From the category archives:

Ingredients

Gabriela’s Oat Cookies: dairy-free, soya-free, egg-free, nut-free

December 10, 2010

These are my 12 year old daughter’s cookies, she makes them all the time and in fact the ones without the raisins on this post are ones she’s made. The difficulty when having to find a recipe for egg-free, dairy-free and other exclusions is to find something that taste as good as normal ones. These […]

Read the full article →

Will the real Sour Tamarind please stand up?

November 27, 2010

Last night I got myself into a state of confusion over tamarind and it was preventing me from falling asleep. By now it has become a familiar statement of mine hasn’t it? The subject of food…just add me to the mix…and the result? Confusion on my part! That’s ok with me. I get confused, I […]

Read the full article →

Bronze Die Pasta and a little Pasta History

November 3, 2010

I do long post and here’s another long one. I have used Bikerboy as my boredom-meter and he said his eyes weren’t quite glazing over but certainly there was information over-load for him! This post started because I wanted to blog about bronze die pasta which meant finding out about durum wheat and that was […]

Read the full article →

Fresh Figs – Black Bursa Figs

October 9, 2010

These large squatted shaped black figs are regarded as the best in the fig world. It’s sweetness, the ratio of flesh to thin skin makes this moisture laden variety of figs very popular among fig lovers like me. For such fragile fruit this particular type transport well and I’m guessing that’s also part of the […]

Read the full article →

Difference in Quality: Can of Beans

October 1, 2010

I’m always amazed on the difference in quality of tinned products, and to prove my point here’s three examples from two local supermarkets. The phrase “you get what you pay for” is true sometimes, other times I’ve paid good money for produce both non-organic and organic and quite frankly I’ve ended up with a poor […]

Read the full article →

Bambinella Pears, the Mini Pear

September 18, 2010

I have the feeling I’ve been mostly attracted to mini fruits of late, there were the mirabelles, doughnut peaches, doughnut nectarines and now these little pears, and like the mini nectarines I have never heard of them before. OK, so there’s a lot I haven’t heard of…but pears are something I’m always on the look […]

Read the full article →

Mirabelle Plums

September 10, 2010

My favourite jam is made with either mirabelle plums or greengages, also from the family of plums. It’s very hard to get hold of mirabelle jam where I live and for that reason it will go straight into my shopping trolley if I spot it, if you come across the St Dalfour range you may […]

Read the full article →

Doughnut, Donut Nectarines

August 31, 2010

I saw these for the very first time today. Have never seen or heard anyone coming across them before. I had to go into High Holborn to the divorce courts again, fourth time now, for a copy of my absolute, again…you see…I said things weren’t straight forward. I was walking along Kingsway just past the […]

Read the full article →

Doughnut Peaches, Donut Peaches, UFO Peaches

August 1, 2010

I fell in love with these white flesh peaches seven years ago in Lake Guarda, Northern Italy on my first holiday with Bikerboy. In a picture perfect town called Limone with hilly cobble streets leading to the blue waters of the lake. They were sublime. White peaches have an amazing sweet fragrant flesh and these […]

Read the full article →

Fresh Garlic

May 4, 2010

Around these parts my favourite spring blossom is at its end, the magnolia flower. I don’t know what your favourite spring blossom is but I find the magnolia flower beautiful and elegant and on closer inspection they appear to be sculpted like very fine china. Their elongated curved shape is something I could never tire […]

Read the full article →

Mango Amelie Not An Alphonso But Still Worth Eating

April 25, 2010

I came across this type of mango ‘Amelie’ from Burkina Faso on one of my shopping trips (had to look up where Burkina Faso was) and looking at the skin alone they promised to be different from the usual fibrous large types we normally see here, Kent is one of the fibrous varieties grown in […]

Read the full article →

Blue Cheese Sablés, Cheese Biscuits, Cheese Crisps or Cheese Wafers

February 28, 2010

Any recipe that starts with equal amounts of ingredients always makes my ears prick up and pay attention….it’s my simple mind you see it needs all the help it can get, the less I have to remember….the less I forget! I had a good blue cheese sablés recipe in a book I’ve lost, and I […]

Read the full article →

Dark Milk White Chocolate Cookies – Triple Chocolate Cookies

January 7, 2010

OK Forget reading the whole post….I just get sucked into details and go blah blah when I like something. I’m starting this posting back to front, I’ve just read what I’ve posted and it’s rather long. Because I don’t want that to get in the way of anyone trying this recipe, I’m just going to […]

Read the full article →