one year on

Exactly a year ago today, I started blogging. Looking back, I don't really remember what was the spark that caused me to start. I have been blogging various forms for years since before I even knew what blogging was but this is probably the first time that I've managed to keep up with something approaching a routine and done it  all in such a public forum.

It's slightly ironic that this anniversary comes at the time when I'm struggling more than I have at any point in the last year to find time and inclination to play around in the kitchen. The last few weekends - normally time that I would have spent happily standing over my oven - have been complete write-offs. I'm hopeful that I will be able to find my way back to the kitchen this weekend. I have the first stirrings of interest in food and cooking again although I'm trying not to get too ahead of myself.

As I don't have anything new for you today, I thought I'd do a brief recap of the top five posts from the last year. I hope that, in a year's time, I'll be doing this recap again and have five even better posts to share with you.

1.  Heston's chocolate chip cookies

Within a couple of days of posting these cookies back in November, they shot to the top of the list of my most popular posts and have stayed there ever since. They were the first proper post I made with my new blog design which I am as still as much in love with as when I saw it for the first time. I have foodgawker to thank really for all the traffic to this post - I still get hundreds of hits a day from the image I uploaded that was, much to my amazement, accepted by them.  

2.  Salted caramel vodka hot chocolate

I don't know if it was the ridiculously awesome mug or the words 'salted caramel' but this got picked up on tumblr and reblogged tens of thousands of times. Given that, I can't help wishing that it was a slightly better photo; a few minutes in Lightroom would probably have improved it exponentially!

3.  Billionaire's shortbread

This is really quite an old post but it continues to remain very popular. Again, I think it's that magical ingredient salted caramel. This was the first post that actually made me think that I could do this food blogging thing; it got picked up by various sites around the internet and gained me a fair number of new followers. I then abandoned the blog for a couple of weeks to go on holiday. Perfect timing yes?  

4.  Spicy macaroni cheese

A relatively recent post here, less than a month old, but one that confirms my suspicion that there is very little in the world that's better than a bowl of macaroni cheese. In fact, I think I might need to have this for dinner tonight.

5.  Baked french toast

For some reason, I am still slightly surprised that this post continues to do so well - indeed it was the most popular recipe on here for a while over Christmas. I don't know why I should be so surprised as it's a delightfully easy breakfast but the fact remains that I had to double check when I saw this had sneaked in at number five. I should probably make it again soon to remind myself just how good it is.  

One thing is for sure, I wouldn't be sat here writing this recap if it wasn't for all of you lovely people.  Your comments, emails and tweets are more appreciated than you could know and I'm so excited to see what the next year will bring.