Category: Recipes

Duck & Orange Salad

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This recipe consists of perfectly pink duck breast nestled in leaves with a simple fiery orange and ginger dressing spiky and hot that cuts through the richness of the duck.

For anyone who hasn’t cooked duck breasts before watch the video below to see a step by step guide on how to cook duck breast.

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Exciting news upcoming in the next few weeks. I can’t say too much right now but all will be revealed very soon.

Below are a couple of my other favourite recipes. What are you favourite recipes? Leave a comment below.

Warm goats cheese,fig and parma ham salad
Goat Cheese, Fig & Parma Ham Salad
Halloumi, Mint & Pomegranate Salad

Buttermilk Chicken Tenders

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It’s not very often I go the healthy route and in fact the main motivation here is simply to avoid deep frying something I’m not that keen on doing at home. So, if I can substitute it with another cooking method and not loose flavour that is exactly what I do. What you get here are tender flavoursome chicken strips in a golden crunchy coating. Absolutely perfect for dipping into your favourite dips.  

I have added these to the everyday easy recipe section and although they do take awhile to make, thanks to the marinating, but you are free all this time. I have used a few shortcuts here such as the easy crunchy coating using corn flakes meaning you don t have to process stale bread into crumbs rather scrunch the cereal in a bag and they are they make the best crunchy coating. You could make marinade them first thing and leave marinating throughout the day while you get on with other things but I find the best thing to do is to make a huge batch at a time at least ten breasts worth and freeze them on a cooling rack before transferring to freezer bags in portions so that you can grab as many or as little portions as you like.

These are not spicy however, if make for very young children I would suggest cutting back a little on the black pepper. Just to be on the safe side.

Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake

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A good old-fashioned chocolate cake is hard to beat, right? Its rustic appearance reassures me that it is going to deliver an uplifting fudgy hit of chocolaty goodness. Exactly what is needed midweek to get through.

This is a family favourite, that I am advised is best eaten slightly warmed so that the frosting has begun to melt and with vanilla ice cream. I prefer to eat at room temperature as is, but however you decide to eat it, I can guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

Sausage and sweet potato hash

Breakfast Hash

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Below is my breakfast hash recipe it is what I do most often when having hash. It means that I can make breakfast for two with just a few meager sausages. This is a basic blueprint recipe and you can adjust and change to suit what you have available in your kitchen. If you have white potatoes that need using up by all means use these instead or if you have no potatoes, why not substitute them for some fried bread and add a few halved cherry tomatoes to the mix.

Passion Fruit Pavlova

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A pavlova is one of my favourite desserts. I make them so often as you may have noticed. All that tender sweet marshmallowy centre and the crisp exterior topped with softly whipped cream and berries, how could you not love it? It is a perfect dessert for feeding a large gathering as most of the work can be done ahead of time then it’s just a matter of assembling. It is also great for using up eggs, every time I make something that requires egg whites only or egg yolks only, I freeze the part I’m not using in freezer bags. This prevents any waste. Anytime I want a custard or a pavlova I know I have a stash in the freezer, simply grab them from the freezer and defrost in the fridge.

If you would like a quicker version and don’t want to make your own curd, although, when you have the yolks leftover from the pav base it would seem like madness not too. You could buy a jar of lemon curd and scoop the pulp and seeds of a few passion fruit into this with a little squeeze of lemon juice to increase the zingyness.

Steak with Rosemary Potatoes

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It’s hard to beat a good steak. Using this recipe, you will have meat and potatoes in next to no time. What more could I ask for mid-week?

Cast iron pans are excellent for cooking steak because you can get the pan extremely hot which will give your steak a great colour which imparts flavour. You could use a heavy based pan if you don’t have any cast iron pans. My favourite pans though are spun iron pans they are like a cast iron pan but much more lightweight.

If you don’t have any garlic infused oil you can cut a clove of garlic in half and rub the steaks with the cut side to impart a very gentle garlic flavour. Garlic oil is a fantastic short cut ingredient and if you would like to know how to make it click here.

Probably the most important steps in cooking your steaks are to make sure your pan is immensely hot before adding the steaks and that you use the kitchen paper to pat the steaks dry, this helps them develop proper colour. No one wants a grey steak that has braised in the pan in its own juices. Last but not least don’t be afraid to season well.  

Marmite Roast Chicken – Don’t Knock it until you’ve tried it

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I adore marmite and think it is a very under used ingredient. You can do so much more with it than just spread it on toast. I often have it with pasta on days where a big bowl of carbs is required but this is my latest experimentations. Combining it with butter and thyme to create a golden bronzed bird with crispy skin and an almost umami flavoured flesh. When you think of the trendy flavour that is umami, I think of soy-based sauces, the flavour of mushrooms. This is a very simplified but highly rewarding way of getting that flavour with an ingredient that is most easy to find. Even Marmite haters enjoy this chicken so as the title says don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

I think it is best eaten with noodles or basmati rice and the deliciously sweet and caramelised vegetables that it cooked on.

What is your favourite uses for marmite? Leave a comment below

The Ultimate Sophisticated Amaretto Chocolate Tart

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This is one for all the chocolate lovers out there. It is rich, dark and elegant. It is an easy tart to make as it requires no baking. Instead of using a pastry it has a biscuit crumb base and the filling is a easy chocolate custard using a milk and cornflour mixture to slake it meaning that you don’t have to use eggs, preventing any worries of having a chocolate scrambled egg filling.

Modest slices are adequate when portioning as I have said it is very rich. Serve alongside some softly whipped double cream or crème fraiche.

Easy Crowd Pleaser

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This is perfect for feeding a crowd. Although, that never stops me from making it for 2 to eat greedily, having many helpings. This is exactly the sort of thing I want to make when having friends over after a busy day. It requires very little work, chopping up an onion and stirring a few items together on the hob, then throw it into the oven, while you chill out and have a good time with friends.

 It is essentially a chicken and chorizo casserole with orzo.

Orzo is a pasta that looks very like grains of rice, it swells up when cooked in this fashion and makes the sauce become velvety silky and smooth. You will know exactly what I mean as soon as the first spoonful reaches your mouth.

You can modulate the heat easily with this dish if you like your food fiery use a hot chorizo and hot paprika. However, if you prefer it with a little kick use a sweet chorizo and hot paprika or if you like it very mild use both a sweet chorizo and sweet paprika, it will give you a smooth but still deeply flavoured dish.

I would suggest serving garlic bread alongside and why not it works well with it and the oven on anyways. You can find the recipe for my garlic bread here.

Warm Goat Cheese, Fig & Parma Ham Salad

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This is so good warm creamy goat cheese, salty Parma ham and voluptuous sweet figs nestled in a beg of green leaves and drizzled with delicious balsamic vinegar. I have specified spinach leaves for this salad however, you may use any leaves you like. I always have baby spinach in the fridge as I think it keeps better than any other packet of leaves.

If you find your figs aren’t as ripe and sweet as you would like them to be you can pop them under the grill, the heat somehow seems to bring out the sweetness.

For a meat free version, I would suggest swapping the Parma ham for some salty black olives. This is so easy it can hardly even be called a recipe, it’s so simple but here it is anyways

For more delicious salad recipes why not check out the following:

Watermelon & Feta salad Halloumi, Mint & Pomegranate Salad

Beetroot, Feta & Basil Salad