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...
Read moreCooking 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...
Read moreI 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...
Read moreI 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...
Read moreThis 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...
Read moreNutmeg 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...
Read moreI have a confession to make - I am not a big walker that likes to conquer hills and mountains, even if I know I should be striding forth across moorland and up mountains. I am not a walker that goes into the hills for the beauty of nature; I ge...
Read moreWe have been asked for some time whether we could source a pomegranate molasses and I am nearly there on that. One of our current suppliers, who is based in Beirut in the Lebanon, sent us a sample of Concentrated Pomegranate Juice which is the same...
Read moreAt Chocolate & Zucchini, there is a delicious sounding recipe for sablés from Yves Camdeborde's book Dimanche et Famille. Clotilde Dusolier's blog then sent me around various links on her site to several other biscuit recipes that sound fantasti...
Read moreEngland's football team were abject last Sunday, but the Chocolate And Nutella Tart recipe from the French patisserie chef, Pierre Hermé, was the perfect compensation - sweet, rich and complex in taste that left you just wanting more. In one of my p...
Read moreSometimes you visit some people, who really are so good and wonderful that it shames you a bit. The people at Jennyruth Workshops are some of those unsung heroes that underpin every society in the world; they just get on with it, doing good work, da...
Read moreHaving 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...
Read moreSaturday, a cold Saturday a few weekends ago that felt like winter but was meant to be almost midsummer. It felt like a good day to start trying to find the Steenberg family's favourite burger recipe. We tried three recipes which we taste tested si...
Read moreWe are always looking for ways to liven up chicken to feed the kids - simple, tasty and quick & easy family food. This recipe is something I devised for Sweet Barbecue Style Chicken Legs is so quick to make that our children both love to help to...
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