This slice is a little bit like a muesli bar for grown-ups. The sweetness of the dates and subtle heat of the ginger are a great combination. It made a delicious morning tea after an early morning visit to the markets to shop for fruit and vegetables for the week. There is a charming camaraderie…
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Miss 16 and I made hot cross buns on Easter Sunday, and they were deliciously light, spicy, soft and sticky – a triumph. They were also enormous, the result of inaccurate yeast measuring, or making them too big. We called them mutant hot cross buns, but wolfed them down anyway, fresh from the oven and…
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There are many appalling things that were done with and to food in the 1970s – for a comprehensive overview I recommend following the 70s Dinner Party on Twitter, but for a sampling consider salad in aspic and grapefruit prawn cocktail as two examples that had plenty of traction in the era of tight, tight…
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I first had a ‘crumbly’ cake at an afternoon tea hosted by a friend whose brother lived in Norway, and she made a traditional Scandinavian cake that was not too sweet and had a unique slightly crumbly texture. I loved it and have been trying for some time to create my own version from that…
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“Reader, I married him.” Jane Eyre My husband and I are soon to mark 25 years of marriage and one of the things I appreciate most about him is his unfailing support of my dreams and goals. He photographs most of the recipes for this blog in his spare time, and helps bring to life…
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Making my own crackers came about almost by chance. Some time ago I was looking for a gluten free cracker for my son that did not taste like cardboard and have the texture of polystyrene. I came across some seed crackers in the health food aisle of my local supermarket. They were delicious, full of…
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I don’t drown my sorrows..I suffocate them with cupcakes. Anon. Everyone needs a no-fail, go-to, whip-it-up-in-a-flash cupcake recipe, and this is mine. It works every time and is soft and moist and delicious. The lime gives a refreshing tang to counter the sweetness of the cake and icing, and the almond meal has a nice…
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We spend January 1st walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives…not looking for flaws, but for potential. Ellen Goodman As usual we spent our New…
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When my sister-in-law died just over three years ago we inherited a blueberry bush, which, in my part of Australia, is not a common thing. It has the most beautiful blossoms and the fruit changes from a pale watery green with a pinkish blush to deep blue when the fruit is ripe. Each year there…
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“The air was fragrant with a thousand trodden aromatic herbs, with fields of lavender, and with the brightest roses blushing in tufts all over the meadows. . . .” William Cullen Bryant I gathered a bunch of lavender late one afternoon a couple of weeks ago for my friend Claire. This spring our lavender plants…
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Simple food 