Fabulous dinner and place to stay

Hello,

I hope you had a lovely weekend and found time to do some cooking, maybe trying out a new recipe or two?

Just wanted to tell you about a fantastic hotel in the New Forest that has newly opened and is amazing. Limewood Hotel (www.limewoodhotel.co.uk) is not just a wonderfully relaxing place to stay and thoroughly deserving of its 5 star status, but the food (designed by Alex Aitken) is superb.

For those wishing to try the complete fine dining experience there is a finne dining restaurant where the 8 course tasting menu is around £75 per head. Failing that you can eat from the al a carte menu for £48 for three courses, or for the more relaxed dining experience try 'The Scullery'.

We chose The Scullery and they did not put a foot wrng, the food was fantastic, from the bread brought out as we chose what to eat, through to the coffee at the end. We could not fault it.

We have also been their to treat the 'in-laws' to an afternoon tea. We sat in an encloed around witha galss roof as the sun shone through...a beautiful setting and the scones as part of the afternoon tea were the best I have ever tasted...you simply must sample the delights of this lovely retreat in the middle of the forest. You will not be disappointed!

I'll be trying out some new recipes soon and as soon as I do you will be the first to know.

Have fun

Dave

Cheats Lamb & Potato Bake

Good morning.

It is 8.57am as I type this and no I haven't been cooking already, this is from earlier in the week - I'm not that nuts!

Thought you would be interested to see the Cheats Lamb and Potato Bake. Where I say Cheat, it is only cheating because it uses bought sauces rather than making your own.

This bake is:

1) Delicious

2) Easy to make

3) Great comfort food

4) Has a slight feel of 'the Med' about it

I thought it easier to point you in the right direction for the recipe rather than type it all up, click on the link below:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/448625/lamb-and-potato-bake

For the lamb & potato bake we added a little more cinnamon than mentioned and rather than just a plain tomato pasta sauce we bought a garlic and onion one just to add a touch more flavour. We also sprinkled a little grated cheese over the top before baking.

Have a couple of friends coming over for dinner this evening so will be updating the blog tomorrow with whatever it is we decide to create...

Until then..."Get in the kitchen and rattle those pots and pans!!!"

Dave

The Easiest Starter Ever

Hello All,

Sorry for the silence over the last few days, but I am now back and have a simple starter recipe for you that looks fantastic and tastes even better. This looks absolutely great and is a qucik, fresh and easy starter for a dinner party.

Ingredients for two people:

1 x Avacado

1 x Tomato

1 x Red onion

1 x Tub humous (I use caramalised onion flavoured)

a few black olives

Method:

- Cut the avacado in half

- Get rid of the stone

- Fill hole where stone was with humous

- Chop olives, tomato and red onion into small slices

- scatter olives tomato and red onion over the humous

- drizzle with a tiny bit of olive oil

Tip: I also use the left over olive, onion an dtomato to make a little salsa to pop oon the side of the plate

The drizzle on the plates in the picture is a balsamic and chilli drizzle - this is more for effect than anything else...

This would also make a quick and easy light lunch, healthier and slightly different than a salad (although a tad trickier to put in a lunchbox for work!)

Next up is a Lamb and Potato Bake - Again it is simpe, but it is delicious and is perfect for the cold and wet British summer!!

See you soon

Dave

The Must Have Kitchen Gadget

Morning all,

As someone that likes cooking and spending time in the kitchen I am always on the lookout for a new kitchen gagdet. I have all sorts of different (and for the most part useless) gadgets that are designed to make the life of the cook easier. Some of these include egg poaching pods, fajita warmers, microwave omlette makers, an avodaco peeler/slicer and 4 different types of cheese grater (you can never have enough of these!!!)

Anyway, my latest quest is to find the ultimate blender, I am fed up of being stood in the kitchen for hours crying. That's crying because I'm chopping lots of onions not because my wife has chained me in there in a some sort of Cinderella type way.

In my search for the best blender to get, some are too small, some not powerful enough, some are just plainly rubbish, I have come across this blender from the states. I simply had to share this with you as this looks like loads of fun. Not just to blend food, but you can blend almost anything as you will see....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAl28d6tbko

Blendtec is becoming quite a hit in the States - this video has had (at the time of writing) nearly 6,000,000 views on youtube...What an advertising campaign, free!

I don't know if Blendtec ship to the UK, but I am sure gonna find out!

I'll be back in the next few days with more food, pictures, recipes and who knows, maybe even some odd kitchen related advertising.

See you soon

Dave

Moroccan Tagine

Hiya and I hope you all had a fabulous weekend.

As promised here is the recipe for the Moraccon Meatball Tagine that I cooked up with my brother-in-law on Saturday night. It was a really nnice chilled out evening, cooking, chatting and sinking a glass of vino or two as we went along...

As you can see from the pictures it looks great and we did enough to feed at least four (yes, we did leave some and did not scoff the lot). Although we only used two eggs as we were not sure if these would freeze very well??!

To refer back to one of my ealier blogs I used the presentation rings for the cous-cous, again, it ust makes the food look very professional with absolutely minimal effort...

Talking of minimal effort I am being too lazy on this Monday to type up the whole recipe and method I thought I would be helpful and include a link to direct you to the recipe:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/keftamkaouaraspicyeg_86797.shtml

Small changes for next time

As I am a fan of spicy food, if I made this again I would definitely add a few chillis in just to give it a bit of a kick, but as it is was really nice. Would love to know what you think if you decide to give this a go. It really is a recipe that looks much more complicated than it actually is.

Catch up soon

Dave

A Wonderful Saturday Evening

Saturday evening and my wife is out on a hen do...that is not the reason it has been a fabulous Saturday night! Tonight I was spending the evening with my brother-in-law and we decided to cook up something special.

So to start with we cooked up a blue cheese and caramelised onion tart with a few salad leaves and for main tonight we tackled a Rick Stein recipe of Moroccan Tagine with cous-cous.

A really straight forward meal even though it sounds complicated. For now I am going to focus on the starter and tomorrow I will add the pics and recipe for the Moroccan Tagine...

Starter:

1 x pack of ready made puff pastry

250 grams blue cheese cut into chunks (you will not need all of it)

1 x jar of caramalised onion chutney

half a teaspoon of dried thyme

Method:

1) Preheat oven to 200 dgrees (180 if fan oven)

2) Using a cookie cutter cut the pastry into circles (about 10cm) 1 per personn will be enough

3) Score around the edge of the pastry (about 2cm inside the edge)

4) Place on a lightly oiled baking tray

5) Put 1 x teaspoon of the chutney in the middle of the tart base and spread it around

6) Put some of the blue cheese chunks over the chutney and sprinkle over the thyme

7) Pop in the oven for about 15mins

8) Take out the tarts and add a few chopped sqaures of the blue cheese on the top

9) Put back in the oven for one minute

10) Serve with a light salad

Pleae don't take my words for how great this starter is...In the words of Andy, my brother-in-law, "now that's bloody lovely" need i say any more?

This is such an easy starter but it's very tasty and looks great, so is bound to impress your dinner guests next time round! Would love to know how you get on if you decide to try it!

See you soon

Dave

Turkey Burgers...The result.

I hope you have all had a delightful Saturday and have managed to enjoy the sunshine.

As promised last night here are some photos of me creating the Turkey Burgers, or helathy junkfood for a Friday night. As you can see in one of them they go very well with a dollop of mayonnaise on them!

Again you will see from the photos that we served them on half a roll each ast night, that was to help soak up some of the alcohol...as I mentioned yesterday, they really are very easy to make even after a glass or two of vino!

Tonight we are going for a Moroccan Tagine...more to follow tomorrow.