Back to Basics

Vegetable stock. We eat lots of soup especially in the
seemingly never-ending British winter and as I don't
eat meat good vegetable stock is always in demand.
This week's vegetable box provided all the right
ingredients so made a double batch - one to use fresh
and one to freeze.

A little bit of what you fancy does you good

We are not great pudding eaters in this house - not because
we don't like pudding more because we don't like the extra
effort in the gym required when too much pudding is consumed!
These, however were perfect, quick and easy to make and
small enough to cause no guilt trips (and to eat two days in a row)
I used very dark chocolate because it is my favourite - in
summer these would be good with freshly picked raspberries.

Healthy and tasty

Although the Christmas chocolate still lingers
and the urge to bake remains strong, it really is
time for some healthier options.
having kidded myself last week the lemon tart
met these requirements, delicious but not really
healthy, we had this salad for dinner. made with
cous cous, kidney beans, red peppers, spinach
and cauliflower it definitely fitted the healthy
requirement and both looked and tasted good
too.

Going going gone!

The favourite Christmas cookies this year
were definitely Nigella's Christmas Chocolate
Biscuits.
Basically chocolate shortbread with icing &
sprinkles on the top.
Two tins full - now nearly all gone - though
maybe I should make one more batch for
this weekend's visit to my mother-in-law -
a self confessed chocoholic.
A good excuse if ever I heard one!

Comfort Food

No time for blogging recently as children move out and others move back in!

Instead endless shifting of boxes, rebuilding flat pack furniture, rearranging the kitchen, the bathroom, the bedrooms in fact most of the house. Back to cooking and shopping for five - all adults now!

Sharing your house with your grown up children and their friends is both delightful and demanding!

Blissfully have three weeks away booked soon!

In the meantime comfort food - Marble cake for a birthday celebration and lavender biscuits from the Edible Garden

Yum.

Green fingers

Pesto grown from seed in homemade compost on the sunny kitchen windowsill.

Now ready to be transformed into delicious pesto -

Done

Gone

Birthday cake

Judging by the number of birthday cards I received featuring cakes most of my friends and family know well what the best part of birthday celebrations is in my opinion - the cake - this year's featured fat-free sponge with a filling made from fresh raspberries and mascarpone & a frosting made from cream cheese -Mmmmmm!

Lunch (2)

Aubergine and potato pie made

with tomatoes, green lentils &

this time we substituted fahita

spices for the recommended

curry powder. Serve with salad

yum

Comfort Food

As the big freeze continues life
centres round the joys of home.
Sunday morning saw me walking
though the snow to buy courgettes
(as the veg man couldn't get through
the snow!) and cooking courgette
and ricotta lasagne for Sunday lunch.

Dutch Apple Cake

Also made Dutch Apple Cake today - still
using apples from the garden which we
picked and stored in September.
Very yummy & fit the Autumnal theme of
the day quite well I thought!

And in the meantime.....

In between blogging holiday photos
I have been busy enjoying some of
the things you can't do on holiday!
Apricot muffins here - maybe I'll
bake my way through the
alphabet!

Jam today

Jam today and for many days to come following
our trip to the farm for raspberry-picking this
Sunday.
We had originally planned to go fruit-picking on
Saturday but were stopped by torrential rain
all afternoon. Sunday, however was dry & sunny
so we visited the farm shop for crusty bread and
ate ploughmans in the cafe there before picking
nearly four kilos of raspberries most of which are
now jam, some topping a raspberry & redcurrant
cake and some waiting to be made into puree for
freezing.

Food Glorious Food

Just returned from a weekend in Scotland
visiting family. The travelling was horrific -
anyone contemplating travelling by Easyjet
should take note that it is anything BUT easy!
In fact it is more like a giant obstacle course
with as many difficulties put it in the travellers
path as possible - the moral of the story is that
as ever you get what you pay for and when you
don't pay much you don't get much!
Travelling aside the weekend was fab especially
the food which included the puddings above
served on gorgeous flower printed plates.

Sunday Lunch

Roast for us means roast vegetables - here
with lots of salad - salad leaves also grown in
the garden - Yum!

Strawberry time

Yes its that time of year - we went strawberry-
picking last weekend and made loads of fabulous
strawberry jam the next day.
The rate it is disappearing at we may have to
make a return trip while it is still strawberry-
picking season!

New York Shopping

Bought these gorgeous tablemats in the sale
at Anthropologie while I was in New York.
back home they look even better than I
expected.

On my plate

This is how it looked on the plate!

On my plate

Spent this afternoon weeding -
not a regular occurence in our
garden. It was a gorgeous day
and good to be outside.
Supper was vegetable curry
using this week's booty from
the veg box.
Here's the picture in the book

Simple white bread

Bought a box of recipe cards on our
recent trip to Edinburgh. This was
recipe number one and tasted as
good as it looked.

In the Kitchen

Friday is a day of not much free time
in my house - first because it's a
working day - second because it's a
gym night so not much time for fun
stuff but Friday is also Veg box day
and this is what arrived today