Tonight’s dinner : Yotam Ottolenghi’s cauliflower cake!

One more delicious recipe from Yotam! You can find the recipe here.

This super healthy recipe has all the right ingredients to transform mung beans to a delicious meal!

A Yotam Ottolenghi recipe and you can find it here!

A taste of Paris in the heart of London! The divine Ladurée Macarons are now available in London

You can find them at:
Ladurée Covent Garden
1, THE MARKET COVENT GARDEN,
LONDON, WC2E 8RA

Ladurée at Harrods
87/135 Brompton Road
London SW1X 7XL

Ladurée at Burlington Arcade
71-72 BURLING TONARCADE
LONDON W1J 0QX

Had a few ripe bananas so instead of throwing them away I’ve transformed them into this easy and healthy banana loaf.

Ingredients

• 75gr low fat spread
• 3 ripe bananas
• finely grated zest and juice of a lime
• 200gr wholemeal flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon mixed spice
• 110 gr light brown sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 50gr walnuts (broken in to small pieces)

How to:

1. Preaheat the oven to 180C / fan to 160C.
2. Grease the loaf tin with a bit of spread.
3. Mash the bananas with the lime zest and juice. Sift the four and spice into a bowl then add the low fat spread, and the sugar and mix.
4. Stir the bananas and the beaten eggs into the flour until smooth add finally add the walnuts into the mix.
5. Spoon the mix into the prepared tin and bake for about 1 hour or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

Got these lovely sea urchins today from my local fishmonger Fin and Flounder. These were Scottish sea urchins, a bit different from the one’s we get in the Mediterranean.  They were simply delicious !

For the recipe just watch Rick Stein’s Mediterranean Escape!

Esqueixada, also known as Esqueixada de bacalla, is a typical salad of Catalan cuisine that consists of desalted and torn dried and salted cod mixed with vegetables, such as tomatoes, onions, and sometimes pepper. The tomatoes may be chopped finely or grated. It is dressed with olive oil. Olives are usually added, as well as (occasionally) other ingredients, such as hard-boiled eggs.

On the 25th of March, Greeks have a double celebration. We celebrate the Greek Independence and The Annunciation (Evangelismos) of Virgin Mary.
The traditional dish of this day is Bakaliaros skordalia.
This year I’ve decided to try this Catalan recipe  instead.

Ingredients:

• 500 gr of salt cod (soaked, skinned, boned and shredded)?
• 1 white onion cubed
• 250 gr of vine ripped tomatoes (seeds removed) and cubed
• 1 green pepper cubed
• 60gr Kalamata olives stoned and cut in small pieces
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 150ml extra virgin olive oil
• balsamic vinegar

How to:
The salted cod fish must be soaked in water for AT LEAST 24 hours, preferably 48 hours before cooking. This is necessary to leach out the salt. Change the water 2-3 times in a 24-hour period. If this is not done, the fish will be so salty that it will not be edible!

1. Shred the code, discard the skin and bones
2. Place the cod in a bowl with the tomatoes, pepper, onion and the olives. Pour the olive oil over, mix ,season with black pepper and refrigerate, for about an 1 hour.
3. Serve drizzled with olive oil , balsamic vinegar and with crusty bread.

A delicious and extremely easy muffin recipe. Dairy and egg free!

I found this recipe in Guardian newspaper’s weekend magazine. It belongs to the master of baking Dan Lepard.

They were extremely easy to make and the house smells amazing!

You can find the recipe here.

Ingredients

• 3 free-range eggs
• 300ml vegetable oil
• 1 vanilla pod, seeds only
• 1 total 2% Greek yoghurt
• 450g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 4 tsp green tea powder (I’ve used  sencha)
• 175gr caster sugar

For the icing

• 3 tsp green tea powder, plus extra to garnish
• 100gr  unsalted butter
• 175g philadelphia cheese
• 1 tsp milk
• 300g icing sugar

How to:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C / fan 160C
2. Beat the sugar, eggs, vegetable oil and vanilla seeds together in a bowl until well combined. Stir in the yoghurt.
3. Sift the flour, baking powder and green tea powder together in a separate bowl.
4. Fold the flour mixture into the egg mixture.
5. Pour the cake batter into a greased  cake tin,  and bake for 35-40 minutes or until golden-brown on top. Remove the cake from the oven and set aside to cool.
6. For the icing, mix all of the icing ingredients together in a bowl until well combined.
7. Spread the icing to the cake. Dust with a little extra green tea powder.