New Years Eve and one child was out. The other two were asked what they would really like to eat and both said pasta with tomato sauce. So that is what we ate.I spiced up the sauce with red peppers and capers, olives and chilli and when the verdict came through it was declared a good one.

So as not to miss out on what we all really wanted to eat I made myself a few platefuls of good seafood as follows:-

– four oysters, shucked

– a dozen prawns, peeled and fried in very hot oil with plenty of garlic, salt and pepper

– 2 scallops fried in bacon fat with crispy bacon

– half a dozen large clams cooked in white wine with garlic and parsley.

All very good – especially with the bottle of Orval.

Having polished that lot off we went on a search round the house looking for a cocktail shaker. It was eventually found in the attic. But before then we had to turnover the basement during the course of which we came over a few boxes of beer glasses and my collection of chopsticks.

New Year’s Day and we are entertaining so an industrial amount of falafel mixture has been made. Falafel become a lot more straightforward when you realise that what you should be using is dried chickpeas that have been soaked over night and left at that.

To the soaked chickpeas I added chopped dill, parsley and coriander, pulped garlic, crushed coriander and cumin seeds.

This all goes into the Magimix until you are left with a rich green sludge which should have the consistency of cream cheese.

I may need some help with the frying of them later.

Having done that I rewarded myself with a thick Gubbeen Bacon Sandwich.