Carluccios Raspberry Meringue

Carluccio's is one of my favourite chain restaurants. The decor is beautiful and the food full of fresh italian flavours and lots of mozzarella! I also love the giant pile of raspberry and chocolate meringues they have in their window display, and bought one for dessert!

Here we shared one giant one between myself, my mum and Scott!

Ingredients:

1 large meringue ( or little ones, broken ones, whatever you like!)

red-current jam, or a jam of your choice

Pouring cream

fresh fruit/berries

Method:
Crumble your meringue into three bowls.
Drizzle with the cream. Spoon a few teaspoons of jam into each bowl, and finally sprinkle over a few berries. I used raspberries and blueberries as they were what we had in the fridge! Raspberry's are my favourite fruit so we usually have a punnet of them to hanging round.

The meringues were crisp on the outside and soft and sticky in the middle! Just as they should be. The only problem was they didn't really taste like raspberry which was a little disappointing!

It's sometimes hard to think of desserts to make when you haven't got much in, but anything meringue based is always a winner,  so I always try to keep a packet in the cupboard for when you need that sweet treat :)

Key Lime Meringue Pie

I made a lime meringue pie for the first time the other day and I felt such a sense of achievement! Admittedly I didn't make the pastry... but I am truly horrific at pastry so it was for the best.

It was deliciously limey and sweet and I had a lot of fun eating the left over filling....

Anyway heres how I did it :

Ingredients:

Sweet Pastry

Filling:

2 tbsp cornflour

100g sugar

finely grated zest of 3 limes

 juice from the 3 limes

85g butter

4 egg yolks

1 cap food colouring, green (optional)

200ml boiling water

Meringue:

Four egg yolks (room temperature)

200g castor sugar

1 tsp cornflour

Put a baking sheet in the oven and heat oven to Gas Mark 6. Bake the pastry case ‘blind’ (filled with dry beans) for 15 mins, then remove the foil and bake a further 5-8 mins until the pastry is pale golden and cooked. Leave on the side to cool.

Place all your filling ingredients into a saucepan and cook gently until thick. Stirring constantly as you don't want lumps.

Pour your thickened filling into you cooked pastry case and set aside.

Whisk your egg whites for a minute or so, then add the caster sugar and tsp cornflour. Whisk until the mixture is glossy, and the meringue stays in stiff peaks (if you can hold it above your head upside down you know its ready!

Spread over the filling, and using the end of a small teaspoon, make little flicks and peaks on top of the meringue. Bake in the oven on Gas Mark 4 for about 15-20 minutes or until the meringue is lightly coloured on top.

I added a little green colouring to emphasise that it was lime and not lemon :) you could quite easily change this to a lemon meringue pie by using 2 lemons instead of the three limes!

Serve with ice cream or cream, or even enjoy it on its own :)

Tiramisu Teacups

This was a lovely little dessert I whipped up for a weekday pudding! They are only small so you get a little taste of what you fancy, without the extra calories!

Tiramisu is one of Scott's favourite desserts so I always feel a bit of pressure when making this particular pudding! But this is a simple quick and easy version for when you have some cream left over in the fridge.

This recipe made 5 teacups!

Ingredients:

1 Pint double cream

1 1/2 tablespoons icing sugar

1 cup of strong sweetened coffee

 lady fingers (trifle sponges)

5 teaspoons Nutella

chocolate to flake onto the top

Method:

Soak the lady fingers on a plate with the sweetened coffee.

Place 1 and a bit lady fingers in the bottom of the cup.

Layer a teaspoon of Nutella on top of the lady fingers. 

Drizzle over a litte more of the coffee mixture,

You could keep repeating these layers if you had a taller glass but you'd obviously have to adjust the ingredient quantity.

Now whip the cream with the icing sugar until it is thick but not over whipped.

Spoon over the top of the puddings.

Finally sprinkle over some chocolate gratings or shavings,

And pop in the fridge to cool!

You can see here the lady fingers soak up the moisture from the coffee mixture and become soft and tasty.

I love chocolate, so ultimately it had to make it's way into a coffee dessert!

The sizes are great when you want that little treat after your meal.

Afternoon treats

I've been loving all the delicious British strawberries we've been getting this summer since Wimbledon!   Their in perfect season and really make it feel like summer. Scott and I have been eating lots, covered with clotted cream and sugar, and here is a little snap of our afternoon treat we had whilst watching a film in bed! The perfect afternoon :)

Strawberry Jam

So a few days ago I said i'd post the recipe for strawberry jam that I used for the fruit we picked locally!

It's a really delicious jam and quite easy to make!

Recipe from BBC GOOD FOOD:

Ingredients:

1kg /2lb 3oz strawberries

1kg/2lb 3oz granulated sugar or caster sugar

½ lemon, juice only

Place the strawberries, sugar and lemon juice in a heavy bottomed pan. I used the Cruset which worked really well! Simmer gently until all the sugar has dissolved, and then bring the jam to the boil testing every ten minutes or so to see if its set. Heres a tip: Place a saucer in the freezer an hour before you make the jam. Then when you think the jam is set place a teaspoon of the jam onto the cold saucer. Push the jam on the saucer with your finger. If the jam wrinkles you know it has set and is ready to put into jars. If not keep boiling and checking every 8 minutes or so. 

Once your jam is set, ladle it into sterilised jars and it should keep for up to a year!

(It will be too yummy to want to keep it for a year though!!)

We had ours smothered on toast for breakfast this week!

 With a trusty mug of builders tea of course!

A delicious chocolate, nuts and seeds flapjack

I think I may have found my new favourite cake. 

This cake is a yummy combination of both naughty and healthy ingredients! It is undoubtedly better for you than a chunk of chocolate cake, but equally as delicious, and even helps you stay fuller for longer (which I need!!) 

Ingredients:

2.5  tablespoons golden syrup

3.5 tablespoons clear honey

200g unsalted butter

370g rolled oats
60g soft brown sugar 

Mix the honey, syrup, butter and sugar in a pan. Careful not to burn the butter! Once everything has melted nicely together, mix in the rolled oats. You want to make sure they have all been coated well in the sticky mixture. Line a baking dish with parchment paper, and spread the mixture over the paper. make sure you flatten it out to the edges.

Bake for 15-20 minutes on gas mark 5 or until the flapjack has lightly browned on top.

Take out of the oven and leave to cool completely.

Topping:

200g Dark chocolate 

1 tsp soft brown sugar

2 tsp butter

1 handful pumpkin and sunflower seeds

1/2 handful dried cranberries

1/2 handful dried currents/ yellow raisins

1/2 handful chopped almonds

Mix the chocolate, sugar and butter together.

Spoon over the cooled flapjack. Then sprinkle over your desired topping! Leave to cool on the side, or pop it in the fridge until the chocolate sets. And thats it! Delicious, healthy, sticky flapjacks :)

Lidl do a really good range of nuts and seeds so you don't have to spend the earth to use nice ingredients!

Here's my special plate again ;)

Grilled breakfast banana's with honey

Heres a yummy and healthy breakfast recipe which I found in one of my favourite cook books -

'Miss Sophie Dahls Voluptuous Delights'

Sophie Dahl wrote a wonderful cook book and presented a cooking programme a few years back. I loved her styling of the food and the stories behind each recipe! I just wished there were a few more photographs in the book, as obviously food is so visual and we all like to see the end result! This is an incredibly simple recipe with only two ingredients!

Ingredients:

1 Ripe banana

2 teaspoons honey

Peel your banana and slice it in half lengthways. I lined my grill with aluminium foil to prevent the honey dripping. Place the bananas on the foil and drizzle a teaspoon of honey on each side of the banana.

Grill on high for 5 or so minutes, or until the honey has caramelised and the bananas are soft and gooey.

I served mine with apricot and passionfruit yoghurt (Lidl again...) and some chopped nectarines as they were going soft and needed eating up! But they went really well with the dish!

  Breakfast is one of my favourite meals. I love bacon, eggs, toast, fruit , everything but cereal! I don't know what it is about cereal but it just does nothing for me! So I love when I find a new and easy breakfast recipe, and this was a real treat!

Gooseberry and berry crumble

The gooseberries Scott and I picked from the pick your own field came in handy for crumble time! I've recently planted a gooseberry push that I bought from Lidl but that wont be ready until at least next year, so until then its back to the pick your own! :)

I decided to pair the gooseberries with some frozen berries as I love the vibrant pinks and purples from the berries, and the tartness of the gooseberries.

The great thing about frozen berries is that you can have them in your fridge for the times when you havn't got fresh fruit and you want to make a crumble, or when you have a fruit that you don't want to use on its own! They're also really good when blitzed in the food processor with yoghurt and honey to make a sort of instant ice cream.

Ingredients:

1 large handful gooseberries

2 handfuls froen berries. I find strawberries dont work as well so try to avid them if possible!

2 tablespoons sugar

knob butter

Crumble Topping:

150g flour

125g chilled butter

35g Demerara sugar

Put your gooseberries in a pan with the sugar and simmer until soft. Add the berries once the gooseberries are soft. Cook for another minute then pour the fruit into your crumble dish.

Rub the butter and flour together until they resemble fine bread crumbs. Add your sugar to the the flour/butter mixture. Sprinkle over the fruit, make sure you don't press it down as this will effect the texture. Cook on gas mark 6 for about 20 minutes or until the crumble is lightly brown and the fruit is bubbling at the edges.

This was by far the best crumble i've made. The best combination of tartness and sweet. We had ours with cornish ice cream but you can have it with whatever you like or even on its own.

Quick Strawberry and toffee flan

Here is a pudding i've made lots of times before. It requires very little time or effort which is very handy if you need a pudding in a hurry, and is a favourite of my Grandad.

Ingredients:

1 Ready made flan (or homemade)

Fresh fruit. I chose strawberries

1 pint double cream

1 tablespoon icing sugar

a jam of your choice

Spread a thick layer of jam onto your flan dish. This helps take the edge of as it can sometimes be a little dry! Whip your cream along with the icing sugar until your have a thick but not overwhipped consistency. Spread this on to of the jammy flan. Chop your strawberries and scatter them over the cream. If your using raspberries or blueberries you dont have to chop them just sprinkle them all over!

I topped mine off with a few sprigs of mint that we had growing in the garden.

For the sauce:

80g light brown sugar

40g dark brown sugar

200ml double cream

60g unsalted butter

1 tbsp golden syrup

Melt the butter in the pan, add the sugar and syrup. Careful not to burn the butter. Keep stirring the mixture for a few minutes and then add the cream. And it's done! 

Pour over the flan or over your individual slices, depending on what you prefer :)

I used Lidl's Morello Cherry jam.

 The mint adds a little contrast to the red strawberries. This is a great dish if your having an unexpected friend over for tea or for just making something a little special for a weekday meal!

A week in Cyprus

Scott and I were lucky enough to book a last minute holiday to Cyprus in early July. We booked it a week before for a really low price! So it was a lovely unexpected time that we had together after i'd finished my first year in University.

We spent most of our time eating, and traveling round the neighbouring towns on our hired quad bike and enjoying some much needed quality time together. We stayed in Agia Nappa (pause for reaction) which was actually a lot better than we had first anticipated. The weather was scorching, and once you stray from the touristy club side of the town, it is a really lovely place to go. I must say Malia, crete is a lot more picturesque, and also easier to find the old style town, but Agia Nappa did have a lot to offer too.

Of course we ate humous.... But have you ever tried humous and honey? We hadn't, but on our last night we found ourselves picking from the leftovers in the fridge one night (as we stayed self catering) and found that the two work together a treat! 

We found a beautiful area on the quad bike with the most inviting coloured waters, so inviting that Scott and I jumped into them from a rocky cliffside... after carefully observing the local cypriots doing so of course. 

We visited the Water world Theme Park which is the largest themed water world park in Europe. It was a little expensive (€35 each) but well worth going for the day! We took a disposable waterproof camera with us to take snaps like these.

We had a lovely homemade waffle dessert with Nutella and white chocolate praline topped with vanilla ice cream. I find in a lot of European countries they tend to not be so great with dessert, much to my dismay yet they do offer waffles and pancakes in a lot of the restaurants which in this case tempted us, though we were good and shared! This was more because we had eaten possibly the largest Greek Salad ever and were pretty full up! 

In Cyprus they tend to call a Greek Salad a Village Salad so if your ever in Cyprus don't be confused because they are essentially the same thing! Both consisting of chunks of feta, juicy tomatoes, black olives, cucumber, chopped onions and green peppers. Then drizzled with olive oil, salt and dried herbs, this is actually one of my favourite meals (usually accompanied with chips) and we both tend to have it a lot when we are on holiday.

We found a hermit crab in the harbour. Do you know how awkward it is to take a picture of a living hermit crab? Very. It kept crawling in and out unexpectedly every time I got the camera out but I eventually snapped a picture of the little guy before we plopped him back into the sea.

This was our bike. I have to say it has really made the difference to both our holidays as it just gives you that extra freedom to explore and get away from the crowds. The fuel is really cheap which is great, though it isn't as cheap for the actuall hire, but like I said before, it's very worth the money!

We had carbonara for tea one night which was very rich and delicious. The only problem was that we couldn't find any decent fresh cream in the supermarket! They only had cooking cream (whatever that is meant to be) so we used that and it seemed to do the trick! I know it sound lame, but supermarket shopping, especially abroad really excites me. I love choosing the food i'm going to cook with for the week and seeing all the weird and wonderful products they have to offer!

Some of our meals from our apartment! Lots more Greek Salad....

Our wonderfully stylish footwear... maybe not... but we do need something waterproof for paddling in the sea so these are very practical. Did you know I was a footwear design student? Thats why I also like to take pictures of the shoes I and other people wear!  However when Scott and I like to get our matching crocs on I tend to leave that  little fact out ;).

The most delicious ice lolly ever! Nestea peach ice tea lolly. So sweet and refreshing in the heat. I don't think they sell them here in the UK but i'm hoping to find them soon!

lots of gorgeous green Greek olive oil to drizzle over all the Greek Salads!

The view from our apartment, I just love the pink flowers that grow all over Cyprus and Greece! 

We had beetroot salad in one of the tavernas and I have to say it was brilliant. Beetroot mixed with Greek yoghurt, honey and balsamic vinegar. Really worth trying if you get the chance, or even want to make yourself!

And lastly a little snap of one of my favourite foods, which feels somehow less guilty to eat when your abroad? Nutella on everything please :)