Roast + Conch (Leeds)

Today Amy and I headed to the new Hotel Chocolat cafe/restaurant Roast + Conch which is part of the news (ish) Trinity Leeds shopping centre. Serving delicious drinks in a relaxed setting, this is the perfect place for a relaxing drink on a Sunday afternoon. At £3-4 for a cup of hot chocolate it's quite pricey, but totally worth it as a treat. 

We found a nice corner with nice leather booths and candles - on going to the bar to order our drinks the bar man was very helpful and made lots of suggestions of which drinks and chocolates we should go for. In the end I went for a chilli and rum hot chocolate and Amy went for a salted caramel hot chocolate. There is a great chocolate bar (£1 each) with a range of luxury chocolates available depending on how adventurous you're feeling. They showed me the chocolate making process from the conch through to the tempering, all of which goes on in sight of the bar - a nice added extra and it makes the place smell wonderful. We went for a rosemary and thyme truffle (delicious, if not a little odd!), a white chocolate and jasmine truffle (very sweet and tasty) and a rum truffle. 

All in all worth a visit for the chocolates and the atmosphere- the hot chocolate was nice but I've had better. My favourite part of the whole visit was the spoon of chocolate called a 'dipper' you can add for an extra £1 to your drink. I went for the hazelnut and chilli one - which was really nice but a bit too hot. They also had praline and salted caramel which I will definitely be going back to try! 

Cloudy Lemonade

Following on from yesterday's Limoncello recipe, I wanted to share a really easy cloudy still lemonade recipe I found on the BBC website. This lemonade is bitter and very sweet at the same time and it tastes lovely - plus, it only takes about 10 minutes! 

Ingredients
3 lemons
140g caster sugar
1l cold water

Using 3 of the left over lemons, remove the rest of the pith and roughly chop up the lemon flesh from inside. Pop this into a food mixer and blend the lemons till they are very finely chopped. 

Add 500ml of the water and all of the sugar to the mixer and whizz them together. 

Using a sieve and a bowl, push the lemon mixture through the sieve to leave behind a juice with no bits. Add the remaining 500ml of water and, using a funnel, pour into a sterilised bottle. Pop this in the fridge for at least a few hours as this drink is best served ice cold. 

Ideas to try with this recipe include adding vodka and making lemonade ice-cubes in the summer. Any others I could try?

Limoncello

Moving house has got in the way of blogging this past year but in 2014 I intend to do a lot more! I wanted to start by taking you through a Limoncello recipe that has been great to give as Christmas presents this year. 

A word of warning - whilst this is super easy to make, it doesn't fall into the 'cheap homemade' present category with vodka being quite pricey. To make 4 x 0.5l bottles you'll need 1l bottle of vodka (£15 ish), a bag of 7 lemons (£1), a large Kilner jar (£3.50) and 4 x 0.5l Kilner bottles (£2.50 ish each). All in all I spent about £30 to make four bottles- making each bottle £7.50 each. 

You'll need a week for the lemons to soak in the vodka and the following ingredients:

The zest of 6/7 lemons (unnwaxed)
1 litre of vodka
1250ml water 
700g sugar
1 large Kilner jar - 1.5l or larger
4 x 0.5l Kilner bottles

Peel the zest from the lemons with a vegetable peeler - avoid the white bitter pith under the skin as best you can. Place the zest in the large jar and pour the vodka over the top - shut the jar and leave in a cool place for a week. 

The day before you're ready to drain the lemon zest create the sugar and water mixture. To create this, boil the water and add the sugar. Stir the mixture until the sugar is fully dissolved. I left it quite watery at this point - to make less liquid but to make the mixture sweeter boil the water down further to make the syrup thicker. Leave this liquid overnight to cool (or for a few hours in a cool spot if you're making it on the same day).

After a week, drain the zest from the vodka and discard the zest. Pour the syrup in the jar with the vodka and mix in well. 

Using a funnel pour the limoncello into sterilised bottles. Unopened bottles can be kept up to a year. 

Limoncello is best served ice cold to drink, or drizzled over icecream! I'd love to adapt this recipe to make an orange flavoured vodka- that's my next try! The left over lemons can be used to make a really simple lemonade- I'll put this recipe up soon. 

Food glorious food

I spotted this beautiful food blog from a guy in Sydney and had to share it. Named Heneedsfood, the blog is really well designed, has some lovely photos and also some really nice recipes. 

This recipe for Kruske (pears) caught my eye - they look delicious and include my favourite flavour (almonds!). 

I found the recipe on TasteSpotting. It's a great site that brings together lots of different blogs - I'd recommend it as it's great for finding inspiration! 

Crumpets with Paul

I made some crumpets recently from Paul Hollywood's new book 'Bread' - it's worth getting hold of for a tenner on Amazon (rather than the usual £20 in shops) as the book is full of lots of easy to follow recipes with pictures showing you step by step what to do (here's an example 
below).

I like that he shows you how to make one type of bread through step-by-step photo instructions and then gives you 1-2 recipes to make with that certain type of bread afterwards - this is great to get bread more into everyday meals (not that I need help with that as I absolutely love bread). 

The recipe to follow for crumpets is quite a long one so leave plenty of time - I started making them for a lazy Sunday breakfast at 9.30am and they weren't finished until lunch! Here's the recipe below:

Makes 10-12 crumpets

• 175g strong white bread flour
• 175g plain flour
• 14g fast-action yeast
• 1 tsp caster sugar
• 350ml warm milk
• 150-200ml tepid water
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp salt
• Oil for cooking - I used olive oil as it's all I had in
• Crumpet rings - these are crucial and you can't make the crumpets without them. I got mine from Lakeland and they're very good and non-stick. They're quite expensive at over £10 a set - do you know anyone who wants to split a pack? I shared mine with my Mum as you only need to keep the crumpets in the rings until they're set and you can use the rings again and again.

Put the flours in a bowl and mix in the yeast evenly. 

In a jug dissolve the sugar in the warm milk, then pour in the flour mixture.

Beat the mixture with a wooden spoon for about 3-4 mins until you have a 'smooth batter' - this was incredibly difficult to do as the mixture is so thick it feels like you're fighting with in, not making it 'smooth' - I managed it in the end but it helps to have someone with a strong arm around! You need to do this to make sure the crumpets develop the holes that we all know and love. 

Cover the bowl with clingfilm (or a tea towel) and leave for 1 hour. The batter rises a lot and it needs to be left alone to do this or else the crumpets won't turn out. I left mine on a warm windowsill which worked a treat. 

In a jug, mix 150ml of the tepid water with the bicarb of soda and salt. Stir this liquid into the batter until evenly combined - use more water if you need to to make a thick dropping consistency. When I first did this step I thought I had done something very wrong as it looked like a big soggy mess sitting in a bowl of water - I persevered though and made it through. 

Cover the bowl and leave the batter to rise for 20 minutes. You'll see little holes start to appear.

Heat up a frying pan on a medium-low heat. Grease the inside of the crumpet rings with oil and the pan. 

As Paul says, it's a good idea to start with a trial crumpet. The books says that like with pancakes the first one is never the best - this was definitely the case for me! So give the pan chance to heat up by running a trial crumpet first. 

Keep the cooking 'low and slow' - my biggest mistake was heating up to quickly and I ended up with some burnt bottoms! 

Now you're ready with your crumpet rings - add in the batter and leave to cook for 6-8 minutes. You'll see the bubbles start to rise in the mixture after a while (you can speed up cooking by gently popping these bubbles with a sharp knife). To further speed up the whole process, take the crumpets out of the rings when they're set and get ready for the next batch whilst they're still cooking (see the pan photo below). 

Once the tops have set, turn the crumpets over to lightly cook the top for a further couple of minutes. I made mine thicker than expected I think so needed to add a further 5 minutes on to the cooking time.

Once they're cooked re-grease your crumpet rings and repeat. Then serve warm with butter or re-toast later on. I enjoyed mine with butter and egg and later on with golden syrup (I have a particularly sweet tooth and this just seems to go). 

Salt and Pepper Squid

Tonight I decided on a special treat of squid for tea after seeing a tasty looking recipe in a copy Good Food magazine that's been hanging around for ages. The original recipe is here and I tweaked it a little to match what I had in. It's a quick recipe (apart from preparing the squid!) that looks impressive and tastes delicious and here it is.

• 1 tbsp of black peppercorns (whole)
• 1 tsp of chilli powder
• 1/2 tbsp crushed sea salt (this was originalyl 1 tbsp in the recipe but trying to reduce my salt intake - it was still very salty!)
• 8 tbsp plain flour
• 400g squid, cleaned
• Groundnut oil for deep frying
• Lemon wedges to serve

Firstly - crush together the peppercorns, chilli flakes and sea salt in a pestle and mortar. Then mix this mixture with the flour. 

Cut the squid hoods up (they must have been prepared at this point, I asked the fish monger at Leeds Market to do this for me which is the easiest (and best!) way to make sure it's done properly). Slit down and across the squid to score (this makes the squid curl up when cooked which looks nice) and cut into bite sized strips. The original recipe doesn't include the tentacles but I did and they were well worth adding (I cut off the heads for good measure). 

Coat the squid pieces in the mixture and fry in the groundnut oil and fry for 4-5 minutes until golden. Make sure the oil is nice and hot before you put the squid in - it needs to be almost spitting at you so you get the best result for crispiness. The original recipe says 1-2 minutes but I left it in for a bit longer so they went crispy and golden brown. 

Serve with lemon (and salad, and olives, and bread and anything else you like!). 

Amazing Graze

Yesterday I went to Amazing Graze at the Left Bank Centre in Leeds - the sun came out and it was the perfect weather for eating ice cream (that's my excuse anyway!). Amazing Graze is a small 2 day food/art/music festival run by Manjit's Kitchen. I've visited Manjit's Kitchen many a time at events across Leeds and knew I was going to be in for a treat when I heard they were organising the event.

The atmosphere was great- helped by lots of people and lots of different food on offer. Outside the sun was shinning and the tables full of people enjoying good food, drink and music. Here's a pic of the outside area. It helps that I love Left Bank - I've been here at night time for Bettakultcha before and loved it then and it's even better in the day time! Left Bank is an old church (not sure if it's in use any more) that's used for a range of events - mainly arty ones. 

After soaking up the atmosphere and sun outside we headed inside to see what was on offer. Firstly we headed to Chinampas for a drink - the bags of drink people were carrying around caught my eye and we had to try one out. Opting for something I've never tried before paid off as the tamarind flavoured drink was really nice - the perfect combination of sweet and a little sour. Drinking from the bag was different and a great way to save on waste. 

Moving on to something a little more savoury we shared a mixed meze of tabbouleh, hommous, lamb and tzatziki with a wrap and some Persian breads from Afsaneh Kaviani. This was very tasty and I only wish I had tried the Persian candy floss on offer! 

To finish and the icing on the cake after all the nice food we'd eaten was a Plum Crumble ice-cream from Ginger's Comfort Emporium. Ginger's Comfort Emporium, normally based in Manchester, describes itself as 'an ice cream van for grown ups' and is lovely to look at. The menu is written out in coloured chalks and even the inside is decorated with colourful posters and russian dolls. The ice cream was delicious, with chunks of crumble and plum, I only wish I was hungry enough to try one of the ice cream brioche sandwiches - shown here on the Feast and Glory Blog they look delicious! 

Worth a mention too is the screen prints that were on offer from Hope House Prints and Simon on the Streets. Being a fan of screen printing I love the idea of getting people involved in making their own print for a donation - sadly we had to dash off so I didn't have time to do one - hopefully there will be a next time!

This was the first Amazing Graze and I hope there will be another one in the not so distant future as I would definitely visit again.

Cafe Gallipoli - Angel/Islington

Ten of us ventured out for my birthday to Cafe Gallipoli in Angel/Islington. A 5 minute walk from Angel Tube Station the location was handy and the restaurant had a nice pub called The Bull just next door for a drink before/after the meal. Whilst the setting was a bit cosy with lots of people seated in the restaurant this made for a really nice, chatty, relaxed atmosphere. 

The interior was beautiful, with lots of lanterns hanging from the ceiling, and the waiters were very friendly. Everyone had a different selection of food from the 'party menu' and I would particularly recommend the cold mezes to start and the falafel. The menus we picked from can be found here. The food was very tasty but be warned, if booking for large groups (over 6, I think) you have to pick from the party menu, rather than the main one. 

Come Dine with Me

Some friends and I have been taking it in turns to do a 'Come Dine with Me' style evening and here's my chosen menu! I went for a mixture of really easy recipes (particularly the melted Camembert!) so I wasn't spending the whole time in the kitchen and a nice piece of fish for the main course. Here's my menu below and some pictures for good measure. 

To drink- Prosecco Royale

Canapés- Wild mushroom & Parmesan vol-au-vents - Taken from Good Food magazine these were good as they could be made in advance (and enjoyed the next day if there are any left overs!) 

Starter- Baked Camembert with crusty bread - I added some garlic and thyme to this classic starter with some crusty bread.

Main- Tuna steak with chilli and lime served with asparagus and patatas bravas - having tried out the recipe earlier on (see my blog post here) this was a safe bet which tasted delicious! 

Pudding- Toffee Apple pudding with vanilla ice cream (another from Good Food magazine - I've made this twice now and it really makes a (crunchy) difference if you add nuts). 

M & M Cookies

These M & M cookies are so easy to make and so quick - perfect for when you want something warm and chocolately for this cold time of year. I originally got the recipe from Bakerella's blog and decided I'd give these quick cookies a go - I've translated the recipe from cups to grams below to make things a little easier. 

This recipe makes around 12 cookies:

75g Chocolate chips
100g M & Ms (Smarties would work well too!)
110g plain flour
2/3rds tsp baking powder
2/3rds tsp bicarbonate soda
1/4 tsp salt
65g porridge oats 
75g brown sugar
60g white sugar
1 small egg
75g butter
1 tsp vanilla essence

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees. Mix all of the dry ingredients together above in a bowl with a wooden spoon. Then add the egg, butter (melted slightly in the microwave) and vanilla essence. 

Roll little balls (around walnut sized) in your hands and but them on a well oiled baking tray - it doesn't matter too much if they're not very neat!

Bake these in the oven for up to 10 minutes (I gave half the batch 7 minutes for a gooey centre and half the full 10 minutes for a crispier finish - we thought the gooey ones were the best!). So simple and they don't take up much time at all!

These could also work really well with any broken up chocolate bars - a Lion bar would be yummy to try! 

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups

Whilst browsing Pinterest I found this amazing recipe for peanut butter cups on The Blue Eyed Bakers blog. They're yummy and so easy to make - no oven required! 

Whilst this recipe is great it's all done in 'cups' - so, using this conversion table, I've converted the recipe to make things a little easier. 

• 57g Butter
• 170g Peanut Butter - I used crunchy which was delicious but I think you could use smooth too. 
• 100g digestive biscuits
• 50g sugar
• 150g milk chocolate chips (I used Lakeland's 'Simply Melts' which I've mentioned in a previous post and can be bought here) but normal chocolate bars/ chips work well too.
• 20ml milk - The original recipe asks for 60ml but I tweaked it a little as I was worried the chocolate wouldn't set.
• Sea salt

Line a bun tin with papers - I don't have a bun tin and this meant my papers sagged a bit with the heavy ingredients.

Whizz the digestive biscuits in a mixer until you have a fine crumb. 

In a microwavable bowl, melt the butter and peanut butter together for 45 seconds and stir until smooth (apart from the crunchy peanut butter pieces!). 

Once melted all together, add the crushed digestive biscuit and sugar to the melted mix and mix together with a mixing spoon. 

Share this mixture out across 8-10 bun cases and put in the fridge for 15 minutes to set the peanut butter layer. This would also work really nicely with tiny bun cases to make smaller bites. 

Once this layer has cooled you can add the chocolate layer. Melt the chocolate and spread evenly across the top of the peanut butter layer. Give a generous helping of chocolate and sprinkle some sea salt on top. Chill this layer until firm and then serve. 

Not the prettiest of food as my bun cases sagged with no support but delicious all the same! The sea salt gives them a really nice edge and these could work really well in a tray. They went down well in the office and were all gone in no time (I made 20!) - it's best to keep them in the fridge and serve them from the fridge. 

Patatas Bravas

Recently I've been eating and making the same food day in day out and I want to shake things up a bit so last week I set myself the challenge to make at least one new recipe a week. I started with Hugh's Patatas Bravas from the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall River Cottage Veg Everyday cookbook . 

This recipe took a lot longer than I expected - just under and hour and a half but admittedly it was pretty relaxed cooking. The recipe is here (with some pictures along the way):

(Serves 4-6)
1kg potatoes - cut into 3cm cubes
5 tablespoons olive or rapeseed oil
Flaky sea salt
A handful of parsley

For the sauce:
2 tablespoons olive or rapeseed oil
1 onion - finely chopped
A handful of thyme sprigs - leaves only, chopped
3 garlic cloves - finely chopped
1 small red chilli - finely chopped 
400g tin plum tomatoes - chopped
2 teaspoons sweet paprika
A pinch of sugar

First - make the sauce. Heat the oil over a medium/low heat and add the onion and thyme. Sweat the onions down until softened (about 10 mins). Add the garlic and chilli and cook whilst stirring for a minute. 

Add the tomatoes with their juice, paprika, sugar and some salt and pepper. Leave this to simmer for 10 minutes, stirring and breaking up the tomatoes to make a lovely, rich, tomatoey sauce. 

Boil the potatoes for 5 - 8 minutes until firm (make sure they're not too tender). Leave to steam in a colander for few minutes and tip onto a tea towel and pat dry.

Warm 5 tablespoons in a frying pan over a medium/high heat and saute the potatoes for 10-15 minutes, until crisp and golden. Drain on some kitchen paper and tip into a dish. Check the consistency of the tomato sauce (thin with some hot water if necessary). 

Pour the sauce over the potatoes, scatter with chopped parsley and enjoy warm. 

We served it up with pan-fried chilli sardines, rocket and a nice glass of wine - perfect! 

Cake Pops

Today I decided I'd get back to blogging and tell you about my recent adventures with Cake Pops. My friend Sarah (right) and I have recently become slightly obsessed with the idea of Cake Pops (think travelling 20 miles + just to buy more supplies and texting each other with ideas!). 

We started off making Lorraine Pascale inspired Cake Pops by mixing Oreo cookies and chocolate spread (I found the recipe on another lovely blog here). These tasted lovely and were VERY sweet when coated in milk chocolate - as I don't have a freezer I left them in the fridge over night and this worked a treat. 

The crushed cookies were nice but very dense so we wanted to try out a new idea... We went to Lakeland to get a Cake Pop Maker (highly recommended) and the results can be seen below. 

Firstly we made some cake balls in our new machine - these only took 4 minutes to make 6 and the come out perfectly (almost) every time.  Next once they were cool we stuck our sticks in with a little bit of melted chocolate to keep them in place. We left these in the fridge for 30 minutes...

Then dipped them in melted chocolate. We used Simply Melt chocolate from Lakeland - not only was it easy to melt but it was delicious and tasted of strawberries too!

 Sarah made her first Cake Pop by topping with some cut out  icing shapes and was very happy with the result...

...and so was I!

 

We topped the Cake Pops with lots of different toppings to match the pink chocolate and stuck them in some polystyrene to dry (this could look prettier to match the Cake Pops).

In the end we added named flags and bags and gave them to our family and friends. Some ideas for next time include Hungry Caterpillar Cake Pops, a solar system, stars, clouds... watch this space. 

Pies and bargains

So, the new blog thing didn't go quite to plan (originally I was thinking of posting every other day!). I started a new job recently and it's been pretty tiring so haven't had much time to post.

This month I have mainly been cooking, working, doing some crafts (but not as many as I'd like!) and finding bargains at fairs:

I made a spinach and feta pie from my friend's Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals recipe book. The recipe I used (slightly tweaked) was:

Ingredients:
5 eggs
300g Feta
50g Cheddar
Dried Oregano
1 Lemon
A little butter
400g Baby Spinach
270g pack of filo pastry
Cayenne Pepper
Nutmeg
Preheat the oven to approx. 220 degrees

1. Crack 5 eggs into a mixing bowl and crumble in 300g of Feta. Grate in the 50g of Cheddar. 
2. Add a pinch of black pepper, oregano, zest of 1 lemon (although I thought lemon juice would suffice), and some olive oil.
3. Add olive oil, butter and half of the spinach to a pan and place on medium heat. Push it around the pan until wilted and add the other half. Take off the heat.
4. Take pastry out of the fridge and lay a sheet of greaseproof paper (50cm across) on the work surface. Rub olive oil over it. Arrange 3-4 filo pastry sheets in a large rectangle, overlapping at the edges so that they
almost cover the paper.
5. Rub some olive oil over them. Sprinkle a pinch of salt, pepper and cayenne pepper.
6. Repeat until you have three layers.
7. Add wilted spinach to egg mixture and grate in 1/2 nutmeg. Mix Well.
8. Put pastry in an over pan (carefully- it needed two of us to move it at this stage!). Pour in egg mixture and spread out.
9. Fold the filo over the top. I brushed a little olive oil over at this point.

10. Put the pan in the oven on the top shelf for 15-20 minutes until crispy. I pushed a knife in to see if the egg was cooked at this stage and it wasn't so it went back in for another 10 minutes.

I've also been discovering that hospice fairs are often places to find bargains - St. Gemma's in Moortown Leeds was wonderful to visit today with lots of old goods on offer. I got some fabric for 50p and some good quality thread for 20p a go. Also got some lovely things to make presents for my friend's birthday (more to follow on this later). My favourite find was a old fashioned 'Poison, Do Not Drink' jar for £3.50 - perfect for a flower or just for decoration on its own. St. Gemma's are hosting another on 24th and 25th September and 10th and 11th December - I highly recommend a visit if you like beautiful old things and a bargain.