Happy New Year!!!

I have sadly neglected my lovely blog, but I have been cooking as much as I ever, I just need to get back to posting my dishes!

Our Christmas meal was a feast of my favourite Middle Eastern inspired dishes, below, including my most favourite cauliflower and chickpea dish and lots of dips!!! It was so good! Served with roasted vegetables and crunchy roast potatoes….very happy tummies!

I hope you all had a great Christmas and wishing you all wonderful New Year 🙂

I did plan to have some leftovers but I ate SOOOOO much of the cauliflower and chickpeas there wasn’t much left at all…

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Lavender and Lovage new cookbook…

I am forever in awe when one of our blog family writes a cook book, it seems like such a massive achievement to me, an investment of so much time and effort and belief…and now the lovely Karen from the equally lovely blog Lavender and Lovage has produced her first solo cookbook…and here it is, available to buy this week!

The cover design alone is beautiful!

This is not only a cookbook, it is a book full of food memories from Karen’s childhood, all the way through her life and her travels around the globe, woven between an array of recipes that have been inspired and influenced by those experiences. Karen brings those memories to life for us with her writing, and we are virtually at the table with her…

I’ve got a list of recipes I want to try, including the “auberge” marinated goats cheese (I LOVE goats cheese!)…

..the “Maghreb” chicken, apricot & chickpea tagine, full of beautiful flavours (I’ll leave out the chicken for me :)), the smoky Mexican bean soup (perfect for winter where I am!) and the Sri Lankan egg hoppers…

And that’s just the beginning!

I suggest you get the book for yourself and see what you fancy, but also to read Karen’s story…

Visit Karen’s lovely blog for more details.

My sourdough buttermilk scones/biscuits…

I’ve just published a recipe that I devised for these sourdough biscuits/scones on my sourdough blog, and I think some of you would like them too, so I thought I’d share the link here for you…

Sourdough buttermilk scones/biscuits

They come with a warning: they’re very moreish!!!

Roasted butternut squash with green sauces…

The temperatures have dropped, there’s a chill in the mornings, the grass is slowly turning back to green, and I can comfortably have the oven on again…yes, autumn is arriving in the UK! Hallelujah!

I say the same thing every year about how much I love autumn, it’s my favourite season, and I celebrated its imminent arrival this year with my first tray of roasted butternut squash of the season..

Skin on, the lightest drizzle of olive oil, and a hot hot oven!

Is there truly anything much better in life!??

On this occasion I ate it piping hot with a mixture of accompaniments..

The totally green sauce is a mix of fresh spinach, mixed herbs, garlic, spring onions, olive oil, lemon juice, ground cumin, Aleppo chilli flakes, a pinch of cinnamon, salt & pepper.

The other green sauce is fresh coriander, leaves and stalks, garlic, tahini, lemon juice and mixed roasted seeds.

And all with a buttermilk and tahini sauce.

Yep! My kind of heaven!!!

Green sauces have figured a lot in my dishes recently, they’re a variation of salsa verde really, always with added spices, all very similar, but different! This one was with quinoa, baby plum tomatoes and homous. With a sprinkling of Aleppo chilli flakes and toasted sunflower seeds.

Happy Autumn northern hemisphere dwellers!

Shakshuka, sourdough and sharing..

Things have been a bit busy recently, I’ve launched some sourdough baking classes, been sending my dried sourdough starter around the world, created a new sourdough Facebook group, baked lots of loaves and done lots of sharing!

Packets of dried starter ready to go to their new homes

I love the fact that all of this is happening purely as a result of this little blog, thank you to everyone who has read my blog and supported and encouraged me xx

The temperatures in my part of the world have finally started to fall which means I can also start cooking more and indulge in my love of hot food, my body really does like hot food!

And what better than a pan full of fresh vegetables, homemade harissa, toasted sesame seeds and eggs..

What better to eat with a slice of fresh sourdough?

If you’ve been following my blog, this kind of dish isn’t new, I know, but it never fails to make me happy. You can use whatever vegetables are to hand to create your own version, this one includes spinach, spring onions, garlic, peppers, baby plum tomatoes, as well as my harissa, eggs and toasted sesame seeds.

So good! I highly recommend it any time you’re looking for inspiration and you’ve got a box of eggs handy 🙂

Wherever you are, have a great week!

Sourdough breadsticks…

Over on my sourdough blog today…sourdough breadsticks…pop over if you fancy checking them out…

I’ll be sharing these at this week’s Fiesta Friday and hope there’s enough to go round…

Fresh hazelnuts…

These are fresh hazelnuts, sometimes called cobnuts, and they grow on the trees all along the canal where I walk Bob, and litter the ground.

Most of them have been gnawed by wildlife, but some remain intact and yesterday I decided to pick some up..

They’re so pretty; to me they represent the countryside and regrowth and everything lovely about where I live…although right now the ground is sadly parched from the extended heat and lack of rain 😦

When cracked open carefully, they give up their milky white kernels which can be eaten raw or toasted, and added to all sorts of dishes.

My little haul

Its hard to describe the taste & texture, but they taste ‘fresh’ and young, with a crunch, but not a hard crunch like mature nuts.

I chopped some up and added them to my lunch yesterday: a whole roasted aubergine filled with a roasted pepper, mild red chilli, cherry tomato, spring onion, garlic and tabil spice sauce, and topped with tahini, roasted seeds, and the chopped fresh hazelnuts…

They made an nice addition to the dish!

If you get a chance to try some, I definitely recommend it 🙂