Travels on Planet Earth - A blog
A decadent chocolate-caramel dessert for impressing guests As a I cook I’m usually drawn to the simple and I rarely make something that requires multiple steps. So this tart was a departure for me, since it involved blind-baking pastry, making caramel, making chocolate ganache, assembling it all before the chocolate and caramel set, and piping [...]
Recipe for sophisticated Middle Eastern-inspired, gluten-free cake with rose geranium I was browsing in the farmers’ market at the San Francisco Ferry Building the other week when I found a stall selling bunches of rose-geranium leaves. For those not in the know, it’s a specific type of geranium with rough leaves that smell like roses. [...]
The peach season was in full swing when I arrived in California and two and a half months later it is still not over. Some of the varieties have changed but peaches are still plentiful and relatively cheap. My absolute favourite kind so far are the Arctic Snow white nectarines, which are fabulously sweet and [...]
What I made with the bounty of my pick-your-own strawberry harvest. The week before I left the UK I joined a group of friends on an excursion out of London to a pick-your-own strawberry farm. My friend Jessica has some pics up on her blog FushMush – that’s me in the denim skirt and turquoise [...]
It was my birthday last week so what better excuse to bake a cake? It’s been ages since I’d done any baking – I’m usually a savoury cook. I had a bit of time to play around in the kitchen and I quite fancied getting out the wooden spoon and mixing bowl and whipping up [...]
With Thanksgiving coming up this week in the US (the Canadians had it last month), there’s going to be a whole lot of pumpkin pie eating going on. Pumpkin as a dessert is not unheard of outside North America but it’s not common. Pumpkin pie is occasionally found in Australia and Britain but it’s a [...]
A fantastic rustic lamb dish, from Jamie Oliver’s classic cookbook The Return of the Naked Chef. Now that the cold weather has arrived and the days are drawing in, I find myself craving hearty comfort food. With friends coming over for Sunday lunch last weekend, lamb seemed like just the ticket and I liked the [...]
Vegetarian soup from Chinese Food Made Easy by BBC TV chef Ching-He Huang. Some dear friends of mine recently gave me a copy of Chinese Food Made Easy, which ties in with the BBC show presented by Ching-He Huang. It’s full of beautiful pictures and recipes that sound delicious – from mussels in black bean [...]
I am keen to try out more healthy and diet-friendly recipes and also expand my knowledge of vegetarian cookery. I also love lasagne and believe that a good vegetarian lasagne is an essential dish in any cook’s repertoire. This recipe for lentil, mushroom and ricotta lasagne comes from The Low GI Vegetarian Cookbook by Dr [...]
When I grew up in Australia in 1980s, beetroot was something that came on a hamburger and it was always canned. Even now, I think fresh beets are quite rare in Australia. I’ve always loved beetroot but it wasn’t until I came to the UK that I realised quite how good it can be. When [...]
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