cook it soon! My husband works in another city for two days a week and I always love to have something delicious on the table for him to eat when he comes back. If this makes me sound like an old fashioned, stay-at-home housewife, I assure you that nothing could be further than the truth. I’m a feminist and proud of it. What’s more, I work as a patent attorney by day and, more often than not, have precious little time for cooking. The fact is, I love love love eating and ever since I started cooking at the age of 6 I have also obtained an overwhelming egocentric satisfactory pleasure from feeding others. Furthermore, my wonderful husband deserves extra special treatment this week for dealing with all the German paperwork I can’t be bothered with and for sorting out the plumbing problems in our apartment. These are too disgusting to go into right now but let’s just say our bathroom is now equipped with a “Notfallklo” or “emergency toilet” while the leak caused by substandard pipes put in by the cowboy builder dries out. However, after a slice of this meatloaf and a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon from Alto Adige alongside, life’s problems disappear and all is well with the world… My version doesn’t look as pretty as Nigella’s but its melt-in-the-mouth, savoury, sweet, comforting taste combination more than makes up for all its aesthetic failures. The juices given out by the baking meatloaf have now solidified to a dripping-like consistency and, although I’m not brave enough myself (having been indoctrinated by the diet brigade into a life of low-fat misery) I’m sure it would taste wonderful spread on fresh bread like dripping or schmaltz. The rest will be used as filling for sandwiches and taken to work tomorrow. 

Sick of looking at the two overripe, rapidly turning rotten, bananas staring at me from the very stylish new fruit bowl we received as a wedding present, I thought to myself, what better way to avoid wasting that which seemed like such a great idea during last week’s supermarket shop? So I used the recipe for Chocolate and Banana Muffins from Nigella Lawson’s new book Kitchen but, since cocoa powder isn’t the easiest thing to find where I live in Munich, I had to do a bit of adaptation and they became just plain old banana muffins. A teaspoon or two of ginger or mixed spice powder probably would have been a good addition but my main motivation today was just to use up these damn bananas. Why didn’t I just do a search and find a plain banana muffin recipe, you might well ask? I should explain that, in a fit of newly-wedded new-found enthusiasm for cooking, and due to my homesickness for British TV being cured by the recent broadcasting on the German channel RTL of Nigella Express, I have once again become completely obsessed with Nigella Lawson and her recipes. Accordingly I purchased both Nigella Express and Kitchen recently and can’t even countenance eating out at a restaurant right now (totally out of character for me!) such is my obsession with cooking and adapting her recipes. Another recent obsession of mine is the pressure cooker, more of which to follow very shortly, but in the meantime I can confirm that the banana muffins were delicious, not too sweet, and thoroughly recommend them as a breakfast or coffee time treat.