Ingredients: Method: About this recipe I know gluten free baking can seem like a faff but honestly, if you can bear to fork out for some gluten-free flour then you have a lot of options without much effort. Many ingredients that are simply superb in …
Ingredients Method Heat oven to 180 degrees celsius and line two 20 x 30cm baking trays with baking paper In a medium bowl, mix together masa flour, seeds and the teaspoon of sea salt. Add the olive oil and boiling water. Mix together until all …
Wheewwww so another nearly two months since my last post with some more drama in between. Two further hospital admissions, including one particularly gripping visit to the emergency room with nurses running, grabbing wheelchairs and shouting ‘code two, code two’ into the PA system, three further blood transfusions, some very strong medication and some rather distressing specialist appointments. During which, in another anaemia fog, it seemed a good idea to send the horrid picture of myself below to my family to reassure them all was fine. Yes, I look awful, or as my sister helpfully put it, like a corpse.
So yes, it’s nice to have a lemon thyme plant in the garden happily doing its thing while its owner it otherwise occupied, and even better to have a nice soothing cordial recipe to hand which takes very little work. Cordials were originally a health tonic prepared by European apothecaries, and then later a liqueur, so all and all I think cordial is a very appropriate thing for me to have to hand at the present time.
It was a delight to do my background reading on cordial because it introduced me to the EUVS online library – a collection of vintage cocktail books for the bar tending profession, carefully sourced, scanned and loaded online so we can all benefit from this treasure trove.
The historical authority on cordial is one William Terrington, author of the definitive “Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks” and spouter of excellent commentary such as “champagne wine has been recommended by the faculty as a valuable mechanism for keeping up the system during exhaustion” and warning that “bad or fictitious champagne is injurious to health.” If you say so, Mr Terrington. Only the best champagne for me on a regular, medicinal basis from now on.
This recipe is really easy, honestly you pretty much put it all in a bowl and leave it for a bit, then dispense into bottles. You can omit the lemon thyme if you don’t want that extra flavour.
Take care lovelies and I will be back sooner and in even better health next time.
Ingredients
1 teaspoon citric acid
1 cup caster sugar
2 cups lemon thyme
3 lemons – juice and peel
2 cups boiling water
Place the citric acid, caster sugar, lemon thyme, lemon juice and peel into a heat-proof jug or bowl with 2 cups or above capacity.
Pour over the boiling water.
Leave it to cool (perfectly fine to do this in the fridge overnight).
Strain and serve. Keeps well for up to a month.
I am busy looking after my garden, or is it looking after me? It’s working hard, growing many of my favourite treats, including raspberries, zucchinis and cucumbers. My rangy, imperfect little beginner’s garden is very restorative. I can nurture my plants and enjoy some success, …
I’m in excellent company – Wallace, Gromit and I all love Wensleydale cheese. Crumbly, dense and savoury, Wensleydale originates from Wensleydale, Yorkshire, where it began life as a ewes milk cheese made by French Cistercian monks. It’s now made across the UK from cow’s milk, …
I truly love posting about dessert. I am a huge fan of baking – we have a rich and rightly-celebrated baking culture in our little country and I am happy to leap in, butter, cream and all. It feels particularly necessary right now, as Winter clings to the bitter end and another round of fertility drugs has me breaking out in shivers, aches and pimples. Despite the whole point of my little blog being cooking and sharing, it wasn’t until recently I realised that I might be excluding treasured friends and readers who can’t tuck into on gluten and diary with quite such gay abandon. I am sorry my lovely readers! And so today I am bring you my very own gluten-free chocolate brownie.
I have developed this over the past couple of years for my beloved little nephew who has suffered much unexplained ill-health, resulting in a spell as a tube-fed tot. Next time you spot a little one with a tube, give a smile to their parents – it’s damned hard work, tears and sadness. Happily our lovely little tyke is much better these days. He has a lot of gluten-free food, both for the sake of his little system and also because ground almond-based baking helps him to pack in much-needed calories.
Now, you will notice I call this gluten free, but not dairy-free. I have not experimented with replacing the butter with non-diary spread, but I reckon you could.
Give it a try – it really is pretty simple for a gluten-free bake and deliciously rich for pudding, warm with a little cream.
Ingredients:
250g chocolate- either all dark, or half dark and half milk
100g butter
2 C ground almonds
1/3 C brown sugar
1/8 t salt
3 eggs, beaten together
1 t vanilla essence
Method:
Set the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and grease a 20cm x 30cm baking tin. Set a pan of water to simmer on the stove.
Melt the chocolate and butter together in a large bowl over the simmering water. This is honestly my favourite bit, I love watching the butter and chocolate swirl and melt together.
Once melted and combined, take the bowl off the heat. Add the dry ingredients and stir until combined.
Add the eggs and vanilla, mix it all in and pour into the prepared tin.
Bake for 25 minutes or until just firm on top.
Today we greet the last entry in the ‘Almonds’ section of the Edmonds Cookbook, Broccoli with Almonds. And can I say, what a delight. Lightly cooked broccoli covered with lemony butter and toasted sliced almonds. Oh yum.
You can tell the state of the economy by the price of a lime, or so the saying goes.  What it’s meant to tell you, I’m not sure, but I can reliably inform you that limes in these here parts cost a small fortune at the …