Honeybell season is here

The season for my favorite oranges has arrived! I love Honeybell oranges, also known as Minneola Tangelos, the juiciest sweetest orange. For years we had them shipped but now they are readily available at local stores. I am juicing them with the Citrus Star juicer that is very simple to use. I am going to see if Costco has Honeybells this year to get a larger quantity as I like to juice them once a day until they are gone. Don't think I saw them there in the past though. Are you a fan of Honeybells?

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A Food Challenge : 28 Dishes in 28 Days

Back in November I challenged myself to a "30 Dishes in 30 Days" cookery challenge - the only rule being that all the dishes I attempted had to be dishes that I had never tried before.

I had a great time & a new a totally new love of cooking.

I have decided to try it again next month.

My friend Lori is also going to be taking part and she has made her own list here ....

looks great doesn't it?

I would love it if anyone else would like to take part, I'd be happy to link to your blog and if you want to make your own list or follow one of ours, that's great!

Preparation is the key....

I will be compiling a large shopping list this week-end so that I'm ready to cook.

Do let me know if you will be joining us :)

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Food : French Onion Soup & Homemade Bread

my first bread attempt

London is super-cold at the moment & recently I've been making lots of soups & stews.

I've also been making fresh bread.

Maybe because it's such an essential & basic food, there's something very gratifying & lovely about making your own bread.

This appears to be a foolproof & delicious recipe which has worked every time for me. 

Both of the recipes below are so simple so I thought I would share them....
a first for me, I never thought I'd be sharing recipes on my blog :)

If you've never made bread before, this is the recipe for you!

The bread recipe I use is incredibly quick, easy & tasty & is from Tana Ramsay's book

"Tana's Kitchen Secrets"

Easy Handmade White Bread
840g (1lb 13oz) strong white flour
2 x 7g sachets dried yeast
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp salt
sunflower oil for the bowl 

Add all ingredients to an electric mixer with a dough hook (I use my Kitchenaid).
Stir in 500ml/18 fl oz of tepid water & mix to a soft dough.
Knead for 5 mins or turn it on to a floured surface & knead for 10-15 minutes.
Place the dough in an oiled bowl, seal with clingfilm or a damp cloth.
Leave in a warm place to rise for 1.5-2 hours until doubled in size.
Place the dough on a floured surface & knead again for 5-10 minutes.

This mix makes two loaves - shape the dough into the shape of your choices....
I usually make a plaited bread (using 3 strands of dough plaited together....this is v easy),
but I've also made small rolls and a round loaf.
Dust your bread with a small amount of flour & place in the middle of a cold oven : 180C/350F/GasMark4 for 35 minutes or until golden brown.

Tips
Smaller loaves may require a slightly shorter baking time.
If you are not sure that your bread is cooked, tap it on the bottom - I was told that a cooked loaf should sound hollow. I have found this to be accurate :)
The above recipe uses white flour....I have also used wholemeal & granary flours.

Possibly my favourite soup is a French Onion recipe given to me by my French/Italian cookery teacher...another super-easy & quick recipe which is absolutely delicious.

French Onion Soup photo via Pinterest

50gr butter

750gr Onions finely sliced

2 garlic cloves finely chopped

40gr plain flour

1.5 litres of beef or chicken stock

250ml white wine

1 bay leaf

2 sprigs of thyme

12 slices of baguette (stale if you have some)

100gr finely grated gruyere cheese

Salt and pepper

1. Melt the butter in a heavy-based saucepan and add the onion.

2. Cook over a low heat, stirring occasionally, for 25 minutes, or until the onion is deep golden brown and beginning to caramelize

3. Add the garlic and flour and stir continuously for 2 minutes.

4. Gradually blend in 1 litre of the stock and the wine, stirring all the time and bring to the boil. 

Add more of the stock if the soup seems too thick.

5. Add the bay leaf and thyme and season.

6. Cover the pan and simmer for 25 minutes. 

Remove the bay leaf and thyme and check the seasoning.

7. Toast the slices of baguette, then divide among six warmed soup bowls and pour the soup over the top.

8. Sprinkle with the grated cheese and serve.

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The Comfort of Food....

I am all about comfort food. All about it.
Sometimes too much.

Sometimes a particular food seems so right though.....

steaming hot chocolate in a book-filled cafe while the window steam up

homemade ice cream with fresh strawberries on a summer's day

porridge with cinnamon raisins apple on a winter morning

a plate of toast....thick doorstops of bread with delicious French butter 

(very good for children who are home sick)

milk & warm cookies when you get home from school

soup & warm chunky fresh bread after a long bracing winter walk

sticky toffee pudding

(not sure if this one requires a particular event or occasion, it's always good)

Comfort food 

Food that comforts....makes you feel better....warms you....

Food that engenders or provokes feelings of happiness, wellbeing and nostalgia.

"Comfort foods may be consumed to positively pique emotions, to relieve negative psychological effects....
to increase positive feelings."

As the aromas of fresh bread and coffee make most of us feel warm, happy & hungry....

certain foods have the same effect.

My Italian mother in law always made a minestra (italian soup) when her children were unwell & it's still the dish that my husband cooks on the rare occasions he gets a cold or feels extra tired.

Comfort food   

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Week-end Beauty....

Just sharing some of my favourite images from this week.

Last January I took place in the World's Biggest Juice Detox & this week I've been doing it again....

it's not always easy, I miss my morning coffee & tea but I feel great.

I've also been doing a little blog makeover....it's not quite finished yet, almost there.

I'm going to spend the remainder of my Saturday afternoon cooking....

I'm going to try the rosemary chicken lasagne featured below & am making a couple of other dishes, including Rachel Allen's fantastic lemon rosemary polenta cake.

I went to see "Quartet" this week....

it's a wonderful film, brilliant acting & set in the most beautiful house.

I'm looking forward to the Golden Globes tomorrow night & will be featuring some of my favourites gowns on Monday.

The Oscar nominations made interesting reading this week....

like many others, I though that Ben Affleck was absolutely robbed when he missed out on Best Actor & Best Director for "Argo", one of my favourite movies of 2012 by far.

  

Snow is forecast in London for Monday and most of next week, it's certainly cold enough for it!

Happy Week-end!!

Positano, Italy

Manhattan townhouse

....rosemary chicken lasagne 

via Feasting at Home, a fabulous new food blog that I discovered this week

inspiring spaces....still trying to finish off my home office corner, almost there

....one of my favourite photos taken by me last summer in Cap Ferrat, the south of France has the most wonderful light 

photo by Jen Huang

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A Food Adventure : 30 Dishes in 30 Days

Back in November I started a "30 Dishes in 30 Days" cooking challenge.

It was a challenge that I had set myself - I needed to cook 30 dishes in a month....

the only rule really being that they all had to be something that I hadn't cooked before.

I created the challenge because whilst I love food, I lack confidence in the kitchen.

Over the last year or so, I have taken some cookery courses which I loved....

French, Italian & Thai.

The courses got me out of my cooking rut a little but not enough - they did however make me realise that I can cook & was in fact much better than I thought I was.

I made a plan of what I thought I might cook.

Before November began I went through some of our many cookery books & ear-marked some recipes....I selected about 15 dishes to start with.

I then did a large online food shop, literally working through each recipe & ordering every ingredient I needed.

And so the month began.

I got off to a flying start and by day 7 I'd already cooked around 11 dishes.

Everything went smoothly partly because I was at home all week so able to fit it into my day & partly because I had all the ingredients that I needed ready.

Organisation was key!

However, I then had a week where I was hardly home & didn't even cook 1 dish!

Overall, during the month, I cooked 26 dishes. I did then cook the remaining 4 in early December.

30 dishes. Check!

I have to say that I enjoyed the month enormously, even more than I expected to.

I cooked recipes from cookery books that I had never actually opened.

I cooked the most delicious Indian food - something I'd never even attempted before.

Half the spices now in my cupboard are spices that I'd never used or bought before.

Only 1 dish was a disappointment.
If I need a loaf of bread now, I will almost always make it myself - it's quick, easy & delicious. 

I have cooked nearly all of November's dishes again since.

Spending the day cooking on a Saturday is a very lovely thing to do.

Discovering how much fun cooking can be was truly a revelation. 

I feel confident about attempting just about anything in the kitchen now....

and with a cupboard full of certain basic ingredients, it's so easy to put a dish together.  

      

It was a great adventure & so much fun!

Below are all the dishes that I cooked :

Fish pie

Balsamic Onion & Goats Cheese Tart

Courgette Ribbon & Roasted Pepper Tart

Bolognese Sauce

Chicken Tikka Masala

Aloo Gobhi

Peanut Butter Cookies

Pasta e Cece (chickpeas)

Burgers

Tuscan Bread Soup

Diplomat Pudding

Leek & Potato Soup

Maple Syrup & Vanilla Ice Cream

Broccoli & Pesto Tagliatelle

Garden Pea Soup

Cinnamon Rolls

Lemongrass & Coconut Cake

Nutella Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies with Sea Salt

Autumn Minestrone

Farro & Borlotti Bean Soup

Lemon & Rosemary Cake

Bread

Brown Bread & Butter Ice Cream

Wholewheat Quinoa Banana Pancakes

Wholewheat Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Vegetable Bhajis

Chicken fajitas

PanFried Chips with Rosemary & Sage

Yorkshire Puddings

Crab Cakes

Some books I really enjoyed using during the cooking challenge were : 

Jamie Oliver's "Ministry of Food" and "Jamie's Italy"

"Apples for Jam" by Tessa Kiros

"Cake" by Rachel Allen - her lemon & rosemary cake above is one the best cakes I've ever tasted.

The Ambitious Kitchen blog has the most fantastic selection of recipes and is very easy to follow.

(Both of the amazing cookie recipes above came from there)

For the ice cream I used my Cuisinart ice cream maker.

Throughout the month I also used the Vitamix blender which does so many things - soups, ice cream, hummus, it's fantastic.     

I enjoyed the whole challenge & got so much out of it that I am planning to do it again next month.

Next week I will put together a month of suggested ingredients/dishes as I did for November and share it on my blog. 

I'd LOVE it if anyone wants to join me....do let me know if you want to.

  

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Ina's classic chicken soup

No one is sick (knock on wood) but I decided to make chicken soup yesterday.  I tried Ina's version, another recipe from her Family Style cookbook.  

It's all about the stock. Making homemade stock makes a huge difference. I am usually too lazy to make stock so making stock was kind of fun. Just cut up a fryer, save the breasts for roasting later to add to the soup.  Add the fryer pieces to the pot to cook for several hours with the veggies and herbs. It does smell divine while cooking, everyone asked what smelled so good upon entering the house.

The recipe is kind of boring but good for this time of year. Served it with a Caesar salad which was tangy and full of flavor. I forgot to photograph it and the rye triangle toasts I made instead of croutons. I make the dressing in the Cuisinart with an egg that I microwave in a glass of water for 45 seconds. Add it with garlic, parmesan cheese, several anchovy fillets and puree. Then add salt, pepper, juice of a lemon or two depending on size and then drizzle in olive oil as the motor is running. Yum!!! Restaurant versions are never as good as homemade. I eyeball everything and it always comes out great, just taste it to adjust.

Since my husband and two sons were going to be eating the soup for dinner, I served less broth in the bowls. I am not a fan of hearty wide egg noodles but they really liked them. I would much prefer a skinnier pasta but must make the menfolk happy.

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Ina's wings

Man food was the theme on New Year's Day, numbing football on all day so we tried Ina's chicken wings from her Barefoot Contessa Family Style cookbook, released in 2002.

 I say "we" because husband needed to separate the wings which I find disgusting, that is the most time consuming part of making wings at home. Homemade wings are so much better than sports bars because they are not deep fried. I usually bake them but Ina's recipe calls for broiling them for 8 minutes or so on each side. So much faster and the broiling creates beautiful caramelization. I added much more Frank's hot sauce than her recipe calls for, the only change I made. The men loved Ina's wings, very moist and succulent! After flipping through several of her cookbooks yesterday, she has a ton of man food recipes. This will make husband and son happy as I venture through Ina's cookbooks this year. 

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resolutions

Have you thought about your new year's resolutions? I have started to jot down a few, some trivial and some meaningful. A fun one I have decided on is to cook my way though some of my favorite cookbooks in 2013. 

For the last few years, I have been a creative cook, creating meals from what needs to be used in the fridge or freezer, not thinking to go to my cookbook collection. When reorganizing the shelf the other day, I realized that so many of them are being ignored.

This year, I will try to get through most of Ina Garten's cookbooks. I love Ina's recipes (and her pretty homes). Her recipes are always delicious and her cookbooks are filled with beautiful photography. I have used her first one, The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook the most, bought it years ago when it first came out. It is full of bookmarks and stains.

I will blog about my journey through Ina's books, a la Julie and Julia and post about any yummy discoveries here and there. What are some of your resolutions this year?

  Happy New Year!

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Healthy Eating : California Almonds

Last month I challenged myself to cook "30 Dishes in 30 Days"...

30 dishes that I'd never cooked before.

Part of my challenge was also healthy eating....

cooking in a healthy way, finding ways to incorporate new foods into my diet, eating more vegetables & finding healthy snacks.

For the last three weeks, I have snacked daily on almonds....23 almonds to be exact.

I enjoy eating nuts so it wasn't hard....the biggest challenge was remembering to eat them each day!

I seem to be out & about, away from home & not always eating at regular times, increasingly these days. I really needed to find a snack that was both healthy & convenient....

my mother has long been extolling the benefits of nuts to me, so it seemed ideal.

Why almonds? 

Well, the benefits are many....

they are rich in vitamin E, magnesium & healthy mono-unsaturated fat.

they are the nut highest in protein, fibre, vitamin E, calcium, riboflavin & niacin

they are a natural source of protein

23 almonds = 30g protein, the ideal portion size to stop cravings & give you an energy boost

almonds are rich in nutrients & are cholesterol-free

they provide several essential key nutrients that help support a healthy heart 

I either ate my almonds at home or when I was out I kept them stored in a small tin which I prepared each day - easy!

I initially thought I would trial this for three weeks but actually I've really enjoyed the almonds and will continue with them....

I often find that I forget to take my daily multi-vitamin but I rarely never forget to snack.      

   I felt much better knowing that my snack was a healthy one.

I snacked on the almonds every day....

mostly I ate them plain but I also tried them with natural yogurt, with raisins & I even roasted them.

I felt healthier simply by having a routine & a "go-to" snack which was ready to eat.

I found eating by eating them mid-afternoon & very early evening, I avoided an energy slump. 

It also meant that I kept away from the biscuit tin - those particular times being the times I was most likely to head for it.

 

Disclaimer: California Almonds has asked me to take part in the Snack Happy Challenge. 
They have provided me with all I need to complete the challenge. For more information about healthy snacking please visit www.AlmondBoard.co.uk

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Easy Chicken and Biscuits

This is another recipe that lots of friends have asked me to share, so here it is! 
This is one of those good old standbys that is fast and easy to prepare. It's also 
a real comfort food that disappears quickly - there are never any leftovers! 
For this recipe, you can either cook your own chicken or use a prepared 
rotisserie chicken instead.

Ingredients

The meat from 1 precooked rotisserie chicken, chopped or shredded 

(OR if you prefer, you can cook your own chicken. You will need about 2 & 1/2 cups, which is about 3 breasts)

1 can Campbell's Cream of Chicken soup

1 can Campbell's Cream of Potato soup

1 & 1/2 cups of milk (I use 1% milk)

3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 & 1/2 cups frozen broccoli florets
1 & 1/2 cups frozen veggie mix (I use one that has corn, carrots, peas and green beans)

1/8 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

1 can refrigerator biscuits

Preparation

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Grease or spray a baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. (Casserole or lasagna dishes work well for this recipe.)

In a large bowl (I use my Kitchen Aid mixer on the slowest speed for just a few seconds) combine the chicken soup, potato soup, milk, and shredded cheese, and mix until combined. Then add the broccoli, veggie mix, black pepper, and chicken. Mix again, until all ingredients are combined. Pour mixture into prepared baking dish and bake in the oven at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, until mixture is simmering.

While casserole is baking, prepare the biscuits. Because I use refrigerator biscuits for this recipe, they are often the large or grand size, so I cut each biscuit into quarters before I add them to the casserole. This way, they will bake quickly and evenly, and you won't be stuck with any that are uncooked in the centers, which can happen when you use large sized biscuits. I think the finished dish also looks nicer this way too!

When casserole is finished baking, remove from oven and lay the biscuits on top of the casserole. Return the casserole to the oven and bake, uncovered, for an additional 13 to15 minutes or until the biscuits are golden brown. 

I use kitchen scissors to cut the "Grand" sized uncooked biscuits into quarters

This way, the biscuits will cook more evenly and thoroughly than if you put them on whole

Before going in the oven

Finished!

Delicious!

What do you think?

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