All posts filed under: DO NOT USE

Homemade pizza – in a pizza oven

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I adore going to my boyfriends parents house for the weekend. They live not too far from the coast and have the most amazing house – complete with a pizza oven and a large veg patch in the garden. Despite the fact that the pizza oven has been sat in the garden for a good couple of years, we had never used it – until a couple of weekends ago when I was determined to make the most of the bank holiday weekend (and the last of the summer days). For the toppings, we rummaged around in the veg patch and used home grown basil, potatoes, courgette – and used the eggs laid by the chickens that run free range around the garden! I also used a pack of the BEST iberico ham that I carved by hand at the Brindisa ham school a couple of weeks ago as a delicious topping. Here’s a recipe for dough and a basic tomato sauce – you can use whatever toppings you like. I usually prefer to keep …

Pan fried lemon sole with samphire and parsley butter

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Samphire is everywhere at the moment. I had it with fish at three different restaurants last week and I can’t get enough if it. So when I was getting my fish from the Waitrose fish counter at the weekend, I was very happy to see a pack of the delicious green edible plant sat next to the fish. I chose two filets of lemon sole and grabbed a pack and a lemon to go with it. I was very looking forward to my Monday evening dinner but was left slightly disappointed with the samphire. I followed the cooking instructions on the pack but the stalks were quite hard and a small amount was inedible. Only a very small amount though so the meal was not ruined. I can’t expect cooking with a new ingredient to be perfect first time, so as with most things, practice makes perfect! Ingredients 2 skin on lemon sole fillets 1 garlic clove 1 red chilli 2 knobs of butter 4 tsp fresh or or frozen parsley 90g samphire Salt and …

Maille pop up supper club

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I have had a battle with mustard over the years. After trying that powdered English stuff that used to be popular about 20 years ago, I abstained from putting myself through the misery again. That is until someone persuaded me to try a dollop of Maille mustard with a salad a couple of years ago. I didn’t love it straight away but it was a lot more pleasurable than my first experience. I was invited to the Maille mustard pop up in Shoreditch, which was hosted by Ms Marmite Lover a few weeks ago and couldn’t say no – partly because I wanted to try the new range, which includes honey mustard and mayonnaise with a hint of mustard and partly because I was allowed to take a guest and my boyfriend is the biggest mustard fan. We turned up to Spitalfields market on a Friday evening and I was surprised to see a small pop up located just in front of the main entrance. It looked beautiful and featured stained wood with beautifully packaged …

Vintage at Southbank Centre

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Let me set the scene. My boyfriends family are huge advocates of vintage, whether that be music, fashion, design or films. I met my boyfriend in a field at Bestival in 2007 and I remember thinking that it was cool that his dad and little brother (who was 10 at the time) came for a couple of days. We went back to Bestival for the next couple of years and as we started to see the changes, the way that it was expanding so fast, we decided to give it a miss the following year. It was the same year that my boyfriends parents had an idea. To encompass everything that they are passionate about and hold their very own festival. A relationship with Goodwood was established and the date was set – August 13th – 15th 2010. See my post on the event last year here. Anyone that went last year will know how fantastic it was. A high street in a field, post war silver service in The Torch Club, the BEST club …

Tortilla burrito master class

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A couple of weeks ago I was invited to a burrito master class at Tortilla, a chain of Mexican burrito restaurants in London. I wasn’t feeling too well a couple of days leading up to the event and I had been to the doctors that morning and was told I had a kidney infection. Lovely. Still, I went partly because I didn’t want to let anyone down and partly because I love a good burrito. We arrived at the Market Place branch just off Oxford Street and joined the group waiting downstairs. The evening started with a talk from the founder Brandon Stephens and the Brazillian head chef Bruno Pires. I was really happy to see that Brandon is obviously an avid burrito fan and his enthusiasm really won me over. After the talk, they brought a load of ingredients for guacamole and we had a go at making our own. All of the ingredients were there for us to use – avocado, green chillies, garlic, coriander, lime, tomatoes, salt and pepper and we could …