Recipes (my own and from reviewed recipe books), reviews of cookery books and cookery classes, food and kitchen equipment product reviews – if it’s about cooking or eating at home, it’s here!

Demarquette’s Tea & Coffee Chocolate Caramel Cups

6 comments

Known as Delights & Decadence, these tea and coffee chocolate caramel cups are one of London chocolatier Demarquette’s new ranges.   Marc cites his inspiration as “our nation’s symbolic and emotional attachment to the calming element and graceful event of ‘Afternoon Tea’” but doesn’t overlook the coffee-loving half of the population either. The set includes ... Read more »

British Apples in Season: Apple & Ginger Chutney

4 comments

As you may have gathered from my enthusiasm about visiting the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale recently, I am a big fan of apples and love to enjoy British apples in season. We planted a Cox’ Orange Pippin in our back garden a few years ago, and inherited a Bramley (cooking) apple and what we ... Read more »

Easy Butternut Squash Soup with Candied Bacon

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Although I find our Masterchef series has become dull and formulaic I really enjoy Masterchef Australia, hosted by Gary Mehigan, George Calombaris and Matt Preston. Although the occasional over-the-top sycophancy of some of the contestants can be a little grating, mostly they are just exhuberant and gung-ho in a way we seldom embrace in the ... Read more »

Spicy Sungold Tomato Ketchup

12 comments

I love home-made ketchup, and it’s even more satisfying making it from home-grown tomatoes. In the past, I’ve made several batches of ketchup with red tomatoes and a couple of batches with green ones but this is the first batch I’ve made with beautiful orange sungold tomatoes, a variety we’ve been growing for the last ... Read more »

Incorporating Organic Into Your Weekly Shop

14 comments

In the current economic climate, the easiest thing to say about organic food is that it’s expensive; there’s no getting around it – organic food is universally more expensive than its non-organic equivalents. (And there are good reasons for that, which I’ll come to later). But that’s not all there is to say about organic ... Read more »

Steenbergs Flavoured Salts

67 comments

Flavoured salts, also known as finishing salts, are a great way of adding flavour during cooking and, of course, when finishing a dish. Whilst it’s true that salt is salt, most commercially sold salt contains about 2% of something else and that 2% is enough to make a huge difference to flavour (not to mention ... Read more »