Crostata is a traditional Italian tart, usually filled with jam, but sometimes with ricotta cheese, nuts and poached fruit. The pastry is silky smooth, and the jam filling sweet and fruity. We make dried apricot conserve at our place as the filling, but you can use any not-too-sweet, good quality jam. Don’t be put off by the…
Read MoreBoth my husband’s family and mine have a long tradition of growing citrus trees and making mouth puckeringly tart lemon and lime curd. The limes I used for this recipe were picked from the tree just before I made the curd. I have toned the amount of juice down a little in this recipe because…
Read MoreThis dish is full of bright, clean flavours – chilli, ginger, and coriander – but it also has complexity and depth because of the subtle aniseed flavour and caramel overtones in the broth. We love the textures and flavours at our place, especially the slurpability of the noodles, the crunchy fried shallots and the tenderness…
Read MorePumpkin is a staple vegetable in my part of the world, used much more for savoury dishes than sweet. There are a number of varieties that I use in my cooking but my favourite is Jap or Kent pumpkin which has a yellow-orange flesh that is soft and dry and a nutty flavour with natural…
Read MoreScrumptious is the word I would use to describe this cake. It is rich and buttery but not heavy or stodgy, and the lemon and almond give subtle but distinctive flavour overtones. Cranberries are one of my favourite dried fruits because although they are sweetened they still have lots of tang. The cake keeps well and…
Read MoreThis fresh and fruity cous cous is a winner at our place. It goes well with tagines, or as an accompaniment to grilled lamb or chicken. I also like to offer it as an alternative to potato salad at a barbeque. Miss Eleven even takes it for her school lunch. I have also recently found…
Read MoreTruly, this gelato takes less than five minutes to make and tastes absolutely amazing. Raspberries, along with peas are, in the words of Jennifer Paterson of Two Fat Ladies fame, the true successes of the frozen food world. When combined with just a little icing sugar, the juice of a lime and a touch of…
Read MoreAs I was making these scones I remembered with love all the women who have had input into my scone recipe over many years. I thought of my grandmother who made a beautifully light pumpkin scone and taught me how to use just the right amount of flour when cutting out scones. I saw my friend…
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Eggplants are a favourite of mine and I find their deep, shiny colour, complex flavour and silky texture quite compelling. For two summers I have grown eggplants in my vegetable patch and they have yielded sensationally. The fruit of the variety I grow is generally long and slender, although sometimes a big, round eggplant appears.…
Read MoreSummer is perfect for salads and many meals I make in this season revolve around a salad. It is easy, though, to slip into boring salad mode and turn out a perfectly nice, but ho-hum garden salad, just because it’s what first comes to mind. It’s no more effort to do something with a bit…
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Simple food 