Bedside reading

I thought you might be interested to see the current pile of books on my bedside table. 

Three of the books are recent charity shop finds:

• Appetite by Nigel Slater - spotted for £4.99 in the Beeston Oxfam Books & Music shop. I'm amazed I didn't already have this in my cookbook collection because I am a big Nigel Slater fan. His books are always very readable, and I'm really enjoying this one.
• The Bad Mother's Handbook by Kate Long - only 80p in the Treetops Hospice shop on Bramcote Lane. I've previously read Swallowing Grandma by the same author, so I'm really looking forward to reading this.
• Just My Type by Simon Garfield - £1.50 in the Loughborough British Heart Foundation shop. This is a fascinating cultural history of fonts, with lots of photos showing how different fonts are used and what connotations they have.

The other book I'm currently reading is Angels by Marian Keyes. I read The Mystery of Mercy Close in December and have been inspired to go back and re-read all the other Marian Keyes books featuring the Walsh sisters. I started with Watermelon and recently finished Rachel's Holiday. If anything, these have been even more enjoyable the second time around because I am taking my time and savouring every paragraph.

As well as the books I also have some hand cream, a mug and a magazine on my bedside table. The mug is my favourite Twitter Addict mug from Name Art which is customised with my @nyssapod twittername.

Thanks to RedHead Beauty Diaries for alerting me to the fact that the latest issue of Marie Claire magazine comes with a free Bee Lovely hand cream from Neal's Yard. This cream smells really gorgeous and has a lovely texture, so I will definitely be replacing it when the free one runs out. I've already spotted the mag has a discount code for Neal's Yard, which could be very dangerous...

What reading material do you have on your bedside table? Has any of it come from charity shops?

Linking up with this week's Magpie Monday at Me and My Shadow.

It's World Book Day later this week, so I'm also linking up with the World Book Day Blog Hop at Catch a Single Thought.



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Peppers with chick peas and gorgonzola - a Nigel Slater dish for February

Farmersgirl Kitchen has launched 'Dish of the Month' which involves choosing one Nigel Slater recipe per month to cook and then writing a blog post about it. 

Last weekend I was looking through The Observer and I spotted a a recipe called 'peppers with cannellini and gorgonzola' in an article called 'Nigel Slater's bright and cheerful winter recipes' (17 February 2013). 

This looked like a lovely way of making a light lunch with very little effort so I thought I'd give it a go. I actually made 'Peppers with chick peas and gorgonzola', because I prefer chick peas to cannellini beans.  

Here are the ingredients for two portions:

With the help of my little boy, I stuffed the peppers with a mixture of the cheese, mushed-up chick peas and chopped chives before cooking in the oven at 180 degrees C for an hour and a quarter.

This worked pretty well with chick peas, and both H and I enjoyed eating the end result for lunch today. The peppers were soft and sweet and the gorgonzola made a sauce in amongst the chick peas.

I will definitely cook this again soon.

PS I think my friend Emily who blogs at amummytoo will like this dish, so I'm also joining up with her Recipe of the Week linky.

Onion Soup Without Tears - a Nigel Slater dish for January

Farmersgirl Kitchen has launched 'Dish of the Month' which involves choosing one Nigel Slater recipe per month to cook and then writing a blog post about it. Nigel Slater is my favourite food writer, bar none. So when I needed no encouragement to join in with this.

The dish I chose to cook for January is 'Onion Soup Without Tears' from the January chapter of 'The Kitchen Diaries'.

The idea behind this recipe is to roast the halved onions before chopping them up to make the soup, thereby reducing the tears involved in chopping the onions. The recipe also says that the other advantage of this method is that the onions smell lovely while they are roasting.

Well I tried it and it worked beautifully. The roasting onions smelled mouthwateringly gorgeous. Even better, the finished soup tasted absolutely delicious with toasted French bread and Gruyere cheese on top. It was a real treat!

(Sorry the photos don't do it justice - will use a proper camera next time)