Thursday, March 28, 2013 at 06:52 
this is a great drink for the cold, gloomy and seemingly never ending winter that we’re having – it has a fresh summeriness that hints of the long warm days that are yet to come.
mix 2 shots apricot brandy, ½ shot freshly squeezed orange juice, 1 shot freshly squeezed lime juice and ¼ shot sugar syrup. shake with ice, strain and garnish with a slice of apricot (if they are in season!).
Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 06:01 
my second bergamot adventure was to use it for citrus salts. i read about these on these on 101 cookbooks and they are very exciting!
the idea is to mix flakey sea salt with citrus zest, dry it out in the oven so that the zest is completely dry and will crumble when rubbed between your fingers, and then use these to add an extra layer of flavour to your dishes, adding the salt at the table.
i used bergamot, blood orange and lime zests and, as a result, now have little jars of citrus salt that i can play with in various dishes. the first was used last night – blood orange salt to season a confit duck, fennel and blood orange salad. just wonderful.
Sunday, May 1, 2011 at 05:00 
apparently this should be drunk when “feeling particularly snooty” – i had mine while sitting out in the garden on a lazy sunny afternoon, without even a hint of snootiness, and it worked just fine.
shake with ice, 1½ shots gin, 1 shot st germain (elderflower liqueur) and 1 shot white wine (sauvignon blanc is recommended) then strain into a chilled martini glass and garnish with a lime zest twist.
Saturday, March 5, 2011 at 07:00 
i’ve been craving cake, smothered with rich buttercream icing, for several weeks now. it was triggered when i was watching lorraine pascale’s baking made easy, a new(ish) cookery programme on bbc2. she made several cakes which involved buttercream and the low level thoughts that i always have along the lines of "cake + icing = joy" were triggered, and have been growing as i watched each episode.
i’ve really enjoyed the series – it has an old fashioned feel, where the recipes are quite normal rather than being obsessed with shortcuts at the expense of a decent result. it's an advocate of the view that if you put in a bit of time and effort, you’ll be rewarded. the recipes are solid and, having seen online various accounts of how people have got on when making them, reliable.
the recipe i chose was her blueberry and lime drizzle cake. it should have had a glaze icing made from icing sugar and lime juice, but i wanted something richer and the buttercream worked well. it’s a lovely cake, really flavoursome and moist (keep it in the fridge) and would be easy to adapt for different fruit combinations.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009 at 07:00 
my chilli and ginger sweet potato soup is one of the recipes on this blog that people have consistently tried since i originally made it back in 2006.
this week i fancied revisiting it but, having not been very well recently i wanted something with gentler flavours. i wanted to keep the asian flavours so it was just a matter of omitting the spices and scaling everything back. the result was really delicious and if you don’t have a taste for spicy food, try this version rather than the original
