Whipped Pancakes
Sue had a sudden craving for pancakes the other day. I love pancakes, they’re so easy to make – just a flour, egg and milk batter, with a little sugar and pinch of salt stirred in, then fried in a little butter. What could be…
Recent Posts
Piccalilli
I made piccalilli yesterday and somebody asked for the recipe, so here goes: My piccalilli recipe is based on Gary Rhodes’ version from his , although my version has evolved a little over the years. I put rather less sugar in than he suggests, and…
Cooking The Prawn Cocktail Years
Having long stated that my favourite cook book ever is Simon Hopkinson and Lyndsey Bareham’s The Prawn Cocktail Years, I recently realised that it contained many recipes that I had still never tried. So, I have set myself a challenge – to cook every single recipe in the book over the next eighteen months or so. To document this little adventure, I’ve set up a new blog: Cooking The Prawn Cocktail Years. If you fancy following this experiment, including the story of how I spent this past weekend wrestling a Black Forest Gâteau into submission, please do wander over and take a look.
Nut Butter
It’s been a while since I tried making my own peanut butter, and so the other day I thought I’d give it another whirl. It really is incredibly simple to make, and as I have just rediscovered, the results are delicious. I really don’t know…
Home-made Tonic Water
A well-made Gin and Tonic has to be one of my all-time favourite drinks. Gin is surging in popularity at the moment and there are very many varieties on the market, each with their own qualities. Different varieties of good quality tonic water are rather…
Smoked Salmon
A little while ago, I bought myself a cold smoker, or more specifically, a ProQ Cold Smoke Generator. It’s quite an ingenious little device, and consists of a spiral channel which is filled with fine wood chips. Once lit, the wood chips slowly smoulder away, burning along the spiral path, generating the smoke as it goes. I’ve been eager to try it out, but summer kept hanging on, and it was best to wait for the temperatures to drop a little and for autumn to settle in properly. The temperature has finally started to drop and so I felt it was now time. But what should be the target of my inaugural smoke? Well, it didn’t take too much thought. It just had to be smoked salmon.
Prawn Crackers
Many visits to Chinese or Thai restaurants start off with a bowl of prawn crackers to nibble on while you browse the menu. The local Chinese takeaway throws a bag of them in with each takeaway order. They make for a pleasant light and fluffy…
Chocolate Marshmallow Teacakes
A few weeks ago, I posted my recipe for marshmallows. It proved to be quite a popular post, and a good few people have sent me messages about it. Recently, Lauren from CoffeeMuffins commented on the post, and mentioned her previous not-very-successful experience of making…