Ice Cream Soda - A Bit of Nostalgia

You wouldn't readily think 'lets have an ice cream soda' but back in the day we used to visit a fabulous Italian ice cream parlour, we bought one ice cream soda between us and would always ask for a couple of straws and spoons. This wasn't because we were mean but based on trying to save enough money to get married and buy a house. The courtship was 15 months in total and I hadn't even reached my 21st birthday when we married.......on Cup Final Day! Hence two straws and two spoons.......happy days.

We have always made ice cream soda by placing a scoop of ice cream in the base of a tall glass and pouring over a can of cream soda, the ice cream floats and the cream soda creates a lovely frothy top. The Ben Shaws website recommend using a dash of grenadine syrup but I doubt we had even heard of 'grenadine syrup' in those days. I used Mackie's Traditional Ice Cream but there are lots of fun variations. Further information for ice cream soda and ice cream floats can be found on Wikipedia.

I would be really interested to hear your nostalgic story.

Stellar Colourtone 5 Piece Knife Block Set: Review

The Stellar Colourtone Knife Block Set has added a welcome splash of colour to my kitchen and is available in two on trend colourways lime green or classic black.

Five very useful every day kitchen knives make up the set: 7" Chefs Knife, 7" Bread Knife, 5½" Santoku Knife, 5" Steak Knife and a 3½ Utility Knife.  The knife blades are stainless steel, coated with an easy-release coating and are super-sharp.  The handles are two tone and soft grip for safety. Easy to clean either by hand or in the dishwasher.

Photograph showing the inside of the knife block.
The knives are stored safely and securely in a fibre knife block which is washable too.

Move over traditional knife blocks, this is the new way to store those every day kitchen knives safely and securely.  I have been using the knives on a daily basis and they feel comfortable and secure in the hand without fear of slipping whilst cutting fruit and vegetables. The knives come with a Lifetime Guarantee.

For further information and more Colourtone knife and knife block options, including knives with their own protective sheath, please visit Stellar Cookware.

Many thanks to Pam and Stellar Cookware for the knife block and knives.

Blind Veterans UK Fundraising Event - Tarts for Troops 29 June to 5 July 2013

Blind Veterans UK are asking if we would like to have fun in the kitchen between 29 June and 5 July.   Celebrities are joining in and are supporting the campaign by donating sweet and savoury tart recipes.

Find your own unique way to support Tart for the Troops whether this is at work, with friends or having a fun tarts and tea party! How about baking some tarts and selling them to help raise money for their charity. Tarts for Troops is a fun and easy way to support Blind Veterans UK. Just visit www.tartsfortroops.org.uk to register and for plenty of recipes and tips to make your event a huge success!

This year I have made Individual Pear Tarts - they are easy to make from just a few store cupboard and fridge ingredients.

Individual Pear Tarts best served warm with a dollop of  ice cream.

Makes 4 tarts:

Quarter of a block of shop bought puff pastry.
Apricot jam.
Large tin of pears - drained.
A few pieces of chopped ginger from a jar.

1. Preheat the oven to 200ºC.
2. Grease a baking tray. Drain the pears well and put to one side.
3. Roll the pastry into a narrow rectangle. Cut out four pear shapes leaving a narrow border all round the edges. Cut the pastry into four pear shapes a little larger than the pears. Place onto the greased tray.
4. Place a teaspoon of apricot jam in the centre of each pastry shape.  Place a pear on the pastry.
5. Cook for 12 minutes until risen and golden.
6. Chop the stem ginger into small pieces. Brush each pear and the pastry with more apricot jam. Top each pear with chopped ginger.

Strawberry and Chocolate Cupcakes: Recipe

I've eaten more chocolate this year because the winter went on and on, I'm not a chocolate snob, but a bar of Lindt Excellence Strawberry Intense Dark Chocolate is hard to beat. The chocolate has pieces of freeze dried strawberries running through, it smells of summer and reminds me of strawberries dipped in chocolate.

The strawberries for the cupcakes were bought but it
shouldn't be too long before I am picking my own strawberries

For the vanilla cupcakes:

Makes: 9 cupcakes

You will need: 12 hole muffin tin lined with 9 cupcake cases

115g softened butter, 115g caster sugar, 2 eggs, 115g self raising flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon vanilla essence.

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
2. Place all the ingredients into a bowl and beat together with an electric mixer for two minutes.
3. Spoon into 9 cupcake cases and bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Cool.

For the vanilla buttercream:

You will need:

175g softened unsalted butter, 350g sifted icing sugar, 1 tsp vanilla extract.

1. Beat the butter in a bowl to soften. Add the icing sugar gradually, add the vanilla extract, and beat until the icing is very smooth and pale in colour which will take 5 minutes using a stand mixer.

To decorate:

I used a 1M icing nozzle to pipe the buttercream. Cut a square of chocolate in half and place on the buttercream, top with a whole strawberry.

More recipes you may like:
White Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes
Chocolate Covered Coffee Beans Cupcakes
Mini Strawberry Victoria Sponges

Photographs taken using the Nikon D3200.

Nigel Slater's Smoked Haddock with Potato and Bacon

You will definitely need more sauce on your plate than this!

We would happily eat this tasty meal any day of the week, my husbands name for this is 'posh fish and chips' and I agree.  Dyed smoked haddock is our choice because it always looks good on the plate.

A pan of fabulous bacon and chips

Smoked Haddock, cream, bay leaves and peppercorns

There is a very generous amount of sauce, we didn't waste one single drop - dunk some fabulous bread into any remaining sauce.

The Smoked Haddock with Potato and Bacon recipe can be found on the Guardian website.

I am entering this into Dish of the Month challenge hosted by Janice at Farmers Girl Kitchen and the host for June is Sue at A Little Bit of Heaven on a Plate.

Glazed Gammon Steaks with Pineapple Salsa

Remember Gammon and Pineapple?

This recipe is by those lovely chaps The Hairy Bikers - I like the Hairy Bikers', they make cooking fun and I love their recipes too.

Can you remember gammon, pineapple, egg and peas from the 70's? I used to eat this at the Leicester branch of Berni Inn which served British classic food, I'm surprised pubs still serve this retro classic.

The Hairy Bikers have given this classic a twist and poshed it up, they have glazed the gammon with honey and grain mustard (I used Dijon mustard), the fresh pineapple salsa takes this dish to another level.

No chips this time round but potato wedges, fried egg and of course peas.

Hairy Bikers Glazed Gammon Steaks with Pineapple Salsa recipe can be found on the BBC Food Website.

Eating Places APlenty Back in the 1970's in Leicester - I have very fond memories of some of these places especially the Pancake House.

Easy Food Recipe: Stilton Beef Burgers

Making your own burgers is really easy and home made are always best. I have always made mine because I like to know exactly what goes into them. For those moments when you crave a burger this freshly made easy food from the kitchen for a stay at home Friday or Saturday evening, is perfect. The melting Stilton Cheese in the burgers is simply delicious.

I like my bacon well done for this recipe but if it looks too well done for you, then simply cook for less time. Left over Stilton Cheese and the uncooked burgers will freeze perfectly.  To take this food to another level I would make the burger buns and the coleslaw but for fast food days Marks and Spencer is my one stop shop.

Serves: 2

250g best quality lean mince beef
1/2 small red onion, finely chopped
50g cubed Stilton cheese
25g fresh breadcrumbs
1 tbsp chopped chives
1 tsp Worcester sauce
pinch chilli powder
1/2 beaten egg
2 rashers smoked back bacon
Mayonnaise
Salad leaves
2 Burger Buns

1. Preheat the oven to 200ºC.
2. Mix the mince beef, onion, breadcrumbs, chives, Worcester sauce, cubes of Stilton cheese and chilli powder together. Add half the beaten egg to the mixture. Season.
3. Shape into two burgers. Line a tray with clingwrap place the burgers on the lined tray and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to chill.
4. Remove the burgers from the cling wrap, grease the tray, place the burgers on the tray.
5. Grease a small tray and place the bacon rashers on.
6. Place both trays in the oven and cook for 20 minutes, turn the bacon over half way through the cooking time.
7. Cut the burger buns in half and toast one side only.
8. Spread mayonnaise over each bun half. Place a layer of salad leaves on the base, top with a cooked burger, take a bacon rasher and place on top of the burger.
9. Serve with potato wedges sprinkled with paprika.

Joseph Joseph Elevate Spatula Set: Review

Presented in a gift box

I have been sent this fabulous Joseph Joseph Spatula Set to review from the online retailer Find Me A Gift.  This is a very useful kitchen set, they all have weighted handles and a built in tool rest which elevates the spoon off the kitchen work surface to prevent the spoon messing the surfaces up.

They are made of polypropylene and the spoon/spatulas have flexible silicone heads. Easy to wash up but they will go into the dishwasher and are heat resistant to 340C. If you have lots of non-stick pans these are perfect for stirring.

Useful for stirring, mixing and serving.

The middle size spatula is perfect for removing all the cake batter from the mixing bowl.

The small spatula is useful for spreading out cake batter.

Great serving up spoon

The Review:

Pros:
Trendy colours
Excellent Quality Product
Innovative
They can be stored on wall hooks
No transfer of flavours
No discolouring
Easy to clean

Cons:
Nothing obvious


Thank you to Find Me A Gift for the review sample.  Find Me A Gift price £19.99 for the set.

Ben & Jerry's Twitter Moosical

Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Fun!

Posting Courtesy of Kitchen Delights London Reporter

The Ben & Jerry’s Twitter Moosical graced London’s stage a couple of weeks ago, to mark a cool 35 years in the ice cream business.

Improvisational  Group Abandoman

Joining a group of other foodie bloggers, we were treated to lots of ice cream and improvisational group Abandoman, who crafted the worlds first Twitter Moosical based on audience tweets.

The night was really interactive with Tweet Deck projected onto the wall and any way you could milk a pun into a pop song or film – the better, as you might just see it featured in the Moosical.

Which one will you choose?

Now apart from all the yummy flavours they create, one of the things I love most about this brand is that the guys who created Ben & Jerry’s started out having spent just 5 dollars on an ice cream course and secondly, they really do care for their cows. Did you know they get moosoosed (massaged) to keep them happy cows?

As ever, Ben & Jerry's events are a lot of fun, check out the video below of the evening and you will get to see me being interviewed!

A huge thanks to Ben & Jerry's for a fabulous event.

Cherry and Almond Victoria Sandwich: Recipe

Today is World Baking Day - I didn't #bakebrave and step out of my comfort zone because I was drawn towards this lovely cake after seeing it on the front cover of Waitrose Kitchen May Magazine.

These days I'm not quite so keen on cakes slathered in cream, I prefer to whip up a small pot of whipping cream, then add an equal amount of natural yogurt to the cream and whip again until thick. Once you have tried the cream and yogurt filling I think you may well find you will always use this method.

A while back I was chosen to be a World Baking Day Ambassador and I chose to make a chocolate heart cake for this event. A couple of people on twitter have kindly sent me tweets with photographs of their chocolate heart cakes and I'm really pleased they had fun baking my cake.

Adapted Recipe

225g margarine
225g caster sugar
225g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
4 eggs
1 tsp almond extract
2 tbsp milk
2 tbsp flaked almonds

For the filling:

425g can black cherries in light syrup (drained and juice reserved)
Approx 1 tsp arrowroot
150ml whipping cream
150ml natural yogurt
Icing sugar for dusting

1. Preheat the oven 180ºC. Grease 2 x 18cm sandwich tins, base line with parchment paper.  Dust the inside of the cake tin with flour and tip out the surplus flour.
2. In a large bowl add the butter, caster sugar, sieved flour, baking powder, eggs, almond extract and milk.  Using an electric hand whisk, beat for 2 minutes until smooth.
3. Divide the batter between the two tins, scatter the flaked almonds over one of the cakes.
4. Bake for 25 minutes until golden.  Leave the cooked cakes in the tins for 10 minutes.  Turn out and place on a cooling rack.
5. To make the filling:  Put 1 tsp arrowroot into a small basin and mix to a paste with a few teaspoons of the reserved cherry syrup.  Place the drained cherries into a small pan with approx four tablespoons of the reserved syrup and heat gently.  Add the arrowroot mixture to the pan and stir to thicken.  If it is too thick add more of the syrup, or too thin mix more arrowroot with a few teaspoons of reserved syrup and add again to the pan.  Remove from the heat and cool.
6. Whisk the cream until floppy add the yogurt, whisk again until floppy.
7. On the base cake spread over the cherry compote.  Top with the cream mixture.
8. Place the cake sprinkled with almonds top.  Dust with the icing sugar.