Winter warmers

First things first: a major announcement.
We have heating in our house!
After over a year of living in our cotswold idyll, including through the coldest winter in 30 years, snow, ice and seriously sub-zero temperatures, we finally have a heating system! Oh the bliss...

And to celebrate, particularly given all Dan's hard work on getting the radiators plumbed in, I gave Dan a free card to request any dinner he fancied this weekend just gone. He chose beef stew and dumplings.

Now, I don't eat beef. I'm allergic. So, I'm always a little anxious cooking it as I don't feel all that confident that I know how to do it. I found some instructions in the Jamie Oliver magazine though, so followed them to the letter to make a very rich-smelling beef and ale stew with dumplings.

Dan's parents also came over for Sunday lunch. Its strange how anxious cooking for Dan's parents makes me; they're lovely and uncritical but I still get a little stressed by it! But the beef stew went down a treat with all of them. Apparently it was the perfect dinner for a cold day. I can't vouch for the flavour myself as I had trout, but since they polished off the whole stew pot of stew between 3 of them I think its safe to say it was a winner!

I followed it up with rasberry and white chocolate souffles. I'd meant to make these a week or so ago but couldn't buy white chocolate in the local shop so just went with rasberries. The white chocolate did make them just a touch sweeter and slightly more decadent feeling.

Oh how lovely to have a chilled out weekend (no DIY!) in a warm-as-toast house. Ahhhhh....