24 August 2010

Recipe For Business Success Cake

I am a fan of those little self-published recipe books as within them you often get real recipe gems that have been handed down from generation to generation within families.  You also get a lot of rubbish, as well, but a recipe book with even only o...

22 August 2010

Life Really Does Begin At Forty

I am 42 now and I have finally worked out what the phrase "life begins at forty" means.  It came as a Pauline moment as I was driving home the other day.  It really means that you only ever plan your life until you get to about 40 years old*, so now...

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...

15 August 2010

Recipe For Milk Shake

You spend hours and hours creating delicious home cooked food from scratch, buying the best ingredients you can find, then you hear you kids discussing the best type of chocolate or sweet and flavour of crisps (chips) in the back of the car*.  You fe...

15 August 2010

Electoral Systems For The UK (Part 2)

...This follows on from last week's blog

14 August 2010

Recipe For Coronation Chicken

I had been looking for an excuse to try a recipe that I had pulled out of The Daily Telegraph from Xanthe Clay's hunt for the Best British Recipes.  It is that classic of British fusion cooking and sentimentality for bygone Imperialism (rightly or wr...

13 August 2010

Where's The Economy Really At?

I have been intrigued by comments by Mervyn King and others about the state of the economy, as I am not sure whether they ever take into account the real situation for small companies.  So I thought I would briefly blog some notes about Steenbergs at...

12 August 2010

Elsewhere In The Blogosphere - July 2010 (Part 2)

...I have done some culling of food blogs that I am following, where activity seems to have died down, while adding one new blog, Lemonpi, which has caught my eye, rather belatedly.

11 August 2010

Elsewhere In The Blogosphere - July 2010 (Part 1)

With the summer fruit rolling in, Raspberry Jam is being made at A Slice of Cherry Pie, while at Cannelle et Vanille Aran is inspired by a simple bowl of frozen raspberries and bakes delicious Gluten Free Raspberry Scones and a fancy Heirloom Tomato,...

08 August 2010

Electoral Systems For The UK (Part 1)

I was roundly castigated for being a political ignoramus with my first look at electoral reform, which was probably sound.  However, far from being deterred, I still want to continue to try and understand the debate in spite of the heckling, and see...

07 August 2010

Recipe For Almond Cake

This recipe began with a blog post from David Lebovitz, who wrote that his desert island food would be Almond Cake.  So with great anticipation, I tried his recipe several weeks back, but while Sophie and I loved the marzipan-almond luxury and the ol...

04 August 2010

Wheelbirks Ice Cream

01 August 2010

Nutmeg And Mace Spice In Photos

Nutmeg and mace are two of those mysterious spices that are really, unusual in where they come from.  They also have many strange stories attached to them - they used to be thought of as part of a cure for the plague and are reputed to be a key ingre...

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...

30 July 2010

Biodegradable Tea Bags

It was brought to our attention recently that some tea bags are not really biodegradable as they use polypropylene glues to seal the edges of the tea bags.  This is only the case for tea bags that are heat sealed in the tea bagging process.  The tea...

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...

25 July 2010

Of Cheese In Dumfries And Galloway