Author Archives for Lickthespoon

About Lickthespoon

Passionate about food and eating well I have been cooking all my life. I like to know where my food comes from and try to source responsibly. I grow as much as I can and eat seasonally. Food to me is about sharing and showing that you care.

Flapjacks

Blue and white tin, open and filled with flapjacks, on wooden kitchen worktop

Going for a walk on a Sunday with the dogs on a misty Autumn morning is one of life’s old fashioned pleasures   With luck there are blue skies, autumn leaves and some crab apples or sloes peeking through the hedges.  Simple but timeless pleasures.

Flapjacks. There is nothing to beat the smell of them coming out of the oven.  Buttery, honked and oaty toasty.    Somehow though flapjacks seem out of fashion and not often on offer.   Maybe it’s because flapjacks are seen as being worthily oaty and, if we are going to have that sort of thing, people will go for an energy bar.    Flapjacks are relegated to something that your granny made – and often overbaked -making them so claggy and hard when you bit into them you were afraid that you would need to visit the dentist from a lost tooth or filling. Continue reading →

Breakfast Martini

 

I promised a couple of weeks ago when I shared my marmade recipe that I would write some that used it.  At the time I had in mind a pudding or maybe a baked ham but instead I came across this cocktail which is essentially a marmalade martini.  Salvatore Calabrese is a mixologist and a recent President of The United Kingdom Bartenders’ Guild and the man who has this as his signature cocktail – and jolly nice it is too!!! Continue reading →

Clementine and Rosemary Upside Down Cake

How could I resist reading the column heading above???

It is funny sometimes how an idea for a recipe comes about.  I had been thinking about making a spiced clementine cake I had seen in this month’s Olive magazine when I saw Diana Henry’s article in The Sunday Telegraph about the herb Rosemary and saying how could it was with all sorts of things including oranges.  Well that was the inspiration for this recipe.  We had it today for lunch and on a cold day the caramel and clementines were perfect with the perfume of Rosemary giving a hint of warmer more Mediterranean days to come   It is a wonderful indulgence with the feel of a steamed pudding yet it does not feel too heavy when you eat it!!! Continue reading →

Pinecone Firelighters Scented with Orange and Cinnamon

Well this isn’t a recipe in the sense of making something to eat, but for those of you who have wood burners or an open fire it is worth knowing about.   I used to buy something very similar to these and it never occurred to me that you could make them yourself until my friend Rachel sent me a photo of some she had made.  I had to have a go and I was delighted with the results. These are so quick and easy to do.  Not only that but they are cheap to make, look good, smell wonderful and do the job.  Brilliant Continue reading →

Seville Orange Marmalade

My husband loves marmalade on toast for his breakfast   Mind you he doesn’t object to it as a glaze over a baked ham or atop a steamed pudding either (though truthfully he likes all steamed puddings!).  But whilst we are at it, marmalade goes very well with both roast duck and roast pork as well which is useful to know  for those who have an allergy to onions as a dear friend of mine has.    I will add some recipes using marmalade during the next few weeks so you can see its versatility!

Some foods are steeped in our culture and in our personal histories. Marmalade is certainly one of them. From the moment you open the jar, that bitter sweet citrus smell that fills the air evokes memories. Mine are of my mother making marmalade in the 1960s whilst I watched perched on the top of the red kitchen steps judiciously placed at a safe distance (I was an inquisitive child!!)  Itwas the first preserve of the year and somehow it’s tangy flavour after all the rich Christmas flavours is just right Continue reading →

Wheaten Bread with Seeds

My Goddaughter, Chloe, has a yeast intolerance so can’t eat standard bread.  Luckily there are lots of different soda and wheaten breads that use bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) and buttermilk/yogurt to make wonderful loaves.  The Irish in particular are famous for these sorts of breads but they are made elsewhere

I like using buttermilk, particularly now I have found it available in 1 litre cartons courtesy of Ocado, as it gives a wonderful crumb      I love the fact I can get this loaf in the oven in ten minutes and I love the nutty taste of this bread.   Now admittedly wheaten/soda bread does not keep as well as other bread and is at its best eaten on the same day its baked or toasted the next but this particular recipe with the edition of the melted butter keeps another day quite satisfactorily Continue reading →

Turkey Stock

Stock ready for fridge

Another year gone and a new start to 2017.  All those resolutions to make.  I bet the mostpopular is to do with diet and exercise.  Apparently about 5% of us keep to it past 6 weeks  Not great odds!!

I am determined to get to grip with eating better and make the most out of life. And whilst I would be delighted to lose weight that’s only partly what I mean by eating better. I want to make sure that I get the most out of all the food I buy and throw away as little as possible. And when I do eat meat I want to buy the best I can and by that I mean that I know it’s had as good a life as possible and that I use every bit of it Continue reading →

Leek and Bean Soup

Autumn always makes me think of soup.  I think it’s that whole image of windy, leaf strewn days that I have in my subconscious that makes me want to warm my hands round a big mug of warming soup.  Makes me feel all cosy and well, happy – after all soup is one of the most comforting things known to man.  It makes the perfect autumnal lunch served with some crusty bread and is pretty easy to make.

The beans in this soup are a mix of butter beans and cannelini beans.   I used tinned beans for ease but of course you can cook up dried beans ready to use if you have the time.  The beans make for a really velvety, tasty soup.  Quick to make in terms of actual work and easy to do. In a flask it’s perfectly portable for those walks with the dogs and just as easy to reheat if you prefer to wait to have it when you return home.  Perfect if you have been gardening and want an easy lunch.    It freezes beautifully too so it’s an all round winner. Continue reading →

Stir-up Sunday Part Two Christmas Cake

I never have room for Christmas Cake on the day itself but it is an essential treat for the rest of the Christmas holidays and looks wonderful and inviting on the sideboard when you just fancy a little “something”.   It wouldn’t feel like Christmas without it.  The decoration of the cake can be completely personal and fit with your own style of Christmas. You can use different types of icing and make it either completely traditional or modern and contemporary.  Or even no icing at all and use marzipan and glacé fruits.  It’s completely up to you.  My friend Rachel has brilliant ideas each year for decorating her cakes (see below) – and her kids all join in too so it becomes a real family event Continue reading →

Stir-up Sunday Part One Christmas Pudding

Its the last Sunday before Advent and tradition has it that this is the day when the Christmas pudding is made or “stirred up” and wishes made.   If you have ever wondered where the name “Stir-up Sunday” came from it is because the Collect for the Sunday before Advent in the Book of Common Prayer starts with “Stir up, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people”.  And, of course, making the pudding about now gives the perfect amount of time for it to mature for Christmas. Once done, I keep my pudding in the fridge till Christmas Day ( and that way feel enormously self satisfied every time I open the fridge door) but any cool dark place will do – my mother kept hers under the spare bedroom bed  She also kept Christmas presents under there as my brother and I quickly discovered but that’s by the by and don’t ask how we knew!!!  Let’s just we weren’t top of Santa’s good children list that year! Continue reading →

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