Rachel Cotterill

Perfection Satisfaction Promise, in Ottawa

2013-06-19T16:00:00.000+01:00

We passed the tiny, unassuming cafe that is Perfection Satisfaction Promise en route to a different restaurant, and the specials board caught my eye. As soon as we got back to our hotel, I looked online for reviews, which were largely focused on the fact that the restaurant has been set up by followers of a popular guru (with words like 'cult' being thrown around a lot), but I would guess most travel-addicted vegetarians have eaten in enough Hare Krishna restaurants that a slightly different peace-and-love philosophy just washes over you. It does, however, make for rather an unusual restaurant name. In any case, the consensus seemed to be "nice food, culty atmosphere" so we decided to try it out for ourselves.

The restaurant really is tiny, and we ended up perched at the breakfast bar while we ordered, although we were then able to move to the end of a small table. I get the impression that it's always packed - there were even signs announcing, primarily for the benefit of the local student population, that wifi would be switched off during the lunch rush to discourage loitering!

We ordered two different kinds of soup (both lentil-based, rich, and very filling) and also some samosas and onion bhaji for starters, which were excellent. For our main course, both of us wanted to try the special which had originally attracted us to the restaurant - a filo pastry bake filled with roasted vegetables, which tasted every bit as good as it looked. We were feeling pretty full by the time we got to contemplating dessert, but the mouth-watering vegan cheesecakes were just too tempting to pass up. I love cheesecake and these were perfect - we had one chocolate, and one blueberry, they were creamy and rich but not too sweet. If I lived nearby I think I would be eating here a lot, and always saving space for dessert.

At the end of our trip, we were stranded for a day by flight delays. We'd been looking forwards to getting home and were tiring of rich food at every meal, so we came back here for a lunch of simple vegetables. An assortment of fresh veggies are offered with a choice of accompaniments and sauces - we each picked a different combination, and were impressed by how nicely cooked it all was.

Peppermint Mocha Cupcakes (Vegan)

2013-06-17T18:00:00.000+01:00

It started with JoJo's Cupcakes in St Michael's, Maryland, where I first encountered the idea of a peppermint mocha cupcake. I tend to shy away from sweet drinks, so "peppermint mocha" is not the name of something I would order in a coffee shop. I love coffee and chocolate and peppermint in almost equal amounts, but I couldn't quite imagine how the taste would work in combination. You know how sometimes you try something new that sounds a bit weird, and then five minutes later you can't imagine not knowing that it's an awesome flavour? It was like that with peppermint mocha cupcakes.

This was last autumn, and Maryland is now a lot further away, so I've been half-heartedly intending to make some of my own ever since I got home.

Then a friend (coincidentally also called Jo) invited me round to watch a US television series called Cupcake Wars. I don't watch much TV of any description, but a show that ends each episode with a couple of bakers having to compete in producing a thousand-cupcake display has a natural appeal to me. Plus I just love the weird ingredients that the contestants are asked to incorporate into their baking. But I digress.

On one of the early episodes, the winner was a vegan cupcake-baker whose creations looked simply amazing. Unfortunately her name was Chloe, which kind of breaks the pattern here, but we'll forgive her that because her baking is awesome. A quick Google later and I found myself with the recipe for Chloe's chocolate strawberry shortcake cupcakes, one of the very cakes she made on the show. I've made variants on these cakes a couple of times, now, and this is fast becoming my go-to cupcake recipe because they rise so nicely and have a great, moist texture.

I'd run out of bicarbonate of soda, so I used baking powder instead and skipped the vinegar to balance out the acidity. I also tweaked the recipe from volumetric to weight-based measures, translated everything into metric, and tweaked the flavours to create my own peppermint mocha variant.

Vegan Cupcakes: Peppermint Mocha
Makes 16

For the cakes:
210g (1 cup) caster sugar
265g (1½ cups) plain flour
40g (1/3 cup) cocoa powder
2tsp baking powder
¼tsp salt
120ml (½ cup) sunflower oil
240ml (1 cup) strong coffee
1tbsp peppermint extract
75g dark chocolate
5g coffee beans

For the frosting:
150g vegan margarine
75g icing sugar
1tsp peppermint extract

Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F).
Finely chop the dark chocolate (or use chocolate chips).
Crush the coffee beans with a pestle and mortar.
In a large bowl, combine the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking powder.
Add the liquids, and whisk until smooth.
Stir through the crushed coffee beans, and chopped chocolate (holding back a little for decoration).
Divide the batter between about 16 cupcake cases.
Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the cakes have risen and a skewer comes out clean. (Exact timings will depend on your oven.)
Allow the cakes to cool completely before frosting.
Cream the margarine together with the icing sugar and peppermint extract, and whisk until light and fluffy.
Spread the frosting on top of the cupcakes, and sprinkle with a little extra chocolate.

This month's We Should Cocoa challenge, hosted by Victoria at A Kick At The Pantry Door, happens to be on the theme of mint, so I'm submitting this recipe there. Thanks to the wonderful chocolatey blogs of the Chocolate Teapot and Chocolate Log Blog for organising the event.

Samos: My First Greek Island

2013-06-14T16:00:00.000+01:00

I went to Samos for a conference. Sitting around in a hall full of academics is, I'm guessing, not the most conventional reason to go to a pretty Greek island, but I'll take what I can get. Fortunately, in addition to days of powerpoint, the conference also included a great cultural program with day trips to nearby Ephesus and Patmos, as well as around the island of Samos itself.

We stayed in the main port of Vathy, which boasts a strange mixture of architecture: picturesque winding streets, whitewashed staircases, one ultra-modern shopping boulevard, a scenic harbourfront, and a couple of streets crumbling into absolute ruin.

Further afield, the fields are almost implausibly green, and tiny villages perch on hillsides overlooking the sparkling seas. I could certainly get used to walking through streets overhung by citrus fruits and colourful flowers.

Luxury Self-Catering Cottages in Cornwall

2013-06-12T18:00:00.000+01:00

I was recently offered the opportunity to review a gorgeous, award-winning holiday cottage in Cornwall. We haven't done much in the way of self-catering holidays, for the simple reason that we generally move around a lot when we're holidaying, whereas renting a cottage is more suited to longer breaks in one place. On reflection, because it's something my parents did when I was growing up, I also seem to think of it as a "family" thing to do, when you have kids and need more space to spread out. On the other hand, I do tend to assume that a holiday cottage will provide a pretty high level of accommodation - so I was fascinated to see what makes a really luxurious cottage stand out from the crowd.

We packed our bags and headed off for a three-night break, staying in Ring and Thimble, the smaller of the two cottages at Boscrowan Farm. This is a little thatched cottage specifically designed to sleep two - which does for at least one of my preconceptions, since it's clearly designed as a retreat for couples, no kids in tow.

So what makes the Boscrowan cottages so special? On the surface, it's features like the aga, the "super king" sized half-tester bed (set beneath a crystal chandelier), and the claw-footed bath. But while these headline items are nice to have, and might well affect my decision to stay somewhere, it's the attention to detail throughout the property that really shows that someone is taking care of you. (That someone is owner Elizabeth, who's also just plain lovely.)

On walking through the door, the first thing we noticed was the Cornish cream tea laid out for us on the dining room table.

The scones were homemade that afternoon, and it only took me a moment to realise that the jam was also Elizabeth's own. The clotted cream was local, too. We hardly wanted to stop and unpack before diving in, but first we had to put the kettle on (on the aga!) so we forced ourselves to some restraint while we waited.

We tend to prefer coffee over tea, and I had wondered whether to pack our cafetiere along with some fresh coffee, but it turned out that the cottage had both a cafetiere and an espresso machine to choose between. (And a supply of ground coffee in the cupboard.)

Knowing what to pack was a more general challenge, particularly since I knew I'd be wanting to cook on the aga every night. I'd considered putting half of my pantry into the car, but eventually decided against it on the grounds that we could always stock up on anything we needed from the nearby supermarket. We ended up bringing only a few stray vegetables from the fridge. I'm glad I didn't grab my spice rack (yes, I seriously considered it), because there was a generous bunch of freshly-cut herbs on the kitchen windowsill, and fresh herbs have far and away the best flavour.

Elizabeth also provides guests with a trug of seasonal vegetables from her smallholding: in our case this included potatoes, onions, rainbow chard, and rhubarb. There was oil and vinegar in the cupboard, and fresh apple juice in the fridge. And the freezer was stocked with croissants and Cornish pasties (including veggie ones) that were available for purchase at what can hardly have been more than cost price. We treated ourselves to freshly-baked croissants for more than one breakfast, and the pasties were top quality in the classic Cornish style.

Since we're talking about food, let me say a little more about the kitchen. The aga is the centre of the room, obviously, and ensures that the whole space is warm throughout the day (and night). It's a different way of cooking which takes a little getting used to, but I found it was fairly easy to adapt my favourite meals, and there are a few recipe books if you fancy trying something more adventurous. (There's also an electric oven and microwave, if you wimp out, so everyone is covered.)

The cupboards and drawers are well stocked with every tool that the keenest chef might need, from scales and measuring spoons to a food processor and electric whisk. We even found some skewers to speed up our baked potatoes. This is what I mean about attention to detail: there wasn't anything I needed that I couldn't find.

The kitchen is surprisingly large, too, so there's plenty of space to spread out while preparing your feast. And although we did most of our washing up in the double sink, on the last day we were glad to just be able to load our dirty crockery into the dishwasher before leaving.

The open plan sitting/dining room has a dining table tucked under the stairs, a pair of armchairs in front of the fire, and a sofa by the patio doors. It didn't quite get cool enough for us to light the wood-burning stove (there was, after all, an aga in the next room), but with the large flower arrangement in the hearth the fireplace still felt like the focus of the space. We also took advantage of the DVD player to watch a few episodes of Poirot.

The only slight down-side of the living room is that since the cottage is old, the windows are small, so even in broad daylight it can feel a little dim inside. We have the exact same issue at our house - and if you're out and about during the day, it's hardly a problem. But the larger of the two cottages, next door, has its living space upstairs to let in a lot more natural light.

Upstairs in Ring and Thimble, the bedroom is tucked under the eaves, giving the room an interesting shape with a very high ceiling. There's a little reading nook with a dressing table, and of course the enormous bed takes pride of place beneath the chandelier. I'm a picky sleeper, and I was more than happy with the comfy mattress and soft sheets. Elizabeth runs a soft furnishings business, too, so everything is decked out with beautiful handmade curtains, cushions, and the like. (I also had a go at cushion-making, while I was there, but that's a story for another day.)

Across the hall from the bedroom, unsurprisingly, is the bathroom. The freestanding, claw-footed bath is a great spot to relax and read, and even has a little side table where you can rest your book (and a drink), but for people like Andy who prefer a shower, there's also a separate shower cubicle.

Given the sheer size of the bathroom (and the bedroom, for that matter), it would have been easy to squeeze in a second bedroom, here, by opting for a smaller shower room. The fact that this remains a two-person cottage, with room to really stretch your legs (literally, in the case of my physio exercises), is another indication of quality over quantity.

All in all, I can see why Elizabeth wins awards for these gorgeous cottages. Tucked away in beautiful gardens, and located in the perfect spot for exploring the furthest reaches of Cornwall, it's not surprising that many people re-book year after year. We were delighted to have chance to stay here, and I'm confident that we'll be heading back before too long.

Spiced Cauliflower (225 calories)

2013-06-10T16:00:00.000+01:00

I'm still on a quest to develop more interesting meals for my 5:2 fast days. When I made cauliflower cheese recently, I noticed that cauliflower was so low in calories that it was almost possible to smother it in cheese sauce and still be able to eat it on a fast day. However, one of my personal goals with the intermittent fasting is to reduce the amount of cheese that I eat on the fast days (as well as avoiding sugar), because I really eat too much cheese anyway. And if you're only going to have 500 calories, they'd better be nutritious ones.

This cauliflower recipe, then, is a far healthier one - and comes in at just under half of the daily allowance. It looks nice, too, with the bright yellow turmeric and the red splashes of pepper and tomato. I generally like my cauliflower quite al dente, which contrasts with the softer textures of the other vegetables.

Spiced Cauliflower
Serves 2 (approx. 225 calories per serving)

600g cauliflower

1 small onion

½ red pepper (65g)

150g chestnut mushrooms

100g cherry tomatoes
4 cloves garlic
1tsp sunflower oil

2tsp garam masala
½tsp turmeric
4 cardamom pods

300ml veg stock

Cut the cauliflower into florets. Roughly chop the onion, pepper, and mushrooms, and halve the tomatoes. Finely dice the garlic.
Heat the oil in a large saucepan.
Fry the onion, pepper, and garlic until the onions are soft.
Add the spices and mushrooms, and fry for a couple more minutes.
Add the vegetable stock and cauliflower florets, and simmer for about ten minutes over a medium heat, turning regularly to coat all the cauliflower florets in the spiced stock.
Add the tomatoes, cover, and simmer gently for another couple of minutes to soften the tomatoes.
Serve up with a slotted spoon to leave behind any excess liquid. You may wish to pick out the cardamom pods, too!

Zak's Diner & Les Suites Hotel, Ottawa

2013-06-07T16:00:00.000+01:00

I discovered Zak's on my first visit to Ottawa, back in 2008. And by "discovered" I mean, tried a couple of other places for breakfast and then returned here every. single. day.

Naturally, visiting Ottawa for a second time with Andy in tow, I wanted to take him there, too. (Every day.)

I think my obsession can be traced to the amount of choice available on the Zak's menu. In the UK, if a cafe has a "vegetarian breakfast" option, you're doing well; as often as not, you have to negotiate something special from the available ingredients. Two or more distinct items on the menu, and you're probably at a veggie cafe. Whereas at Zak's I felt like half of the choices could easily be made veggie because everything came with "bacon or sausage or fruit". Fruit as an alternative to meat should be an option in more places!

Omlettes, eggs florentine, pancakes, waffles... this is the stuff breakfast dreams are made of, even if you do have to loosen your belt. Zak's isn't cheap but the portions are huge (I don't need lunch after eating here) and the "blue plate" specials offer some serious deals. The idea of putting (say) chocolate chip pancakes and eggs on the same plate is still a bit foreign to me, as a Brit, but the plates are big enough that I could separate the sweet from the savoury and basically treat it as a two-course meal.

On our recent trip to Ottawa, as well as returning to my favourite breakfast haunt, we also returned to the hotel I'd used before, Les Suites. It's a nice luxury to have a suite with a separate living room, and especially a kitchen (even though we only used the oven once - Ottawa has so many amazing places to eat!), but Les Suites is reasonably priced compared to other hotels in the city, so it's worth going there just for the extra space.

JoJo's Cupcakes in St Michael's, MD

2013-06-05T16:00:00.000+01:00

We drove to the little coastal town of St Michael's with friends, "just to have a quick look around," and never mind that it was more than fifty miles away. That's just the sort of thing one does in the States, where driving an hour or two to go out for dinner is basically normal. It turned out to be even further than we thought and it was starting to get dark by the time we arrived, which rather curtailed our sightseeing, so it really was a whistle-stop tour.

JoJo's Cupcakes, however, was a brightly-lit, colourful beacon just calling out to us. We knew we had pizza and salad waiting for us back home, but in the circumstances, it seemed appropriate to have an early dessert. Following much discussion around critical issues such as whether we shouldn't just box up the cakes to take back with us (a heretical proposal which was swiftly quashed), we settled down at a corner table and contemplated the amazing display of beautiful cupcakes.

The Chef's Special seemed to be calling my name. Peppermint Mocha combines three of my favourite flavours: chocolate, coffee, and mint. However I couldn't quite imagine the combined flavour of all three in one mouthful. I loved the attention to detail of all the decorations, which made the cakes almost too pretty to eat. (Almost.) Fortunately we had our cameras, so we could capture the cakes for posterity and eat them. And I'm glad we did, because they were light and moist and pretty close to perfect.

Peppermint mocha

Lemon

Carrot cake

The mouth-watering display

Blackcurrant Cake Pops

2013-06-03T16:00:00.000+01:00

Cake pops, like rum truffles, are widely known to be a good way to mop up leftover cake. But... leftover cake? As in cake, left over? Who ever heard of such a thing? Like any sensible person, I scoffed at the idea, and put it out of my mind.

And then the other day I made a battenberg cake, and ended up trimming some of the edges, and suddenly I was faced with just such an unimaginable scenario.

Hence, cake pops.

I'd already put some ground almonds into the cake, and because it was a blackcurrant battenberg, I'd included blackcurrant juice in the pink half. (Yes, half my cake crumbs were pink. You could hardly tell once they were all covered in chocolate, though.) I thought it would make sense to continue the theme, so I threw in some extra ground almonds and used blackcurrant jam to bind the pops together.

Of course, cake pops are inherently a bit silly. That's part of their charm - but if you were feeling more sensible, you could equally well skip the sticks and just serve these as truffles. I decorated the cake pops with a simple chocolate drizzle in a contrasting colour, but the possibilities are endless.

Blackcurrant & Almond Cake Pops
Makes 10

125g (5oz) leftover cake
2tbsp ground almonds
1tbsp blackcurrant jam
100g (4oz) dark chocolate
50g (2oz) white chocolate

Melt the two types of chocolate in two separate bowls. I have a specific gadget for this, but you can equally well use a bowl over a pan of boiling water.
While the chocolate is melting, crumble the cake into fine crumbs.
Add the ground almonds and combine thoroughly.
Work the jam into the cake crumbs with your fingers.
Once the chocolate has melted, add half of the dark chocolate to the crumb mixture, and stir through the crumbs.
Form the crumb mixture into 10 balls, and roll between your palms to round them into a nice shape. It's important to do this fairly quickly, before the chocolate hardens again.
Dip half of the balls in dark chocolate, and half in white, to coat. I found the best method was to roll the ball in melted chocolate for a couple of seconds, then insert the stick into the ball to lift it out.
Put aside until the chocolate coating has cooled and set.
Re-melt the remaining chocolate. Drizzle dark chocolate over the white pops, and white chocolate over the dark pops, for contrasting decoration.

Samos by Night

2013-05-31T16:23:00.000+01:00

One of the nicest things about visiting Samos was that it remained warm enough to take a pleasant stroll long after the sun had gone down. In fact, for someone like me who burns quickly and dehydrates even faster, walking after sunset was far nicer than in the heat of the day. And the lights sparkling along the waterfront made for a beautiful display.

Learning Turkish with Rosetta Stone

2013-05-29T18:00:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago I got a press release from Rosetta Stone, announcing their new language-learning blog, #milestones. I had a look around the site, replied to say hi, and before I knew it I'd been invited to try out their product with a free six month subscription, and to join their European blogging team.

I know, I know. I was trying not to start any new projects. But free language courses? I can't turn that down.

I hadn't used Rosetta Stone before, so I was intrigued to see how it worked. I thought I'd share my first impressions for the benefit of anyone else who might be considering it. I'm mostly using the Android app, which has most (though not quite all) of the course content. The home screen presents a set of colourful buttons which show an overview of the course, along with your current progress (synched across your devices).

The different icons represent different types of module. "Core" lessons introduce vocabulary and syntax, which are then reinforced with a collection of shorter exercises in reading, writing, speaking, pronunciation, listening, and grammar. (If you have time to do several in one sitting, the software will send you from one module to the next without going back to the home screen.)

The most important thing to note if you're considering a subscription is that this isn't a holiday crash course. The first lesson does teach you to say "merhaba" (hello), but the course doesn't start with what you might consider practical phrases such as "what time is it?" and "where's the post office?", and you have to wait a little while just to get to "what's your name?". On the other hand there's early coverage of colours, clothing, family members, furniture, and numbers. This basic vocabulary allows you to build up your understanding of the language and its structures, using very simple sentences at first, before getting to more complex (and useful!) phrases.

The Rosetta Stone philosophy is one of immersion, with no English used, just information presented in the target language - something I've long dreamed of finding in a language course. But it's very carefully controlled immersion, with building blocks of vocabulary and syntax introduced gradually. The lack of translations does sometimes mean you might guess wrongly at what the pictures represent, and I've personally found it helpful to cross-check some vocabulary on Google Translate (which is cheating, I guess, but it has helped me out of a couple of sticky corners).

I do really enjoy using the software, which is a definite plus, as I'm happy to spend a few minutes on it even at the end of a tiring day. I find the exercises fun and the vocabulary is definitely sticking: I've been reinforcing the lessons by labelling the yellow flowers and red cars in my mind as I walk through the streets, and hanging out the washing was a particularly good way to practise clothes and colours alike.

The course requires a combination of speaking (with voice recognition software to tell whether you're doing it right - something I had some issues with on my laptop) and writing, along with lots of exercises in selecting the appropriate label for a picture, as shown in the following screenshot.

My first post over at the Rosetta Stone blog was all about my reasons for choosing Turkish. Part of it is due to my dad recently buying a house in Turkey - but there are also aspects of Turkish which are particularly fascinating to me as a linguist, so I was especially looking forwards to seeing how these are taught.

Take, for example, the phenomenon of vowel harmony, which is highlighted in the very first grammar module. Vowel harmony in Turkish means that the vowel(s) in a suffix are dictated by (typically) the last vowel of the root. For example, look at the following four verb forms:

koşuyor (running)
yüzüyor (swimming)
yazıyor (writing)
içiyor (drinking)

The vowel in the suffix has a four-way alternation (u, ü, ı, i) which might not be obvious to those of us whose native language doesn't even feature all these vowels. But if you didn't already know about vowel harmony before starting the course, there are exercises to show exactly how it works, in which you're required to select the appropriate ending for a given word:

The thing about phonetics is that this sort of thing happens naturally, in all languages: your mouth is naturally lazy, and tries to change shape as little as possible from one sound to the next. In that sense, getting it right "by accident" is quite easy. But in Turkish, spelling changes along with pronunciation, meaning you do have to exercise a little more care.

For me, this way of learning seems to work well. It's nice to see new forms introduced in context, and only then start to think about the detail of how the morphology of the words change. It makes each new lesson a bit like a puzzle, so you can start to figure it out for yourself as you go along, and then find out whether you were right in the more detailed exercises.

I'll be blogging regularly over at the #milestones blog, so do drop by to see how I get on. I'll probably write a more thorough review of the Rosetta Stone software here when I get towards the end of the program.

Course content is copyright Rosetta Stone. Screenshots used with permission.

Spinach & Mushroom Stuffed Paccheri

2013-05-27T16:00:00.000+01:00

I'm always popping leftovers into the freezer, whether it's a couple of helpings of casserole or a half-used jar of pesto. And then if I'm not careful, they just sit there, forgotten. This dish was helped along by a couple of such things that I needed to use up: a tub of herby cream cheese, and some chilli tomato sauce.

Paccheri is a type of pasta consisting of large, fairly heavy tubes. When I saw them in the shop, my first thought was that they would be perfect for stuffing, but it's taken me a while to get around to it. Filling them this way is a little bit fiddly, but the result is worth it, I think. If you can't find paccheri, you could use the same filling for cannelloni or even as a lasagna layer.

Spinach & Mushroom Stuffed Paccheri
Serves 2

20 tubes of paccheri pasta
150g chestnut mushrooms
2 red onions
100g fresh spinach
100g cream cheese
black pepper

200g tomato sauce (I used a spicy sauce with chilli)
50g cheddar cheese, grated

Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Cook the paccheri according to the instructions on the packet.
Meanwhile, make the filling. Begin by finely chopping the onions and mushrooms.
Fry the onions, mushrooms and spinach over a low heat, until the spinach has wilted and the onions softened.
Add the cream cheese to the vegetables and stir through. Season to taste with freshly ground black pepper.
Stuff the pasta tubes with the spinach mixture.
Arrange the tubes in the base of a casserole dish. If you have any spare filling, you can use it to pack into the gaps.
Top with tomato sauce and grated cheese.
Bake for 15 minutes, until the dish is heated throughout and the cheese has melted.

Pinterest launches in the UK

2013-05-25T12:00:00.000+01:00

I've been using Pinterest for ages, so I was a bit surprised to hear that it's only just launching officially in the UK. Being part of an international community with no borders is one of the nicest things about blogging, but it does lead to strange moments when you realise you've joined a fairly US-centric community - though I've never actually felt that location is a central feature of Pinterest. Anyway, here it is: the official UK launch. I was delighted to be invited to introduce the concept to any of my British readers who might have missed it; this post is mostly for the benefit of anyone who hasn't tried it out for themselves yet.

Pinterest allows you to "pin" images from across the web, collecting beautiful pictures onto "boards" which you can organise according to your personal preferences. You can also follow other users, making it easier to follow their pins and re-pin anything that appeals to you. You can also browse the general stream by category, or search on any terms you're interested in - which makes for a fun pictorial recipe collection.

Yes, for me, it's mostly about the food. Now and then I pin dreamy travel images or useful tips, but mostly I use Pinterest for recipes. There's a huge foodie community, including loads of food bloggers, so there's always plenty of great stuff to discover. I keep one board for savoury dishes:

And another for collecting a virtual sugar-rush:

I also have a separate board just for cake decorating ideas, allowing me to split off the recipes I might be interested in making, from pictures I just want to use for visual inspiration.

If you're already on Pinterest, follow me @rachelcotterill and I'll be sure to follow back. If you've yet to join, why not sign up here and join in the fun?

This post is part of the Pin It Forward UK launch campaign. The next link in the chain is another travelling cook, Jonathan Brown, who blogs at Around Britain with a Paunch and pins as @browners on Pinterest.

Bangkok Thai Garden, Ottawa

2013-05-24T16:00:00.000+01:00

It doesn't look like much from the outside, but the Bangkok Thai Garden was just across the road from our hotel, and advertised a special-price lunch menu. So when our first choice of lunch venue turned out to be closed for renovations, on the day we arrived, we ended up here instead. And we enjoyed the food so much that we came back a couple of times during our stay in Ottawa.

The three-course lunch offer started with a "hot and sour" vegetable soup. Despite the 'hot' epithet this was far from spicy by Thai standards, but the vegetables were fresh and I enjoyed the light broth. The soup was followed (or accompanied, depending on the speed of our server) by crispy spring rolls with sweet chilli dipping sauce, another of life's simple pleasures.

For the main courses, there was a choice of several dishes, and the option to pick your own level of heat. My favourite was the deep-fried tofu & eggplant curry, with sugarsnap peas, bamboo shoots, and carrots (pictured above). I tried this as both "mild" (a bit spicy) and "medium" (quite hot) on different days - both good, just depending on my mood. Andy, on the other hand, was a fan of the sweet & sour vegetables.

Taken together, the three courses were very filling, and the hot food was a good contrast to the icy weather outside.

Weird Fashion in Montreal

2013-05-22T16:00:00.000+01:00

One of the strangest and most fascinating exhibits at Montreal's excellent eco-museum was a very unusual fashion show. Several artists had been given a brief to construct dresses using a variety of waste products. From ammo casings to electrical wiring, the creations ranged from genuinely beautiful to simply provocative. The least practical of them all was made from fish skins... and had to be refrigerated.

Summer Vegetable Omelette (310 calories)

2013-05-20T12:00:00.000+01:00

If there's one thing I really look forwards to each year, from a culinary perspective, it's asparagus season. In the last few days we've finally started seeing English asparagus in our local supermarket - my cue to buy as much of it as I can possibly eat in the short season.

And apparently I'm not alone in my obsession. One Ingredient, hosted by How To Cook Good Food and Franglais Kitchen, is also celebrating Asparagus this month.

I have some friends who are also doing the 5:2 diet, and one of their staple fast-day dinners is an omelette. I hadn't really thought of eggs as being a low calorie food, so this was a bit of a revelation to me, and I thought I'd try my own variant. Along with a couple of bunches of asparagus, and a pot of fresh tomato salsa that I'd picked up for 39p in the sale, an idea was starting to take shape.

The way I made it, this dish comes out at 310 calories per portion. I'm really lucky to have non-stick pans where I don't even have to use any fat for frying; if you add oil, this will increase the calorie count a little, so if you're fasting you'll need to account for that.

In other news, I've set up a G+ Community for vegetarian & vegan fast-friendly recipes. I'm using this as a space to bookmark interesting recipes I come across on the web, and I hope it will become a useful resource for anyone else who's doing intermittent fasting. Everyone is welcome to join in and share low-calorie veggie meals - your own, or those you've found across the web.

Summer Vegetable Omelette with Salsa
Serves 2

For the omelette:
4 eggs
50ml semi-skimmed milk
salt & pepper

For the filling:
100g baby corn
80g fine asparagus spears
100g mushrooms
100g cherry tomatoes

To serve:
100g fresh salsa

Beat the eggs with the milk, and season with a little salt & pepper.
Slice the baby sweetcorn in half, and add with the asparagus to a large frying pan. Saute for about five minutes.
Add the mushrooms (thickly sliced) and cherry tomatoes (whole) to the frying pan.
Meanwhile, divide the egg mixture between two small omelette pans and cook over a medium heat. Once the bottom layer of egg has solidified enough to hold its shape, flip the omelette to cook the other side.
Once the egg is fully cooked, divide the filling between the two omelettes, and serve with a scoop of fresh salsa.

Patmos, Island of the Revelation (Greece)

2013-05-17T16:00:00.000+01:00

The beautiful Greek island of Patmos has one major claim to fame - St John was exiled here, and in a small cave, had the visions which led to the writing of Revelations. Not such a bad place to be exiled, we thought to ourselves as we climbed steep and winding streets beneath clear blue skies, with panoramic views across the coast.

Unfortunately, photography is forbidden within the cave itself - and the silent, dark-robed Orthodox monk who guards the door looked balefully at my camera with an expression that seemed to say "you might think you can get away with a silent shot or two, if you don't use flash, but God will know and he will damn you to the end of time." I don't really believe it's likely I'd be damned to hell for my photographic sins, but I do believe in respecting the traditions of others, so I was good (sorry) and resisted the urge to sneak a few snaps.

The cave itself has been extended, and turned into a fully-fledged Orthodox shrine. I haven't had much experience of Orthodox churches, and was surprised by the tendency to cover everything in hammered silver or gold leaf. The three-part stone in the ceiling (from which the voice of God is said to have issued) remains a natural lump of rock, but the alcoves of John's pillow and hand-rest have been silver-lined, and the walls decorated with icons and crosses. Our group was split between those who "really felt something" in the cave and those who (like me) were intrigued but not totally absorbed in the experience.

At the highest point of the island, the Monastery of St John was founded to commemorate John's revelation. The monastery was also strict about photography within its chapel and museum, but the lovely courtyards presented plenty of photographic opportunities. The painted frescoes were impressive, and the museum was well-stocked, although not very informative to those of us not already familiar with the paraphernalia of the Orthodox church (it's another beautiful silver thingumy? Well, great, but what's one of those for?)

The island itself is also rather picturesque, and we enjoyed a pleasant stroll between whitewashed houses before returning to our boat.

Mango & Coconut Truffle Bites

2013-05-16T13:56:00.000+01:00

I made these little truffle bites in response to this month's We Should Cocoa challenge, organised by Chocolate Teapot and Chocolate Log Blog. I've only just discovered this event, as it's being hosted this month by my bloggy friend Shaheen at Allotment 2 Kitchen - but since you all know what a chocoholic I am, I expect I'll become something of a regular! Shaheen picked mango as this month's special ingredient, which is also right up my street.

Mango and coconut are natural tropical companions, and since it's a cocoa challenge, there obviously needed to be some rich dark chocolate involved. Something about that combination suggested a rich truffle, rolled in dessicated coconut. The filling is quite moist, so you really do need to chill it before dipping in chocolate - but on the plus side this means you get a great contrast between the snap of the chocolate shell, and the soft texture of the truffle. This is a vegan recipe so long as you use a vegan cake for your crumbs.

Mango & Coconut Truffle Bites
Makes approx. 25

250g (10oz) dark chocoloate
50g (2oz) creamed coconut
200g (8oz) cake crumbs
120ml (½cup) mango puree
250g (10oz) dessicated coconut

Melt 100g (4oz) dark chocolate with the creamed coconut.
Crumble the cake into fine crumbs, then mash the cake crumbs and mango puree together.
Add the melted chocolate to the mango mixture, and stir with a spatula until thoroughly combined.
Form the mixture into small balls, arrange on a large plate, and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, melt the remaining chocolate.
Roll each truffle ball in melted chocolate, then coat in dessicated coconut.
Chill in the fridge before eating.

Accidentally Visiting a Rainforest - Capilano Suspension Bridge Park

2013-05-15T16:00:00.000+01:00

We weren't sure whether we should visit the Capilano Suspension Bridge. On the one hand, it's not like we find ourselves in Vancouver every day (or even every year), so if we missed it we didn't know when we'd have another chance. But the weather was so grey and misty that we weren't sure we'd see anything.

We decided to take the bus up the mountain, and decide when we got there whether the views would justify the entry fee. Luckily a family was coming out just as we arrived, so we asked them if they thought it was worth our while: they said yes, so on we went.

And as it happened, the mist made everything look ethereal and atmospheric, so if you ever find yourself wondering whether it's worth going in less-than-perfect weather, I'd say yes, definitely.

The bridge itself has been there since the 1890s, providing a practical footpath across a steep-sided gorge. When the owners replaced the bridge in the '50s, they tested the steel of the old bridge cables, and found that the old cables were still just as strong as the new ones they'd put in their place! Which must have been a little galling.

There's also a treetop walk through the rainforest.

Wait... rainforest? In Canada? This was news to me.

The information boards around the walkways explained further: this is a "temperate" rainforest, rather than the more stereotypical tropical kind, and is a protected environment in western Canada. Unfortunately we didn't see much wildlife beyond a few squirrels, but it was nice to wander between the trees.

The newest feature at the park is a cliff walk, a narrow path attached by cables to the rock. Although less impressive than the suspension bridge, it did give some more great views and a different perspective on the gorge. Again, the walk is enhanced by info boards - in this case, the one that stuck with me was the fact that the trees can absorb a huge amount of their required moisture from the air. Which cast a somewhat more positive perspective on a very misty day.

Cauliflower Cheese, Upgraded

2013-05-13T16:00:00.000+01:00

I love cauliflower cheese. I really, really love it. But it's only so often I fancy a meal that's basically one vegetable, so I don't make it very much. That's probably good for my waistline, but still... this time I wanted cauliflower cheese, but I wanted it better.

How do you make a vegetable dish better? Adding more vegetables seems like a good start. Cauliflower is wonderful, but I wanted a bit of extra colour. Carrots and broccoli both have a firm texture that I thought would work well when smothered in cheese.

Putting a healthy dollop of mustard into the cheese sauce really brings all the flavours out, but of course, if you hate mustard you could skip it. I like to use a really strong cheese, so I can get away with using less of it - even with a mature cheddar, this isn't exactly health food (although ironically, at 550 calories per serving, it's only a few tweaks away from being a 5:2 fast meal! Split it three ways and it's well within bounds).

This worked out so beautifully that I can't imagine I'm going to make plain, traditional cauliflower cheese again.

Cauliflower Cheese Recipe
Serves 2 (or 4 as a side dish)

500g cauliflower florets
100g broccoli florets
1 medium carrot (100g)

For the cheese sauce:
20g butter
30g flour
200ml full-fat milk
2tsp wholegrain mustard
black pepper
100g mature cheddar cheese + 20g for sprinkling

Chop the cauliflower and broccoli into large florets, and the carrot into small pieces (approx. 1cm cubed)
Steam the vegetables to an al dente texture. I find it takes approx. 10 mins for cauliflower & carrot, 5 mins for broccoli, but the timings will depend on your steamer. (If you don't have a steamer, you could boil or even microwave the veggies instead.)
While the vegetables are cooking, make the cheese sauce. Begin by melting the butter in a large saucepan.
Add the flour and stir to coat in butter. Cook for a couple of minutes over a low heat, to form a roux.
Add the milk, and stir to break up any lumps.
Season with mustard and pepper.
Cook over a low heat, stirring constantly. After a couple of minutes, the sauce should thicken. Once it reaches the consistency you like, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the cheese (remembering to keep a little back for the topping).
Stir the vegetables into the cheese sauce until lightly coated.
Arrange the vegetables on an oven-proof dish, and sprinkle the extra cheese on top.
Place under a hot grill for a few minutes, until the cheese begins to brown.
Serve piping hot, fresh from the grill.

Literatu Gatve, Vilnius

2013-05-10T16:00:00.000+01:00

I was delighted to turn one of Vilnius' many corners and find myself, unexpectedly, in an art gallery. I am, after all, a big fan of public art in its myriad forms.

Literatu Gatve (Literature Street) is a small road lined with tiny artworks set into the walls. Each piece has a literary connection to Lithuania, although I'm disappointed to say that even after checking the concordance, these were mostly unfamiliar names to me. But while the literary references may remain obscure to the non-Lithuanian, this is a fun project even at the most superficial level, and I wish there were more streets like it.

Olivier Potier Patisserie, Montreal

2013-05-08T15:23:00.000+01:00

We visited Montreal in January, and if there's one thing to be said for Montreal in January, it's that it can get cold. Very cold. Cold in ways that my previous UK-centric experience couldn't even begin to fathom. What does "minus 35°C" even mean, to someone whose day-to-day experience registers minus two as flippin' freezing? (Hint: don't take your gloves off outside.)

Fortunately, one of our favourite holiday activities is to sample charming cafes. And, doubly fortunate, we had recommendation to follow up on for one of Montreal's best patisseries.

In a city which often feels (if you ignore the temperature shift) rather like you've stumbled into Paris, a patisserie recommendation is not to be ignored. Indeed, we liked this one enough that we ended up making two visits to Olivier Potier over the course of our three-day stay.

The coffee was strong, and served with a square of single-origin dark chocolate. The hot chocolate was mild and milky, but had a delicate aroma that won me over despite the expense (and the waiter's appalled expression was an absolute picture when I checked it wouldn't come with cream or marshmallows).

Similarly, paying $6 for a dainty cake seemed a lot, but clearly a lot of work had gone into crafting each one, and Andy loved his choice (below). I opted for croissants instead, pain au chocolat on our first visit (decent but uninspired) and on our return an almond croissant (light and flaky, a contender for the best I've ever had).

And I say it was expensive, but when we got home and actually saw our credit card bill, I was pleasantly surprised. It was pricey compared to other food we'd enjoyed in Canada, but by British standards, it was just about what I'd usually expect to pay for coffee and cake.

Italian Tiramisu

2013-05-06T16:00:00.001+01:00

Although tiramisu is a classic Italian dessert, I got my recipe from Andy's aunt. She's a down-to-earth Derbyshire woman, and about as un-Italian as you could imagine, but she does make a mean tiramisu. I tweaked her recipe a little, adding more brandy, and also some dark chocolate for a bit of a different texture.

I decided to make individual portions, partly because I wanted to use these gorgeous new dessert bowls from Red Candy, a UK shop specialising in funky red (and to a lesser extent purple) kitchenware. These bowls are 11.5cm across (4½in), and the recipe really fills them up. This makes for very generous portions - to the extent that I could only eat half of mine in one sitting.

Italian Tiramisu Recipe
Serves 2

For the cream:
250g mascarpone cheese
2tbsp double cream
50g icing sugar
2tbsp brandy

For the sponge:
8 trifle sponge fingers
100ml strong coffee (cold)
2tbsp brandy

Also:
20g dark chocolate shavings
1tsp cocoa powder

Cream the mascarpone together with the double cream, icing sugar, and brandy, and whisk until smooth.
Combine the cold coffee with 1tbsp of brandy.
Soak the trifle fingers in the coffee, for a couple of seconds each side. Start with half of the trifle fingers, and arrange on the bottom of two small dessert bowls. You may need to cut some of the fingers in half to fit in better; fortunately they'll bend once they're saturated with coffee.
Sprinkle chocolate shavings over the trifle sponge.
Spoon a quarter of the cream mixture into each bowl, and spread out to fill the gaps between the sponge fingers.
Soak the remaining trifle fingers in the remaining coffee mixture, and arrange on top of the cream.
Sprinkle with chocolate shavings, holding back a few shards to decorate the top.
Divide the remaining cream between the two bowls, and spread out to a smooth surface.
Dust the top with cocoa powder, and decorate with a few chocolate shavings.
Chill for at least a couple of hours before serving - overnight is even better to allow the flavours to mature.

IFTTT for Bloggers: 5 Time-Saving Ideas

2013-05-05T16:00:00.000+01:00

Have you ever wanted to take one part of the internet and plug it into another, in an automated workflow? That's the problem IFTTT was designed to solve. Short for "if this, then that", IFTTT is a free site which gives you a clean and simple dashboard for grabbing inputs (which they call triggers) and generating actions when a trigger is... well, triggered.

IFTTT has a lot of channels, from SMS messages to weather-checking, as well as all your favourite Google services (Gmail, Calendar, Drive, even the soon-to-be-defunct Reader). You can interact directly with social networks like Twitter and Facebook, or use a service like HootSuite or Buffer as an intermediary (although, unfortunately, G+ isn't enabled yet, and the HootSuite channel doesn't seem to support G+ pages). Most channels have both input and output functions.

There are a lot of possible uses for IFTTT in daily life, but for now, I'm going to focus on a few ways you can use this nifty tool to simplify your blogging life.

1. Automatically Create Facebook Photo Albums

Received wisdom has it that in terms of Facebook EdgeRank, photos do best, but most ways of automatically updating Facebook will only allow you to post a status or simple text link. IFTTT has a nifty feature that will grab the first image from a blog post (or any RSS feed) and upload it to an album on your Facebook page.

I have three different IFTTT workflows, creating three separate albums: one for recipes, one for travel photos, and one for book reviews (featuring the cover images). I include the title and link as part of the photo caption, with a little custom text depending on the photo type (e.g. "find my recipe at [link]"). You can see my albums to get a better idea of how I use this feature.

2. Tweet Differently Depending on Post Type

There are several services which allow you to tweet all of your blog posts, but a naive solution will at best allow you to add template text like "new blog post" (if it allows any modifications at all).

IFTTT has blog channels for Blogger, Wordpress, and Tumblr, which are all aware of tags/categories. So if you tag all your recipe posts with "recipe" (as I do), you can look out for just those posts, and set your tweet to have a recipe-specific intro text, with whatever hashtags you choose. Then set up a different workflow for crafts, family, travel, or whatever post types you'd like to promote.

3. Keep a Record of Sponsored Posts

It's boring but essential to keep records for the tax man, and for bloggers, that often means sponsored posts. You probably already tag these in some way, and since IFTTT allows you to append lines to a Google Drive spreadsheet, you can automatically generate a list of sponsored posts as and when you publish them. Just edit the spreadsheet to add in the compensation amounts when you get paid, and you'll have a rough-and-ready table to help you work out your blogging income when you get your tax form.

4. Get Alerts When Your Favourite Link-Up Is Open

Several sites run regular link-sharing events, but for popular communities such as SITS which have thousands of members, being first (or even tenth) can give you much better visibility than being the hundredth to link-up. IFTTT will check every 15 minutes for new posts, so you can (for example) set up a feed to check the SITS feed for their popular "Saturday Sharefest" post, then have the service email or text you once the post is live.

5. Automatically Blog Your Photos

Do you keep a photo blog, but also upload photos to a service like Flickr or Instagram? If you want to blog your best photos automatically, just choose a tag (like "blog") to label those photos you want to include, and IFTTT can automatically create a post for you. If you include a title or description for your image, you can use these in the blog post, too.

Alternatively, go the other way round, and copy photos from your blog into a Flickr album for safekeeping.

Bonus Tip

IFTTT can't do everything, at least not yet, and there are some popular sites (like G+ and Pinterest) where I'm still keenly awaiting integration. In the meantime, and because I like to schedule most off my posts in advance, I have a trigger set up to email me every time a new post goes public on my blog, reminding me to pin and share my post to appropriate channels.

A few IFTTT channels

The Ancient City of Ephesus, Turkey

2013-05-03T15:00:00.000+01:00

Ephesus is a familiar name to anyone who has indulged in studies of classical civilisation, for this city was a major player in both Greek and Roman history. Now it's an active archaeological site, and a family day out providing the opportunity to stroll along colonnaded walkways and admire the remains of ancient temples.

We visited on a day trip from Samos, and were pleasantly surprised to learn that we could waive the Turkish visa charges by leaving our passports at the port. From the port of Kuşadası, it's a short drive over the mountains to Ephesus itself, a route with some amazing views. It was the off-season when we were there, and considering how busy the site felt with just one cruise ship in port alongside our little boat, I'd hate to imagine how crowded it could be in the summer.

Perhaps the most impressive building was the library, which our guide told us was once the third largest of the ancient world, after Alexandria and Pergamum. Perhaps more intriguing, we were told that the size of the facade was everything: the actual building went back only a few feet beyond its impressive front.

One of the most interesting things about Ephesus today was the feeling of experiencing a work-in-progress, of walking through a jigsaw puzzle half completed. The city is gradually being dug out of the hillside and reconstructed, piece by piece. There are fields lined with serried ranks of artefacts, waiting to be placed into the larger picture. The crane looming over the amphitheatre hints at the amount of work that has already gone into making the site as imposing as it is today - and highlights just how much harder it would have been for the original, ancient builders, without any such technology.

Returning to Kuşadası, we enjoyed a late lunch of pide (Turkish pizza) washed down with ayran (a yoghurt drink), before sailing back to Samos to continue our conference the next day. It's a hard life, this academia... but I think I'm getting used to it!

3 Practical Alternatives to Money Belts

2013-05-01T16:00:00.001+01:00

The most interesting destinations aren't always the safest, and no matter where you travel, it's always a good idea to keep some spare cash & your papers somewhere safe. Traditionally that means stuffing everything into a money belt under your clothes, but quite aside from being ugly, there are a number of issues with the usual beige money belt.

It can be really uncomfortable to have something jammed into the front of your trousers, especially if you've put your passport, credit cards, and a wad of notes in there. The elastic strap on mine has a tendency to slip up around my waist, or work itself loose. And if everyone is wearing one, it's not even that secure - pickpockets know they can get all your valuables from one easy place.

These days, there are a few far more wearable alternatives on the market. Here are three that I own and use regularly, on their own or in combination.

Clothes with Secret Pockets
Good for: cash, credit cards, SD card.

Clever Travel Companion makes underwear with a difference - I've got the black tank top with a secret pocket. This is the modern equivalent of sticking a couple of twenties in your bra for safekeeping, but much more comfortable. The company also makes other styles of t-shirt, and even knickers-with-pockets if you're feeling brave! I'm quite tempted to buy a second one, because one major down-side to clothing is it needs washing frequently.

The zip sits neatly just beneath the bottom of my bra, and the pocket gives plenty of space. It's actually designed so a standard-sized passport fits in neatly - but you'd really need a bulky jumper over the top if you were going to get away with hiding a passport at chest-height. I tend use it for spare cash, a credit card or two, and data back-ups on an SD card. Hiding things under your clothes is harder in hot climates, when you don't want to wear lots of layers, but on my recent trip to Greece I found that a light, breezy shirt (of the sort I'd wear anyway to keep the sun off my arms) was pretty good at keeping things under wraps.

A System for Maximum Versatility
Good for: passport, cash, credit cards.

PortaPocket produces a range of extra "pockets" made out of neoprene, with a system of interchangeable velcro straps. I've got a belt-length strap, and a shorter one that fits around a wrist or ankle, along with three different sizes of pocket.

The main advantage of this system is that it doesn't depend on any particular clothing, and you can change your set-up depending on circumstances. If I'm wearing boots, or jeans with a slight flare, then strapping my passport to my ankle works well, but when I'm in a summer dress or floaty skirt, then I fasten it above the knee. The smallest pocket is just the right size for credit cards and cash, and is tiny enough to hide away almost anywhere. I wouldn't use these pockets to store anything small that might fall out, because they don't fasten completely - but they're great for documents.

A Different Type of Belt
Good for: cash, photocopies, SD card.

The Eagle Creek All Terrain Money Belt is an actual, functional belt, so technically I suppose it's still a "money belt" after all. The simple black design is practical rather than stylish, but it's the zipped pocket on the inside that makes it so useful.

You can't fit anything big into a pocket that's constrained by the width of a belt, but by a bit of judicious folding I've managed to fit in not only a few euros or dollars, but also photocopies of my passport info page & visas. An SD card full of back-ups also fits in fine. I guess the Eagle Creek clasp would be recognisable to a well-practised thief, but as I usually wear longer shirts anyway, mine isn't on display - so it feels like a very secure way of hiding some cash.