Hi i am clicking on your stars but no light is coming up :-( promise will figure out after I get to school (yes I work at school and I am sitting in my night clothes at nearing noon)

truly, I am a very hardworking, organised, ambitious and focused researcher with a brilliant future ahead of me. You use the recipes in your thesis Squiggles, and I will give you a star :-)

If i am making anything like pasta sauce etc etc.. I will make a big batch then freeze it in one meal portions so if i come in late or can't be bothered to cook I can just get a pot out and defrost it.. can be really handy when coming in late from the lab.

For some easy quick one pot recipies try the BBC good food website www.bbcgoodfood.com I've made loads of nice stuff from there :o)

i love the goodfood website, they have a search function so if you just type in what ingredient you have it will find loads of recipes for you.

also, chilli is super easy to make, i use the following recipe:

1) fry off some mince (a 500g pack will make 3-5 portions, depending on how hungry you are ;-) ) , along with 1 onion, 1 red pepper, 1 green pepper (chopped into smallish chunks)

2) once the mince is browned, chuck in a tin of tomatoes, a tin of kidney beans, and some chilli powder (or cheat and use kidney beans with chilli already in!)

3) simmer for about half an hour

4) eat!! it is good served with rice, or on a jacket potato, or anything mexican like tacos, tortillas etc, or even pitta bread

it tastes even better the next day when all the flavours have combined, and also can be frozen (as long as you defrost thoroughly and reheat really well - don't want to give you food poisoning :$ )

i am a vegetarian and use veggie mince in this recipe, which makes this sort of cooking loads easier as you can grab things out of the freezer and then just bung them in the microwave from frozen when you can't be bothered to cook!

i am hitting print on this thread on my way to sainsbury's this evening...

don't forget cheese and bread, for cheese on toast, or welsh Rabbit as I like to call it (not rarebit, RABBIT!!!) - when I was little I refused to eat it cos I loved bunnies so much and thought it was cruel lol.

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when you have a mo mix up the following 450g of bread flour - those mixed grains ones are particularly good, 3tsp baking powder, half teaspoon of salt and about 2 dessertspoons of sugar, stir well and stick in a jar. Also prepare some 15x15squares of baking parchment (this is essential, without this you will never get them out of the muffin tray!). Then when you want something really delicious to go with your whatever, soup, salad, sauce of one sort or another - put your oven on at reg 6 - that's small cake temp in electric ovens -get your mix out and for every 75g of the mix and add 30ml of plain yoghurt and about 40ml of milk (300g will give you about 6 muffins) and mix it all together, it will be kind of like a very stiff batter, if you have ever make rock cakes, its a bit like that but slightly wetter. Put about 100g -110g on each square of paper and pop the paper into a muffin tin, it doesn't need to be smoothed out or anything, just make sure it is poked down a bit so it doesn't fall out of the hole. Bake for 25-30 mins - I usually fish them out after about 25mins and upend them, just to finish off the bottoms. They are super straight out of the oven with butter, but can be stored in their little 'cases'. Stick them in the microwave to warm them a bit and they are as if they had just been cooked.  :-). It might look a bit complicated with all the measurements, but you can estimate the size of each muffin, though I usually bung the paper on the scales so its not a big deal, and I bet after time you could estimate the rest of it too!. I saw this recipe in the Guardian, and its about the only one of their veggie recipes I've actually like the look of enough to give it a go, that and the one for flat bread :$

Slurp.

I cooked something. Something proper.

I cooked chicken in a lemon and honey glaze with a side of potatoes and leafy salad. I did it thoroughly, gashed it right,m marinaded it right, prepared the glaze with honey, lime and lemon, zest, rosemary, butter, crushed garlic, pepper and salt.

It was the most delectable of things ever, and so I just HAD to tell you guys!

Bug..

Wow bug! Salad!? well done - you are a better person than me. I would have gone with 'but the lemon glaze is one of my 5 a day!'

So bug, what's next on your culinary agenda?