Your best food discovery of 2014

[CogitOIOIO]

What food, ingredient, dish, preparation method etc have you discovered this year that has changed the way you eat? It's been humble 'cooking bacon' (Sainsbury) in our house. No idea how I missed it previously.

Spelt flour for making bread and pastry.

Za'atar spice mix. Not just great for middle eastern stuff, I rub it over my roast chicken for Sunday dinner. Really lovely!

Spice drops ,they are wonderful , so handy to have in the store cupboard .

cooking bacon here too

and got back into my Bean Book, veggie lasagne, veggie shepherds pie, which DC now they are teens like!

Black pepper tofu from 'Plenty' was a revelation. We don't have it as often as I'd like because dd2 isn't fond of it, but I highly recommend it.

Also, I have managed to train myself to eat bananas, in an attempt to start eating 'proper' breakfast.

In the last few days, green olives stuffed with gherkins from a spanish deli. They are delicious and are hilariously phallic.

I have started making stock, often enough that I always have some in the fridge. It has just made so many dishes really easy, I never buy jars of sauces any more.

what is cooking bacon??

frozen chopped onions - so easy and quick to use, and pretty cheap too. And i have an allotment that i grow veg on!

Frozen veg! Always thought it would be crap, but in the right dishes/ cooked to Al dente it's actually passable!

Flavoured oils.
Fvourites so far are mint and blood orange.

The mint one is amazing sloshed over feta with za'atar. The blood orange one goes so well with thinly sliced fennel with blue cheese and raisins.

Anchovies in tins. Fried off with garlic and their oil and grated courgette. Mix into linguine with S&P and parmesan. DT1's 'bestest dinner'.

Ah merly my kids favourite is tinned mackerel/sardines with pasta, I will have to try adding grated courgette to get a vegetable into them.

Onion chutney, with Brie. A revelation!

I was late to the BLAvocadoT sandwich party but I'm making up for lost time.

i puree food that i want to hide, ie. chick peas, mushrooms

Slutty brownies. Feel free to google....

My spiralizer. Adding courgette noodles to my pasta has made it much tastier and healthier to boot :)

Gram flour for savoury muffins!

Nectarine and mozzarella salad

This gorgeous Japanese salad dressing - sesame and soy and I'm not sure what else. It is absolutely delicious, I could drink the stuff! Given to me as a "hostess present" from a friend who lived in Tokyo for 5 years, and I managed to find it in a specialty Japanese food shop near us.

Yuzu, Hearts - if it us, I totally agree. It's absolutely divine.

*is

Home made sourdough - even the dcs are converts
Waitrose Perry - just enough sweetness
Mustard, gherkins and smoked paprika - deep love - never appreciated them before.
Good burgers - I'm almost obsessed with finding the perfect example, McD's & Burger King need not apply.

McLellands Seriously Strong cheddar cheese sauce. It's amazing. I got it from ocado, I've not seen it anywhere else.

New York bagels, toasted with cheese - half cheddar, half cheap processed cheese w gherkins, red onion & mustard. Best lunch ever.