This is a recipe I have been eyeballing in a baking book for a while now.   It's one of those e-books.  Good Breakfast and Brunch Food from Murdoch.  There is a recipe in it called Sky High Cappuccino and White Chocolate Muffins.  It looked really good and I have long wanted to try it out.


 

I don't drink coffee, but I do like the flavour of it in baked goods.  I normally use Camp which is a British product, composed of water, sugar, 4% caffeine-free coffee essence, and 26% chicory essence.  It makes an excellent substitute for those who don't drink coffee.  I used about 1 TBS of it in these.



In the e-book, they  made baking paper tube, tying them and then lining the ramekins with them.  That just did not work for me, and so I crossed my fingers and just baked them in ramekins which I had buttered really well.  I also lined the bottoms with baking paper rounds.  Worked a charm.  I was really pleased.



I used Green and Blacks quality White Chocolate, cut into nice chunks.  You can see the flecks of vanilla in this chocolate.  It's the white chocolate which I like the best.  It worked beautifully in this recipe.

 

I also dusted mine with some sifted icing sugar to serve.  I did that for several reasons.  Number one I thought it would look really pretty, and number two, it enhanced the coffee/cappucchino flavour of them, with just a tiny bit of sweetness. You could also glaze them with a coffee flavoured drizzle which would be nice.  Look at that lovely chunk of white chocolate you can see there . . .  scrumdiddlyumptious!



They were beautifully moist as well.   We both really enjoyed these.  I also cut the recipe in half because there are only two of us.  That worked fine, no problemo.  If you are looking for a nice muffin recipe with moist muffins that are beautifully flavoured and textured, I highly recommend this recipe.  I hope you will give it a go.

Oh yes, there is a brown sugar and butter mixture that you swirl into top of them prior to baking as well. It kind of sinks in and caramlizes.  Scrummo!



*Jumbo Cappuccino and White Chocolate Muffins*
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until well risen and the muffins test done.  A toothpick inserted in the centre should come out clean. (If you are doing smaller muffins, they should only take 15 to 20 minutes, max.)


You may or may not dust these with icing sugar prior to serving.  It's up to you!

  

What do you get when you cross a beautiful gift basket with a bit of cook's ingenuity and acumen?  Well, I'll show you what you get.  Hang on to your hats!   You're in for a delicious ride!



I just have to show you what I recently received.  This isn't a great photo of it because of the plastic wrapping, so I will show you the one from the gift site . . .















 










It is a lovely gift hamper from the people at Hampergifts, makers of gift baskets and luxury Christmas hampers.   The one I received was their Wine and Cheese Feast, and it was chock full of lots of lovely goodies!



It was presented in a lovely wicker basket with wooden handles and everything was packed perfectly so as to make sure nothing got broken.



It contained a lovely assortment of biscuits, chocolates, chutney's, spiced nuts, crackers, a bottle of wine and two lovely cheeses.



With Graces Irish Shortbread Biscuits (shaped like shamrocks), Border's Black Forest Biscuits, a lovely box of Baronie Belgian chocolates, some Cairnsmhor Sea Salt Crackers,  Cottage Delight Old English Chutney with Cider . . .



Edinburg Preserves Rosemary Biscuits for Cheese & Pate,  Cottage Delight Spicy Mango & Ginger Chutney, Olives-et-al Chilli Harissa Almonds, some lovely chocolate caramels, again from Baronie . . .



EDinburg Preserves Quince Jelly and two lovely rounds of cheese from the Snowdonia Cheese Company, a Little Black Bomber Cheddar(with attitude) and a Little Red Devil (Red Leicester with Chilies and Crushed Pepper).



Also included was a bottle of Merlot from Kleine Zalze.



We were able to enjoy some of that cheese earlier this week as a traditional Ploughman's lunch picnic supper!  I do so love a Ploughman's lunch/supper.  They are so easy to throw together.  All you need is some crusty bread, some nice pickle/chutney, a couple of good cheeses, some fruit (apple in this case), a bit of veg (cucumber and lettuce on this occasion) and some chunky bits of ham.  You end up with a feast fit for a King or Queen!



Afterwards we feasted on some delicious Black Forest Cookies and Cream Sundaes!  Oh boy were these really easy to put together and so fabulously scrumptious!



I quite simply crumbled several of those lovely chocolate biscuits that were in the hamper into the bottom of two dessert glasses . . .



dropped a scoop of really good vanilla ice cream on top of the cookies . . .



Drizzled over top some warmed cherry jam and a homemade chocolate sauce . . .



And topped them off with some squirty cream . . . and a couple of milk chocolate wands . . . the end result being something which was totally delicious, yet had taken me next to no time at all to put together.





Top each with a large scoop of ice cream.   Drizzle one TBS of cherry jam over each and half of the chocolate sauce.  Top with whipped cream. Stick in a couple of chocolate wands and serve immediately!  

I did something totally delish with that bottle of wine too, but I'll save that for another day!  In the meantime I would like to thank Sophie along with the people from Hamper Gifts for sending me this lovely Gift Hamper.  This post was written in collaboration with Hampergifts, makers of gift baskets and luxury Christmas hampers.

Vimto Soft Drinks has come up with some new Vimto concentrated Squeezy water enhancers just in time for the summer hols.   Containing no added sugar,with natural flavourings they are extra concentrated and come in little squeezy pots small enough to carry in your purse.  Low in calories and using natural flavourings each container makes up to 25 individual servings.  You simply squeeze a portion into your bottle or glass of water and Bob's your uncle!  (.8ml for each 100ml of liquid)  I have been adding it to my bottles of sparkling water all week and it tastes really good actually!  I can see where it would be really appealing for children.  Much better for them than the sweetened drinks and very handy to carry around when you are out and about this summer.  Great for keeping the kids hydrated in a delicious way that they will enjoy and that as a mum you can feel good about knowing they aren't taking in any sugar or other nasties.  I can imagine they would be great for making frozen lollies as well.

Vimto Squeezy comes in a 50ml bottle and has an RRP of £2.49. It’s currently available in Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Co-op stores.

I was sent three bottles in the Original, Strawberry and Cherry flavours to try and I quite liked them.   Although I was sent these to try, my opinions are my own.   I reckon there are a lot worse things you could give your kids and if I had some kiddos in the house, I would be quite happy using this for them.

Note:  Do be careful adding them to sparkling water as they will cause the water to really bubble up!  I discovered this the first time I used it!

I don't know why I didn't think of this before.   Making my own Turkey Subs.   I love the Turkey Subs at Sub Way back home and every time I go home I treat myself to a six inch turkey sub with all of the trimmings at least two or three times.  I guess I never thought I would be able to make one at home that would taste like theirs do, but the other day the craving got the best of me and I attempted to do just that!



I lived on these subs back in 1999 when my marriage broke up and I was living in a rented bedroom in someone else's house.  The girl I was renting the room from wasn't very nice.  Although I was supposed to have kitchen privileges, she didn't like me having any food in her cupboards or her refrigerator.  She didn't like me using the stove either, which really put a damper on my cooking mojo.  I survived by eating a lot of salads, using a kettle and microwave that I had in my room, and buying six-inch turkey subs from SubWay.  With all of the vegetables on it, I figured I was getting at least some of my five a day!



Which brings me to my topic for today . . .  how to build a perfect turkey sub sandwich.   It's not that hard but it does involve a few "must haves."

One,  you need to begin with a really good bread.  It's not necessary to have an artisan bread for these, just a good one.   I think subs need soft buns, not crisp buns.   That's a lot of sandwich. You want something that you can easily fit into your mouth once you get it stuffed with all of your meats/cheeses/toppings!

I really like the honey and oat buns that SubWay have, but you can't really buy them in the shops here.  I just bought generic fresh sub buns and they were pretty good!  You can toast them or not as you wish.  I prefer mine un-toasted.

  

You want a nice sauce to place on the base of both sides of your bun.  I like the Hellman's garlic mayo. It's really nice and it comes in a squeeze bottle and is really easy to squirt it on.  I also like the Hellman's Lemon mayo and their mustard mayo. . . .  and their roasted onion mayo is also really good.

This "Sauce" will help prevent the bread from getting soggy.  You could of course use ketchup, or a mayo/ketchup combination, mustard, etc. You can use whatever floats your boat.  You just don't want anything that will prevent you from tasting that lovely turkey you are going to put onto it.

Once you have the bun split and slathered with your chosen sauce it's time to begin building your sandwich!  



You want to use only the freshest of ingredients . . . fresh meat, vegetables, etc.

1.  Freshly sliced roast turkey from the deli counter.  Don't get that stuff that you buy already sliced and packed in those plastic packets.  I have always found it to be a bit slimy.  Yuck.  It's also pressed meat, and not actually sliced turkey breast.   I hate re-formed poultry.  Double Yuck.  Two or three slices is ample for one six inch sub.

2.  You want a nice mild cheese, something with a buttery flavour like an edam, gouda or a havarti.   Of course if you want to really kick it up you could use something a bit stronger, but I think with turkey you want a mild cheese.  One slice, cut diagonally, does the trick!

3.  You want sliced really fresh peppers (red and green if possible), some ripe tomatoes, cucumbers, mild red onions . . . all very thinly sliced.  Slice them as thin as you can.  I used my mandoline.  It did them perfectly.  You will also want some sliced gerkin/dill pickles.  I like the garlic ones myself.  These pickles add a nice touch of flavour and piquancy to the mix.  You will also want some pickled hot peppers.  In Canada they use pickled hot banana peppers, which we can't get here in the UK.    I used the Discovery sweet pickled yellow jalapeno peppers.  They are not as hot as the green ones and have a nice sweetness, which goes well with the turkey, but of course,  if you like a lot of heat, use the regular pickled green ones.  You want some finely shredded lettuce in there as well. I like to use baby gems, because they are sturdy and have a lot of flavour. They are almost bitter. Nice, nice!! 



4. I like sliced black olives on mine.  I just buy the sliced black olives in brine.   Don't pimp for fancy dried Spanish black olives.  They are too strongly flavoured.  The purpose of all of these fillings is to enhance the turkey, not overpower it.

5.  A final drizzle of some oil and vinegar (if desired) and a light dusting of salt and pepper and Bob's your uncle!  You are done.   Shut that sub, cut it in half crosswise . . . . and dig in!



Mmmm . . .  these are so good!  I am in love!  I seriously fed my craving and was a very happy camper after this and the best thing of all is . . .



I won't have to wait until I go to Canada again to indulge myself in these fabulous taste treats!  I can make myself one whenever the craving hits.  I like that idea, and I am betting you will too!

Of course you could get really fancy and add assorted meats, bacon, capers etc., but when you just want a good old fashioned turkey sub, this is the way to do it.  Manga!  Enjoy!

This is a delicious salad that I used to make for the Mr when I worked at the Manor.  It was a real favourite with him.  He just loved it.



Suffice it to say I made it so often at work, at least every couple of weeks (it was a frequent request) that I never ever actually made it for us to enjoy at home.  I did get to taste it at work.  (A cook who doesn't taste as she goes along isn't a real cook, I don't think!)



The Mr used to love heating it up.  Me, I love it cold.  The Toddster, well . . .  not a pasta fan.  He tolerates it.  He doesn't complain, but . . . I know he hates pasta and so I am just glad he doesn't say anything at all!



There is so much to love about this however . . . from it's tangy spiced tomato dressing (which I make short work of by using  my Froothie Optimum 9400 Blender .  It does an excellent job!)  to all of those lovely chunks of tomato, sun dried tomato, olives and cheese . . .   

  

It's a recipe I adapted from a recipe used by Ina Garten . . .  and she adapted it from a recipe used by Brent Newson, and we have each of us added our stamp to it.  That's what a good recipe is made of I think . . .  little stamps here and little stamps there, all adding up to a uniquely delicious result!  

  

*Pasta with Sun Dried Tomatoes*

These are gorgeously chewy and buttery  coconut cookies!  They are not crisp cookies and are not dunking cookies  . . .


They are indulgent cookies, with crisp edges . . .  but beautifully chewy centres . . .  stogged full of the flavours of coconut and pineapple . . .  think of them as flat macaroons, but better.  ☺

You don't need to use pineapple of course, any dried fruit will do, but we loved the nice tropical flavour that the pineapple lent to them.  They were . . .  in one word . . .  MOREISH!



*Chewy Pineapple and Coconut Cookies*

I love all of the baby new potatoes at the markets at the moment.   The Jersey Royals are about finished now, but there are still some tasty new potatoes out there to be had.  They are not so good for mashing but are great boiled until tender and served with herb butter, or for potato salads.



They are also great boiled and then roasted like this. These little babies get all crispy on the outsides . . . and stay moreishly fluffy on the insides.



That final breaking open, cracks the skin so that some of that tasty fluff pours out and crunches up a bit in the final baking . . . with the help of a bit of Olive Oil.



A few flakes of sea salt . . . a good grinding of black pepper . . . and some fresh rosemary leaves . . . and you have tasty little bits fit for a king.



These even make good appetizers especially when you use the really tiny ones and serve them with a creamy dip . . . adjust the times accordingly as smaller ones won't need to bake as long.



We love 'em just as they are.   Great with all of those grilled steaks, chicken and chops we will be eating on these balmy summer nights.




*Smashed Roasted New Potatoes*
Serves 4
Printable Recipe

This is a great way to cook baby new potatoes. Crisp on the outsides and soft and fluffy inside.

16 small new potatoes, unpeeled
2 TBS light olive oil
a few sprigs fresh rosemary
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 230*C/450*F/ gas mark 8. Place a baking tray into the oven to heat.

Toss the potatoes together with 1 TBS of the oil to coat. Spread them out onto the hot baking tray. Roast in the preheated oven for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven. Flip the potatoes over and then gently squash them down with the back of a large metal spoon. Strip the leaves from the rosemary sprigs and sprinkle over top along with some sea salt and black pepper. Drizzle with the remainder of the oil.

Return to the oven and bake for a further 10 minutes, until the potatoes are crispy and golden brown.