Chicken, bacon and asparagus salad

Friday With a nod to the glorious weather Friday night is salad night this week.  It needs to be quite a hearty and robust salad as my children are bound to be really hungry after a busy week at school.  So I have plumped for a warm bacon, chicken and asparagus salad with a lovely …

Smoked mackerel pate

Thursday Smoked mackerel pate is a family favourite, it is great for a light lunch or as a starter.  My mother in law, Jean has a fantastic recipe in her cook book Grandma's Spoon which she is kindly letting me use here. The recipe serves 4.   Ingredients 2 large peppered smoked mackerel fillets 2 …

Beef ragu with porcini and pinenuts

Wednesday This is a lovely ragu, what makes it a bit different from a Bolognese is the addition of porcini and pine nuts the which adds a fantastic level of flavour.   The flavour only gets better the longer you cook it so cook on a slow simmer for as long as you can!   …

Smoked trout and dill fishcakes

Tuesday Fishcakes are a really versatile recipe to have in your repertoire as they are something that is easy to adapt by changing the fish and herbs used.  The version that I made here are lovely but you could swap the smoked trout for smoked haddock and maybe switch the herbs for a couple of …

Baked eggs with red pepper sauce

Monday Last week I cooked gnocchi with red pepper sauce which made double the quantity of sauce.  I froze the sauce and this week I used it to make Roasted red pepper eggs which we had with some lovely bread from Darvells the bakery in Berkhamsted.  It was really easy to make, to be honest …

Easy recipes for lazy days…

I have decided to change the way that I post the blog.  Instead of posting all of the weeks recipes on one day I will post the plan for the week and then post a  recipe daily.  Do let me know what you think of this change... As always these recipes are quick, easy to …

Fast Family Food

We were out on Monday so time was tight when we got home to get something on the table. I made the sauce before I went out so it was then super quick to prepare.  The other advantage of this recipe from BBC Good Food Magazine is that it makes enough for two meals.  The …

Real Bread Week

Bread I love bread but like most people I buy most of my bread from a Supermarket. Whilst there is nothing wrong with that, I have decided that this week I will try not only to make my own bread but also to explore the bread available at the local bakers.  On Wednesday I visited …