It’s very easy to fall into the stir fry trap - a few veggies, maybe some meat and a jar of stir fry sauce. We all do it, but it can get boring very quickly! Sauces from a jar have their advantages, but making your own sauce can be just as quick and you can easily change it up to make an endless number of variations This is a sweet and spicy version – made using sweet chilli sauce, chillies and brown sugar - plus a few other goodies....
This recipe was sponsored by Le Rustique I think I’m more addicted to pasta than chocolate. I know - that doesn’t sound like something I’d say at all! But chocolate, I can pretty much save for the weekends. Pasta I NEED at least a few times a week. You can’t beat a good pasta bake. I have a few on the blog - like this cheesy pasta bake with chicken and bacon, or this creamy tuna pasta bake....
A Chinese Dim Sum dish fresh from the kitchen of Chris (yep, I let him loose in the kitchen, and I even filmed him too!! - check out the video below), we have these AMAZING prawn toast (or shrimp toast if you’re in the US) triangles. Stuffed with a juicy prawn filling and fried until moreishly crisp (then dipped in sweet chilli sauce, or my homemade sweet chilli jam!). I love these things....
My kids still think retro is a little bit cool, as is ‘old-school’ and ‘vintage’. I love how using a certain word can evoke a certain feeling that would be completely different if another word with the same meaning was used. If I show my daughter a jacket or shoes from 20 years ago and call them vintage, she wants them. But if I told her they were from ‘back in the day’ they’re considered musty, old and unfashionable....
I don’t really remember cakes featuring heavily. There was the annual homemade Christmas cake of course, and some special occasions called for a trifle with a Cadbury flake sprinkled on top, but for the most part we were quite a savoury family. I think my mum still scratches her head and wonders how that led to my sister becoming an awesome cake maker, and me spending a little too much of my time creating and writing about chocolatey, sticky, cakey things....
This is actually one of Chris’s recipes. Have I mentioned before he’s a cook too? I’m a lucky girl. 🥰 His Chilli Con Carne is always on recipe rotation, we must have it at least once every 2 weeks and I LOVE the Sesame Prawn Toast he makes too. So onto his delicious apple crumble recipe. The cooking apples will break down more during the cooking process and the eating apples will retain a bit more texture giving the perfect apple sauce center to the crumble....
What defines the perfect baked potato? For me it’s: Crispy, crunchy skin, that stays crisp (and doesn’t turn chewy after 5 minutes out of the oven).Tasty skin - the skin is JUST as important as the interior. It’s not something to be left behind on the plate.Fluffy, tender interior - goes without saying. I want the perfect texture to mash my salted butter into.Timing also has a small part to play....
You know when you go to a restaurant for a sunday dinner, how disappointing is it when the roasties aren’t crispy! They’re just a bit browned and chewy at the edges, instead of having that satisfying crunch. So disappointing!! Nope, give me homemade roasties any time. I want that crunchy exterior you can only get from fluffing up those edges and letting them bubble away in hot fat, with a fluffy, light interior....
What is it about pomegranates that just make a meal look so enticing? I think it’s because pomegranates = sophistication. They’re the culinary fruit equivalent of diamonds. I’ve been a bit obsessed with them recently - even adding them to my hot smoothies. My bottle of pomegranate molasses however, has - until now - sat in the cupboard, unopened, for about 2 years. I always meant to use it, along with the ras el hanout, the dusty jar of artichokes and that packet of strawberry Angel Delight (every adult in the UK ate this mousse-made-from-milk-and-powder throughout their childhood)....
Beware, these Vegetable Matchstick Fries are dangerous! Long past the point you feel full, you’ll still be tipping your head back to add another handful into your mouth. I went with a mixture of regular potato, sweet potato and beetroot for these fries, but you can use carrot, parsnip, celeriac - basically any hard veggies that won’t fall apart when being fried. Slice them up really thinly using a mandoline (or by hand if you really want to - although it takes ages…....
Be warned – this is a loooong post! I started this year probably like most people - a little heavier after the Christmas season. My husband and I are so terrible at sticking to diets though. Most years we’ll try our best to diet for the month of November. The end of November is our anniversary and we usually go away for a night or two to a nice hotel – so it’s nice to have an occasion to keep us motivated, whilst also having a bit of leeway for Christmas....
Summer really isn’t trying very hard this year. A few lovely days, then back to rain and clouds again. I’m still living in hope of summer-dress-wearing-sangria-drinking-BBQ-eating days throughout July and August before I start to live off stews and soups and custard covered puddings. This gorgeous Broad Bean and Quinoa Caprese Salad is one of my ways of telling myself it’s JULY!! Days out, beer gardens, picnics, dinner outside. I’m channeling all the positive vibes....
Isn’t homemade chicken noodle soup just so inviting! You know you’re going to get covered in splatters, and that there’s simply no way of eating it elegantly. You will have broth dribbling down your chin and impossibly long noodles hanging out of your mouth. But it doesn’t matter. Everybody else is in the same boat, and it tastes just so flippin good that it’s worth being subjected to the toddler-esque napkin tucked in the neck of your t-shirt....
If you’re craving something rich and creamy, and more importantly, fast, for supper, this is the dish for you. I love a good creamy pasta sauce and the addition of mushrooms and garlic make this my perfect weeknight indulgence, and it’s on the table in fifteen minutes. I’m the only mushroom lover in our family, so it’s nice to have an easy mushroom dish that I can whip up when Chris and the kids are having something else (usually something I’m not overly fussed about - like pizza (I know, shock horror!...
I can totally eat this for dinner with nothing else. Yes it makes a beautifully indulgent side dish with steak or salmon or roast lamb, but a double helping of this glorious dish, eaten whilst sat on the sofa in my PJs? Heaven. What do we need? Steps to make it (Full ingredients and recipe instructions in recipe card below) Potato Gratin is often a term used interchangeably with dauphinoise potatoes....
Personally the duck course is usually my favourite when we go out for Chinese. We all fight over the last bits of meat and wonder why we only ordered a quarter or a half of duck between us (even though we know full well that we haven’t even got to the main course yet). So today I’m presenting my own version of Peking duck. A whole duck for a fraction of the price it costs in a Chinese restaurant, and less squabbling because we all get a nice big portion!...
Why the heck is this my first falafel recipe on the blog? I make falafel (falafel? falafels? I don’t know the plural) all the time! I think I’ve made various falafel recipes for other pieces of freelance work, so I just presumed I had one somewhere on the blog. But nope. Truly sorry I’ve let you down. So I’m remedying the situation with this falafel salad bowl from my new Seriously Good Salads book (I’ve also shared my Salmon Sushi Bowl and Chimichurri Steak Salad from the book if you want to check them out)....
A hugely popular South-East Asian appetizer, beef satay skewers are the king of street food.There are many different versions out there - depending on the region. This recipe is for Singapore-style beef satay - which is skewered marinated beef with a creamy peanut sauce. If you’re currently dreaming of being outdoors, wandering around, eating delicious food from that amazing-smelling food stall, then this is the recipe for you! What is satay meat?...
I’m feeling a little starstruck at the moment - one of my blogger buddies - Ren Behan - has her new cookbook out today! I was sent an early copy to review (please note, this isn’t a paid review, and all opinions are my own), and wow! So many scrummy recipes! Amongst about a hundred other things, I was tempted to make her strawberry, honey and pistachio pierogis (which grace the front cover), but then I spotted the Hunter’s stew - the Polish national dish often known as bigos....
Just the thing when I’m craving lots of crunchy vegetables, but still want a dinner that’s tasty and filling enough for dinner.You can add in your favourite veggies to create a dinner that will use up all of those refrigerator bits! Crunchy vegetables are the BEST in this - so be sure to keep the stir-fry time down to a minimum. A brilliant veggie-packed dinner. Of course if you prefer a meaty version, I have a sweet and sour chicken and a sweet and sour pork recipe too!...
