Tag: recipe

tahinispinachsalad
05Feb

Tahini salad jar

  January is often known as the month when we stop doing things. Smoking, eating chocolate, drinking alcohol.  Every single one of my friends is cutting something out of their life this January thinking that they overdid it in December. By now very few are still going strong. This year I took the perspective to add good stuff rather than focusing on taking out the bad. Salad mainly. Everyday now I am aiming for a minimum of 5 cups of vegetables a day. I must say sometimes I have to force myself to push those last leaves into my mouth but boy, do I feel better for it. After three weeks of very little processed food (the odd cake still features) my husband convinced me of having burger and chips (yes I blame him). The next day I woke up with the worst hangover I have ever had. The power of food is really astounding, hindsight makes you think that it should have been obvious – junk food makes you feel like junk – but there’s nothing like an aversive reaction to keep the new year change going strong into February. To keep my veggies interesting I have been trying
2 mins read
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23Jan

Dark chocolate and ginger cheesecake

I always set my alarm to give me a good hour for breakfast before I need to leave the house. It always amazes me when my work colleagues say they get out of bed 5 minutes before they have to leave the house and then have their toast in front of their computer. I’m sorry but that would bring my quality of life down by about 10 points. I can’t function properly for the rest of the day if my day starts in a rush. Having my eggs with a cup of coffee in bed whilst catching up on last evening’s Bravo is my happy place. Then I leave plenty of time for my makeup and hair. All sounds very regimented right? Not so much because I never really plan my packed lunch/dinner and have to rush last minute to try and make a mediocre salad to eat later that day. I never make that a priority and end up leaving with a cereal bar or maybe a smoothie for lunch. Not cool. This week I prepped like a boss, got a few bits of tuppaware and stacked them with a nice turkey fried rice in the fridge. In the
3 mins read
1301 Views
05Dec

Whisky and caramel cake bites

I will very rarely admit defeat when it comes to recipes. In the last few months I have developed a couple of cake recipes, baked them and failed them. Eventually I got the ingredients and methods rights but that meant a few flat, mushy attempts had to be foiled up and sent to the cake morgue, a.k.a. my bottom freezer drawer. The morgue was getting really packed and this was causing marital tensions. My husband is a minimalist when it comes to storage of any kind. So what’s a girl to do with all this cake? Cake pops, naturally.  Bad idea. I watched dozens of videos, researched what was the best brand of candy melts and was the biggest visitor to Bakerella’s site last month. And yet they were a complete failure. I wanted to make something special for my nephews birthday and it went catastrophically bad, to the point I was covered in yellow candy melt, ferociously throwing away all of the jelly tots cut out in the shape of pooh’s ears. And the question remained…what to do with all this cake? Cake pops’s closest (and low maintenance) relative, cake bites. And a grown up one at that.Maybe good
2 mins read
961 Views
28Oct

Bone shaped macaroons with blood red buttercream

I think it’s amazing that egg whites and almonds can create such a delightful treat. Macaroons is one of the treats I absolutely love and don’t get to have it very often, because although small treats, their price tag is often not so small. I am going to a grown up Halloween party and thought little patisserie bones with a blood red buttercream would be perfect.  This is an easy recipe, however you must follow all the steps carefully to get the perfect chewy macaroon. Bone shaped macaroons with blood red buttercream 125g icing sugar 125g ground almonds 90g egg whites 2 tbsp water 110g caster sugar 75g softened butter 40g icing sugar Red food colouring Method: 1. Print or draw on a piece of paper bone shapes to fit your baking tray. Mine were around 4cm long. Place the sheet with the bone pattern under a piece of greaseproof paper 2. Put the icing sugar and ground almonds in a food processor and blitz. Sieve the mixture discarding any large lumps 3. Add 40g of egg whites to the almond mixture and mix to a paste 4. Put the water and caster sugar in a small pan and heat
3 mins read
3216 Views
17Oct

Apple and caramelised salted nuts ice cream

The freezer situation in our house has caused a few arguments. We have a small apartment and therefore a small fridge-freezer. I am completely in control of all food related things in our household: the planning, shopping and making. Not because the husband is not interested, but because I take so much enjoyment out of it, and he obviously does not mind. Testing recipes for the blog means a lot of non-photographic worthy creations, but still edible. I hate to throw anything away, my husband knows this and to be honest he is often in a bit of awe about it. But having to create new dishes with leftovers is something that gets my creative juices flowing. This week, sick of seeing so many apples sitting in the fruit bowl, I started to panic that they would go off soon as the two of us would not be able to eat it all. I don’t eat apples, but am drawn to them when they are in a dessert. I first tried appleasauce as a substitute for butter on this banana loaf cake, and feel in love with the power of applesauce. I decided to have add this magic ingredient to ice cream, and
2 mins read
947 Views
27Sep

Chocolate yoghurt cake

It has been more than a month since my last post. It was not planned – I said I was going to do a whole month of Brazilian food to celebrate the Olympics – but it did not turned out that way.  After a break in Cornwall and then a string of family members coming over to stay, it felt like I left life up in the air, and when I arrived back home it all came crashing down. You know, piles of unopened letters, cleaning to do, I couldn’t even start to think about recipes for the blog. In fact this has been the first week in a whole month that I have opened my computer. Then I don’t know why but amidst the chaos I decided to make one of my least favourite baking recipes: cake. I am cake’s biggest fan, just have a look at my Pinterest page and you will see beautiful cakes, frosted like a sculpture, with the perfect rise and colour. I dream of emulating that, however this is rare as I am by nature a chaotic cook. But baking cakes is almost like a science, you need to do things by the book.
3 mins read
779 Views