White Chocolate and Raspberry Muffins

Good old Nigella never seems to fail me, so I used her recipe for these delicious white chocolate and raspberry muffins. I love the tulip muffin cases too that I picked up in Lakeland - you can get similar ones from Amazon and eBay.

Slow cooked beef cheeks

After trying out pig cheeks and cod cheeks, I really wanted to try out this beef cheek recipe I had been eyeing up so picked up a couple of frozen cuts from a butcher close to where my Nana lives in Newdigate. As the cheeks get the most work from the cow, I thought the best way to cook them would be to braise them for a good 3 hours in a red wine and beef stock liquor.

Once unfrozen, I was hoping to be able to kick off and start browning however the cheeks had not been trimmed as I don't think there is a huge demand for them and they had come straight from the freezer out back. I highly advise you get your butcher to do this for you in advance (unless you have good butchering skills - I don't) as I am sure I wasted a lot of the meat as I hacked away at it. Nevertheless, after it's very slow cooking, the meat was so tender it just fell apart on the plate.

Passion Fruit Cupcakes

After a trip to yet another food market on London's Southbank, I came back with a jar of the most delicious award-winning passion fruit curd from a stall called The Cherry Tree - website here: http://www.cherrytreepreserves.co.uk/.

Tart and sweet and bursting with tropical passion fruit flavours, I was dying to use it in some kind of baked good. So I did cupcakes. 24 of them.

Truffle Oil Linguine

Another simple, yet delicious and easy dinner for when you don't have a lot of time in the evening. All you need is fresh linguine, mushrooms, garlic and white truffle oil. Top it off with parmesan and a crack of black pepper and enjoy!

To add to the collection...

I have already tried the bacon and cheddar loaves from Mr Hollywood and my god were they good! Post to come once I make them again this weekend.

Tribute to Alio's

When I was younger, we used to take regular trips to the local deli run by an Italian family - Alio's - and pick up a hamper of treats including breads, cheese and antipasti. There was always one dish I would look forward to over anything else - buffalo mozzarella with big juicy beef tomatoes on the vine, basil and olive oil.

It is one of the most simple meals to make but always leaves me satisfied and wanting to eat it all over again!

Mary Berry's Devonshire Scones

The secret to good scones is not to handle them too much before baking, and to make the mixture on the wet, sticky side - these certainly are very sticky. 

Ingredients

450g self-raising flour
2 rounded tsp baking powder
75g butter
50g caster sugar
2 large eggs
about 225ml milk

KITCHEN AID

I GOT A KITCHEN AID FOR CHRISTMAS! HURRAH!

Dorset Apple Cake

I came across this recipe as I had a load of apples that were so pappy, noone in the world would want to eat them. I didn't want to puree them or make an apple sauce so searched through my fellow blogger's recipes for apple cake and came across this little treasure. I added more ground almonds and less sugar than the original recipe, but that's only because my apples were Pink Lady's so already quite sweet. Definitely serve this warm with a dollop of clotted cream!

Carrot Cake

I have never been a fan of carrot cake, and would always choose a citrus-y based cake over anything else but after a work colleague requested I make it, this has fast become a favourite bake of mine to do. It is a really simple recipe and the use of mixed spice gives off an amazing aroma throughout the house as it's cooking. 

Oreo Brownies

For once, I actually had some time to do a bit of baking over the weekend, so made these delicious cookies and cream brownies, recipe courtesy of the beautiful Lorraine Pascale. They were fudgy and luxuriously rich with the dark chocolate.

NYE meal

After deliberating over what to do for this year's New Year, we both decided to stay in and celebrate with a home cooked meal and lots of champagne (Prosecco...). Being the last day before the inevitable New Year diet, I decided to go all out with rich and hearty ingredients that I won't feel an ounce guilty about. So the meal I cooked was chicken thighs in red wine sauce, celeriac and potato mash (with cream and butter!) and Savoy cabbage with carrots and bacon. Here's how I made it: