lemon waffle recipe with strawberries and cream

Some of those waffle recipes are mine but others are the culinary brain child of other great cooks. As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been taking part in a cooking event that has be teamed up with other members of Recipezaar as we try out recipes from around the world. When my team captian, the wonderful Andi of Longmeadow Farm posted these lemon waffles as one of her offerings for our team’s Scandinavian cookbook I just knew I had to try them.

What I especially liked about this lemon waffle recipe is that the waffles didn’t have so much of a lemon flavour to them that I was sent into an involuntary pucker. Instead it was as if the lovely crisp but fluffy waffles were lemon scented. A perfect treat for a naughty breakfast recipe but I couldn’t help but think the lemon waffle recipe would also make a fantastic base for a vegetarian dessert recipe.

Being June in England, the idea of strawberries and cream is never far from a foodie’s brain. So, I threw the two together and boy was it good! As soon as the lemon waffles were off the waffle iron I got out the spray cream (hey, it was spur of the moment..no time to whip!) and piled those tasty waffles high with cream. A few sliced strawberries on top and it was perfect!

Market Kitchen Set

It turns out there are two Market Kitchen filming sessions in a day. We decided to go for the afternoon session which turned out to actually be one and a half shows being recorded. That means that we are in the audience for two episodes. The first of which aired yesterday and the second of which is being broadcast tonight. It seems that when they have a chef in they cook a few of their recipes in a day and then spread it over a few shows.

When we arrived at the Market Kitchen recording, we had a short waiting period downstairs in the lobby. It was at this point that we learned that one of the guests on the show that day were The Wurzels. They were there for a cider tasting segement and turned out to be really nice men who asked us how we enjoyed the light and sweet “lady cider” we had been sipping during the tasting. Too funny!

Their arrival was entertaining because the receptionist clearly had no idea who they were and thought they were part of the studio audience. Once, they had cleared that up they went up to the Market Kitchen studio and the rest of us followed shortly after.

Market Kitchen set decorations

My first impressions of the Market Kitchen studio was a feeling of having a slightly surreal moment. We were in an office building in a leafy area of Camden (no where near Borough Market despite them clearly suggesting the show is related to the market) that resembled more of a dusty warehouse then a studio. Yet, when we made our way up the stair case we were suddenly in the brick walled set that looked exactly as it does on television.

All of the food you see in the background in the show is there and looking great but largely it isn’t real or has been rendered inedible so that it will survive under the hot studio lights. What is real though, is the coffee bar at the back of the studio. All throughout the filming there is a real staff back there serving coffee, tea and hot chocolate to Market Kitchen studio audience.

Market Kitchen coffee bar props

Market Kitchen studio

Our hosts for the day at Market Kitchen were Matthew Fort and Tom Parker Bowles. The chef’s were Richard Corrigan and Luke Dale Roberts.

Matthew Fort at Market Kitchen

Tom Parker Bowles at Market Kitchen

It has to be said that the menu for the day wasn’t very vegetarian friendly. Richard Corrigan cooked us two dishes that were spread across the two shows. One was roasted apples and sage with calvados with black pudding. If the black pudding was removed, that would be a really nice vegetarian dish. It isn’t the healthiest in the world as it uses both butter and cream but still yummy. The other dish was mackerel with a beetroot salad.

Luke Dale Roberts cooked a springbok dish which we weren’t allowed to taste. I suspect that was based on cost as the information pack they gave us at the show lists the cost of springbok at £7.99 per 160 grams.

With all that meat being cooked, the dish of the day for me was actually a vegetarian dish. I was somewhat shocked it was by Matthew Fort since I am rarely overwhelmed by his recipes on Market Kitchen. However, when you do something right, then you do it right and he did with his mango fool recipe.

Matthew Fort's Mango Fool Recipe

It was such a lovely and very simple recipe that I went home and made it the next day. I followed his recipe apart from in two aspects. Firstly, in his version of the mango fool, Matthew Fort used Alphonso mangos. I have never seen that variety on sale at any of my local stores. So, I used the same weight of normal mango flesh and added a bit of the suggested caster sugar to sweeten it up slightly. Then, at the last moment I decide to add some lime zest to the top of the mango fool recipe. I think that worked very well to lift the whole flavour of the delicate tasting dish.

All and all we had a wonderful day out at Market Kitchen and I would love to do it again. If they ever do a more vegetarian friendly show I would love nothing more than to be in the studio audience one more.

I do, however, like coffee ice cream. With all the cream and sugar the bitterness is cut to make it enjoyable. Lately, I have been thinking maybe it is time to try coffee again but this time experiment with different types until I find one that works for my tastebuds.

My chance came this week when I, once again, participated in Recipezaar’s Pick A Chef event. In this event, you adopt one or more of your fellow Recipezaar chefs and agree to make and review at least three of their recipes. In exchange, somebody adopts you and you get three of your own recipes reviewed.

White chocolate Bailey's latte recipe

One of the chefs I adopted was Shuzbud. As I was perusing her list of recipes I spotted this White chocolate Bailey’s latte recipe.

One of the things I have always enjoyed about Recipezaar events is that they push me to try new things. It is as a direct result of various events held on the site that I found out I love marinated artichokes, sundried tomatoes and polenta. With such a track record I decided it was worth giving this white chocolate latte recipe a try too.

Of course, I had to do things my style. Which means cheap and cheerful! Instead of actual Baileys I used the Irish whiskey cream brand that you can buy in Lidls. I also bought my white chocolate there (on an aside they have this super yummy strawberry white chocolate bar there now!). I even bought a jar of Fair Trade instant coffee there. I love that Lidls is doing so many Fair Trade items now. It is great that you can make the responsible and ethical choice without having to worry about your own budget all that much.

The white chocolate latte recipe was so simple to prepare. Simply heat the milk (I used skimmed because it is what I keep in the house) on the stove, stir in the white chocolate until it melts and then add the coffee and the Baileys.

I am sure it is because the drink was mostly a white hot chocolate with a little bit of coffee but I really enjoyed it. It was lush tasting without having to cost me much in either effort of money.

Perhaps getting myself to enjoy coffee isn’t a total lost cause and having this latte recipe taste this good is just the springboard I need to explore further.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I am trying hard to get back on the diet bandwagon as of late. I tend to find lunch to be my calorie flashpoint in the day. I have a fairly routine breakfast which is easy for me to repeat every day and I am good at planning a low calorie vegetarian evening meal. However, at lunch I am always needing something quick and so that leads to me reaching for things without counting the calories.

What I have been trying to do is have lunches that I can prepare in the morning when I am making by breakfast and then just take out of the fridge for lunch. In theory, this allows me to write the calories down before I get too busy with my working day.

Things like potato salads have been working out well because they benefit from chilling in the fridge for all those hours. So, when I saw this SarahBeth131′s creamy lime potato salad recipe, I knew that was going to be one I made for the veggie swap.

Creamy lime potato salad recipe

If I am honest, I was unsure how the lime mixed with the mayonnaise would work with potatoes. Yet, at the same time it was that uncertainty that intrigued me. I don’t think I had really had a citrus based potato salad in the past.

Then, the addition of thyme to the mix left me further scratching my head. I have a weird relationship with thyme. Over the last few years I have discovered that I really don’t like the dried version of thyme. Not just the taste but the smell can even turn my stomach at times. Then by complete accident I discovered that fresh thyme can be rather enjoyable indeed. Perhaps it is because it is a much more mild flavour.

As it turns out, both flavours worked really well in the salad. In fact, the lime worked so well that I have set myself the challenge of figuring out what other salads I can make with that lime mayo dressing. The juice and the zest of the lime really lifted the taste to make everything dance across the tastebuds. The fresh thyme was a nice little accent too though I will for sure make sure it was always fresh thyme when I make this in the future.

The creamy lime potato salad recipe was really easy to throw together in the morning. Even more so because I used some new potatoes that were leftover form the main meal the evening before. I simply mixed up the mayonnaise dressing, for which I used extra light mayonnaise and reduced fat creme fraiche (sour cream can be hard to find in the UK and creme fraiche is a very good substitute for it) and combined it with the potatoes and put it in to chill. I think the lime worked especially well to take away that slight after taste that fat free mayonnaise can sometimes carry.

My lunch turned into bit of a desk picnic with a serving of this wonderful creamy lime potato salad recipe, some honey and linseed crackers and a bit of mature cheddar cheese. So full of flavour and pretty healthy too!

Baked Cheesecake Brownies Recipe

The only question was which recipes to add to the menu. I knew it had to be something chocolate but wasn’t sure in exactly what form. That was until I saw a post about these cheesecake brownies on MaryMoh’s Keep Learning Keep Smiling blog.

Cheesecake brownies are an evil invention of some cook that decided chewy chocolate brownies weren’t tempting enough and needed a layer of cheesecake baked on top. I suppose, it does save you from having decide which one to have when you can have both at the same time.

This particular cheesecake brownies recipe was really easy to put together and ended up tasting great too. The cheesecake part of the cheesecake brownie recipe is especially nice and rose to great heights over the rim of the brownie pan. It is the baked sort of cheesecake and so you get that lovely springy texture.

I saved a couple of the cheesecake brownie squares back from the party plate and put them in the fridge for a naughty breakfast the next day. It turned out that the cheesecake portion of the baked cheesecake brownie recipe got even better after spending a night chilling!

I think these cheesecake brownies are going to come out again and I can see myself making all sorts of adaptations to the recipe. Even as I am writing this, I am imagining what they would be like with some chocolate chips mixed into the cheesecake mixture. Surely chocolate chip cheesecake brownies can’t fail!

I have had this Jaffa Drizzle Loaf recipe in my ‘to try’ folder since I first saw it in BBC Good Food Magazine in 2006. That is a long time to hold out on a recipe. For New Year’s Eve I decided to borrow the infamous misquote from Marie Antoinette and let myself eat (the) cake. A decision made much easier by the prospect of sharing the jaffa drizzle cake recipe with a house full of party guests.

Jaffa drizzle cake recipe

It turns out that this jaffa drizzle cake was truly worth the wait. Unlike actual jaffa cakes it is very much a cake but it really does taste near exactly like like a jaffa cake. The main difference being that the cake part is ultra moist and carries just the right level of orange flavour.

Happily, the jaffa drizzle cake recipe is also one of the more simple cake recipes I have followed in recent times. All the mixing of the cake batter is done by hand with a wooden spoon. Saving me from having to get my electric mixer out. One less thing cluttering up my worktop is never a bad thing.

The only place that I, ever so slightly, strayed from the written recipe was to not so much drizzle the dark chocolate as to lather it on the top of the springy spongy orange cake. Admittedly, I did at first attempt a drizzle but it wasn’t looking as neat as I would wish for a party presentation. In the end, I resorted to just spreading the melted dark chocolate all over the top of the cake, allowing it to drizzle down the sides. I have to say, I will do it exactly the same again because once the chocolate hardened, the layer of chocolate added a lovely slight crunch to each slice of the cake.

This is certainly a keeper of a cake and I shall not be leaving it another four years before I once again make this jaffa drizzle cake recipe.

I am glad I did because it turns out that this cranberry shortbread recipe really wasn’t that difficult at all. I have made a good number of recipes posted by the king of Recipezaar, Sydney Mike, so I should have known better than to be a bit frightened by the recipe.

Cranberry shortbread recipe

The only part of the cranberry shortbread recipe that I needed to get my head around, was getting the dough the right texture to roll out without it sticking too much. To get to my comfort zone, I had to add a little bit more butter but the shortbread recipe still turned out really well. After all, is a slightly more buttery taste in a shortbread going to get all that many complaints? I think not!

What I really enjoyed about this shortbread recipe was the way the sharpness of the dried cranberries worked so well with the rich shortbread. I am sure this would be a good recipe for all times of the year. However, this play in seasonal flavours makes it a particularly good addition to your Christmas cookie tray.

Kahlua chocolate chunk cookie recipe

Who doesn’t love a good Christmas cookie? They don’t have to be just for the kiddies either! This Christmas cookie recipe for Kahlua chocolate chunk cookies, is one which I have been making for the past few years. I got the recipe from the lovely Kittencal over at Recipezaar. Part of what I love about her The Big Kahlua Vanilla Cookies recipe is that it is so versatile.

In the original cookie recipe, she uses white chocolate. Through the years, both through necessity and through experimentation I have tried it with all sorts of different types of chocolate but keeping the base of the cookie the same. In the end, I have settled on using a combination of milk chocolate and white chocolate. Instead of chips, I get really good chocolate bars and use a knife to make chocolate chunks.

They are a luxurious tasting Christmas cookie that has just a hint of extra richness from the Kahlua. Which means you can take something comforting and familiar and jazz it up to be something extra special for the Christmas period. A real treat just at the time of the year you want it most!

I have a huge stack of cooking magazines and recipes I have printed out from the internet sitting on my desk as I try to widdle them down to decide what exactly I will be cooking and baking for the Christmas period. You would think after all that foodie focused research I would be settled on a menu by now. The problem is that the more I see the more I want to make but I want to be careful of not biting off more than I can (literally) chew.

One thing I do know is that Christmas cooking period is going to be one of those times where I won’t be sticking strictly to a vegetarian diet. However, I do really want to try as much as possible to be cooking and serving mostly vegetarian Christmas recipes.

The good thing though is that it really isn’t very hard to do that. When you think about it, most of the Christmas cookies and cakes we will munch over the holiday period are vegetarian by their very nature. Then, the normal Christmas dinner trimmings are also largely vegetarian. At least that is the case if you skip doing your roast potatoes in goose fat. Frankly, even when I wasn’t so focused on vegetarian cooking that never appealed to me anyway.

As I make my way through a largely vegetarian Christmas, I will check in and share my vegetarian cooking adventures. Hopefully, it will give some of you also trying to eat mostly vegetarian over the Christmas cooking period of bit of inspiration.

For now though, it is on to finally forming a solid Christmas cooking schedule. So, time to settle down with that stack of Christmas cooking magazines and make my mind up. At least until I change it again.

Of course, I can’t do that research without having a good hot beverage by my side. This month for the vegetarian swap I participate in over at Recipezaar, I picked out this Mayan Hot Chocolate recipe posted by Recipezaar member the80srule.

spiced hot chocolate recipe

It turns out this hot chocolate recipe is the perfect partner to planning my vegetarian Christmas cooking. Firstly, the big sell for me, is that it is actually made with soy chocolate milk. I am lactose intolerant so whenever I make a creamy drink like hot chocolate I have to weigh up the consequences. I could make a normal hot chocolate recipe with water, I suppose, but any lover of hot chocolate knows that is simply never the same. Amazingly though, I had never thought of using soy chocolate milk as the base of a hot chocolate recipe but it really did work.

What really makes this hot chocolate recipe special though are the spices that go into the mixture. First in the pot, is a bit of cinnamon which gives a real Christmas feel to the hot chocolate recipe. Then comes the real surprise, a pinch of cayenne pepper. You would think that would make it hot and spicy but really it just adds a back ground warmth to the hot chocolate.

So, make yourself your own mug of this spiced hot chocolate and pull up your own pile of Christmas recipes and join the foodie December ritual of planning your holiday baking and Christmas cooking. Let the games begin!

One of those that has been obvious to me as an American that has lived in the UK for so long is that the USA is much more of a a ‘chips and dip’ culture. By that, of course, I mean crisps type chips (confused yet?). In the States it just isn’t a party without a good selection of chips and dips. However, if I throw a party in the UK, the dips are often one of the last things selected by the guests. I can’t pretend to understand it because the love of dips is one of those American things I have just never been able to shake. If I am honest, I have no desire too either because what isn’t to love about a good dip? Perhaps it is that people think that dips are a bit down market but that doesn’t have to be the case at all. Really, hummus is just a dip by another name, isn’t it?

low fat carrot dip recipe

There is a problem with me having dips in my life these days though and it all comes down to fat and calories. If I am ever going to get my weight loss moving again and get to that magical 100 pounds lost (I am on an insanely frustrating and very long plateau) then I just can’t have anything high in fat. Even if it is as good as a dip!

Which means that I am always on the look out for low fat dip recipes that can help me satisfy my dip cravings whilst still tasting good. When I saw the carrot dip recipe over at the lovely Cupcakes and Cornwall blog I knew I had to give it a go. Pretty much the only ingredients in the healthy dip recipes are carrots, fat free Greek yoghurt and some spices. Who could argue with the healthy nature of that?

It turns out that the low fat dip recipe is also rather forgiving. For some reason, I forgot to cook the carrots in water for a few minutes before sticking them into roast. I remembered this about ten minutes into the cooking and decided to let them roast for another ten minutes to get them more tender. That worked just fine and when they came out they looked lovely and roasted with just a little bit of the tell tale black spots that come with a good roasting. By using cooking spray instead of the suggested olive oil, I managed to cut the already very low fat dip recipe down even more and they roasted just fine.

Once the carrots were roasted, the healthy dip recipe just couldn’t be easier to put together. I tossed the carrots into my mini chopper, threw in the spices and blitzed it for about 20 seconds. At that stage, I tasted it and it was really nice but I decided to add a little bit of garlic powder simply because I am a sucker for garlic in just about any dip. It would have been just fine without it too. I put the fat free Greek yoghurt into the mini chopper and blitzed it again for maybe 30 seconds and then the dip was done!

I cut up some lovely crisp celery and tore up some toasted pitas and had the low fat carrot dip for my lunch. With a healthy dip that tasty and easy around there is no reason for this chips and dips gal to shun them any longer.