cooking from ingredients

Since I've had my house in the Drome Provencal, in France - Chateau Colombier - (see the blog here), I've noticed a change in how I cook, and how I decide what to cook.

Back in the south of England I shopped in Waitrose. You could get any ingredient you wanted, more of less any time of the year. So cooking tended to be driven by a recipe that I wanted to try out.

Here, the local produce is fantastic, and very seasonal. So I'm more likely to go shopping, come back laden with ingredients, and then try to work out what to cook.

Typically I will go through my many recipe books, look for inspiration on the web, try things out, enjoy the results, but never properly remember what I did, or which recipe I used.

So in this blog I intend to keep track of what I cook when and build up my own cooking year book.

Well, that's the plan ...