Zesty orange and chocolate chip cookies

Cookies are the new cupcakes, no need to be fiddling with any fancy icing, they cook in under 10 minutes, and you can just put them into your handbag for sharing.

I made these orange and chocolate chip cookies by adding the grated zest of 1 orange and a packet of chocolate chips into the basic cookie dough, added and mixed in this order:
– 125g softened butter
– 100g sugar
– 1 egg
– 110g whole meal flour (you can use white if you prefer)
– half a tsp baking powder
– pinch of salt

Makes around 16 cookies

Once all mixed in and orange zest and chocolate are added, put the dough onto cling film, roll to a log shape and put in the freezer for 30minutes.

After 30mins take the dough out, slice and bake on greaseproof paper 5cm apart for 8-10 minutes on 200 degrees.

I find it easier to take the cookies off the paper once they have fully cooled.

Spiced fruit

My breakfast this morning – figs and nectarine spiced with cinnamon, a pinch of nutmeg, a little honey and eaten with yoghurt – yum!

Berry meringues

These little meringues are taken out of Jamie Oliver’s 30 minute meals and a super easy to make, of you have ready made meringue nests like me.

Spoon 1 tbs of lemon curd onto the meringue nest and top with the berry mix and a mint leaf and you’re done!

The berry mix is made with strawberries and raspberries (although you could you any berries you like) mashed with a tablespoon of honey and 2 tbs Greek yoghurt.

Marrow and ginger jam

I’ve been on the hunt to find different recipes to make with the massive marrow I was given as a gift a couple of weeks ago.
Frankly, I would be happy to eat the whole thing stuffed with various fillings, like the veggie one I made the other day, or beef mince with plenty of cheese on top, or Moroccan style with a lamb mince and spices as suggested by a colleague.

However, now that I write a blog I feel obliged to try some more inventive things. So after some scouring of the net I went to the site that never lets me down – BBC Good Food – and found this recipe for marrow and ginger jam.

I assumed this would be a chutney type jam to have with cheese and biscuits, but looking at the sugar content that couldn’t be right – wouldn’t marrow jam be just a little strange? There’s only one way to find out, so I got cooking.

As with all jams (which I know as of this week), you need equal amounts of your main ingredient – in this case marrow – and jam sugar, apparently not to be confused with preserving sugar.

To make marrow and ginger jam you need:
– equal amounts of marrow and jam sugar
– grated rind and juice of 2 lemons
– around 50g of peeled, finely grated fresh ginger

Method:

Cook the marrow, chopped to the size of sugar cubes, on a low heat with the juice of half a lemon until softened, but not too mushy. (I had 600g of each)

Once softened, add the sugar a stir until completed melted, then add the rest of the lemon juice, lemon zest and ginger.

Bring the boil and simmer for 10-15 minutes until at ‘setting point’.

To test for setting point, put a saucer into the freezer well before you start boiling. Spoon a little of the jam onto the saucer. Once cool, push it with your finger. If the jam wrinkles, it’s ready.
I’ll be honest, I hadn’t prepared my frozen saucer, so just guessed the jam would be OK, it’s a little on the watery side, but otherwise fine.

Once done, pour the jam into warm, sterilised jars and seal.

The marrow jam is definitely a sweet, rather thank savoury jam. I might have put in a little too much ginger as its a little on the tangy side although the flavours are meant to mature over time, so this might change.
It doesn’t taste much of marrow at all, more like a lemony ginger marmalade.

It’s going to be lovely on toast for the next few months, also with yogurt and granola for breakfast.

Steamed mussels with plenty of garlic

There’s been a little lull on my blogging of late, this is because I’ve been to Ibiza – the party island! We went out there for our friends’ picturesque wedding overlooking Cala Tarida.

I’m not that much into going to super clubs until 6 in the morning, but I am into having cocktails and watching the sunset, like this one:

So in an attempt to get over our holiday blues we had steamed mussels for dinner.

The most work of this dish goes into cleaning the mussels, you have to cut off their ‘beards’ and scrape the shells clean so you don’t get gritty bits in your sauce. I always worry about the mussels getting warm while I’m doing this and opening up too early so I keep them in a big bowl of water during the cleaning process, sometimes with an ice cube or two thrown in.

Important – you must discard any that have opened before cooking.

Once the mussels are all cleaned, I leave them in the cold water while I prepare the sauce by frying a finely chopped shallot and lots of crushed garlic (6 or 7 cloves) in a little olive oil in a big, heavy set pan.

Once softened, I add a large glass of white wine, season and leave for a couple of minutes before adding the (drained) mussels and putting the lid on the pan for them to steam.

They should take around 3 minutes – once they are opened they are cooked – I sometimes take a few out as they open, to allow space for others to open.

In the last minute I grated in lemon zest – a whole lemon’s worth – and then removed the mussels that were cooked with a slatted spoon (throw away any unopened mussels).

Leaving the sauce in the pan, add a dash of cream and turn up the heat to reduce and thicken – this is what you’re meant to do and it’s really delicious when you do – usually after a minute of waiting to thicken (I think it takes about 5-8mins) I can’t wait any longer, and pour the sauce over the mussels to eat with lots of crusty bread for dipping.

Stuffed marrow

So what to do with my gigantic marrow?

Of course there is the Maltese classic and absolutely delicious Qarabali mimli.

With the first marrow recipe I’ve gone for a vegetarian version that is a little quicker to put together.

First I cut the marrow round to the required size. As this is the biggest marrow I’ve ever seen, I hadn’t realised how big and melon-like the seeds inside can become. I scooped all the seeds and candy floss type stuff out from the centre, put the marrow in a shallow bowl, seasoned with salt and pepper, covered lightly with cling film and put in the microwave for 5 minutes to soften.

While it was microwaving I made the filling with halved cherry tomatoes, a finely chopped small shallot, a clove of crushed garlic, shredded fresh mint leaves, a little chopped red chilli, a glug of olive oil, a splash of balsamic vinegar and seasoned with salt and pepper.

When the marrow is done in the microwave, stuff the mix into the centre and grate over some Parmesan or cheddar cheese. Then roast in the oven for 30 minutes.

Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting

I’m enjoying a baking recently, maybe I’ve been inspired by the return of the Great British Bake Off on BBC2.

I used the excuse of my colleague’s birthday (OK, he’s my boss so going for full on brownie points) to bake a carrot cake. I’ve never made one before so I visited my absolute favourite blog Smitten Kitchen to find a recipe – as ever Deb did not disappoint. I used her carrot cake recipe , using wholegrain flour.

For the frosting I mixed low fat cream cheese (around 200g) with half a teaspoon vanilla essence and lots of icing sugar (around 1 cup, or a little over – just keep tasting until it’s sweet enough).

Topped off with mixed dried fruit and nuts (idea taken from my friend Andrea, who makes the best carrot cake).

Purple beans, onions, cucumber and the biggest marrow I’ve ever seen

These are the vegetables that my friend Jon dropped over this morning – very exciting!

Grown by his own 2 hands, I’ve never seen purple beans or a marrow this massive before. Can’t wait to cook with the new veg, in the meantime here’s a picture.

Balsamic tomatoes

When I dug out my Ministry of Food recipe book the other days for the basic cookie mix (which I then amended quite a lot) I had a flick through for some other ideas with our dinner that evening and gave these
balsamic tomatoes a go.

To make them you fry 2 crushed cloves of garlic, fresh mint leaves and a tablespoon of capers on a medium heat, with a little olive oil for a minute or so. Then add in the halved cherry tomatoes, a knob of butter and a good glug of balsamic vinegar.

You want to cook the tomatoes, but not too much so they only need 2-3 minutes of bubbling away before serving.

To me these tomatoes taste like summer. We had them with some pan fried seabass (my favourite at the moment).

Double chocolate chilli cookies

I had a really tasty strawberry and chilli cocktail at The Marylebone a week ago (Strawberry fields), which got me thinking about what other foods I can add chilli to. Chocolate and chilli are known to go well together so I spent my Sunday evening baking these double chocolate chilli cookies as an experiment.

I used a tweaked version of Jamie Oliver’s basic cookie recipe out of his Ministry of Food book, which was essentially mixing the following together with an electric whisk:
– 125g butter (softened)
– 125g wholemeal flour
– 1 tsp baking power
– 100g sugar
– 1 egg
– 1 tbsp cocoa powder

I then mixed in 100g of chopped dairy milk in with a spoon and a tablespoon on cayenne pepper and tasted. I wasn’t sure if they had enough chilli in, so added a few drops of tabasco and mixed again.

Following Jamie O’s advice, I put the cookie dough into a long sausage shape onto cling film and popped it into the freezer for 30 minutes. 45 minutes later (after I’d forgotten about it for a little bit) I sliced the dough into around 1cm thick slices, put on grease proof-papered baking tray and baked for 10 minutes on 200 deg.

I was really pleased with how the cookies kept their shape – as opposed to the ones that melted into each other last week. Also very pleased with the taste – chocolately with a warm glow from the chilli at the back of your mouth afterwards!