52 Weeks- 52 posts!

Incredibly, it's a year since I took my first tentative steps into the blogosphere. And what a year it's been!

To begin with, the blog was private - only viewable by those invited. I'd heard tales of wicked trolls just waiting to send abuse to the unwary. But when I eventually plucked up the courage to step out into cyberspace- I found a whole wide world of lovely people who enjoy my recipes, share theirs and read my pages regularly.

If any of them are trolls, then they must like the food.

Over the last year, I've published more than 150 recipes and ideas- and had more than 2000 pageviews. I find the stats mindboggling- I have regular readers from all over the world, not just the UK: USA, Australia, Germany, France, Russia, Poland, Canada, Israel, Indonesia and even Macau!

Hi to all of you.

Before I begin my new challenge, I thought it might be fun to look back at the highlights of the  blog year.

So what were the most popular recipes and the most clicked-on posts?

Olive cakes in the sun

And in the oven!

By far the most popular recipe, clicked on many hundreds of times is my recipe for olive cakes.(And don't forget you can find all the recipes just by using the Search option at the top of the page.)

Mini Croque Messieurs

Next most popular are my canape and nibbles ideas:

Mini salt and vinegar chip cornets

Home Made Tortilla Chips

As far as popular posts go, many many people enjoyed Fruit and Veg to make you Smile:

13 desserts!

And many more enjoyed 'The Party Dress 'Diet' ' and it's antidote 'My Big Fat French Christmas':







Indeed the most popular posts have been those celebrating festivals- Christmas, Bonfire Night, Hallowe'en and most recently Burns Night.

Pumpkin and Parsnip Soup- second most clicked on recipe post

My own personal favourite posts were from the summer- celebrating the Olympics, my golden summer in Provence and the bounty of French markets:

Grilled bream- my favourite fish pic

But this is after all a blog about using up leftovers and my top three recipes for leftovers however are:

Chow Phan

1. Chow Phan (for using up leftover roast chicken, pork or duck)

Tarte a l'indienne

2. Tarte a l'indienne (for using up leftover curry)

3. Pie! (For using up just about anything!)  

Meat Pie

Do you have any personal favourites? They may well be completely different from those featured here. I'd love to hear.

But what of the next year?

Well, I'm setting myself a new challenge: 52 weeks - 52 menus. All different, all seasonal or featuring what's plentiful in the shops and markets, all with 3 courses, all frugal. 

And of course, all with ideas for how to use up the leftovers.

I hope you keep on reading!