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Easter Biscuits
Of course, there are Easter traditions all round the world. My friend Trish recently gave me a packet of mahlep seeds which, in Greece, are used together with a resin called mastic (pistacia lentiscus) to flavour an Easter bread. Here we use cassia oil to flavour Easter biscuits. There is some thought that Easter biscuits…
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Pancakes
Yesterday was Shrove Tuesday and time for pancakes. With the addition of Cointreau we turned them into Crêpes Suzette. Enough batter was left over to have pancakes with lemon and sugar for breakfast this morning. A great treat from my childhood were my mother’s pancakes; she used to add currants to hers but we just…
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Seville and Bergamot Marmalade
Things come in waves. One day, there were the Hairy Bikers on television tasting bergamots in Italy and then I find bergamots on sale in my local greengrocers and again in Waitrose. Nigella Lawson too has found bergamots. In At My Table, her latest book, she writes, ‘(bergamont) has a mild, almost sweet heat and…
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Roasted Sweet Potato and Squash
I have more than one recipe using roasted sweet potato and coriander. This is my favourite. We had it on Sunday for lunch, served with a rack of lamb. Aleppo chillies are a great discovery – and not just my find but also Nigella Lawson’s as mentioned in The Times (18 January 2018). She writes,…
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Warm salad of spiced kale,wheat and Puy lentils
It has been the winter of lentils. I love them in soups, Mujaddara (a very favourite recipe already given) and salads. Cumin has been my favourite spice – so this dish was bound to please. Big bags of kale are in every supermarket; an encouragement to start a new, healthy regime in the early weeks…
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Whole Cauliflower with Muhammara
This week (January 2018) there has been outrage that M & S should be charging £2.50 for a slice of cauliflower ‘to roast’ plus a few extras. Buy a whole cauliflower and have fun! I have just found a brilliant recipe from the pile of cuttings which I am ruthlessly editing. Thomasina Miers is always…
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Shepherd’s Pie
It was a great surprise to receive an email from a German student who had stayed with us over six years ago. Viola is now a highly qualified engineer on a global scale. We hope to see her in Bath if she has any free time on a visit to England. She remembered my Shepherd’s…
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Bolognese sauce
Sorting out bits of paper to send to my accountant before the end of January, I am finding much more tempting reminders of events during the last tax year. The Times from March 2017 carries the headline, The Great Bolognese Battle which all started with Mary Berry admitting she added cream and white wine to…
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Spicy Fish and Tomato Pie
New Year’s Eve supper with our friends Penny and Peter had to be cancelled. Instead we had an Epiphany Lunch. Cooking for lunch is always much more relaxed and this was no exception. 750g tomatoes, preferably plum tomatoes,skinned and chopped Olive oil 1 onion, finely chopped 1½ tsp fennel seeds 1 tsp kaloonji seeds (optional)…
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Bergen Fish Soup (Bergensk Fiskesuppe)
An exciting Christmas for us this year, spending two days in Bergen and then heading north on a Hurtigruten cruise to Tromsø. Bergen is famous for its rain which didn’t disappoint. The weather was mild until we crossed the Arctic Circle. Then it was cold and Northern Lights appeared dancing around in the night sky.…