Another year, another kitchen. Well, that was the theory. But the dividing wall between the kitchen and dining room still has to come down, the units need to be ripped out, and THEN we can go and buy the oven that we've been dreaming of....(and find ourselves a kitten, but that's a whole other obsession...)

Was it just me, or were there no good cookery programmes on over Christmas? When all you've got to watch is Celebrity Ready Steady Cook, it's a bit of a poor do. Will somebody bring back Saturday Kitchen, please?

I can totally recommend bypassing Christmas dinner altogether. Although in our case it was enforced (no oven proves a bit of a problem for doing roast potatoes and turkey - and NO they don't taste the same in the microwave) we thoroughly enjoyed our steamed dim sum from the local Chinese supermarket. Doughy buns, little prawn parcels and minced pork parcels were all chucked in the steamer, and came out 12 minutes later. Together with lots of dipping sauces (you think we'd pass up a chance for chilli sauce?!) and steamed pak choi it was a meal to remember. For all the right reasons.