Fichi alle spezie

I am still being very boring food-wise. My naturopath has me on a wheat, dairy, sugar AND fructose free diet at the moment. So needless to say, I've not been cooking much from the Silver Spoon at the moment - apologies! But today, bank holiday weekend, I thought it was time to end the drought - even if I can't eat any of it!

So combining my post with my other blog Hither Green Havoc because my figs are home grown! Not exactly intentional, they just grew without any help from me...

Spiced figs. Simple and sweet.

Sorbetto al kiwi

I'm on a wheat and dairy-free diet at the moment... and weekends are the hardest for me. With friends coming round and trips to our local foodie markets I am having to be really creative with what I'm eating and cooking. I wasn't planning on doing a blog post, but as I was having a cooking-spree this Saturday I thought I'd take a peek inside the Silver Spoon. I happened to get kiwi fruits in my Abel and Cole box this week that hadn't been eaten, so when I spotted a recipe for kiwi sorbet a blog post was born.

Simple, almost healthy ingredients!

Making a mess

Pureeing the fruit

Kiwi brick

Summer sun calls for sorbet

The recipe calls for an icecream maker, which I don't have. I seemed to remember old recipes stating that if you didn't have one, to whisk your mixture with a fork a few times while it was freezing. I did this... but it didn't exactly work! The sorbet, whilst really yummy, is rock solid. So to scoop it out, I softened it a little, then scraped it out and as I was scraping, shaped it into scoop shapes!

I'm off to have a bowl now!

Marmellata d'arance

My dear Nanna G made the best apricot jam ever. She would get a new jar out specially for us three city girls when we came to visit the farm - and there wasn't much left after we were done! So I've been making jam. I've done a few batches now, so thought I was ready to branch out and try orange marmalade.

I'm not a marmalade fan... but my baby sister, D, LOVES marmalade - even though she thinks it makes you old (read her hilarious blog post here). It was slightly different from making jam, you don't add any water cause the oranges are juicy enough.

So here goes...

Peeling all the oranges... and I only did half quantity!

All sliced and ready to cook

Not sure my peel was 'finely sliced' but I gave it a good go!

Foamy

After sterilizing, I was ready to put the marmalade into jars

Looking good

The finished prouduct

I delivered a jar to D - so perhaps she could give a verdict below in the comments?

And when apricot season comes around, I will do a comparison between Nanna G's jam... and the Silver Spoon's version... anyone know when apricot season is in the UK? Let me know!

"These are a few of my favourite things"

• My gorgeous kitsch tray is a souvenir from our last snowboarding trip to Chamonix, where we found the cutest restaurant/cafe/bar called The Kitsch Inn when I asked if I could buy the tray our breakfast was served on, they sent us to Bungalow Graphics 
• Wooden chopping board is from Habitat and they have a really similar one here 
• Floral tea towel is from H&M a few years ago - but they have gorgeous styles all the time

And finally, thanks to D for all her jar collecting!
 

Salsa olandese

Yesterday was our 10 year wedding anniversary... so I wanted to cook L his favourite ever breakfast, eggs benedict. Then I thought I really need to do a blog post, so thought I'd make my hollandaise sauce (instead of buying it from M&S!)
 
I was very slack with these pics, so apologies! But also it's not a really exciting recipe (but never fear... I've got another post to come!)

This recipe uses butter instead of oil - I'm sure I've cooked hollandaise before, so the butter threw me a bit. But it's super easy and I think it doesn't split as easily as the oil version does. Lemon is added at the end to zest it up a bit (I also added salt). It's sooooo creamy and rich, and was gorgeous with the salty ham and fresh eggs.

whisking in little cubes of butter

Bottled ready to reheat for later

With muffins, eggs and fresh ham from our local butcher

Verdict: awesome! But pity the bubbly we had with breakfast (hey, it was a special occasion!) wasn't up to scratch! 

Find me on twitter @jeni_willis and also find my butcher on there too @ManorMeats

Mini supplî di riso con mozzarella

Cheesy croquettes... not such a healthy start to 2013 also not something I'd normally  cook. But when the book opened to it, and I had all the ingredients, I figured why not put off my diet another day!

So, mini rice croquettes with mozzarella, not as hard as I thought - ha! They started out easy enough but then I wondered if 250g of uncooked rice could possibly be a bit too much (think the recipe might have meant 250g cooked rice). Then onced mixed the assembly was very messy, and I ended up only rolling half (still a dinner plate full), and just cooking these. 

In the end - yummy! Not sure I'd rush to do them again - but they were tasty and I can imagine with half the rice, would be a bit easier to handle.

Ingredients ready to go... so far so good

Getting messy...

Frying...

Ready to eat