02 November 2009

First Attempt At A Coffee Cake Recipe

We all like coffee cake, and Sadie in the office has been demanding one for ages (and without walnuts on the top), so we’ve decided to try various recipes to see if we can come up with our favourite recipe.  After all the effort of making it, she sai...

01 November 2009

Recipe For Pumpkin Pie

What to do with all that lovely pumpkin that you've got after scooping out your pumpkin, or just because they are such good value discounted in those shops that have overstocked.  This year we've made a classic pumpkin pie - which was deliciously ind...

30 October 2009

Carving Your Pumpkin At Halloween

Carving a pumpkin is really quite simple and (dare I say it) quite satisfying to do.  Here is how we do it in the Steenbergs household.

29 October 2009

Recipe For Homemade mincemeat - Countdown To Christmas

Mincemeat is delicious and really easy to make.  The aroma and flavour of homemade mincemeat is fantastic, making the shop-bought commercial stuff pale into insignificance – a travesty of taste, lacking in depth, rich or any booziness.

27 October 2009

New Fairtrade Organic Mulling Wine Sachets from Steenbergs

It might have caused me sleepless nights and given me an undue amount of heartache and stress, but Steenbergs new range of Mulling Wine Spices in sachets has finally arrived.  It's about 1½ months behind schedule and we have been having to disappoint...

25 October 2009

Stir It Up - Recipe For Christmas cake

It’s time for the Christmas countdown and preparations have now begun in earnest – it’s getting darker and the kids are now on half term. 

24 October 2009

Exotic Pepper From Around The World

I’ve been hunting for some specialist peppers in recent months.  That’s what some of the thrill of being a spice merchant is all about – hunting for the exotic, tracking it down and then getting it in.

23 October 2009

River Cottage everyday - a recommendation

Whilst shopping at Booths in Ripon today, I was waiting in the "10 items and under queue" and found this recommendation, and I was so pleased that I bought the book (£8 off cover price to boot):

22 October 2009

Recipe For Kulfi - The Perfect Indian Pudding

Of course, you need a pudding/sweet to round off the indulgence of a delicious, groaning table of delicately spiced Indian food.  Kulfi (Indian ice cream) has been made for ages and was served to the Moghul Emperors at their hedonistic courts in Delh...

23 September 2009

Recipe For Real Custard With Real Bourbon Vanilla Pod

As I said in my last blog, it's just got to be custard.  None of this cream or ice cream with real puddings, please.

21 September 2009

Recipe for Autumnal Apple Crumble

I love the melancholic atmosphere of this late summer time.  The leaves are beginning to turn a beautiful orangey-red and the air is turning cooler, yet it has a warm, damp smell to it. 

02 September 2009

New Spice Standards for Fairtrade

Fairtrade has issued new standards for Fairtrade spices which seem to be a recipe for chaos.  They basically say that you can trade any spice or herb as Fairtrade and that the Fairtrade price is the price agreed between the buyer and the seller.  A p...

26 August 2009

Back on the shop floor at Steenbergs

I am currently working back on the Steenbergs shop floor as our chief blender, Alan, is on his annual holiday somewhere in Greece.  It is great fun to be back where it all began, blending the blends that I’ve created over the years and grinding organ...

10 August 2009

Recipes for Peppermint Creams and Chocolate Strawberries

It’s been a weekend of baking and cooking for Jay’s birthday.  He had some specific requests for things plus we needed to get the sausages and baps for the proper “hot dogs”, ie not with boil in the bag frankfurters but real sausages and decent bread...

06 August 2009

Recipe For Vegetarian Lasagne With Spinach

Personally, I have never been a great fan of lasagne even if it is one of those firm family and probably national favourites.  But then again, I don’t like spaghetti bolognaise.  I am in a minority of 1 versus several hundreds of millions of people i...

05 August 2009

Eat More Greens

In recipes that people talk about and write about, there always seems a big focus on the extravagant meat dishes, a bit about fish and almost never that much about vegetables.  We certainly eat far too much meat for the balanced human diet and should...

30 July 2009

Herbs and Spices for Your Health

Herbal medicine has historically been the primary approach to acute and chronic health problems - this remains the case still in many countries.  We often forget that herbal medicine is the most enduring form of treatment and is still used by 80% of...

22 July 2009

Recipe - Fennel Braised In Milk

This is an unusual, but great, Italian style way of making fennel as a vegetable.  It’s really great with a traditional English roast chicken.