Fresh Produce

I am so super excited that the Garden Centre up the road from us has just opened a fantastic new farm shop.  There is a huge section of fresh fruit and veg, a deli counter, and a gorgeous array of freshly baked bread.

On Saturday G and I popped up there to pick up some lunch.  We picked yummy flat field mushrooms, a tasty multi grain loaf and a goose egg each!  It was such a yummy lunch.  Goose eggs equal about 3 hens eggs so it was very filling but they were so yellow and rich!

I think this will definitely be a weekly weekend visit place to nab some tasty fresh produce.

Elegant Sausage, Mash and Homemade Beans

I love having enough time to spend making bits of the dinner that are homemade.  On Friday night I got home from work in plenty of time so decided to make the beans from scratch.  I have made homemade beans before but couldn't remember which recipe I used, so on Friday I started again with my search and found a brill recipe on Great British Chefs.  I found this recipe which was fantastic to accompany the sausages and mash.

The beans do take a while as you have to boil down the liquid so that they are all thick, rather than being runny, but it was certainly worth it.

Having started watching the new series of Masterchef last week I though that it might be nice to try a new way of presenting every day dishes, so tarted up my mash with some greenery and popped the beans in a ramekin....et voila!  Elegant Sausage, Mash and Beans.

The recipe made enough for 4 so I popped them in the fridge and had them the next night with some pie.

Have you ever tried to make homemade beans?  What recipe did you use?  Did they work out ok?

Healthy Breakfast

After Bean and I came back from our wonderful weekend at Ragdale Hall Spa I decided that my breakfast choices are always a bit boring.  I either have instant porridge or toast and homemade jam.

I don't really have time for making a cooked breakfast or faffing around with anything that needs cooking from scratch but I do like to try different things.

I found that preparing a tasty summer yoghurt porridge is a really tasty alternative to normal porridge and goes really well with all kinds of fruit and nuts.

In the evening I mix up rolled porridge oats with some natural yogurt, milk and maple syrup/honey.  I pop this in the fridge over night and the oats soak up all the milk and yoghurt and go all soft.

Add seeds, nuts, fresh fruit or dried fruit, or try fruit yoghurt or smoothie - or really anything that takes your fancy really! It's fun to try different things.

Tortilla Chips...literally

Super quick post today as I was super excited by these wikid tortilla chips! They were so super simple.

I had a packet of slightly stale tortilla wraps in the fridge and was about to throw them away when I came across a sweet version on Rachel Schultz blog.  

Slice up the wraps, rub a tiny bit of oil in and sprinkle with salt, place on a baking sheet and bake for 10-12 mins until crispy...et voila!

Recipe: Lemon Layer Cake

I haven't baked for ages and although I've made jams and chutneys recently and made some very tasty meals, I don't remember the last time that I spent the afternoon baking.

I feel like I've managed to master my pastry but I haven't ever quite mastered the sponge.  Cupcakes never really work out so I thought maybe I would try a layer cake.  I went for something plain and simple so as not to get carried away with frills and whistles, rather than concentrating on the texture and flavour of the cake.

I keep seeing fantastic layer cakes, and although I attempted one a year back, it never really lived up to Emily's or these tasty looking treats on Pinterest.

When searching through for recipes it's tricky to find fab ones that are in English measurements, but after a quick bit of looking good old Delia came up a treat!

This lemon layer cake was the perfect choice!  I doubled the recipe to make it a super tall 4 layer cake and added some lemon juice and icing sugar to the icing to make it a bit less creamy.  Admittedly also I used shop bought lemon curd as that was a bit much to do as well!

I cannot believe how super quick and easy this cake was and the result was flipping amazing! 

What layer cakes have you tried?

Homemade Thai Feast

What a feast!!!  I was all ready for making a beef stew last Sunday night.  I headed off on Sunday afternoon, in a very hungover state, to do by 2 weekly grocery shop.  I bought everything that I had on the list, and definitely still when I left I had in my head that I was making stew for dinner.

But when I got home and unpacked the shopping I couldn't get the idea of making a thai out of my head.  I bought all of the ingredients to make a chicken and cashew nut thai red curry, but I then realised that really, a feast was all that was going to cure the hangover!

We ended up with;

• Thai red chicken curry with cashews and mange tout
• Satay rice noddles
• Egg Fried rice (Uncle Ben's Mircowave!)
• Soy and Honey glazed purple sprouting

Recipe: Quick Hummus

We've started really getting into hummus recently. It's not something that G has ever really tried until a couple of months ago so we've been buying it in the grocery shop so that he can get a taste for it.

Today we decided to make our own to see if it would be as good as shop bought, and I would say that it pretty much is.

We used the BBC 'quick hummus' recipe  with a few amendments and I would certainly recommend you give it a go.

I had it for lunch spread on a wrap with lettuce, slices of pepperoni and black olives and it was very tasty!

Ingredients:

1 can chickpeas (soaked already)

2tbsp olive oil

2tbsp lemon juice

4tbsp water

1tsp cumin

1tsp paprika

2 cloves crushed garlic

1tsp salt

Method:

• Place everything in a blender and blend until a smooth paste.
• It's that simple!
• If serving to guests place in a ceramic bowl, make drizzle with olive oil and place a few whole chickpeas on top.

Recipe: Orange Marmalade

One the items on my 2014 to do list was to make a preserve I had never made before. For Christmas Bean bought me The Preserving Book.

This weekend was the first weekend that G and I have spent doing nothing since the beginning of December. G has spent the weekend on the couch full of the cold so I decided to keep myself busy and looked through the preserving book.

There were loads of things I wanted to try and I went for orange marmalade.  It is quite long winded as you have to boil up the orange skins and then chop them all up into tiny bits - bit i guess if you had a snazzy grating machine this might do it for you!

I doubled the recipe in the book and got 8 jars! I'm loving the marmalade.

Tasty Treats of 2013 - No Oven Necessary

I'm so pleased to have an oven again, having not had one the majority of last year - but I am pleased that some of my really tasty treats last year didn't even need an oven!

1. Hairy Bikers Sausage and Bean Casserole

2. Butternut Squash and Procuittio Rigatoni

3. Tasty Breakfast- Pancakes, Scrambled Eggs, Bacon and Mushrooms

4. Chicken Curry, Rice and Homemade Naan

5. Rice Krispie Treats - Peanut Butter and Pretzel

Recipe: Chicken and Chickpea Curry

This chicken and chickpea curry as a definite winner in our house.  It came about due to the fact that I had very little in the house, so I had to use up the ingredients I did have.

Curry Ingredients:

1 Can Chickpeas

2 Chicken Breasts

1/2 Onion

1 Small Courgette

1 Clove Garlic

1tsp Medium Curry Powder

300ml Vegetable Stock

Fresh Chopped 

1tbsp Cream Cheese (I chosen lactofree cream cheese)

I followed this Jamie Oliver recipe for the bread

Curry Method:

1. Cover the chicken in flour, seasoned with salt and pepper.
2. Fry the chicken until brown and add the onions, garlic, courgette and curry powder.
3. Pour in the vegetable stock and the chickpeas and simmer until the stock reduces and the chicken is tender.
4. Take the curry off the heat and stir in the cream cheese.
5. Add salt and pepper to taste.
6. Place on the plate and sprinkle with fresh coriander.  Serve with rice and bread.

Gin Cocktails And Pizza Making

As I mentioned on Friday we had a New Years party this weekend. We wanted to have a get together for those we hadn't had a chance yet to see in the new year and had a lovely Saturday evening with friends.

We organised a gin cocktails and pizza making evening.  (Pizza making idea totally stolen from H&E's NYE party). The Berry Collins cocktails were very tasty and we offered a variety of gins for people to choose from.

We laid out a variety of toppings and bought some brilliant pizza bases from tesco so that everyone could make their own choices.

Homemade pizzas + gin cocktails + 2013 quiz drinking game + xbox kinect = a lovely and enjoyable evening had by all.

Berry Collins (long cocktail):

makes 2

8 raspberries

8 blue berries

splash of fruit berry coulis

crushed ice

4 measures gin

4 tsp lemon juice

sugar syrup, to taste

soda water, to top up

• Muddle 1/2 berries and the coulis in the bottom of a high ball glass then fill with crushed glass.
• Add the gin, lemon juice and sugar syrup.  Stir well then top up with soda water. 
• Decorate with raspberries and blue berries.

Recipe: Yeast Free Rosemary Bread

I have really missed baking bread since not having an oven.  I had really got into my bread making, both with and without yeast, and it is definitely something that I want to get back into now we have finally got a new oven!

I had a whole day of baking (christmas cake, apple cake and bread) and so I wanted something that was nice and quick to start with so selected something without yeast.

I wanted something that was good and savoury so I added in Rosemary and ground pepper to really give it some kick so that you can just eat with a lump of butter.

The recipe I used was adapted from this one on All Recipes.

Ingredients

500 g plain white flour1 tsp bicarbonate of soda½ tsp salt300 ml (10 fl oz) milk

• Preheat the oven to 200ºC (400ºF, gas mark 6). Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a bowl.
• Make a well in the centre and pour in the milk. With a wooden spoon, gradually stir the flour into the milk to form a soft dough. 
• Bring the dough together with your hands, then turn it out onto a lightly floured work surface. Knead lightly and briefly until it forms a smooth ball.
• Place the dough on a greased baking sheet and flatten it slightly to make a domed round loaf about 19 cm (7 1/2 in) in diameter. Using a sharp knife, cut a deep cross in the top of the loaf, cutting about halfway down into the dough. Sprinkle a little extra flour over the top.
• Bake for about 30 minutes or until well risen and browned, and the bread sounds hollow when tapped on the base. (If it sounds moist and heavy, bake for a further 3–5 minutes and then test it again.)
• Transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool completely. Serve the loaf on the day it is baked, as it becomes stale quickly, or toast it the following day.

2013 Favourites

2013 has seen its fair share of ups and downs but some of my highlights of this year have been:

• Appreciating the love from the women in my life at my HenDo
• Marrying my gorgeous Fiance G on May 4th
• Honeymooning in Florida
• Gaining some fantastic friends, Harriet and Ellis
• Learning how to make jam
• Improving my pie making ability
• Discovering nail transfers
• Learning how to make paper pompoms
• Discovering 'The Simple Things' Magazine
• Learning to love red wine
• Visiting Scotland for the first time
• New borns and being asked to be God Parents

Stunning Wedding photography by Sara Reeve

Honeymooning on the Disney Boardwalk, Florida

Sunset nails for they fantastic sunny days this Summer

Tootsy - the new addition to Mum and Dads -
inherited from my fantastic uncle who we lost this year

Homemade Guacamole - How tasty you are!

Late Summer days hanging with Bean at the parents farm

Appreciating the taste of Scottish whiskey in Edinburgh in August

Favourite dress from Jojo Maman Bebe

Borough Market - Treating Bean to a weekend in London to Celebrate her 30th

Long days out with new friends

The new cafe that has opened around the corner from home - Marmalade