Tag: spices

18Mar

Honey Chai Easter cookies

The first time I listened to Nirvana was in my cousin’s bedroom. My cousins were quite a few years older and the coolest kids I knew. I got hooked listening to Nevermid and listened to Come As You Are on a loop. I wanted to tell everyone about it. I was a little late to the party though, this was in 98, so my enthusiasm received a lot of eye rolling because Nevermid was so last year, or so the cool kids told me. Eighteen years later I receive somewhat the same reaction when a mere few months ago I expressed my love for Chai lattes. Chai tea, according to snobs around me, was old news. Chai was out, turmeric was in. Although as a teenager I liked to imitate my cousins, these days I no longer feel embarrassed for not having tried all the latest trends. So better late than ever, I have started to experiment with chai spices.  I am no expert, but I played with the spices combination in this recipe at least 10 times now, and it is truly addictive. I am not moving on to turmeric any time soon, I am truly in love with
3 mins read
1012 Views
17Jan

Butternut squash soup with crispy seeds

Growing up I was a very fussy eater. I never forget being told by one of my aunts that all the food I wasted throughout my life would be waiting for me to eat it when I die. Grim, right? And a little mean. But recently I have been thinking a lot about food waste. Food is a powerful thing and at the moment it’s being used by rebels in Syria to keep civilians under control. It hurts to hear that children are eating grass in order to not feel hungry. I know people differ greatly in their views on war but I felt so frustrated that I am not able to fly over there and help. But there are other ways to bring awareness to this issue. In Europe we wasted 89 million tons of food in 2013 and the UK is the worst offender. You are now thinking that it’s the big supermarkets fault, right? Wrong. Household waste is the biggest contributor to these numbers. It’s hard to hear that when so many are starving we’re taking food for granted. So it starts at home, maybe many of us can’t physically go there and help them but we
3 mins read
628 Views
09Dec

Black grape and walnut mince pies

I have fallen in love with black grapes recently. It happened by accident, I decided to buy them after being tired of the same apples/bananas/satsumas routine we have here every weekend. They are not only a great snack for sweet-tooths like me but I have also been adding them to a lot of different foods, from crumbles to granola. So why not add them to my most detested christmas treat? Yes I hate mince pies.  And it is tough being a mince pie hater here as it is a huge part of English christmas. They are literally everywhere, people are giving it to you as gifts, bringing them to work as a tea time snack…And you can get the really basic ones to the really fancy ones from high end shops, but it’s just never gone down well with me. It’s always just tasted like raisins, covered in sugar, wrapped in pastry. But this year I decided to tackle them my way. My recipe holds back on the dried fruits and sugar and, most importantly, there is no suet in sight! It takes a little patience to get the the mincemeat and the pastry ready, but you can start preparing
4 mins read
974 Views
28Nov

Chai spiced fruitcake

A British essential for the holidays is definitely a boozy fruitcake, they are everywhere this time of the year. The whole left side of the bakery aisle in my local supermarket has been transformed in the most amazing selection of dried fruits and citrus peel. I love dried fruits, I love booze and I certainly love cake but not fruitcake. Never been a fan of the traditional recipe and I reckon it’s because the ones I have tried in the past left me feeling underwhelmed, they were either too dry, too boozy or have a ratio of 95:1 fruit to cake, and that is just not the balance I am looking for. So I have adapted a family recipe to share with you a lovely spiced fruitcake. It is based on my grandmother’s orange cake recipe which was always an amazing treat when I was growing up and I’ve packed it (a good balance) with fruits soaked in Amaretto and chai tea, a drink which I have felt in love with recently and it adds an amazing mix of spices. Now as you can see by the pictures I lost my normal 20cm cake tin and had to use one
3 mins read
587 Views