Pin pointing exactly what I have given up for lent this year is a little difficult. Apart from a blanket ban on the DailyMail.com (which has been hard!) I have tried to shift my snacking away from chocolate to more natural alternatives. So whilst I haven’t had a single mini egg or twix I have…
Sitting at work the other day, during a brief moment of calm, I took a scrap of paper and started to plan my Easter baking. As I sat there I foresaw Easter bunny macarons and a chocolate nest cake filled with mini eggs, there were individual simnel cakes and a pile of creme egg macarons,…
This miso-glazed salmon is quickly becoming a firm favourite of mine. It’s speedy to make, delicious to eat and just as good for cold for lunch the next day. When it comes to quick cooking salmon is a dream and although delicious cooked as it is it’s ability to speedily absorb marinades gives you so…
I have a confession to make; when I made this a couple of months ago it was my first ever time making a carbonara and only my third time eating one. The first two had been courtesy of Carluccio’s and both had been horrible, I mean truly awful. I had my first after day two at a…
There is something incredibly satisfying about baking a loaf of bread. The smells wafting from the oven, the crack of the crust and the taste of warm butter laden fluffy dough can hardly be surpassed and so I urge you to give it a go. Cracked black pepper and fig bread is one of the…
I’m a bit of a sucker for sprouts.. I may well have sent an excited snap chat to my fellow sprout lovers when I saw my first lot back in November. I just can’t get enough of them. So when I found purple sprouts I’m happy to admit that I was far more excited than…
Some recipes are so simple to make and yet so delicious that it seems like you are giving away a true secret every time you are asked for the recipe. A little bit of you wants to hold on, to leave the illusion that the culinary triumph is a result of your hard work and not…
Is there a broken one I can try? Look, there, that one’s not quite round, surely I can taste that one now?! There’s one little problem with making macarons in my house. You have to wait. Unlike brownies and bread you can’t eat macarons straight from the oven. And you have to wait a while-…
I know that this post is about macarons but it starts with a story of fudge and the most fantastic restaurant I know. As I’ve discussed before I spend the end of every summer in the Highlands of Scotland. The land near us, sheltered by the mountains to the north and south and with the…
I made a rather disappointing soup the other day. I had a bulb of fennel and a few carrots hanging around so I thought I’d roast them and make soup. Hmm I wasn’t convinced- even when boosted by fennel seeds and plenty of S&P it was bland. I’m sure it was down to the lack…