22 September 2010

Recipe For Pears In Rooibos With Vanilla And Saffron

One of the classics of British cuisine is to poach pears in red wine or syrup.  As a variation on this, I sometimes create a sweet spicy syrup to poach the pears in, then reduce these to a thick, sweet sauce.  Recently, however, I have been...

15 September 2010

Vanilla - A Beautiful And Sensual Spice

Vanilla comes from the vanilla orchid, called Vanilla planifolia, which is native to Mexico, but is now indigenous in many tropical parts of the world, for example Madagascar and surrounding islands.  There is a second vanilla orchid called Vanilla t...

19 August 2010

Axel's Raspberry Cheesecake Recipe

My sister and her family came to visit at the weekend, so I was scrabbling around trying to come up with a summery pudding to create, while the rain was gushing down outside in torrents.  I decided that roast chicken with all the trimmings, followed...

16 August 2010

A Recipe For Meatballs In Tomato And Red Pepper Sauce

Cooking at home differs from fancy cuisine in restaurants in that it is about compromise.  While a top notch chef does not need to compromise on ingredients and quality, at home you need to juggle your precious time with what you have got available i...

31 July 2010

Of Ice Cream In Dumfries and Galloway

My blog posts about Dumfries and Galloway would not be complete without talking about Cream O'Galloway, an ice cream producer between Gatehouse of Fleet and Kirkcudbright.  We seem to spend much of our family holiday centred around their farm at Rain...

27 July 2010

Of Meat In Dumfries And Galloway

21/7/2010 - I am sitting here at a table overlooking a glorious lake; not some picture postcard view across Lake Como in brilliant sunshine, but a grey, overcast day with some low lying wispy clouds moving slowly across the conifer plantations opposi...

30 June 2010

Recipe For Sweet Pastry Per Pierre Hermé

Having been given a great sweet tart pastry recipe by Anthony Stern from Independent Foods, I have recently come across an even better Sweet Tart Dough in Pierre Hermé’s book “Chocolate Desserts”.  I must admit to being given the heads up about the w...

25 June 2010

Sprouting Beans

We have just put Just Wholefoods Organic Sprouting Bean Mix onto Steenbergs web shop.  I remember my mum used to grow mung bean sprouts in a Kilner jar at home which was quite fun and tasted really fresh and crunchy in salads or used in a stir fry. ...

16 June 2010

Teapigs - Clever Marketing By Tetley Tea

I had always wondered how Teapigs came from nowhere and were able to create a fabulous range of tea using really expensive Fuso tea bagging kit etc etc.

09 June 2010

Recipe - French Tomato Tart

The other day my parents visited from Northumberland, and as it was a gorgeous sunny Thursday, I plucked up the courage to try one of David Lebovitz's recipes.  It's always a matter of bravery as I am in awe at other people's ability to make seemingl...

24 May 2010

Recipe For Pink Rose Macarons

Pink is one of those colours I have never really liked.  However, getting married and then having a daughter have made me accept pink as a colour and slowly but surely start to like pink as long as it is subtle rather than Barbie coloured.  Sophie ha...

21 May 2010

Recipe for Indulgent Coffee Cup Cakes

There's lots of fuss and carry on about cup cakes and how wonderful they are, so I felt I better try and make some.  I was, also, unsure what the actual difference between a cup cake is and a good, old fashioned fairy cake.

20 May 2010

New Indonesian Pepper Just Arrived at Steenbergs

I read a book last year called “The Scents of Eden” by Charles Corn – it’s a history of the spice trade.  It was great as the perspective was different from the histories that I had read in the past which always wrote them from the angle of European...

08 May 2010

Recipe For Rhubarb Crumble

Rhubarb is one of the first signs of the fruitfulness of the new season, and I really love rhubarb - we have always had lovely rhubarb at home.  There's a Steenberg family story that our sweet rhubarb came from the Russian Royal family, however I per...

03 May 2010

Great British Ice Cream Parlours

One of the great changes caused by the decline of agriculture in the UK has been farmer diversification, and one of the wonderful changes made by dairy farmers has been home-made ice cream.  Some of these are real gems.

02 May 2010

New Organic Vanilla From Tahiti

We've had a delivery of some gorgeous fecund organic vanilla from Tahiti.  It's brilliant kit and it's totally different from normal organic vanilla from Madagascar - firstly, it's a different species of vanilla orchid, called Vanilla tahitensis as a...

19 April 2010

Steenbergs Listed in Rose Prince's Latest Book

Rose Prince has been really lovely and kind and listed us twice in her new book - The Good Food Producers Guide 2010 - under Drinks and under Delis and Specialists.  We always feel flattered - and a bit embarassed - when someone so influential likes ...

07 April 2010

Recipe - Sweet Tart Dough or Sweet Pastry

I am not very good at making pastry.  Some people say that you need cold hands to make pastry and dough, but I have warm hands as I seem always to be burning away all that food - perhaps I just never sit still or my metabolism runs too fast.