Here’s something from the Drafts Mountain for all you Hill St Blues fans. I see I was recovering from Covid when I wrote this, and that feels like years ago! Here we go… Well, this made a change from just slathering mayonnaise over chicken and calling it chicken salad! I made this on day one...
It’s been a whirlwind of promotion over the last couple of weeks as Cooking The Detectives is officially out in the world! The book is a love letter to TV detective shows and contains recipes from all of the actors and actresses you see on the cover, and many more who played TV sleuths....
The book is finished, my friends! Recipes from the kitchens of all the stars on the cover and many more! Join me for an online party to celebrate – all the details will be coming via my Dinner and a Movie newsletter so do sign up and grab your lollipop in readiness! Signed copies...
Happy Easter! Hope you have lots of fun things planned, maybe even dressing up as an Easter bunny? Crikey! This was a trifle and a half! Soooooo delicious with its prunes and its orange segments and its custard and its chocolate topping. But most of all because I used some of the leftover Audrey Hepburn...
This is a great little recipe. It’s a very easy weeknight dish if you are settling down to a Poirot featuring ARIADNE OLIVER. She’s my favourite supporting character in the Poirot series and Zoë plays her perfectly. This is another recipe destined for Cooking the Detectives and the lovely Mr Rathbone offered to rustle it...
Wowzer! I impressed myself with this one. Macaroni and Cheese (or Macaroni Cheese as we call it here in the UK) has never been a big favourite of mine and I think I have only made it once before – to the fabulous Pearl Bailey’s recipe. That was GOOD, but at the risk of offending...
This was a very easy way of making a chook just a little bit special. The recipe appeared in a newspaper article about what Roger liked to eat, Luisa was his wife and this was her way of preparing chicken. Roger will feature twice in the forthcoming Cooking the Detectives book. Once, in his role...
It is two years to the day since I had one of my favourite days EVER, going on the Vera tour in Northumberland. For those who don’t know, Vera is a British TV show featuring the fabulous curmudgeonly TV detective, Vera Stanhope. I am so obsessed with Vera that I recently woke from a very...
Want a simple fish soup recipe? Well, here it is! This is one of those, “chuck it all in a big saucepan and be completely surprised about how delicious it is” kind of dishes. I reckon you could add all kinds of spices or herbs if you wanted to, but you could equally just do...
I invited my chum Lady Jane (not a real lady) around for pesto but when my grocery delivery arrived, there was no basil to be seen. I swiftly pivoted and made her Mildred Natwick’s Tomato Pie instead, which was a big hit with both of us. But when she turned up she was bearing a...
When I was writing about Dragnet for the Cooking the Detectives book I found lots of reports online about a peanut butter and garlic sandwich rustled up by the Harry Morgan character. In an episode called A.I.D. The Weekend he talks some chums through how he prepares this delicacy as follows: “Now, my friends, we...
I feel slightly ashamed of the amount of food my removal men hauled across the country in their enormous van. I blame the pandemic combined with my tendency to hoard. But now I am installed in a lovely new kitchen; I plan to really try and eat up stocks. My food bill will be LOW...
Problematic Pierogies x 2. Before I share my woes, an announcement. I had never made pierogi/pierogis/perogies before, and I had never even eaten pierogies before, so I had no idea what I was doing, BUT I tried two different recipes attributed to Stefanie and both had problems. Any pierogi experts out there? I would love...
This has immediately taken #1 spot in the Silver Screen Suppers burger recipe leader board, knocking Ernest Hemingway and William Holden down to 2nd and 3rd. This burger was UTTERLY DELICIOUS. Highly recommended and so easy. Mr R was in charge of this one, and he bought lovely freshly ground beef from his local butcher....
Don Adams was mad about peanut butter and so am I. In the fabulous Singers & Swingers in the Kitchen he shared 3 recipes for ways of pimping up this most splendid of all foodstuffs. Here are the other two… I will probably try them ALL before I decide which one will go into the...
Lest I incur the wrath of any Turner Classic Movie fans (as I did when I wrote about a Cameron Diaz recipe), I realise that Amanda is a modern television actress rather than a silver-screen movie star. I also realise that in 17 years of writing about the favourite recipes of screen stars, I am...
Mr Rathbone is a very good egg and has volunteered to test cook at least 3 recipes for the forthcoming Cooking the Detectives book. Well, by my reckoning, this was number 4 as he has already done Robert Wagner’s Chili, Sheila Hancock’s Sardine Pizza and John Nettles’ Un Piot et des Pois au Feu. This...
I wasn’t sure if I would like this dish, but I did. It is weird, but good! Jack is best remembered by me as the dapper gent starring in Hawai Five-0 and as I have written about this series in the Cooking the Detective book I wanted to try Jack’s Island-Style Chicken. I know that...
Bergerac has been all over the news this week as it’s rumoured that there is a reboot in the offing. Oooooh, goodie! Names being bandied around for the main role are Aidan Turner, David Tennant and James Norton. Aidan Turner, please! I do not know what Un Piot et des Pois au Fou means (and...
It’s pizza, Jim, but not as we know it. More like cheese on toast with sardines on top! I had to try it though, as I really want to feature Inspector Morse in the Cooking the Detectives book and there are ZERO recipes from John Thaw in my collection. As John and Sheila were married...
Mildred’s pie surprised me by being really good! I love it when a pie does that! It’s one of those recipes that doesn’t look very interesting on paper but makes you raise your eyebrows when you eat it. I used a mixture of cherry tomatoes and larger ones and served it for lunch with my...
This is a cute little recipe for when you fancy potatoes dauphinoise but you don’t possess a fancy mandolin to slice the spuds thinly. Just chop your potatoes into little dice instead! This recipe appeared in a kids’ cookbook, hence the simple way it is written. But beware, my chums, Roger’s cooking time seemed VERY...
Just before I published this I realised I had made a schoolgirl error. I did a brain-leap and accidentally renamed this recipe Jack Webb’s Friday Night Beef and Tomatoes and now I look at it PROPERLY, I see it is actually Joe Friday’s Beef and Tomatoes. For Jack Webb played the legendary Joe Friday in...
I experienced a resurgence of that “fear of the butcher” feeling this weekend. It was my fault for leaving it to the last minute to get the veal for this recipe, so it was a valuable lesson learned. I’d known that I was going to make it on Saturday (because of the recipe title) for...
Pepperoni in a frittata? Yes! I wasn’t sure how this would turn out but as the only other recipe I have for John Nettles involves pigs trotters I thought I would give it a whirl. I’ve been writing about John this week for the forthcoming Cooking the Detectives book. For a while I thought the...
Cooking steak, just for myself, always feels like a big treat. But actually, I wouldn’t be confident about cooking it for someone else. I don’t do it enough to be blasé about it being done to their liking. But when you are home alone, with a nice juicy steak in the fridge, and you are...
I woke up yesterday morning to a scribbled note that read, “No kettle, no toaster, but I had a wonton crimper.” It took me a while to remember what this related to but eventually, it came to me. It was a line from a conversation with an old friend Matthew the night before about buying...
This is an easy peasy and very dependable goulash recipe from Boinie, who I didn’t know until I googled it, was of Hungarian heritage. Goulash is one of those things like chilli, where there are a million different ways of making it, but some things crop up in most versions, like caraway seeds and paprika....
I had some cooked chicken hanging around the place before I moved house, and this looked like a good way of using it up. What a nice surprise it was when this “doesn’t look much on paper” recipe turned out to be absolutely scrumptious. Bravo Rock! It’s not a very photogenic dish, so you might...
I am a stickler for sticking to recipes, so naturally, I made this on a Sunday. Just like Vincent Price’s Friday Chicken, it would have seemed wrong to make it on a day other than the one specified. This was on the test-cook list for the forthcoming Cooking the Detectives book, as George was in...
Calling all Poirot fans! I have a treat for you. Every now and then, Taryn from Retro Food for Modern Times and I do a cookalong together. If you put an enormous skewer through the planet with the top of it going through London, it would probably emerge somewhere near where Taryn is in Melbourne...
I have had a huge jar of pearl barley on my kitchen counter for around 5 years. I look at it on a regular basis and think, “I must use that for something”, when I probably should be thinking, “I am going to throw that away.” But here comes Susan Saint James’ adaptable recipe for...
I’m knuckling down to writing the Cooking the Detectives book, and next week is POIROT week. But which screen representation of Poirot? Chatting to some friends about Miss Marple, we all agreed that everyone has their favourite Marple, but I’m guessing the big Agatha Christie fans have their favourite Poirot too. Although the book is...
For the forthcoming Cooking the Detectives book I’m trying to work on one sleuth per week. Last week it was KOJAK! I’m writing a guide to a “taster episode” for each show and there will be a recipe from the kitchen of the actor who plays the main character (or characters in the case of...
Cor! This was good. But no wonder, it’s got loads of things I love in it. Plus I made it with fancy truffle mayonnaise. I think Tom would be proud of me. Here’s what you need. Under construction (I used an ice cream scoop as instructed). Voila! Easy peasy and another one tested for the...
It’s traditional to have roast lamb over Easter here in the UK, so David’s recipe was plucked from the “to test” pile for Good Friday. It’s a bit of a strange one, and I’m not sure it will make it into the Cooking the Detectives book, but I’m sharing it here in case you are...
For Christmas one of my gifts from Mr Rathbone was an offer to test cook three dishes for the forthcoming Cooking the Detectives book. The first one he went for was Robert Wagner’s Chili and on Friday night he rustled up the second. It was LUSH. The sauce is absolutely delicious and the whole meal...
Well this one was a pleasant surprise! I thought this would be a soufflé affair, but actually it turned out to be a much more veggiecentric dish which was surprisingly delicious. This was on the “to test” list because Julia McKenzie is one of the Miss Marples I want to write about in Cooking the...
For a Christmas gift Mr Rathbone pledged to test 3 recipes for the forthcoming Cooking the Detectives book for me. What a lovely present! This was the first one ticked off the list. A very tasty chili courtesy of Robert Wagner. The above pic was taken before the addition of Mexican Corn, it’s no longer...
What a treat this was! Such a simple recipe, but utterly delicious. I only have two recipes for Joan in the collection, the other is for marmalade. I was going to try both, to see which one would be best suited for the forthcoming Cooking the Detectives book, but this one is SO GOOD, it...
The beans I used in Richard Basehart’s Frankfurter and Beans were Heinz Beanz pimped up thanks to a Sharon Gless recipe, so that dish was a kind of Columbo/Cagney & Lacey mash-up. I’ve made Sharon’s beans before and they are GOOD. A shortcut to beans cooked in the Bette Davis way – dried beans soaked...
I am never going to use dried beans again (unless a movie star specifically tells me to). They never, ever go soft for me, no matter how long I cook the little beggers. I cooked the beans for this chilli as Raymond directed me to, with salt pork (in my case pancetta) after soaking them...
When I was a pre-teen, everyone at my school went bonkers for Starsky & Hutch. We begged our parents to let us stay up and watch it and all girls of my age either fancied Starsky or Hutch. Same with Donny Osmond and David Cassidy, you had to state your allegiance and stick to it....
