Domestic Sluttery - chocolate, leopard print and gin

The Domestic Sluttery team are no strangers to Nom Nom Nom, but this was the first year that Gemma joined Sian (editor extraordinaire) to coordinate leopard print outfits cook up a storm. Here's a nice photo of the backs of our heads. Notice we have our hair tied back (health 'n' safety, innit). Yes, our dresses were planned in advance.

Photo by Kemey Lafond © 2011

For those unfamiliar with the concept of Domestic Sluttery, it's 'the home and lifestyle blog for women who have better things to do', so it's safe to say we didn't spend weeks fine-tuning our menu and testing it a million times. Instead, we turned to our archive of amazing recipes, pulled out a few old faithfuls, tweaked a few seasonal favourites, and then went down the pub.

It's not that we're lazy, you understand. We just believe that half the battle is in the ingredients, so we loved that the emphasis with this challenge was on simple, seasonal fare. Our day wasn't without issues - hunting down crayfish in Central London on a Sunday morning is something of a losing battle (why so early, Nomnomnom? Why so early?) and we completely forgot to do the dipping sauce for our Summer rolls (what? we were drunk! It was a pressure-filled environment!). These things probably contributed to our tragic downfall. But there was samphire! And borage! Not to mention these babies, which are basically chocolate crack...

Cheesecake Brownies, Sian's own creation and a recipe any self-respecting Domestic Slut can now make in her sleep. Though we promise we were wide awake this time. Look! Here's proof!


This time, we ramped them up with home-made chocolate chips (method: take one bar of expensive choccy, hack up with large knife) and a sprig of mint. Never underestimate the powers of a sprig of mint to pretty something up.

Yep, we showed you dessert first. That's just how we roll. But here's what came before...


Tom Yam Gai soup, a spicy chicken Thai broth. We based this on a recipe from our site, but made it extra special by marinading the chicken in a variety of secret ingredients (ok, mostly ginger...) before cooking.


Chickpea Salad with Orange, Mint and Feta. That's Gemma's slightly OTT presentation and orange segmenting skillzorz on show right there. And Sian's borage. We love borage. You love borage. Everybody loves borage.


Prawn and Samphire salad with Chilli and Lemon. This seemed to be the judges' favourite from our menu, and it was probably ours too. We got our samphire from the amazing fishmonger at the Marylebone farmer's market. Sadly he didn't have crayfish. We all agree this recipe would have been better with crayfish. We blame him.


Summer rolls with marinaded belly pork and king prawns. There were also noodles, mint and lettuce in these babies. Sadly there wasn't a dipping sauce. Because we were drunk on gin we forgot. Putting together each roll takes longer than you think. Luckily, Sian's a pro!


Gemma, not so much. She stuck to arranging plates in a pretty fashion instead. Here's our finished menu, ready for judging...

Photo by Chris Osburn © 2011

Don't you want us to cook you dinner now?

Of course, we did have a secret weapon to help us along. No self-respecting Domestic Slut cooks without a little additional help...

Ah, Gin. Chocolate. What's not to love?

Massive thanks to everyone at the Cookery School for being so helpful and patient all day. And to Alfie for not letting our brownies burn while Sian was outside smoking. That was dead nice of him.

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