Shortcrust pastry is an awesome pastry – extremely simple to make and equally at home with sweet and savoury fillings. Made well, it is light and crisp and delicious. It takes minutes to rustle up and uses only four ingredients (and two of those are water and salt…) so there is no excuse not to … Continue reading
If I were a vegetarian, I’m not sure my boyfriend and I would get on in the kitchen. He is a true self-proclaimed carnivore and will never be happier than with a large rare steak for dinner. Although I eat meat (and when I do the rarer the better!) I have always been a champion … Continue reading
Spring has finally sprung! The sun is out and it feels light and bright and optimistic again after a very long hibernation. I have painted my fingernails a vibrant coral, my flat is awash with the heady scent of fresh hyacinths and I have spotted not one, not two but three women sporting mint green trousers…Spring also … Continue reading
It is my best friend’s birthday soon so this one’s for her. I remember a few years ago when we shared a one bed flat in Camden I baked a batch of coconut and raspberry cupcakes and they didn’t last very long…so I’m going to use this winning flavour combination again – only this time, … Continue reading
A friend of mine went to Dubrovnik last Autumn and brought me back some black cumin seeds from a local market. I was quite daunted by the miniature charcoal chips at first as I had never come across them and they were packaged in a glass test tube – they looked either very precious or … Continue reading
I meant to make Simnel cake yesterday but I sort of lost track of time. I’m going to blame the clocks going forward and our rather long Sunday lunch. We picked up a lovely noisette of lamb from the Ginger Pig butcher and roasted it until it was pink and tender and scrumptious. It was quite … Continue reading
Sorry that the posts have been a little sparse over the last few weeks – I haven’t been in my kitchen very much as I’ve been on holiday in Japan! The food was astonishingly good and I squeezed as many foodie treats into my suitcase as I possibly could so I think a few of … Continue reading
Tea makes me happy. My newest discovery, introduced to me by a fellow tea-lover is Japanese genmaicha tea (green tea with toasted brown rice in it). Originally added to make the drink more affordable, the toasted rice gives a nutty flavour to the tea which is unusually savoury but extremely tasty. I’m so smitten I … Continue reading
I’m seeing my boyfriend for the first time in over a month in a couple of days and I want to make him something tasty (mainly so he never leaves me for so long again!). He absolutely loves marzipan, so much so that it was a regular gift from his grandmother when he was a … Continue reading
I’m in the middle of a minor kiwi crisis. I love kiwifruit and often have them for breakfast (next to my crumpets, of course). But the last lot I bought have jumped straight from unripe to almost off; they are beginning to shrivel yet are still too hard to eat and are eye-wateringly sour. I … Continue reading
pip & little blue 