If you remember my post about 3 steps to heaven on Byres Road you will know that I am a massive fan of ice cream so imagine my delight when I noticed a new ice cream parlour in my neck of the woods.

With a wide range of ice cream flavours from the usual to the unusual such as jaffa-cake and curly wurly, Big Licks sell the usual ice cream cones and tubs but also waffles, sundaes and freshly make cookie dough desserts.

I opted for the two scoop sundae which consisted of some broken up ice-cream cone, my choice of caramel shortcake and cookie ice-cream followed by some generous helpings of sauce, sprinkles and whipped cream… weight watchers beware!

Located just round from Kelvingrove park the parlour should do well come the summer months and will no doubt be frequented quite often by myself!

Big Licks West End

1185 Argyle Street
Glasgow

www.biglicksicecream.co.uk

I last visited Carluccio’s when I was invited to the opening night in November last year. Due to its convenient location of being next to where I get my hair cut I have tried a few times to walk in for some post grooming brunch only to be turned away due to them being fully booked.

With a bit of better planning I booked a table although my booking did have to be juggled about a bit due to some larger tables. Seems like Glasgow’s newest Italian is still quite popular!

Some of you might have come across a Carluccio’s before as they have quite a few restaraunts throughout the UK, but this is their first venture north of the border.

The PR blurb says that they use the freshest seasonal ingredients, many sourced direct from small artisan producers in Italy, and offer genuine Italian food that can be enjoyed in bustling and relaxed surroundings.  Glaswegians can look forward to everything from delicious antipasti and fresh handmade pasta, to seasonal fish, meat and vegetarian mains and decadent desserts, many based on Antonio Carluccio’s original recipes.

My wife and I were eating from the fixed price menu which was £9.95 for two courses… not too bad!

To start I had the focaccia all’aglio or garlic bread as the rest of us call it. Not really much you can say about garlic bread really but was nice none the less.

Focaccia All'Aglio

My wife had the bruschetta which she is quite a fan of. As you can see the toasted bread was laden with fresh tomatoes in fact so much so there was enough for me to eat with my garlic bread as well.

Bruschetta

For mains I had the penne pasta with a spicy Italian sausage sauce which to be honest I found rather plain. The pasta was cooked well as you would expect from an Italian restaurant but the dish as a whole didn’t really excite me.

Penne Alla Luganica

My wife had the chicken milanese which sadly was rather tasteless as well. It came with a salad but I think the dish could have done with some sort of sauce to spice it up.

Milanese Di Pollo

So as you can imagine, I was left a bit disappointed with Carluccio’s. I do accept that we were eating from the set menu and they are typically not the most exciting of menus but at just under £10 for two courses the meal was definitely good value.

Carluccio’s also do a breakfast menu so I think I will pay it a visit one weekend morning to see how that fares and shall let you know.

Carluccio’s

7 West Nile St.

Glasgow

G1 2PR

0141 248 1166

www.carluccios.com

As a super fan of the “Queen of Baking” I decided it was time I share one of my favourite bakes of her’s with you.

Lemon drizzle traybake, it’s a delight of lemony spongy goodness which is only fitting for this time of year.

Ingredients

• 275g self raising flour
• 225g margarine/soft butter (I recommend Stork)
• 225g caster sugar
• 2tsp baking powder
• 4tbsp milk
• 4 eggs (free range)
• grated zest of 2 lemons

For the topping:

• Juice of 2 lemons
• 175g granulated sugar

Prep: 15 mins    Cooking Time:  40mins    Makes: 25-30 squares

1. Lightly grease and line a traybake tin or roasting tin (30 x 23 x 4 cm) and preheat your oven to 160 oC.
2. Put all the ingredients for the traybake into a large bowl and beat well for 2 minutes.  An electric mixer is best for this but you can also do it by hand.
3. Empty all of the mix into the tin and level the top with the back of a wooden spoon or spatula.
4. Bake in the middle of the oven for approximately 40 minutes, until golden and the sponge springs back when pressed lightly.
5. Leave the cake to cool in the tin for a few minutes then remove from the tin using the baking paper.  Carefully remove the paper and allow the cake to cool on a wire rack.
6. For the crunchy topping, mix the ingredients together in a measuring jug/small bowl then spoon it over the cake while it’s still just warm.
7. Then cut into squares once completely cooled.

Now enjoy a square or three with a lovely cuppa tea!

I never attended cook school but I am pretty sure that one of the first things they teach wannabe chefs is how to chop an onion.

Onions are used in so many dishes, sauces and soups and not a week goes by without me having to chop a good few of them. With a little bit of technique you will not only get more even cuts but you will cut down on the amount of wastage and also those onion tears!

• The first important rule is to half the onion through the root. Someone once told me that if you chop the onion through the root then it won’t release whatever it does that typically makes you cry.
• I then peel the outer skin from each half.
• Place one half of the onion and place it flat side down on your chopping board.
• I then chop off the little tip of the onion.
• Now second most important tip, do not chop off the root. The root is used to hold the onion together so will make chopping a lot easier.
• If you are after sliced onion you would at this point hold the onion by the root and make a series of cuts with your knife horizontal to the root until you get as close to the root as you can. You are then just left with the root that you can throw away.
• If you are looking to dice the onion you will again hold the onion by the root but this time make a series of cuts vertical to the root or at 90 degrees. Your cuts should close to the root but not go through it. Once you have done this if you pick up the onion by the root you will see that it is still held together.
• Now take your knife and cut vertically through the onion, again not cutting through the root. For really fine chopped onion and depending on the size of your onion you can try and get two or three cuts.
• Your onion should still be held together by that important root and now all you need to do is cut through the onion as you did for chopping.

For those of you wanting a visual explanation who better to demonstrate than Mr Gordon Ramsey.

So there you go a few tips to hopefully make your cooking life that bit easier.

Should you have the sudden urge to practice your onion chopping one great recipe to try is our French Onion Soup. 1kg of onions should keep you going!

Apparently, in most traditions the day is known for the eating of pancakes before the start of Lent. Pancakes are eaten because they are made out of the main foods available, sugar, fat, flour and eggs, whose consumption was traditionally restricted during the ritual fastening associated with Lent.  So there you go, in case you didn’t know that’s apparently why we have Pancake Day/Tuesday/Shrove Tuesday.

And now to the pancakes:

Ingredients:

• 175g self raising flour
• 40g caster sugar
• 200ml of milk
• 1 egg
• a little oil/butter for greasing your cooking pan
• butter/golden syrup/maple syrup for serving

Prep: 10 mins    Cooking Time:  2 mins    Serves: 15-20 depending how big you make them

1. Put the flour, baking powder and sugar into a bowl
2. Stir briefly and make a well in the centre, now crack in your egg and pour in the milk
3. Stir well with a wooden spoon to make a thick creamy batter
4. Now heat a non stick frying pan over a medium heat
5. Add a bit of oil/butter to kitchen roll and spread (be careful now) across the hot pan to grease it slightly
6. Then drop dessert spoonfuls or slightly bigger dollops of the mixture into the pan, spacing well apart
7. When bubbles appear on the surface, turn them over and cook for another 30 seconds
8. Transfer to a wire rack and cook the remaining mixture
9. Serve at once with butter and golden syrup or maple syrup or even jam, anyway you wish!

If you don’t manage to eat all 15 odd pancakes at once you can keep them in an air tight container and reheat very briefly in a microwave or oven (if the latter cover in tin foil).

Enjoy And Happy Pancake Day!!!

‘The beer industry is sick, and we are the f***ing doctor’.

This is how BrewDog describes itself in its ‘about us’ pamphlet. The craft brewery opened up a pub across from the Kelvingrove Museum last summer, but I only recently got a chance to check it out.

BrewDog is the only pub I’ve visited where you can order beer in the elusive 2/3 pint measure, and the even more elusive 1/3 pint measure. Many of their beers have a high ABV – up to 32% in the case of the Tactical Nuclear Penguin –and are only sold in small measures.

First I tried Prototype, a more traditional 4% IPA that’s made with raspberries. I liked that I could taste the tartness of the raspberries, yet it wasn’t sickly sweet like most fruit beers. Next I tried the Chris from Stone’s Stout – at 10.3% it was sweet, heavy and didn’t taste terribly beer-like, but the more I drank it the more I appreciated the intense, complex flavours. Then again, it WAS 10.3%, so I was probably slightly drunk at the time.

The strong beer won’t be to everyone’s taste. Neither will the setting itself, which has a hipster feel to it – vintage board games like Guess Who? and Connect Four, exposed brick, charity shop couches. But if you want to have a night out where you can try something more interesting than industrial lager and fizzy cider, it’s worth checking it out.

Also, you can’t argue with this view.

BrewDog Glasgow
1397 Argyle Street
Glasgow
G3 8AN
0141 334 7175

If you are a keen baker like me you will most likely have this little brown bottle of vanilla goodness in your cupboard.  And I’m going to give you some extra handy tips for using this for something other than baking.

But before I do, did you know you need to be over 18 to buy this stuff?  True story, it’s due to its alcohol content, although I’ve yet to try it as a tipple.  But I have to say I am always a little disappointed that I never get asked for id when purchasing!!

Anyways, despite using this extract a lot in baking, did you know there are some other handy uses for this little bottle too? And here they are:

1.  Put little drops of the extract on a light bulb so that when you switch it on the heat gives you a nice home baking smell, without the home baking. You can also put some drops along the back of your radiators too.
2. Freshen up your fridge by wiping around the shelves and walls with some vanilla extract on a clean cloth. It will banish bad smells and leave your fridge smelling of sweetness.
3. If you cooked something with a strong smell in your microwave you can get rid of the wiffy-ness by pouring a couple of drops of vanilla extract into a microwaveable bowl and microwaving for 1 minute.

And who thought vanilla extract was just for baking?

Porridge is such a delicious and easy dish to make. This recipe is ideal if you find yourself running around in the morning – too busy to sit down and have that all important first meal of the day. And the good news is that it really is very good for you. Claims for porridge being a ‘super food’ see it reported as helping reduce cholesterol, reducing the risk of heart disease and staving off hunger pangs for hours at a time.

I’m not a big fan of the microwave for serious cooking – however for making porridge I’m definitely a convert. Indeed I’d go as far as to say that it’s easily the best way to cook porridge. If you have had many mornings trying to scrape clean a pot used to make the quintessential Scottish breakfast then this recipe is for you. It can be made in minutes and provides the perfect creamy start to a cold winter’s morning.

One little tip for this recipe. You can use inexpensive porridge oats to make it however  if you look on the supermarket shelves you will find a fine range of organic oats that really are great value for money and add something to the final dish.

Ingredients

• 40g porridge oats
• 225mls semi-skimmed milk
• Small handful of raisins
• ½ banana
• 1 tsp honey

Prep: 2 mins    Cooking Time: 3 mins    Serves: 1

1. Measure out 40 g of porridge oats (three dessertspoons) into a bowl.
2. Add 225mls of semi-skimmed milk and stir.
3. Cook in a 650w microwave for two minutes.
4. Stir and cook for a further one minute at 650 w.
5. Stir again and leave aside for one minute.
6. Add raisins and chopped banana and drizzle with honey.

For a decedent treat you could drizzle with single cream and some malt whisky! You could equally use blueberries, strawberries or any other fruit you have in your fruit bowl.

The recipe is inspired mostly by Levi Roots’ recipe for ginger cake, but as always I’ve made a few tweaks after baking it several times over the last year while still keeping it easy peasy, my favourite type of baking.

Ingredients

• 125g butter, cut into cubes
• 125g dark soft brown sugar
• 4 tbsp golden syrup
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• 200ml milk
• 200g plain flour
• 1 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp all spice
• 100g raisins

Prep: 10 mins    Cooking Time:  50-55mins    Serves: 6

1. Preheat the oven to 150 oC and grease a 20cm round tin (or 900g loaf tin if you prefer) and line with baking paper
2. Put the butter, sugar, vanilla extract and golden syrup into a small pot and heat gently, stirring until it has all melted
3. Add the milk and remove from the heat, pour into a jug and leave to cool for a few minutes
4. Add your eggs and mix together
5. Sift the flour, spices, bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl
6. Then add the wet ingredients in the jug and fold in together, then gently mix in the raisins
7. Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 50-55min (an hour if using a loaf tin)
8. Then turn onto a wire rack and allow to cool before serving

I said it was easy!  I now recommend serving with either home-made custard, ice-cream or whipped cream (with a sprinkling of cinnamon), whichever way you have it, Enjoy!

Nothing says Christmas more that a glass or two of the hot red stuff and so for the last few years on Christmas Eve this is an easy little drink that I rustle up in the kitchen just before I am about to settle down and watch some festive movies.  It’ll take less than 10 minutes I promise, so go on give it a go and indulge in the taste of Christmas.

Ingredients

• 1 bottle of red wine (preferably one of your favs)
• 2 tbsp of honey
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 orange sliced
• 1 dessert spoon of whole cloves
• 2-3 star anise
• a shot of sloe gin (optional)
• a shot of brandy (optional)
  the last two are completely optional, you can add both or just the one or none, but I think it gives the mulled wine a lovely little extra kick

Prep: 5mins  Cooking time: 5mins  Serves: 4-5

1. Splashingly pour the bottle of red wine into a pot and put over a very low, gentle heat.  This is very important as you don’t want to bring it to a simmer or boil as otherwise you cook away all the alcohol
2. Add all of the above ingredients stir and keep it on a very low gentle heat for about 5 mins until the spices flavour the wine
3. Then simply serve a lovely glass of the mulled wine and just keep the rest of the wine warm until you are all done.

Now enjoy with any festive treat of your choice or just on it’s own -hic!

Merry Christmas.