Hello! I’m Deborah and I’m married to David and have 2 lovely step sons. David and I both love cooking…for ourselves, family and friends. I’m definitely one of the lucky ones…getting cooked for and we enjoy cooking together. Living in Aberdeenshire, Scotland we have great produce on our doorstep to cook with and also enjoy eating out, whether it’s locally, on weekends away and on holiday. As well as good food, we also love good wine, gin, vodka, beer, cider and cocktails…cheers!
My phone is crammed full of foodie photos! I find it a great way to record memories of what we’ve cooked or eaten out so that they can be referred back to…maybe to cook again, food to try and recreate at home, restaurants and places to go back to and also to be able to give recommendations.
I have a list as long as my arm of bars and restaurants in Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow to go back to, but also a list of places that have been recommended too, that we still need to try.
We love flicking through food magazines and recipe books as well as watching foodie programmes and following our favourite chefs, magazines and programmes on social media to get inspiration. We’ve also got lots of friends who enjoy cooking too, so it’s great to get their recommendations when they’ve cooked something tasty!
I’ve been fortunate through work to get the opportunity to attend a couple of cooking classes for team building events and loved them. In May 2008, I went to the Nick Nairn Cook School at Port of Menteith, Stirling. It was a one day Scottish Cookery course that we did and it was Nick himself who took the class!! I already had his Scottish Cookery recipe book, so took it with me to see if there would be the opportunity to get him to sign it…I bought the Cook School recipe book when I was there…he signed them both!! That’s where I learned all about the ‘happy pan’ and how to cook a steak properly – yum!
Nick Nairn opened a cook school in Aberdeen in May 2012, which unfortunately closed in 2018 – David and I did the Just Meat class together in February 2015. We both really enjoyed it and would have loved to have done more, but unfortunately it closed before we got the chance again.
Then in March 2015, I went to the Edinburgh New Town Cookery School for a team building evening class with work – we were put into teams of 3 to cook a starter, main course and dessert. My preference is to cook savoury food rather than cakes and deserts, however, it was the dessert that I cooked during the class. We were judged during the cooking process and finally how it tasted…I won for the dessert course and came home proudly with a red silicon spoon!
We took the opportunity when on holiday in Bangkok in February 2018 to book a cooking class at the Baipai Thai Cooking School…it was AMAZING and we MUST cook some of the recipes again and get them posted for you to try!
Food
Our cooking style is more ‘every day home cooking’ rather than ‘fine dining’. Our week day meals tend to be quick and easy but nutritious, and at the weekend we spend more time cooking recipes that take a little bit longer, require more effort and for special occasions.
We eat lots of vegetables and try to alternate through the week to have meals with fish, chicken, meat, pasta, rice, noodles, potatoes and vegetarian dishes.
I’m definitely more of a savoury cook and David’s the bread and pasta maker…oh, and fishcake maker. I’ve been known to lose my patience with making fresh pasta and fishcakes!!!
When I look at restaurant menus, I tend to look at the fish options for starter and main first, where David would look at the game, lamb and meat options and if I’m able for a 3rd course, it would probably be cheese rather than a pudding. David has been known on occasion to indulge in something sweet though, or sometimes we’ll share!
We really enjoy entertaining and hosting parties at home and have amassed quite a few recipe books (mainly food but also cocktails!) over the years as well as subscribed to or purchased food magazines…and picking up the free magazines available in local supermarkets.
Thermomix
One of our close friends had had her Thermomix for about 4 years when she became an Adviser in early 2019. She’d already cooked us loads of delicious recipes using her machine, and knowing how much we love cooking, asked if we’d like her to do a demo at our house some time. We’d already half decided that we’d like one, so when I had the demo on a Friday night in March 2019 and invited a small group of family and friends, we ended up going for it and haven’t regretted it.
The girls stayed in to watch and take part in the demo with our friend cooking up a storm, while the boys went out to a local pub for a few beers…they came back to the house a bit later to enjoy the fruits of our labour!
We both really love it and have cooked so many recipes and there’s so many more to try!
You will see Thermomix recipes are being added – these will be clearly indicated with ‘Thermomix’ in the recipe title. If you don’t have a Thermomix but fancy making any of the recipes, you’ll see i’ve provided ‘Non-Thermomix Instructions’ in most of them, with my suggestions. Most can be made using basic/standard kitchen equipment and/or appliances, for example: a knife and chopping board, scales, a blender, food processor, liquidiser and your hob.
Felly Bull
“Is your felly bull?”…a slip of the tongue by my granda to my mum and her sisters and brother as youngsters, one night after they’d eaten their supper – what he meant to ask was ‘is your belly full?’!!
The slip of the tongue version has stuck…my mum would ask the same question to my brother and I as we were growing up. I’ve since found myself asking the same thing to David and my two step sons on occasion after eating a meal!!! It always brings a smile.
Felly Bull was initially created in late 2017 as a place to record our recipes that we make frequently and also to keep a record of recipes that we’ve only made maybe a couple of times but have really enjoyed and would make again. We had tried a couple of different Apps, but decided this format would be better, especially for being able to share.
You’ll notice that there’s quite a large a gap where no recipes have been posted (the majority of 2018, 2019 and the start of 2020). We went on a fabulous holiday to Bangkok, Singapore and Phuket in February 2018 and then decided when we came home that we’d get our ensuite shower room, main bedroom and our garden totally overhauled (all at the same time…!) in the summer of 2018. It was definitely all worth it in the end, but my goodness it felt like everything was in a total uproar at the time, so unfortunately, Felly Bull had to take a back seat.
In 2019, another big decision was made…David would leave his full time employment and start up in business. This needed our full attention at the time and again Felly Bull took a back seat, however, we did make sure that we took lots of foodie photos and notes so that we’d have the information needed for uploading new recipe posts.
It’s now 2020 and the world has been hit with the COVID 19 pandemic. We came back from a long weekend away to Stirling and Glasgow in mid March and I worked from home for the next 4 weeks and then went on Furlough from mid April.
As well as spending time in our lovely garden, getting recipe inspiration online and on social media, from foodie programmes, our many recipe books and past food magazines, we had the time during the Furlough period to build up a stock of recipe and blog posts. As hard as it is living with the lockdown restrictions, we’ve taken this opportunity while at home to be able to start posting again and also to ‘officially’ launch Felly Bull to our family, friends and on social media – see the links for Facebook, Instagram and Twitter either on the top right or bottom of each page (depending on the type of device you are using).
Questions or suggestions…
We hope you enjoy trying out our recipes and if you have any questions or recipe suggestions, please note them in the box at the bottom of each page.
Happy cooking!
Deborah
UPDATED MAY 2020