Cocktail

Manhattan with Brandied Cherry

This is one man of a Manhattan with home-made brandied cherries. It looks and tastes deliciously sophisticated. I love cherries, but I hate those sickly sweet red ones, that they give you in cheap cocktails. They just taste of sugar and have a really weird texture. I sometimes wonder if they’re even cherries… So for this recipe, I decided to soak some fresh cherries in brandy, cinnamon, and orange zest to create the most …

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Bon Appetit

Photo courtesy of Bon Appetit   People often ask me how I get inspired to create my recipes. Well some of my inspiration comes from weird and wacky places like kids toys, movies or events, but more often, it comes from eating out. I prefer to dine in restaurants that are noted for their creative food rather than places with the same blah menus. As many food bloggers will agree, …

Snack

Courgette Chips with Garlic Mayonnaise

As a food blogger, I am always interested to see what people are cooking. Vegetable crisps and fritters seem to be really popular online, at the moment. Courgettes have been featuring alot as they are plentiful and in season right now. I looked at a few different recipes and adapted my own based on the flavours I like.  I made my courgette chips covered in delicate panko breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese and …

Dinner

Broad Bean, Courgette and Feta Pasta

When I go home at the weekend, I come back laden with delicious fruit and veg from my dad’s garden. It’s always a nice challenge to figure out what I am going to cook with them. I find with fresh vegetables, you have to use them up quickly or they go bad -unlike vegetables from the supermarket which are sprayed with ‘God-knows-what-icide’ to preserve them for longer. I came up with this …

Snack

Cheese and Onion Tarts

Everyone has a guilty pleasure, for me it’s cheese and onion crisps and a glass of ice cold beer. Some combinations are just irresistible. Cheese and onion are the perfect mix of salty and sweet, which I can never get enough of it. I decided to interpret this into a more grown up snack in the form of a cheese and onion tart.

Cake

Mini Madeira Cakes

 Madeira cake is one of my favourites. It seems wholesome and homely, even if it is full of butter and sugar! My grandad used to love a hunk of Madeira with a piping hot tea, sweetened with half a bowl of sugar. I made these little cakes for the OH, as he too likes a plain and simple cake. I came home that evening and found him spreading butter onto …