01 June 2010

Steenbergs Has Improved Our Range Of Household Cleaning Products

Did you know that one of my first jobs was in the Pets & Cleaning Department in Fenwick's in Newcastle?  And ever since, I have had a strange and haunting obsession for Household Cleaning products.  Well, I am not really that fascinated in them,...

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.

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. 

31 March 2010

New Penja Pepper from the Cameroon in Western Africa

I’ve got some new peppers and as usual I am bit over-giddy about it.  These ones are classic Piper nigrum – the traditional pepper plant for normal black, white and green pepper.   Usually, we get our black pepper from India and Sri Lanka, but these...

27 March 2010

Recipe - Hot Cross Buns

I have always bought our hot cross buns from the baker or the supermarket, which just seems a bit too lazy really, so I thought I would have a bash at making them myself this year.

14 March 2010

Recipe for Simnel Cake

Today is Mother's Day and what a glorious sunny, Spring day it has been.  We gave Sophie a gorgeous bouquet of flowers - white roses, lilies and greenery - and went to church for a Mothers' Day Service, a bit of a rarity for me.  I liked the sentimen...

11 March 2010

Enjoying Tasting Oolong Tea

Today it's a sunny day with a warming, clear fresh light and a blue sky.  This is great weather to look at tasting oolong teas from China and Taiwan (sometimes called Formosa by tea drinkers).  The clear light allows you to see the subtle colour diff...

09 March 2010

Two Media Mentions In The Guardian

Steenbergs was mentioned two articles this weekend in The Guardian which was most kind of the two authors - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Yotam Ottolenghi - so thank you both. 

05 March 2010

Recipe For Granny Salad Or Cucumber Salad

Following on from the recipe for Yorkshire Salad, my mum makes a wonderfully refreshing cucumber salad, which has a similar sweet and sour flavour.  It's lovely in the summer for al fresco dining and great with fish all your around.

03 March 2010

Recipe For Yorkshire Salad

We have been discussing the ins and outs of Yorkshire Salad, and some of the different variations, including a very similar recipe called Granny Salad which Sandra (one of our amazing spice packers) was handed down from her Granny in Devon.  Sadie -...

25 February 2010

Recipe for Vanilla Fudge and Coconut Ice

I know this is really quite pathetic but I have only just cracked how to make fudge in the last year.  It always seemed to burn every time I tried to make it - the problem is that most recipes don't give the mixture long enough for the sugar to be tr...

15 February 2010

Recipe - Pancakes Stuffed With Mixed Mushrooms In A Cheese Sauce

Following on from making pancakes per Sunday's post, we used the 8 pancakes, or crêpes, that this made by stuffing them with a mushroom filling, covering them in a cheese sauce and baking them in the oven.  This is how we made it. 

14 February 2010

Classic Pancake Recipe

Shrove Tuesday is the traditional start of Lent.  It has become associated with pancakes in Britain and so everyone spends the day making pancakes.  We regularly make pancakes for breakfast which the kids then top with cinnamon sugar or lemon and sug...

09 February 2010

Recipe For French Macarons

I came across this recipe on the truly amazing food blog of the Californian pastry chef living in Paris - David Lebovitz - which can be found at http://www.davidlebovitz.com/.  And I have been meaning to have a crack at making his chocolate macarons...