Forgotten Favourites: Fishfingers & Liquorice Allsorts

I've spoken before about foods we love but just never seem to eat very often until a wave of retro cravings and sentimality forces up to satisfy that need. Today, this was fishfingers and liquorice allsorts. Two very different products but both forgotten favourites of mine that deserved to be resucitated.

The fishfingers came about after a conversation about fishfinger baguettes with a friend. For something so simple, this really satisifies on all levels. The crunchy carbohydrate goodness of a crisp, crunchy baguette, the cooling tartare sauce and the soft, warming fishfingers - it's a perfect threesome. What I love about fishfingers is how the breadcrmbs and tender cod all meld into one. The outside isn't crunchy and crisp (that's what the baguette is for) but forms a delicious skin around the melt in the mouth fillet inside that blends seamlessly with it but adds its own flavour.

And liquorice allsorts? Well, this was the result of a buy one get one free offer (damn supermarkets and their sugar peddling!). Alongside some Bassett's Jelly Babies (which frankly, I can't wait to get my teeth into), I purchased some liquorice allsorts. I absolutely adore these - to be frank, they are a strong contender for my favourite sweet.

But I think the reason I never eat them, is that they are an acquired taste. When a family member buys sweets for a Saturday night in or a colleague is getting sweets to share round the office, they never choose the poor liquorice allsrot because not everyone likes them. Instead, you usually end up with some bland rubbish to appease those who don't possess tastebuds. (It's the same with Marks & Spencer mini bites - in an effort to please everyone, we always end up with the dullest choices at work - the brownies and chocolate rolls - why can we never have the absolute ecstacy of the Oatberry Clusters or the sweet clusters of Rocky Road?)

I, for one, love the simple Allsort and its sweet but peppery charms. Even to look at, they're pleasing. All those bright, neon colours so striking in the way they contrast one another. I would much rather have a picture of liqorice allsorts on my wall than a Van Gogh. They're just so tempting looking. And as for taste, something so sweet is inevitably going to be a winner in my book. Combine that with a lovely texture, that is chewy and almost gritty but also soft and yielding and it's sweet nirvana.

 

I probably won't have fishfingers or liquorice allsorts for while now as they'll get lost in the sea of tempting choices I face everyday but though they may be temporarily forgotten, they'll never die out. They're just too good.

Rude Health 7 Grain Granola Honey Nut

'Breakfast like a King' is a phrase that's always bandied around but I do truly believe that breakfast is the most special meal of a day. It's the first thing we eat, setting us up for a day of what we can only hope will be filled with culinary delights. A good breakfast is so important to me, it's a celebration of waking up and the promise of a new day and if I don't have something tasty and satisying, it's automatically makes me just a little bit downcast.

Unfortunately, Rude Health's 7 Grain Honey Nut granola didn't fulfil what I want from my first meal of the day. The company's website reiterates the importance of breakfast and eating like a king at a breakfast but I felt this was more of a pauper's breakfast.

I absolutely adore granola. I've spoken about it before being the cereal equivalent of cocaine and I usually cannot trust myself to have it in the house (I once consumed a 600g box of Quaker Oat's Granola in 3 days) but I felt like having an indulgent breakfast and bought it because it was on special offer (another mistake, it's always worth spending more on food).

The granola isn't horrible as such but it is lacking. Whereas the Quaker one gives you great boulders of sweet, crunchy oats, this comes out as a pathetic rubble. The honey nut flavouring is nice but it's not as sinfully satisfying as the Honey granola from Dorset Cereals. The lack of raisins or any other dried fruit takes away the nice mix of textures and tastes you get from other granolas and the whole thing is just a bit dull.

I am an incredibly greedy person so it's no suprise that my biggest disappointment was the portion size. The recommended portion size is 40g. I went over this and measured myself out 50g. But this barely covered the base of the bowl. It was a sad scattering of small rubble, not the impressive mountain of clusters of oats, punctuated by fruity dots of joy that I usually expect from a granola. Sure, I could of had more but looking at the nutritional content, 50g was sufficient. And for something fairly indulgent, it doesn't taste very special.

I love food so I'm loathe to criticise any of it. Rude Health granola isn't bad - it was just disappointing. I did enjoy but it didn't wow me and when I cleared my meagre bowl, I felt unsatisfied. And that is not how I want to start my day.

Coronation Chicken

What with it being the Jubilee Weekend, (and I had the most beautiful banquet of British goodies imaginable yesterday to celebrate at a family buffet yesterday) what better time to celebrate that renowned national dish that is Coronation chicken.

Coronation chicken was created by Constance Spry, a florist, and Rosemary Hume, a chef, as a celebratory dish for the coronation of the Queen. It was supposedly inspired by Jubilee chicken, a dish prepared for the silver Jubilee of George V, mixing chicken with mayonnaise and curry. Modern day versions are very different - some include raisins (essential in my opinion), some flaked almonds and some creme fraiche. Recipes vary so much - and this is what makes coronation chicken so amazing - but also so disliked by some.

For a supposed 'national' dish, I know very few people who like coronation chicken. And this is the result of varying recipes and version. To take supermarket versions, for example, there is marked differences in quality in the various ones available. The Sainsbury's one I've tried is a horrendous mess. If this is people'e experience of Coronation Chicken, no wonder people turn their noses up at it. A claggy, gunky orangey mess that is far too sweet and is sickly with its mess of a mayonnaise.

The M&S one is by far by absolute favourite. Spread into a soft brown roll, sprinkled with a crunchy seed topping, it is hard to imagine a nicer lunch. It is a gloriously golden yellow, speckled with dots of spice that perfectly counterbalance the sweeter elements. The tender, generous sized pieces of chicken are lovingly coated in the smooth, silky sauce that has enough spice to provide a bit of bite but is never overpowering.

In time for the Jubilee, they've released a coronation chicken sandwich in their food to go range. I had this for lunch last Friday and it so satisfying. Sandwiched between onion bread with a generous helping of this beautiful deli filler, it more than justified its £2.50 price tag. They've also released coronation chicken hand cooked crisps. Wonderfully crunchy, with bite, texture and lovely spicy flavouring, these made an appearance at our Jubilee party yesterday and, of course, I had far too many.

I think people think they dislike coronation chicken because of the afore mentioned bad supermarket versions but also because of frumpy versions given to them at school or being force fed badly made versions by elderly relatives. At our Jubilee party, amongst many other delicious offerings, my aunt made a gorgeous coronation chicken. Though it was missing he raisins that I feel are essential to the dish's identity, it was still an absolute pleasure to eat. It wasn't swamped in mayonnaise, which is the cause of a many a bad coronation chicken, but rather, sparingly coated in a beautifully creamy, not claggy sweet and spicy sauce.

Piled high on slabs of a gorgeous bread from the local deli, this was food heaven. Soft, doughy bread with a mountain of fragrant, herbed flecked chicken heaped on top - it was no wonder I went home with tight jeans.

Coronation chicken is a national treasure for a reason. When it's done right, like this, I can think of no better reason for my love of being British.

Popchips

I have four main food weaknesses:

• Anything Sweet
• Bread
• Cereal
• Anything Bitesize

These four devilish foodstuffs are things I can and do graze on constantly, consuming in them in vast amounts. To be frank, I am lucky I'm not the size of a blimp thanks to these food demons and my insatible love of consuming them.

Bitesize things are particularly difficuly to resists. That "Oh just one more" inevitably leads to "Oh ****, I've just eaten the entire box/ packet/ container - Marks and Spencer mini bites are particularly bad for this (especially the Oatberry Cluster ones).

Crisps, too, are always a danger. That lovely crunch, the hard texture, the tangy flvours - it's no wonder we all can easily munch out way through a family sized bag. So, how nice is it, once in a while to find a bitesize snack that is relatively healthy.

Popchips are essentially crisps, which have not been fried but rather 'popped' - apparently they take potaotes, add heat and pressure and a 'little pop magic' - so you are left with something with more flavour and substance than baked crisps but without the guilt of fried crisps.

The barbeque ones  I sampled really did stand out from other crisps. The texture in your mouth and that satisfying crunch as your teeth sink into the smoky discs really are different from the usual crisp experience. They feel lighter but they also have enough substance behind them to satisfy.

Tastewise, the barbeque flavouring is a really deep, sweet sensation with a tiny bit of bite amongst that throaty smokiness. Sweetness and heat are perfectly in sync to provide a barbeque crisp that isn't as synthetic tasting as those awful Walkers ones.

At £1.89 a bag, these aren't cheap but they do make a nice treat and, better still, it's a guilt free treat.

White Chocolate & Custard Biscuits

Another lazy Sunday afternoon led to some more baking and once again it is from a copy of BBC Good Food. Rather than cakes, I decided to make biscuits. Not just any old biscuits, white chocolate & custard biscuits. Now making your own biscuits may seem a fairly archaic practice, considering the amazing range even the smallest of supermarkets offers. But making biscuits is one of the nicest baking experiences in my book, simply because it is so unnecessary.

You make biscuits because you want to potter around the kitchen – it’s not urgent and it’s not needed. It’s why I also like making things like granola, bread and chutney. You make them because you want to be cooking, not because you have to be cooking. And when you can make something as nice as these biscuits, it’s all the more worthwhile.

These lovely golden biscuits had the perfect texture. Soft enough to melt in your mouth but with enough of a shortbread-crunch to give it some interest. The pale, yellow of these biscuits cheers you up just by looking them and the little drops of white chocolate buried underneath their cracked surface makes them even more appetising.

The custard powder, which went into these, is subtle, but it gives the biscuits a lovely vanilla taste that far surpasses any shop bought custard cream. And until you can buy shop bought custard creams that are packed full of sweet, melt in the mouth specks of white chocolate, these will always come out on top.

From BBC Good Food June 2012:

140g softened butter

175g caster sugar (I used golden caster sugar to make these golden ovals even more sunny)

1 egg

½ tsp vanilla extract

225g self raising flour

85g custard powder

85g white chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan. Line 2-3 baking sheets with baking parchment. Put sugar and butter in a food processor and whiz until light and fluffy. (I couldn’t be bothered to get my food processor out of the cupboard so I did everything with an electric whisk in a mixing bowl and they turned out great).

2. Add the egg and vanilla and mix well.

3. Sift the flour and custard powder together and tip into the bowl and pulse to form a dough. Scrape out of the food processor and mix in the white chocolate chips by hand.

4. Pull out pieces of dough and roll them into portions just smaller than a walnut (you should get about 25 biscuits) then place on the baking sheets, with a little space between them to allow for spreading. Press each biscuit down lightly with your fingers.

5. Bake for 12=15 minutes until golden. Remove and cool on a wire rack.

Whittard's Amaretto Coffee

Much as I love eating, I can't really pretend to be a connoisseur. Nowhere is this more apparent than in my taste (or lack of) in coffee). I like Starbucks and I'm unashamed to admit. Yes, it's mass market and it's not refined or even proper coffee, but getting myself a plastic cup of American-chain goodness brightens up my morning okay?

Coffee critics will further look down on me because I can't even have a proper coffee - it has to be so pumped full of flavoured syup that it's barely a coffee. My beverage of choice would always be a gingerbread latte or perhaps the hazelnut latte. No, it's not classy, but I do love the warming, toasty feeling I get for having a hot cup of coffee with that lovely gingery or nutty aroma and taste.

So if you're a coffee snob, this product is not for you: Whittard's Amaretto Coffee. Adding to the crime of being flavoured is the fact it's instant coffee. But please, do not let this put you off. This is pure joy in coffee powder form.

I absolutely adore Amaretto. A Jack Daniels topped with Amaretto and Coke is one of my favourite drinks but then I just love anything to do with almonds. Frangipane is one of the nicest baking tools available - a thick, almondy paste blanketing whatever pastry you're making. The Bakewell Tart and Battenburgs are behemoths in the cake world. And as for marzipan.. well let's just say when I'm making a Christmas Cake, I'll need to buy two packets to cover the cake because I literally can eat an entire slab of the that almondy, pliable block of suagry gold by itself, each piece greedily torn off and ending up in my mouth rather than the cake.

So I was always going to inevitably love this coffee powder. The Amaretto flavour is subtle; you are drinking something that tastes of coffee, not an Almond drink. But that unique scent and taste of almond is hidden and swirling around the drink and at the back of your mouth, touching it with its glorious, sweet taste.

At £4.50, it's not cheap.But it is worth it (and the amount of free samples I was taking in Whittard's, I had to buy something). This provides a comforting mug of almondy bliss, that is the perfect partner for a lazy Sunday afternoon on the couch with a magazine and a couple of biscuits.

Peanut Butter & Forgotton Favourites

Of all of today's moments of food heaven, it was something as simple as plain old peanut butter that stood head and shoulders above the crowd. Considering I've also made a lovely sweet and sour stiry fry with brown noodles, had copious free flavoured hot chocolate samples at Whittards and bought a beautifully sweet cinammon pretzel coated in a blanket of sugar at Westfields, this is no easy feat.

But what was it amount this tub of gungy goo that lines the shelves of even the most understocked coner shop, that made it stand out so?

Obviously, taste was probably the critical factor. This wasn't just any old peanut, this was an M&S Thick and Crunchy Peanut Butter. So attractively packaged in the new Simply M&S design (and quite good value at only £1.38), this peanut butter had the most gloriously thick and gungey texture. As I spread it across a perfectly crisp piece of toasted French Pain de Campagne, there was friction and it stuck to the knife. This is eaxctly what I want from peanut butter - it was fabulously sticky.

Better yet was the way this smooth, thick goo stuck to the roof of my mouth, blanketing my tongue and tastebuds in a rich, creamy, peanutty goodness. Speckled throughout were great big shards of peanut. These weren't the pathetic little tokens cheaper peanut butters offer you but, rather, were crunchy, providing heft and bulk.

But I think the reason I enjoyed this so much was because I so rarely eat or buy peanut butter. I don't know why this is, I love peanut butter, but somehow it never makes its way into my shopping factor. It is an overlooked and forgotten favourite of mine. We all have them, whether it be foods from our childhood or things that are hard to fine.

So think about something you love but you just never seem to get round to buying and go and get some! The pleasure of devouring a personal pleasure that you rarely eat just makes the eating experience that bit more special.

BBC Good Food Cherry Oat Squares with Chocolate Drizzle

Having gone far too long without a spot of baking, my need for sweet cakey goodness led to my trying a new recipe from this month's BBC Good Food magazine. The whole feature on 'Baking for a Cake Stall' was filled with the most tempting pictures of bulgingly beautiful cakes and biscuits and frankly I could have quite happily baked (and eaten for that matter) the entire lot. But the picture of a tower of squat little squares of oaty goodness tempted me above all others and I settled on the Cherry Oat Squares with Chocolate Drizzle.

In my mind, these perfectly lend themselves to the idea of food as art. Golden building blocks of cake stacked so daintily on top of one another, they resemble a delicious food version of a jenga tower. The enticing deep, dark chocolate drizzled over the top provides a stark contrast to the warm golden brown of the cake.

Essentially, these are flapjacks but having been made with self-raising flour as well and with the omission of golden syrup, they are less dense and cloying. Instead, they are lighter, crumblier with a nice soft, biscuity texture that is still firm and satisfying.

Punctuated with glace cherries, that glisten like rubies, buried in the sandy rubble of the flapjack, they provided a pleasing mix of tastes. The chewy yet crumbly flavour of oats, the sweet bursts of cherry goodness and the sophisticated depth of dark chocolate all work together to provide a wonderful taste sensation, all packed into one little, dense square.

These went down so well at work, that I didn't even get one.

Recipe:

·         140g butter, melted, plus extra butter for the tin

·         100g self-raising flour

·         175g caster sugar

·         175g porridge oats

·         1 egg, beaten

·         100g glace cherries, halved

·         50g dark chocolate

1.       Heat oven to 180C/160C fan. Butter and line the base and sides of a 22cm square cake tin, allowing it to come up over the sides to make it easier to get out.

2.       Mix together the flour, sugar and oats in a bowl. Add the egg, melted butter and cherries and mix well to combine. Tip into the tin and press down with a fork to smooth the mixture and spread it evenly.

3.       Bake for 2-25 minutes until golden brown. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then carefully lift out using the paper and place on a board. Mark, but don’t cut, 3 lines each way to make 16 squares.

4.       Melt the chocolate in the microwave for a minute then drizzle over the squares. When the chocolate had set, cut the squares down the marked lines.

Dorset Cereals Gingerbread Porridge

I think breakfast is perhaps my favourite meal of the day. It is often quoted as being the most important, but for most people breakfast is boring. It is the meal you hastily wolf down as you run out the door, late for work. I imagine it is also the most monotonous meal for most people. My friends tend to eat the same thing every day for breakfast and it is all pretty uninspiring.

As the first meal of the day, breakfast should be exciting. A celebration of a new day with the promise of exciting eating opportunities. You should go to bed excitied to wake up, just so you can eat whatever delicious thing you've got planned for a morning boost.

And Dorset Cereals' Gingerbread Porridge certainly does that. I love porridge. That creamy, warm, nourishing breakfast that tastes so comforting but is also good for you. But I do tend to have just plain oats which I make myself and then add something to (some honey, blueberries, raspberries, raisins, hazelnuts etc). I don't really buy into these convenience satchets as they seem expensive for what they are and are likely to have unnecessary additives and flavourings.

But hey, sometimes you want to indulge yourself and this porridge is certainly a treat. Wonderfully thick and sweet with actual pieces of gingerbread speckled throughout its cinnamony stickiness. The little nuggets of gingerbread are like biscuit gold - sweet, full flavoured and crumbly. The porridge itself is also permeated with gingery and spicey flavours that entice the nose and tantalise the tastebuds. This cosy little bowl of warming goodness is the porridge equivalent of a cake baking in an oven.

Trust me, if you're not the sort of person who enjoys breakfast, try this. It practically makes me want to go to bed at 10am because I cannot wait a whole day for my next bowl of this!

Why Does Easter Egg Chocolate Taste Better Than Regular Chocolate?

Despite my love of all food, I do have a slightly take-it-or-leave it approach to chocolate. However, at this time of year, I do get cravings for that sweet, milky shards of an Easter egg. It doesn't even have to be fine 70% solids chocolate. Nope, plain old Cadbury's cheap confectionary is the only cure for my sweet tooth desire.

Because there is something extra nice about Easter egg chocolate. Essentially, a shell of Cadbury's Easter egg is nothing more than a bar of Dairy Milk. But for some reason when the chocolate is in egg form, it transcends being a run of the mill chocolate bar and is elevated to a heavenly chocolatey symbol of fertility.

In all serious, like advent calendar chocolate, it genuinely tastes so much better. I always put my Easter eggs in the fridge and taking out a shard of broken brown bliss and slowly letting it melt over my tongue is pure pleasure. I think the reason it tastes so much better is due to thickness. Lovely thin, sheets of chocolate that snap satisfyingly when you break a fragment off; it's so much nicer than a breeze block of chocolate that you get everyday.

And I think the other reason is that it comes down to seasonality. Like mince pies, Easter eggs are that rare food we just don't get nowadays - something only available for a limited period of the year. With modern production we get strawberries in winter and even hot cross buns are available all year round.

The Easter egg is therefore a treat to be snatched at when the opportunity arises because, come May, you have a whole other year to wait before you can get your hands on that sweet treasure enrobed in its aluminium dressing. So whether or not I'm crazy for thinking it's nicer than regular chocolate, I'm going to crack to devour my chocolate joy with gusto whilst I can.

Oatibix Cranberry

Up there with bread and cake, cereal has got to be one of my biggest food weaknesses. I can devour bowl after bowl of crunchy bliss in one sitting. I cannot even let myself buy granola - it's so delicious I cannot walk away after one bowl and I can easily shovel 200g of the stuff down in one sitting. The worst culprit has to be Quaker's Granola, which is the cereal equivalent of cocaine.

Whilst treating myself to a trip around Waitrose (well it is Easter weekend and we all deserve something special around this time of year), I came across a boxed of reduced Oatibix Cranberry. I've been meaing to sample Oatibix for ages. I absolutely adore porridge, muesli and granola and a bowl of Weetabix is always a fantastic way to start my day (especially if you microwave it on a cold day. It goes sumptuously soggy, turning it into a delicious warming mush).

I have to say, I think I've got another contender for cereals that are hard to stop at just one bowl. (Though thankfully, it's not as addictive as granola). Oatibix are little crunchy pillows of oats that have the lovely textured taste of Weetabix with the added crunch and bulk you get from oat based products.

Studded with glistening little cranberries, they glow a ruby red from within the sandy coloured mini Weetabix, winking at you like little gems in a sea of milk and oats. They are also satisfyingly solid.

Many cereals like Special K or Cornflakes disintegrate into the milk and you gulp them down without even really tasting them. Oatibix soak up a little milk but they don't absorb it like a sponge, giving you a lovely balance between hefty crunch and softened milky oats. They also left me feeling comfortably full, rather than craving more, which is just what you want from a product that is supposed to set you up for the day.

It was just my luck then, that the reason they were reduced in Waitrose is because the cranberry version is being discontinued. Looks like I'm going to have to ration these out for as long as I can...

Easter Chocolate Fudge Cakes

Following on from yesterday's rant about cheap mini eggs, I mentioned that I made some Easter Chocolate Fudge Cakes. In my disgust at the knock off confectionary, I ended up not allowing them on top of my cakes and instead opted for Cadbury mini eggs.

This was necessary because when cakes are this good, they deserve to be royally crowned with Cadbury mini eggs, rather than being manhandled with a jester's hat of synthetic confectionary.

This recipe came from the BBC Good Food website, a digital treasure trove for the ecstatic eater, where I can lose myself for hours in the tempting array of culinary delights on offer. What with it being Easter Sunday this weekend, there was only one type of cake I would be making for work this week and hence my oven conceived these plump chocolatey babies, smeared in a sticky chocolate fudge buttercream with a nest of brightly hued mini eggs nestled on top.

I couldn't recommend this recipe enough. It requires only 5 ingredients for the cakes and a further two are needed for the buttercream and the cupcakes can be made and baked easily within half an hour. Not that you want to hurry to make these. The warming smell of chocolatey goodness permeating my kitchen made this something I could have happily have been making for hours.

The cakes were beautifully moist, dark spongy pillows of cocoa batter, but it was the buttercream that really took them to the next level. I adapted the recipe by using Chocolate Philadelphia instead of the milk chocolate because I can't get enough of this tub of creamy delight. Fudgy and gooey without being sickly, sticky and sweet without being cloying, this was a dream frosting. I'm not ashamed to admit I scraped out and ate every last inch of the glorious goo out of my mixing bowl after all the cupcakes were iced.

Plus, the cakes look so charming with their pastel eggs huddled together on top. So this is a real winner in terms of ease, aesthetics and taste.

Ingredients:

For the cakes:

140g soft butter

140g golden caster sugar

3 medium eggs

100g self raising flour

25g cocoa sifted

For the icing:

85g milk chocolate, broken (I replaced this with some Chocolate Philadelphia).

85g soft butter

140g icing sugar

Plus 2x 35g bags of white chocolate malteasers and min foil-wrapped chocolate eggs. I, however, used mini eggs instead.

· Heat oven to 190C/fan 170C/gas 5 and put 16 gold cases into a fairy-cake tin. Tip all the ingredients for the cake into a mixing bowl and beat for 2 mins with an electric hand-whisk until smooth. Divide between the cases so they are two-thirds filled, then bake for 12-15 mins until risen. Cool on a wire rack.

· For the frosting, microwave the chocolate on High for 1 min. Cream the butter and sugar together, then beat in the melted chocolate. Spread on the cakes and decorate with Maltesers and chocolate eggs.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3481/chocolate-fudge-easter-cakes

The Dangers of Cheap Confectionary - Why only Cadbury Mini Eggs will do

It was my own fault really. Usually, I never buy food based on how cheap it is or if it’s on promotion. I’ve always been a strong advocate that it is worth paying that bit more for something you will actually enjoy. And I don’t mean that in a food snob sort of way because I sadly don’t have the money to be able to be one. People may think I’m a foodie, in reality I’m just greedy.

In an ideal world I would buy literally all my food from Waitrose and M&S but this isn’t an ideal world so I have to mix my Waitrose Pumpkin Falafels and M&S Cherry & Almond Frangipanes with stuff from Morrison’s, Sainsbury’s and Asda (but never Tesco. I could go into the reasons why but frankly that would take at least a whole post to itself).

As part of my leisurely weekend bakeathon, I decided to make some Easter Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes (and I will be posting about these later in the week). Of course, no Easter cake would be complete without being adorned with the speckled beauties that are mini eggs.

Now usually I would buy Cadbury Mini Eggs. If I’m honest, I’m not really a fan of Cadbury chocolate. There’s nothing wrong with it, but, at the same time it never delivers that smooth, silky bliss that only really good chocolate can deliver. However, I do like their mini eggs - bright, colourful sugary shells protecting a dark, sweet core of chocolate joy.

Like I said I would usually have bought these and at 100g for £1, buying the 200g I needed for the recipe would hardly have broke the bank but for some reason I ended be drawn against my will into buying some ‘Sweet Heaven’ chocolate eggs at £1 for 200g.

So for the sake of a pound (though the price of the Cadbury ones was 200% of the Sweet Heaven ones) I went for the bargain basement eggs. What could go wrong I thought? Chocolate = good. Sugar shells = good. It’s a pretty simple formula.

How wrong I was. These were the definition of cheap, nasty, potent confectionary. The shells were brittle and shredded my mouth and the chocolate didn’t even taste of chocolate, just a cocoa-ey sugary chemical formula. I didn’t want these sugar bullets ruining my Easter cupcakes so I didn’t even end up using them (though admittedly, despite hating them, I did shovel a fair few in my mouth - they had that addictive quality that E number riddled candy has).

It just goes to show, it’s just not worth scrimping on food. Food is to be savoured and enjoyed and to do that you need to be prepared to splash out. Scrimping and being miserly only ends in mini eggs that are more like chocolate bricks than chocolate bliss so be warned!

Lorraine Pascale's Doris Grant Loaf

The weekend is always the perfect time for cooking and I love nothing more than to lose myself on a Saturday afternoon in spending time on a more involved recipe. Weekends offer the chance to do the type of cooking that we regrettably just do not have the time to do during the average week. It is a time when cooking becomes what it should be about, pleasure and the love of eating, rather than just throwing something together to fuel yourself for another day. For me, the weekend is about baking, in particular cakes and bread.

I'm a complete carboholic. I could never contemplate doing something like the Atkins diet. To exist without dense doughy sourdough, golden, crusty baguettes smeared with butter or bulging muffins bursting with chocolate chips or brilliant blueberries is just unthinkable.

One of my favourite baking bibles is Lorraine Pascale's 'Baking Made Easy' and today I made the Doris Grant Loaf. I've actually made this several times but I have such loaf love for this bread that I find myself always coming back to it, instead of trying the other bread recipes in the book.

Dense, deeply brown, textured but soft, grainy bread encased by a shell of satisfyingly crunchy crumb. This bread ticks off everything a carbomaniac could want. I prefer wholemeal bread generally and this is in a 'whole' different world to the pappy, soggy excuses our supermarkets palm off on us, wrapped in clinical polystyrene bags. The fact it is also a bread that you don't need to knead makes this a charming, leisurely Saturday afternoon activity rather than a strenous work out.

Frankly, this bread is so good, I literally needed nothing else with it to make a divine lunch. Well, actually that's a lie, I did have one little supplement - a pot of gleamingly golden extra virgin olive oil with a little puddle of dark, powerful balsamic vinegar to dunk my bread in.

And this bread is so soft and tender that it absorbed my little bath of oil and vinegar like a sponge. Popping warm slices of homemade bread in your mouth with olive oil dribbling down it -there's no finer lunch.

Ingredients

• 225g/8oz strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
• 225g/8oz strong wholemeal flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 x 7g sachet fast-action dried yeast
• 1 tbsp clear honey
• 300ml/11fl oz warm water
• vegetable oil or oil spray, for oiling
• a little milk, for brushing

Preparation method

1. Dust a medium baking tray with flour.
2. Sift the flours into a large bowl and reserve the grain – the brown bits that are too big to fit through the sieve. Add the salt and yeast, then make a big hole in the centre and pour in the honey and water. Mix well to form a smooth dough, working it gently with your hands if necessary. If the dough feels a bit stiff, add an extra two tablespoons of water. Shape the mixture into a ball and place on the prepared baking tray. Make sure the top is smooth and wrinkle-free. Cover the dough loosely with oiled clingfilm, making sure it is airtight, and leave to rise in a warm place for a good hour, or until it has almost doubled in size.
3. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6. Remove the clingfilm from the dough and make a few slashes in the top with a sharp knife – I use a sharp, serrated knife and saw gently. Brush the loaf with milk, sprinkle with the reserved grain and then place in the oven.
4. Put about 10 ice cubes into the bottom of the oven – they will produce steam, which keeps the crust from hardening too quickly. (A quickly hardened crust prevents the bread from rising well.) Bake the bread for 30–40 minutes, or until it has risen, sounds hollow when tapped underneath and comes easily off the baking tray. Remove from the oven and leave to cool on the tray.
5. Serve fresh from the oven with loads of butter. These loaves do not keep well. However, if the whole lot does not disappear in one sitting, slice up the remainder and put it in the freezer to eat as toast.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/doris_grant_loaf_16985

Harissa Chicken Breast in a Foccaccia Bun with Caramelised Red Onion

This is barely a recipe at all. In fact, just reading the title of this post is pretty much it.

For a delicious lunch today, I simply took a chicken breast, bashed it with a rolling pin to flatten it and then rubbed it in a good tablespoon of lovely, earhy harissa paste.

Whilst leaving it to marinate, I took a foccaccia bread roll, which I got from the in store bakery at Waitrose, drizzled it in a little olive oil and then toasted both sides in a griddle pan over a medium-high heat.

I then swapped the now crispingly crumbly foccaccia rolls and kept them warm in the oven whilst I cooked the spicy chicken breast in the griddle pan. Then it was a case of putting the bird in the bun and smearing liberally with the gooily tangy caramelised red onion chuntey I bought from M&S (this stuff more than warrants its £1.99 price tag).

Andf that was it. But I can't describe how good this was. The crunch of the bread that had the depth of the olive oil pemeating it, the juicy chicken enlivened by the fiery heat of the harissa and the sweet sharpness of the chutney: three components each giving the most perfect mouthful of food.

Butternut Squash

Today's inspirational ingredient is the Butternut Squash. Big, bulging beasts of a vegetable with a cheering mellow orange flesh lurking underneath that smooth, tough exterior.

What inspired me to have Butternut Squash tonight was a simple idea I saw in Delicious Magazine. You just cut your Squash into chunks, put it in a roasting tin and annoit in with the golden lubricant that is olive oil. Then, simply add a good dollop of heat with the help of some harissa paste and after roasting in a hot oven for 45 minutes, I had a comforting but healthy supper that left my stomach feeling as warm and glowing as the yielding Squash flesh.

All of that with no effort - now that's what I call a result. The beauty of this was that you do nothing, the oven takes care of transforming the hard, firm Squash into a blissful bath of sweet tang. I didn't even pother peeling it.

And whilst we're on simple ideas for Butternut Squash, here's another one of my favourite standby ideas, courtesy of Nigella:

Roast some diced Squash with olive oil and thyme in a hot oven. Take out and then crumble over some salty nuggets of blue cheese and scatter over some toasted crunch courtesy of some pecan nuts. Again, nothing to it but I really cannot describe how comforting this is.

Cadbury Philadelphia

Despite the 'Chocolate Philly? Don't be Silly' strapline that Kraft have adopted for their chocolate flavoured Philadelphia, I have never thought the rich, gooey cream would be anything other than a sweet moutful of sticky bliss.

For some reason, every time you mention this product to someone, shock and revulsion cross their face and the old 'Chocolate and Cheese?' argument inevitably begins. But Philadelphia has never really been a proper cheese; it's just a creamy pot of smooth paste that somehow manages to be both satisfyingly cloying but also light and refreshing. If anything I would argue Philadelphia is bland in the most heavingly way possible; it complements whatever you put it with.

I've spread it across a puffy pillow of a bagel with flakes of coral smoked salmon shining on top and I've blended it with lemon curd to make a zingy and refreshing filling for a tart to be adorned with a treasure trove of fruits. Philadelphia works so well with everything, hence why Kraft have even produced recipe books for it, demonstrating its versatility. I've seen it used with all sorts, from pasta to fish dishes, and surely we've all made a cheesecake with it? And I bet a large proportion of those have been chocolate cheesecakes so surely there should not be an issue with combining it with Cadbury chocolate?

There isn't. This is a heavenly mix of the thick, cooling properties of Philadelphia with a subtly sweet chocolate flavouring permeating every pore of the cream cheese. It's beautifully thick; smearing it across bread is satisfying  and, like peanut butter, the product clings onto the knife, coating it in its dark gloss. When you taste Chocolate Philadelphia, it blankets your tongue in creamy, soothing chocolate bliss. But it is also subtle and not overpoweringly chocolatey or sweet.

Actually Chocolate Philadelphia is surprisingly light at only 86 calories per 30g serving. And I personally would never use 30g in one go. A light spread across a digestive biscuit provides you with an instant chocolate cheesecake that feels and tastes like a real indulgent treat but without all the guilt. It makes a perfect substitute for a chocolate bar or a handful of biscuits.

Frankly, the only thing Silly about Chocolate Philly is that people will not even give it a chance. Try it, you won't regret it.

Rachel Khoo: The Little Paris Kitchen

After watching Rachel Khoo on BBC2 tonight, I would like nothing more than to leave my currant life behind and get the next flight to Paris to live a carefree life of croissants, croque madames and coffees by the Eiffel tower.

Sadly I do not have the guts to do anything as spontaneous as that so I can only watch this slice of alluring French cookery with envy. Rachel left her life behind in Croydon and uprooted to Paris where she opened up a restaurant in a miniscule flat that can only cater for two people. The first thing I felt when watching this show was sheer admiration for someone who is clearly passionate about what they do and is determined enough to follow that love.

The second thing that grabbed me was obviously the food. What I really liked about this programme was how simple everything was. French cuisine does have this myth attached to it, suggesting it is all suagr thermometers and complicated patisserie, but Rachel created dishes that enticed through combining fantastic, fresh base ingredients. The countless market scenes, depicting the abundance of beautiful local produce aided this idea that so long as the ingredients are good, the end result will always be a mouth watering spectacle. Thick, vivid green sprigs of mint, gleaming olives and in particular a golden exlixir of city honey stimulated the eye as much as my stomach.

Not that my stomach wasn't excited by what Rachel produced. Crispy, carb-comforting croque madames, barbeque coq au vin and a fragrant mint sauce were all a delight to see being made but the stars of the show were the spring lamb stew and raspeberry and lemon madelines.

The stew looked so warm and inviting that you wanted to dive in to its herby, punchy waters permeated by juicy nuggets of lamb but what was so appealing about it was that Rachel was making it so simply; just good ingredients simmering away and melding their flavours together - no fancy tricks. The golden, flaky madelines were even more appetisiing. It is no secret I have a massive sweet tooth but these shells of buttery, lemony sponge really hooked me.

What is particularly appealing about this programme is that the style of the show is clean and simple. This is not an overproduced show. Rachel is not putting on an act for the camera and you get the sense that everything is an intimate conversation between you and her, compared to the over-stylised set ups you might get from Nigella or Lorraine Pascale.

It was just a relaxed, chic half hour of dishes that spoke for themselves. This, alongside a charming and slightly kooky presenter means I will definitely be tuning in next week (helped along by the enticing choux buns no doubt).

Mother's Day

Good eating very often boils down to who you're eating with and, having had Sunday lunch with the extended family today, the simple roast beef dinner I had was veritable feast.

Beef, Roast Potatoes, Celeriac and Swede Mash, Carrots, Peas, Yorkshire Puddings, Gravy, Broccoli and Sprouts. Written like that does the meal I've had no justice. This was simple, high quality family feasting. Beautifully tender beef from the butcher with a rich, juicy gravy swaddling fresh, vibrant vegetables. In my mind, there really is no better meal than a roast dinner.

But what makes a roast dinner that extra bit special is that ultimately it is a family eating ritual. You don't really eat or make a roast for one. And being surrounded by all the family and, most importantly, my mum, makes that ordinary list of meal components into something very special.

The roast dinner as a celebration of the family is mostly a celebration of my mum. Thinking of all the Sundays that my mum has toiled away, peeling potatoes and cutting up carrots, makes you realise how lucky you are to have had a childhood where you were always well fed.

I think most of us would argue that our mum is the one who makes the best roast dinner. Maybe it is partly sentamentality behind this, but the foods we are bought up on are inevitably going to shape our tastes and attitudes as we grow older so the Sunday dinner we were given is always going to be how we define it as an adult.

My love of food would possibly be non existant (or at least severely tempered) had I not been so lucky to have a mum that always experimented and tried new things. So many of her recipes are my all time favourites. Her roast dinners, her rice pudding, her moroccan tagine, her homemade burgers and her chilli con carne would all make it into my top meals and I still look forward to every time I am fortunate enough to get to eat one of them again.

My mum always encouraged me to try new things (I remember first trying Indian food at the age of 7 as I pathetically took the scraps from my parents' takeway) and the fact I really cannot think of any foods I dislike is testiment to having been raised in a house where the kitchen really was the heart of the home. So to all the mums out there who have kept us fed and watered so well for so long, cheers!

The Swan at Coombe Hill Review

When I leave a restaurant feeling slightly uncomfortably full but happily so, it has clearly done something right. Though the Swan at Coombe Hill is at a bit of an inconvenient location (a pub opposite a petrol station on an A road and that is really only accessible by car doesn't really seem an attractive choice for those wanting to drink), it is worth making the effort for a meal out that is the food equivalent of snuggling up on the sofa after a long day.

It's one of those places that exudes warmth and cosiness. The decor is simple; smooth, warm, wood flooring with lots of space between cosy tables that still feel spacious and a gently murmuring atmosphere that is never too noisy but still feels lively.

The menu is unashamedly comfort food and lots of stodge. But this is good stodge. The food is not fatty, greasy or unhealthy but the sort of stodge that feels wholesome in its fillingness and leaves you with a warm glow in your tummy. The Swan typically offers pies, good hearty sausages, soothing soups, traditional English puddings and lovingly tender meat and fish dishes. There is also a reasonable choice for vegetarians. My vegetarian companion, a pretty fussy eater who doesn't really like eating out (why I want to hang out with them I'll never know), enjoyed a brocolli and toasted almond soup for starter, which was an interesting twist on a classic, and a deliciously soft artichoke potato cake with griddled goat's cheese and a balsamic reduction.

I went for whitebait for starter after a lot of conflict (the warm duck and chorizo salad and homemade trout pate both offered a lot of temptation) but was so glad when it arrived. Firstly, at the risk of sounding greedy, the portion was large and this, I feel, is imperative to eating out. Hospitality comes from generosity and it's hard to feel welcome at a place where you are given a clinical white plate with a few meagre strips of whitebait looking scared and lonely in the middle of its white circumference.

Thankfully, this is never an issue at the Swan. Everything plate or bowl we ordered was positively bursting with its delectable offerings. The whitebait was perfectly cooked, the crisp fried breadcrumbs providing a perfect contrast to the yielding softness within. The homemade tartare sauce that came with it only made this dreamy duo a perfect trio; lemony and thick without ever being rich or cloying.

The lamb tagine I had for the main was equally balanced. Beautiful, soft, nubbly grains of golden couscous soaked up the rich meaty juices of the tagine's sauce. And what a sauce it was, deep, rich with the flavour of the meltingly tender lamb running through its stream of warming spices.

The only disappointment for me was my dessert - a bread and butter pudding. I suppose it was my own fault for ordering something that you picture in your head from an idealised childhood. But this was barely a bread pudding at all. Rather than crisp bread oozing with sodden sweet currants and a doughy middle, it tasted more just like a rather bland slab of spnge dotted with a few token sultanas. My companion's dessert, a sticky toffee pudding, was much more satisfying. Punchy, soft and sweating its syrupy sweetness from every pore, it fulfilled my desire for a nursery style pudding.

The service was also slightly disappointing. Dishes arrived very promptly, making the meal feel slightly rushed from the perspective of someone who likes to linger over a meal for as long as possible.

But as I left the restaurant feeling sleepily full of comforting carbs, it is hard not to think of the Swan as anything other than a fantastic traditional English restaurant that more than delivers on what any establishment ought to - simple, wholesome food that warms the stomach and the soul.


http://www.swanatcoombehill.co.uk/

Why I Love to Eat

Eating is a hobby.

It is also in my opinion one of the best hobbies and passions you can have. Take kayaking for example, yes, I'm sure its enthusiasts say it's one of the greatest joys you can expererience but you are limited in how often you can do it. You need time out of your hectic schedule to be able to indulge in it, you need the budget for it and if you don't want to drown you really are reliant on other people being able to do it with you.

Food as a hobby is something every one of us can wallow in and enjoy every single day. In fact, it's not even once a day but several times a day. I look forward to every meal and snack I consume. Every eating occasion is special and I take full advantage of all these opportunities each day brings to sample new foods, try new things and let myself savour the appearance, smells and most importantly tastes that food delivers.

There is not a single food I will not eat or do not like. This may seem implausible but I have something good to say about all types of food. I am just as happy eating  celery dipped in a heavenly houmous as I am devouring an oozingly drippy chocolate fudge cake bursting with sweet comfort.

Because of this I have decided to start a daily blog. If I'm honest I could write several entries a day because food is something that underscores everything we do. We all need to eat. But eating is not just fuel for me and I immerse myself in all its brilliant forms. I love to cook and will test out recipes, I watch cookery shows, I buy celebrity cookbooks and food magazines. I'm fortunate to be able to work in a job where I get to hear of all the latest developments in the food industry and I always get the urge to try out any new product that graces our supermarket shelves.

But I could never limit myself to just the ordinary. I like to shop in little delis, visit market stalls and discover those little foodie gems off the beaten track that you will only ever find by accident or recommendation. And as well as covering the above, I aim to recommend these troves of food perfection whenever I find them.

Eating out is also incredibly important to me and is, in my opinion, one of the nicest ways to socialise. Food, ultimately is communal; it is about giving and sharing with those you care about. Going to restaurants, for me, is the ultimate indulgent way to spend time with my nearest and dearest. When you have great conversation, great guests and a goregeous gift on a plate in front of you, it really is hard to want to be anywhere else. However, I am just as happy eating properly cooked fish and chips as I am in a tres sophisticated French brasserie. So long as the food has been prepared with care and love, I am happy.

Anything and everything food related will be covered in this blog as long as it offers joy. And that ulimately, is what eating needs to be about. I learn about food history because I find the cultural tapestry behind dishes interesting and because it often makes them even more appealing, not because I want to be  a 'know it all'. I love to cook, not because I'm looking for compliments or because I'm trying to impress my guests but because I'm just naturally greedy and want something good for myself to eat.

For me, any kind of food snobbery or cooking competition is like a food vampire that sucks all the joy and beauty out of food. Eating is a postive thing, it can comfort us, cheer us up, tantalise our tastebuds and provicd a rock in an unsteady world. Why would you ruin it by putting pressure on yourself trying to win admiration for a beautiful looking tarte tatin? I'd rather have a shabby looking crumble with friends so long as it tastes good.

And ultimately, things tasting good is why we eat. Ok, some might eat just to give them energy for the day but I think most of us cook and consume because we want to, because we want that certain taste to satisify our cravings.

And satisify my cravings is what I'm off to do now, by having a gloriously golden bagel smeared thickly with cool, creamy Philadelphia...