Update on my Culinary Travelling

Dear friends,

I know I have been "away" for a while and not sharing my culinary travels, but I assure you the caravan has not stopped even though I have been lazy on the reporting side. Last weekend I hosted a little dinner with the Moroccan theme and the food was absolutely delicious. One of the recipes I used was from BBC Good Food "Spicy Chicken Couscous" without much amending it (instead of fresh apricots I used dried apricots cut half, because they are sweeter) and I can highly recommend it. Since I made a major miscalculation with portions (sometimes even happens to the best) I had to think something clever to do with the left-overs. Great ideas do not always come last! Since reheated chicken (any meat as a matter of fact) tastes pretty unpleasant, I opted for using this dish as a base for salad. So all I there was to do was to add some tomatoes, corn and avocado and drizzle everything with olive oil. For extra pleasure some Greek yoghurt can be used also on the side. As a secret I can tell you I actually liked the salad version more than the hot one.

Now to more serious news. I am participating at a local amateur culinary competition and I am one of the 77 participants who has been selected into the finals. To say I am happy is like to say nothing! (I'll spare you from wohoos and thousand happy faces.) Interestingly enough when I first participated I didn't think much of becoming successful with my recipe, but seems I underestimated myself. Anyway, finals take place on 6th November and I am supposed to create a cake (specific details of this part of the competition are not clear yet). Since I am  up against just 5 persons (all female btw) perhaps it is not so unlikely to win that culinary trip to Paris? :)