Traditional Hot Cross Buns

Hot Cross Buns,
Hot Cross Buns,
One-a-penny,
Two-a-penny,
Hot Cross Buns.

The tune to this little ditty was one of the first things I learnt to play on my recorder at primary school! I went to a local C of E school and so the links between hot cross buns and Christianity have never been in doubt in my mind...until now!

Any good Christian family will teach their children that the cross on top of a hot cross bun is directly linked to the story of Jesus’ crucifixion. As long as I can remember before heading to church on Good Friday morning, for the stations of the cross, we would all gather on Mum and Dad’s bed for a breakfast of hot cross buns. But, as I started looking around the internet for a recipe this year I found a few things out about the hot cross bun that I didn’t know...

Although there seems no doubt that hot cross buns are English in origin, they may have been around long before this country became Christian. In fact, it seems they might be another example of a pagan tradition that Christianity took over. There is some suggesting that the spiced buns were eaten when celebrating the goddess Eostre. Now even I can see (or hear) that Eostre sounds a lot like Easter... coincidence I think not!!!

Regardless of whether they are Christian or not, there are also some rather cool superstitions surrounding the hot cross bun. So the story goes...if you bake hot cross buns on Good Friday they will not spoil or go mouldy!!! I’m actually quite tempted to try this one out. Another superstition is that hot cross buns can protect sailors from shipwrecks. I’m afraid I can’t test this one so we’ll just have to trust the internet!

After spending just 20mins surfing the internet, I soon realised that the origins of the humble hot cross buns weren’t quite as straight forward as I originally thought! I just hoped that baking them would be easy.

The fact that they have been around for hundreds of years also brings its own challenges. Do you know just how many varieties of hot cross bun you can get now? I’m talking chocolate, toffee, apple, cinnamon, earl grey, orange blossom – you name it, a supermarket makes it! I’m particularly a fan of the GIANT hot cross bun loaf that Asda do but that’s a whole other ball game!

I decided to begin with I would try a traditional recipe from none other than Mrs Beeton. I’m not a big bread baker as I find no matter what tip or trick I use to kick start my yeast into gear I never quite get it right. BUT by just tweaking the traditional recipe a little bit I was able to SUCCESSFULLY bake my first batch of traditional hot cross buns!!!

The spice balance really is quite a personal thing so feel free to adjust this to your taste: I used a little less than Mrs Beeton calls for and also adjusted the dried fruit used.

Now that I’ve managed to master this traditional version next I will have to take on the supermarkets and attempt a twist on this classic.

Mango and Avocado Salsa

This recipe for me was a really fun one! Just look at the vibrancy and the great mix of colours in that bowl – this mango and avocado salsa just screams joy, fun and laughter. But then again for me, so does Mexican food in general.

In this country most people’s first experiences of Mexican food come in the form of an Old El Paso fajita kit, (or perhaps these days it’s a Discovery pack or your Supermarket’s own brand version...)

When I was growing up Mexican food was really just starting to take off in this country. Old El Paso was seen as a real treat. It was exciting, fun, and all the family could get involved by building their own fajita/taco etc.

We still buy these kits every now and then and ‘fajita night’ is a much loved night in my house. It’s all about getting stuck in, getting a little bit messy and tailoring your food to your mood. Some day’s I’m feeling extra spicy and add mounds of jalapenos. Other day’s I want something creamy and velvety and pile on the sour cream and refried beans.

While there’s nothing wrong with using these kits. It’s really easy to do your own Mexican food at home – without taking these little short cuts. In my second year at university, some friends and I decided to do a “Come Dine with Me” style cooking competition. The idea was that we were all skint and wanted some cheap indoor entertainment. I decided that I wanted to do a Mexican Night. I had a bottle of margarita mix left over from god knows when, and the essential like a pack of chicken, wraps and sour cream could all be brought pretty cheaply. As it was a cookery competition I decided to steer away from the packet mixes and spent hours analysing the back of “fajita spice” packets before raiding my own spice cupboard to come up with my own personalised fajita spice blend.

That spice blend saw me win our little competition (though no prizes unfortunately) and set me up for fajita nights to come!

If you don’t feel like going to the extreme of developing your own spice blend, I don’t blame you! BUT there are other ways you can jazz up a Mexican meal without resorting to packets.

Take the jars of salsa for example. Travel to Mexico and I promise you the slop we buy in a jar that seeps a greyish-red liquid is NOT salsa. In fact they have hundreds of different salsas...none of which look like that!

SO, I propose you make your own salsa to serve alongside tacos, fajitas, enchiladas, or even just a delicious bit of steak as I did here. (But that’s for another day!)

I think the key to making a good salsa is to go for the key colour groups – green, red and yellow.

For example -

Green: coriander (cilantro), lime, avocado, green pepper, jalapenos

Red: tomatoes (fresh not tinned/canned), red pepper, red onion, watermelon, grapefruit, chilli peppers

Yellow: yellow pepper, sweetcorn, lemon, mango

You can mix and match any of these ingredients to make a fab Mexican inspired salsa! One thing I must say, when choosing ingredients from the colour groups above; don’t be afraid to add in fruit. The juice of lemons and limes is an obvious choice to give the salsa a bit of zing, but chunks of watermelon, grapefruit and mango all bring another flavour dimension and texture to the salsa.

I think this salsa works well for that exact reason. Not only does it include fresh mango, but also avocado which adds a creamy texture to the salsa and balances out the sharp lime juice.

Lamb Rogan Josh

Indian is by far one of my favourite cuisines and I know I’m not alone! The Indian often gives Chinese a run for its money in the country’s favourite take-away food.

When I was younger I didn’t ever eat Indian food. We’ve always been the kind of family that orders a takeaway for special occasions (like birthdays) or evenings where the routines gone out of the window (like parents evening for example). BUT the Indian takeaway leaflets were always left in the drawer until Mum and Dad were home alone.

I remember trying my first piece of Chicken Tikka. I had never tasted anything like it before! It was so new and different that I genuinely couldn’t tell if I liked it or not. I wanted to try more, but I was scared that my parents would order me a dish and I wouldn’t be able to finish it. After all, trying one piece of Chicken Tikka isn’t quite the same as sitting down to a plate of keema naan, pilau rice and a creamy curry.

It turns out my sister HATED her taste so that was that...I never really got a chance to try curry again properly until I was in my early teens. To this day I maintain I fell in love with Jon (AND cooking) because he cooked the best curries! Ok...we both know they were out of a jar, but I had never had a homemade curry until I started going for dinner at Jon’s house. They were always vegetarian (sometimes which extra quorn pieces) and served with fluffy basmati rice. That was it...I was hooked!

When I passed this news on to my parents it was decided we’d start ordering Indian take-aways as a family. No more Dominoes or Chinese. The Indian was king. By this point my sister was always round her boyfriends, so once a month on a Saturday night, I started working my way through the local curry house's menu.

As it turns out, I like ALL types of curries – from creamy Kormas and butter chickens, to spicy Jalfrezis. I also love garlic naans, peshwari naans, keema naans, chapattis, parathas, pilau rice, lemon rice...basically there isn’t ONE thing on the menu I don’t like. Sometimes I’ll order lamb, sometimes chicken, sometime prawn and sometimes veggie. No curry is off limits.

Despite saying this, one curry has had a special place in my heart all these years. The Rogan Josh.

I don’t actually remember when this became my “go-to” curry but if we were ordering in a hurry or weren’t ordering a giant Indian feast, I’d simply order a Rogan Josh. I loved the rich sauce with tomatoes and green peppers mopped up with a keema naan – to me it was heaven!

Until my post on a Low Fat Chicken Korma I hadn’t tried recreating my take-away favourites at home. I have no friends or family from India who could teach me all their secrets, and I just can’t justify using ghee in my home cooking (I swear I would weigh a tonne overnight!) So I’ve always steered clear.

But, in my pursuit of delicious tasting healthy foods I decided it was time I tried to crack the Rogan Josh.

Rogan Josh is the signature dish of the Kashmir region and is traditionally cooked with lamb. The sauce or gravy is based on browned onions yoghurt, garlic, ginger and spices such as cloves, bay leaves, cardamom and cinnamon all of which you'll find in my recipe. The red colour of the sauce traditionally comes from dried Kashmiri chilies. These can be replaced by paprika which has a similar flavour - again you'll find this in my recipe below. It is not a really hot dish, but instead should be fragrant with a slight chilli heat rather than a kick.

Indian take-aways in countries such as England also include the addition of tomatoes. This gives it a less traditional flavour but also helps bring out the red colour found in the Kashmiri dish.

My recipe falls somewhere in between the two. It has the tomatoes and green peppers that I know so well from my local take-away, but the spices used are very traditional. I’ve also cut down on much of the oil needed to cook the lamb and baked it in the oven for a tender texture so it’s not as unhealthy for you as the take-away variety.

If you have never tried cooking “take-away style” curries at home before, this is a great recipe to start with! You will get a smoother gravy or sauce if you have a blender to hand but it’s not essential, and this can be served with rice or traditional breads.

Here’s the recipe:

[Mother's Day] Lemon and Passion fruit Swiss Roll

Mothering Sunday (aka Mothers Day) is just around the corner. What are you doing for your Mum this year?

In the UK Mothering Sunday is celebrated on the fourth Sunday in Lent. This means that it usually falls somewhere from the middle of March until the beginning of April. In 2013 Easter is really early so this year Mothers Day is Sunday the 10^th of March. That’s right not very long away at all!

The Mothers Day Gift and Card industry in the UK alone is worth millions (in recent years sales have pushed over the £1billion mark), and year on year flowers are the most popular gift. According to the Experian website the people of Stevenage (that’s me, that’s me! Look it up on a map!) are most likely to visit Flowers websites in March in the run up to Mother’s Day.  

Now...you could go down the route of buying some flowers, a card with some sort of cute fuzzy animal on the front, or perhaps buy her some slippers, make up or other beauty products, OR you could put your purse away and make your Mum something nice for Mother’s Day!

In the past I’ve made all sorts. Last my sister and I made a photo book (a bit like a scrap book) of all of our favourite pictures from her birthday – it had been the big 50! Now she’s got some wonderful memories all in one place – much better than a bunch of flowers...

BUT, this is a food blog after all so I’m going to put to you, the proposition that you make your Mum something delicious for Mother’s Day.

Why not take the Roast Dinner off of your Mum’s hands? If you follow my perfectly timed instructions for this Pork Roast with Apples and Cider gravy you can’t go wrong!

Or, if your Mum is like mine, why not bake her this delicious Swiss Roll. It’s made from a fat-less sponge (meaning the only fat found in it comes from the eggs, there’s no butter in this recipe!) and has a creamy centre made with the tangy yet sweet pulp of the passion fruit.

My Mum loves nothing better than the sit in our lounge with some cake, a cup of tea and good conversation – so that is what I’ll be giving her this Mother’s Day!

Home-made butter

We've all been there- you're cooking away happily when you take your eye off the ball for just one second and BOOM you've got a kitchen disaster on your hands...or have you?

Sometimes kitchen accidents can become kitchen revelations helping you to discover something entirely new and delicious.

Thus is what happened to me on Valentines Day...

2 courses down and copious amounts of pink cava drunk, Mr KG and I were just about ready to serve up dessert. Mr KG had cooked an amazing meal; all I had to do was hand whip some cream to serve with his chocolate lava cake (I hope he'll be sharing the recipe soon!)

I got bored of handwhipping pretty quick so we served up with half whipped cream. After the meal I decided I didn't want to be outdone. So with a bowl of cream and a whisk in my hand I started whisking like I've never whisked before. But in an attempt to whisk even faster, I shut my eyes. By the time I opened them it was over whipped!

At first I was disappointed. I was secretly hoping to sit and eat a bowl of whipped cream as post-dessert-dessert! But then I remembered something I’d seen on the Baker Brother TV show when I was back at uni.

With a little bit of research I realised I’d made butter!

So here’s how to do it...

[Greek Gods] Honey and Strawberry Baklava with Pistachios

Q. What happens when Greek Gods meet the Kitchen Goddess (in training!) blog?

A. A modern twist on a Greek classic with honey and strawberry yogurt, filo pastry and pistachios.

Those of you who know the Foodies100 website may well be aware of the competition currently being run by GreekGods.

The idea was to make a love-inspired dessert fit for Aphrodite using some of the company’s own Greek Style yogurt.

I chose honey and strawberry flavour (after all, what’s more romantic than a red heart shaped fruit?) and decided to update the Greek classic Baklava and bring it into the 21^st Century!

Each piece of filo pastry stacked on top of the next shows the layers of your love for the partner – each piece representing another thing you love about them. And what better way to say your love makes me “nuts” then with a good helping of pistachios!

This recipe is also super simple. It’s the perfect recipe for any Greek God (or Goddess) wanting to cook their partner a romantic dinner without spending all of their time in the kitchen. After all, the time you save on cooking, you can use for romancing.

Here’s my recipe!

[Review + Recipe] LovePickle and Low Fat Chicken Korma

NB. A jar of this product was given to me free for me to review. All opinions are my own!

Hey everybody! Today I’m brining you a double post – half review half recipe. I’m sure you’ve all noticed that I’ve been quite quiet on the blogging front recently, and not without good reason. Throughout February I was taking some very important law exams. Results don’t come out for ages yet, but I don’t think I had any disasters. I’ve also been on holiday! Just two days after I finished the last of my six exams, Mr KG and I hopped on a plane to Prague and I’ve just got back from a lovely long weekend filled with food, drink, sightseeing and Jazz. I hope to do a post on my trip soon as I discovered lots about the city that I would like to share (and not just restaurant recommendations). I’ll also be trying to recreate a dish I had while I was out there.

Over the last month or so I’ve also been inundated with requests from brands and PR firms. There have been so many I couldn’t possibly (and wouldn’t want to) say yes to them all. LovePickle however was a brand I was more than happy to give a try...

I was instantly intruiged by LovePickle because they looked like a fresh and funky company selling one of my favourite things – Indian pickles. They kindly offered me a (free) jar to review: all I had to do was decide the heat! (Mild, medium, hot and extra hot). I went for hot, and was pretty confident I could stand the heat.

One of the things that instantly drew me to the pickle, was that I wasn’t bombarded with an array of fancy flavours. Now they say variety is the spice of life, but it’s never a good thing to be a jack of all trades and master of none. The LovePickle pickle is handmade from ripe tomatoes, fresh chillies, garlic, ginger, mustard oil and seeds plus a selection of carefully selected quality herbs and spices. They have perfected their recipe only ever tweaking the heat of the finished product so that they know the taste is the best it can be every time.

LovePickle stress how it can be used in a whole variety of ways – either served with poppadoms and naan bread, as an accompaniment to main courses or as an alternative to chutneys, relishes and ketchups. So far I’ve served it up alongside a variety of home-made currys, and it goes particularly well with the korma which I am sharing with you below.

So what did I really think of the pickle? You can most definitely tell that it is a tomato based pickle, and I must admit I usually opt for lime or other fruit based pickles with my meals. However, unlike some, this pickle is not too sweet. You get a rich, deep tomato flavour as a base which the spices and chilli heat is built on top of. It is a very well rounded pickle and I think this is what makes it so versatile! I would happily serve this as a dip for crisps at a party, or alongside poppadoms and curries at dinner time.

Priced at £2.95 a jar it is a little more pricey that the likes of Patak’s or Sharwoods, but the quality is far far far superior. I couldn’t fault the sample I was given. (Except that it didn’t automatically refill itself! With a hungry family I think the jar only last 4 meals.)

If you want to try the pickle for yourself you can find the whole range on the LovePickle website. or follow their facebook or twitter pages (@Lovepickle_uk).

Now, on to the korma I’ve been serving alongside this pickle!

The Indian takeaway is one of the nation’s most loved dishes. But with many recipes including ghee or copious amounts of oil, the kind of curry that gets delivered to your door is also filled with extra fat and calories you just don’t need.

I’ve been cooking my own curries for years now, but never have I even tried to recreate a “take-away” style curry before, until now. Low-fat creamy sauces have become a bit of a ‘thing’ of mine recently and I’ve been trying to find ways to recreate indulgent dishes with less of the fat. This korma is another attempt at doing just that!

It is delicately spiced, with all the traditional spices you would expect to find in a take-away korma, however, by replacing cream with crème fraiche, and by using a food processer to get a thick and creamy base for my sauce I am able to bring a taste of India into your kitchen.

The tumeric and saffron give the sauce a brilliant yellowy colour in true take-away style so you don't feel you're missing out on any part of the experience.

This recipe also creates a good helping of the creamy sauce, so is great for mopping up with a sweet peshwari naan, wholesome chappathi or vegetable stuffed paratha!

Sound too good to be true? Give this recipe a go and let me know how you get on.

Cheese and Ham Muffins

Hands up. Who here enjoys a savoury muffin as much as a sweet one...no? Didn't think so.

Now I know that when it comes to food I'm a bit of an anomaly. Often the foods most people hate, I can't get enough off and my flavour and texture combinations can be a bit experimental. Now I'm not saying there's anything 'Heston-Blumenthal-crazy' about these muffins (quite the opposite, they make so much sense!) But, the first time I served up a savoury muffin as the token-carb allongside dinner, I did a few funny looks.

To most people - kids and adults alike - muffins are sweet treats. This recipe however breaks the mould combining doughy sustinance with oozing cheese and salty ham. Sounds good right?!

But what do you do with a savoury muffin I hear you ask. Well believe it not they are a great snack to nibble alongside your afternoon cup of tea. Go on, I dare you, swap the double-choc for the double cheese!

Just imagine biting into the satisfyingly crisp outside of the muffin, the soft centre with pockets of warm gooey cheese (I'm assuming you lack self control, and like me are eatingvthem straight from the oven). The little green flecks remind you that the courgette is one of your five a day! (Sort of.) And the hint of mustard powder balances perfectly with the salty ham making these an "adult" treat that doesn't involve alcohol for once...

But thats not where their versatility ends. They're also great to serve allongside soup, a really deep and creamy tomato soup!

And why not pop them into your kinds lunch boxes? Two small muffins to replace the boring old sandwhich will go down a treat! (Why not pop the rest in your handbag for lunch...)

So what are you waiting for?! Why aren't you cooking these bad boys right now!

Well I guess first things first you'll be needing the recipe...

[Chinese New Year] Tea Smoked Duck with Rice Noodle Salad and a lesson in Mandarin

新年快樂!

Xīn Nián Kuài Lè!

(Happy New Year!)

Ok, so it’s not quite Chinese New Year yet (the festival starts on 10th Feb this year) but I get excited about these things. Not least because I am obsessed with all things Chinese!

I thought it’d be fun to open this post with not only some traditional Chinese characters (which I hope are right!) but with a little bit of Pinyin. For those of you who don’t know, pinyin is the official system used to transcribe the sounds used to create Chinese words into latin script - in other words it a way of writing out the sounds that make up Chinese words. Thats the funny combination of letters and symbols you see below the traditional Chinese characters.

I’ve been learning Chinese (mandarin) for about 5 or 6 months now and while I am very much still a beginner, I am surprised at just how easy I have found the language to learn. Once you've grasped pinyin you're over one of the hardest hurdles! My course is purely a “spoken word” course, so I haven’t learnt how to write any Chinese characters yet, but I’m still really enjoying getting used to a tonal language, and a language where for once the uses of tenses (or lack of use...) and the sentence structure actually makes sense to me! Maybe I will be a multilingual person yet.

My love of the Chinese language is just one reason why I’m really looking forward to celebrating Chinese New Year this year. It’s also a great excuse to try some new and exciting Chinese recipes like the one I’m sharing with you today. But I also like to think of Chinese New Year as my New Year.

This may sound a little silly, but with all the hustle and bustle of Christmas (which...we all known I LOVE), I often find New Year a bit of a letdown, a disappointment. But, by Chinese New Year, things have always seemed to have picked up! Usually I would have finished any winter exams by now (unfortunately this year I don’t finish until 19^th of Feb...eek!), any winter colds would have started to lift, and the old money situation has usually started to ease. So, Chinese New Year is often way more happy and full of hope and prosperity than the traditional December 31^st celebrations!

I also have my own reasons to enjoy January 1^st which don’t surround New Year’s Resolutions.  January 1^st is mine and Jon’s anniversary, and this year we celebrated our 8^th year together! (Confession...I had to double check with him how many years it’s been, it’s been so many haha – bad girlfriend alert!) So often we leave New Years party’s early and on New Year’s Day we are the only people heading out to a restaurant as people stay at home watching yet another Indiana Jones movie on TV.

So there you have it, my New Year, is Chinese New Year!

Before I share with you the scrummy Duck Salad recipe, I just want to tell you a little bit about Chinese New Year traditions. First of all, this year is the year of the dragon! Website mandarin.about.com tells a lovely story which is used to help Children remember the order of the animals.

“The order of the animals is often explained with a folk-tale about how the animals were summoned to heaven by the Jade Emperor (玉皇 - Yù Huáng). The dragon, as the only animal of the twelve that could fly, was expected to arrive first. But the dragon’s nature is to be helpful, and he stopped to help some villagers and then the rabbit, so he was the fifth animal to arrive for the Jade King's feast.”

People born in the year of the dragon are thought to be lucky! (As a result there’s often a bit of a baby boom when the year of the dragon comes around! The dragon is also meant to represent good fortune, so I’m hoping this one will be full of luck and good fortune for all of you!

Red envelopes are also another feature of Chinese New Year. These envelopes are given to children and unmarried adults. They contain money (new notes, and always an even number), but if you’re ever in China for New Year, be careful not to include either 4, 40 or 400 as the number 4 also sounds like the word for death so it is very unlucky!!!

Fireworks are also mandatory as they ward off evil spirits! You can watch some fabulous firework displays in China this time of year. We will be celebrating in our own little way this weekend with an indoor firework show.

So, history lesson over, here’s my recipe.

It’s a little bit more complicated than normal so I’ve broken it down into it’s two component parts. Firstly, here’s how to tea smoke your duck breast. Secondly, I’ll share my recipe for the simple yet flavoursome rice noodle salad. Enjoy!

Mincemeat Bread and Butter Pudding

Overdue post alert!!!!!!!!!

Now that’s dealt with let’s move on.

This recipe is one that I have been DIEING to cook since Christmas, but you know what? It turns out you CAN have too much of a good thing, and despite everyone telling me how delicious my mincemeat was, they didn’t want to eat mincemeat leftovers. No-sir-y-bob!

In their defence, I think we only got rid of the last of our Christmas mince pies about a week ago. This is down to two main things. Firstly, most of my family were trying to “be good” this Christmas – aka not stuff their faces with all the delicious treats I had made them. And secondly, we tend to make at least two batches on Christmas Eve. This results in many leftover mince pies as people are far too full after Christmas Day/Boxing Day/all the parties in between, to gorge themselves on these little morsels of joy.

Their loss, not mine.

But hey-ho, you live and learn! Note to self: make less mince pies next year.

If you, like me, have found yourself still left with Christmas leftovers in the form of jars and jars of mincemeat, have no fear, because I have just the recipe for you.

I actually managed to serve this up in front of my parents by NOT mentioning the C-word. No, not that C word, I mean CHRISTMAS! Whenever I had mentioned making a Mincemeat Bread and Butter Pudding before, it had always been as a Christmas dish. Something to replace the Christmas Pudding with, or to serve with brandy butter in the main special dinners that make up the Christmas period. Consequently, as we moved further and further into January my parents didn’t want to hear the C word mentioned again, let alone eat anything that tasted so...Christmassy!

So, I had to disguise it!

Fortunately for me, my mincemeat recipe is choc-full of delicious fruits. I helped lift these flavours from the mincemeat by adding the zest of lemons and oranges giving it a lighter, more vibrant flavour. The light, gooey bread and butter texture was still present, but this complemented the succulent mincemeat within, rather than being dominated by it.

They were half way through their bowls before anyone even noticed what I had done! I had successfully served up Christmas in a bowl exactly 4 weeks after the big event.