Madeleines

Madeleines are something that I had never eaten before, but just knew I would love. On our trip to Paris, I made a special detour to a cooking store just to pick up a madeleine tin. I liked the idea of getting the tin in Paris for the quintessential French cake. A madeleine however, is not quite a cake, not quite a biscuit...it's somewhere in the middle. Made of sponge batter, the cakes are pillowy soft on the inside with a nice crisp outside.



For my first attempt, these turned out pretty well and a few of them even got the nice dome on the tops. I think they could probably have been a little lighter in texture, so next time I will whisk the eggs a bit longer. The honey flavour was very light and I had to really think about it to be able to taste it. I'm looking forward to making many, many more of these.

Honey Madeleines (Printable Recipe)
adapted from Stephanie's Honey Madeleines, pg 498
makes 20 - 24 regular madeleines

90g butter, plus 20g extra for coating the tin
1/2 tbsp honey
2 eggs
1/3 cup castor sugar
1 tbsp brown sugar
tiny pinch salt
90g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder

An evening at River Cottage with Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall

My fantastic hubby decided to totally spoil me for my birthday and got us tickets to River Cottage. My birthday was a month ago, so I had been waiting excitedly for our trip.

We headed off on our way and sadly the weather started to turn. Just as we arrived it started spitting. We parked in the carpark at the top of the farm and hopped into the trailer being pulled by a big blue tractor to take us down the steep path to the farm (see pic 1 below). The trailer was a bit foggy so it was hard to see out the windows, but I managed to catch a glimpse of River Cottage and the garden (see pic 3 below). It is just as beautiful as in the TV show.



We headed inside, where chairs were setup conference style for the cooking demonstration part of the evening. There was also a handy mirror above the cooking bench (see pic 2 above). Hugh came out and greeted us all. He was just as charming as I imagined he'd be and I think hubby was almost as keen to run away with him as I was. He walked us through the four courses we'd be eating and cooked up a serve of each one.

Chilli con Carne

I had been feeling a little tired lately, so decided that a week of red meat dinners to boost my iron would hopefully sort me out. I had a flick through Stephanie, but nothing from the beef or lamb sections really took my fancy. In the dried beans section, I came across the recipe for chilli con carne and thought I would give that a go.

Chilli Con Carne
adapted from Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion, pg 137
serves 4

Welcome Back Lidia / Wintery Pumpkin Soup

Hi Everyone, it's been such a long time since I've posted on this blog. Apologies all round. Finally, we are in the new house and unpacked, and the renovations are about to commence. My poor Stephanie book has hardly been touched, but it does take pride of place in my bookshelf with all my other cookbooks. Still using it regularly as a reference, but we have hardly had an opportunity to cook too much in the past month. Fortunately, I still had a recipe or two saved up my sleeve for when I had the time to post them.

This Pumpkin Soup recipe inspired me a bit. I love pumpkin soup ordinarily, but I have always liked spicy food, so the combination of the Asian flavours and spice, along with the creaminess of the pumpkin soup base and the coconut milk, well, I was in heaven. I have always found that adding spice to a soup intensifies the heat tenfold, I'm not sure why, but soups always taste extra spicy.

I made a few tweaks to the recipe (of course) but this was mainly because I wanted a lower in fat version, without compromising on taste too much. The main difference is that I chose to use good old Carnation Light and Creamy Coconut Milk instead of coconut milk. It's only about 3% fat, and it adds the delicious hint of coconut without the heaviness of regular coconut milk. For a weeknight dinner, it's important to keep the fat content reasonably low, otherwise I would be the size of a house!

Allan & Michele's Asian Inspired Pumpkin Soup (Printable Recipe)
adapted from Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion, pg 800

Strawberries on my mind

Before coming to the UK, I thought the only fruit and veg you could get here were potatoes, carrots, apples and pears. Boy was I wrong! The selection of fruit and veg is fantastic, even at the supermarkets and there is a great range of organic prduce too!



Summer is in full swing, and luckily for me, so is strawberry season! The selection of varieties available is fantastic and I have not yet been disappointed. I can walk in to some supermarkets and smell them from the door. We have been eating kilos and kilos of them and I'm sure the baby will be quite the strawberry fan too, given the amount of them I have been eating. They seem to come a lot smaller here than back in Melbourne, which I like as they're super sweet and picture perfect. This is a quick fruit dip that I whipped up to enjoy with some strawberries on a picnic.

Chocolate Hazelnut Dip for Fruit
makes about 2/3 cup

1/3 cup Nutella
100g fromage frais