Just had a really lovely weekend in Machynlleth, Wales, lots of cider, dancing, sleeping, walking and eating. Pretty much all of my favorite things all in one weekend infact. Yay! While we were there we went to a very nice restaurant that deserves a mention, in the Wynnstay Hotel. It was Sunday night so the place was pretty quiet, in fact the restaurant is kind of divided into small dining rooms, and we had one of the rooms to ourselves. It's really cosy, a bit like being in someone's house (if they were incredibly minted and had a huge house with several posh dining rooms), and the staff were all very friendly, didn't rush you, or take too long blah blah blah. Oh and also they have a huge wine list, which they have won several awards for. While the place is probably better suited to meat eaters, (they have a pretty impressive range of local lamb and beef, and do quite a few different game/fish things too), there were a few veggi options, so we were ok. I'm gonna moan now though, why do most places think the only thing veggis want to eat is cheese, and specifically goats ...

This Christmas I have mostly been eating. And drinking. And eating more. I've probably eaten more over the past couple of weeks than I did for the whole of the rest of the year... ok maybe that's a bit silly, but it was definitely a lot. Very nice it has been too, lovely people, lovely food and lots of fun. The feasting started a few weeks ago with the first of 3 Christmas meals we somehow volunteered to make for people. For the main course I'd made a Mushroom Wellington, which was so nice we decided to make the same thing for the other two Christmas meals. (Image nicked from Yum Blog - hope you don't mind! ;-)) Mushroom Wellington 500g Puff Pastry 60ml sunflower oil 675g onions, chopped 4 garlic clove, crushed 450g chestnut mushrooms, left whole 2 tbsp chopped tarragon 4 tbsp soy sauce salt and fresh ground black pepper 320g broken cashew pieces 175g fine breadcrumbs, freshly made, white or wholemeal 320g ground almonds 1 egg, beaten Roll out the puff pastry into two rectangles, each 30 x 23 cm, and set aside in the fridge to rest. Meanwhile, make the filling. Heat ...