Recipes – Page 19 – Bangers & Mash

Strawberry and honey super smoothies

July 13, 2013Posted in Drinks, Recipes, VegetarianTagged banana, blog challenge, honey, oats, recipe challenge, recipes for life, smoothie, strawberry, super smoothie, swallow charity9 Comments

We slurp our way through a fair few smoothies in our house. They’re the perfect way to use up ripe bananas, especially when it’s way too hot to consider baking banana bread, and they are a brilliantly healthy start to the day. Although saying that, quite often our smoothies are rather indulgent, especially when my husband makes them with lots of vanilla ice cream.

This strawberry and honey super smoothie is of the healthy variety. It features a couple of spoonfuls of rolled oats, making it extra thick and creamy and perfect for a fuel-filled breakfast.

And of course they’re ridiculously easy to make, which is essential first thing in the morning.

Strawberry and honey super smoothies

2 ripe bananas, peeled and sliced
400g strawberries, hulled and chopped
4 tbsp runny honey
2 tbsp rolled oats
1 pint ice cold milk

Simply pop all the ingredients into your food blender and whizz until smooth and frothy. That’s it.

Serve alongside your bowl of cereal or dippy eggs and soldiers for a top brekkie.

Because these super smoothies are so easy to rustle up and contain this month’s trio of ingredients (honey, oats and berries), I’m entering them into the Recipes for Life challenge, which I also happen to be hosting.

July is the penultimate month for Recipes for Life. Each month we challenge food bloggers to create tasty, healthy and easy-to-make dishes using three key ingredients.

I’m running the challenge on behalf of a brilliant charity called SWALLOW, which supports adults with learning difficulties. Their cookery club will have a go at making the recipes themselves and the best ones will be included in a new cookbook later in the year.

Perhaps you’d like to get involved in the challenge? Find out more here.

Cookies with a kick

July 3, 2013Posted in Cakes and biscuits, RecipesTagged cherry, chilli, chocolate, cookie, dan may, ginger8 Comments

“Now that’s got a good kick” is a phrase you hear a lot in our house. My husband and I are rather partial to hot, spicy food you see. We are complete chilli fiends. Even our children like things nice and spicy, especially our oldest, Jessie, who enjoys hot chilli sauce on pretty much anything.

Chilli with chocolate is a favourite combination; they really are a match made in heaven. We’re forever trying out different chilli chocolate bars and generally complaining they don’t have enough of a kick. I was thinking about coming up with my own chilli chocolate creation when I came upon this cookie recipe in The Red Hot Chilli Cookbook by Dan May. I couldn’t resist. Dan’s recipe calls for stem ginger, but I didn’t happen to have any in. Instead I found some dried cherries in the cupboard and opted for those, as much for the charming alliteration as anything else.

If you like chilli and chocolate, you really must give these cookies a go. They are absolutely delicious and very, very moreish. The sweet, chewy cherries and big, fat chunks of richly bittersweet chocolate contrast beautifully with the savoury, fiery bursts of chilli heat. They were a little too hot for Mia, our five-year-old, but I’d made her a version using ground ginger instead of chilli, which suited her. But Jessie loved the chilli bad boys as much as her parents.

Chilli chocolate and cherry cookies

Makes 8

100g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp hot chilli powder
50g caster sugar
85g soft butter
½ tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp milk
100g dark chocolate, broken into large pieces
60g dried cherries

Preheat the oven to 180°C / gas mark 4.

Sift into a large bowl the flour, baking powder and chilli powder and stir in the sugar. Add the butter, vanilla extract and milk and mix together to form a dough. Next add the chocolate and cherries and combine well using your hands.

Divide the dough into eight balls and squash down a little until they are about 6cm in diameter. Arrange on a baking sheet covered in greaseproof paper. You may need to use two baking sheets, as the cookies will spread a little as they bake.

Bake in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes until the edges are just beginning to turn brown. Leave to cool and firm up on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Dan May says to enjoy them with a big mug of tea, but I liked mine with strong coffee. And apparently they will keep for a few days in an airtight container but ours didn’t last that long.

If you do need to bake a non-chilli version, simply substitute the chilli powder with a teaspoonful of ground ginger.

Simple salmon croquettes with courgette and baby leek hollandaise

June 24, 2013June 24, 2013Posted in Competitions and challenges, Fish, RecipesTagged baby leek, balls, courgette, croquette, fish, leek, pasta, recipes for life, salmon, swallow charity, tinned salmon, zucchini12 Comments

This is a pretty quick and easy meal to rustle up, particularly if you’ve got little children whose hands are the perfect size for rolling the little croquettes – a posh name for fish balls basically.

It’s also quick and easy if, like me, you cheat and buy a ready-made hollandaise sauce, rather than making your own from scratch. Clearly homemade hollandaise is what we should all aspire to, but when you’re working full-time like I am at the moment, it’s just not always possible. And there are some rather nice shop-bought ones around.

I served my croquettes with pasta and the hollandaise sauce combined with courgette and baby leek. Or you could simply serve the baked balls with dips as an appetizer, or perhaps with salad as an alternative to falafel for a tasty pitta bread filling.

Simple salmon croquettes with courgette and baby leek hollandaise

Serves 4

1 tin salmon (around 200g)
2 spring onions, finely sliced
1 tbsp cream cheese
juice of half a lemon
large pinch of dried dill weed
½ tsp dried tarragon
salt and pepper
1 baby leek, finely sliced
1 courgette, quartered lengthways and sliced
1 tbsp olive oil
200g ready-made hollandaise sauce (I bought a Tesco own brand variety)
handful of fresh chives, snipped

Preheat the oven to 180°C / gas mark 4.

Drain the tinned salmon and flake into a mixing bowl. Combine with the spring onions, cream cheese, lemon juice, herbs and salt and pepper to taste.

Using your hands shape the mixture into small balls and place on a baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper. Bake in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes until slightly browned.

Meanwhile, prepare the sauce by gently frying the leek and courgette in the olive oil. When tender simply combine with the hollandaise sauce and heat through.

Serve with your favourite pasta. You can either mix the croquettes into the sauce (being careful so as not to break them) or pop the croquettes onto your pasta and pour over the sauce. Finally garnish with some snipped chives.

As this dish is so easy and uses the three key ingredients of salmon, courgette and pasta, I’m entering it into this month’s Recipes for Life challenge, which – as I’m sure you’ve gathered by now – I’m hosting on behalf of the incredibly fantastic charity SWALLOW.

My take on The Garden Deli’s warm pasta salad

June 23, 2013Posted in Competitions and challenges, Fish, RecipesTagged courgette, fish, Garden Deli, pasta, recipes for life, salad, salmon, warm salad, zucchini4 Comments

You may have heard the three ingredients for this month’s Recipes for Life challenge are salmon, courgette (zucchini) and pasta.

Sarah from The Garden Deli has been an active supporter of the Recipes for Life challenge since it started back in February. Only problem is, sometimes the trio of ingredients include meat or, as is the case this month, fish. And as Sarah is a vegetarian that’s presented a slight problem. But because both SWALLOW and Bangers are inclusive types, and because Sarah asked so nicely, we’re happy to let her enter a vegetarian dish on the proviso that I test it out to see if it works with said meaty/fishy ingredient.

So that’s what I bring you here – Sarah’s Warm Pasta Salad with Courgette & Herbs, but with my addition of some oven-baked Scottish salmon.

I topped a couple of Scottish salmon steaks with lemon slices and a grind of black pepper and then wrapped them loosely in foil. I then baked them in a fairly hot oven for around 15 minutes until just cooked through, when the bright pink turned pale pink. At the final stage of assembling the salad, I flaked chunks of the salmon into the dish.

Unfortunately I’m allergic to avocado so I had to adjust Sarah’s recipe a little more by boosting the amount of courgette and adding half a green pepper to the recipe too. Because I was cooking it for friends and their children as well as our own, I decided to omit the chilli as I wasn’t sure if their kids would be able to handle it. I only had cherry tomatoes rather than plum, and I grated the parmesan rather than slicing it as I knew one of my friend’s children wasn’t too keen on cheese so I attempted to disguise it by mixing it in before serving. Oh, and the fresh herbs I chose to use were oregano as we have so much in the garden right now.

But other than those little divergences, I stuck to Sarah’s recipe, and very good it was too. We enjoyed it for lunch today, and I’ll be having the leftovers for supper once I’ve got this blog post out the way.

I would definitely recommend giving Sarah’s recipe a go. Next time I make it I will definitely add chilli. It was fine without but I think it would be all the better for that little chilli kick. Chilli and lime are a match made in heaven, as they say.

I’m hosting the Recipes for Life challenge on behalf of the charity SWALLOW. Based in Midsomer Norton in the South West of England, this incredible charity works hard to support adults with learning disabilities live life to the full. One of their popular activities is the weekly cookery club and this challenge aims to find simple, tasty and wholesome dishes SWALLOW users can recreate in their cookery classes. The best of these will appear in a new cookbook SWALLOW is planning publish later this year to help raise much-needed funds for the charity.

If you’d like to enter this month’s challenge, you’d better get your skates on as the closing date is 25 June – only two days away.

Easy banana yoghurt puds

June 19, 2013Posted in Puddings and desserts, Recipes, VegetarianTagged banana, blueberries, food waste, ripe banana, trifle sponge, yoghurt4 Comments

I found myself with a bunch of over-ripe bananas the other day. Normally the first thing I’d think to make would be banana bread but on a warm June afternoon, following a day spent in a stuffy office, the last thing I wanted to do was bake.

So I came up with this very quick and simple banana yoghurt dessert, with a base of trifle sponge – something else I needed to use up.

I felt very virtuous knowing I’d avoided filling the food waste bin and we had a scrummy pudding in less than ten minutes. Result.

Easy banana yoghurt puds

Serves 4

6 trifle sponges
apple juice
4 or 5 ripe bananas
500g natural yoghurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp runny honey
blueberries (or any other fresh berries) to garnish

Break up the trifle sponges and divide between four glasses or small bowls. Drizzle over a little apple juice – just enough to soak into the sponges and make them soft.

In a blender, simply whizz up the bananas with the yoghurt, vanilla extract and honey. Pour the banana mixture over the trifle sponges in each glass and garnish with blueberries or whatever berries you might happen to have in the fridge.

It’s so easy it hardly warrants a recipe but you’ve got one anyway!

Tuscan panzanella

June 14, 2013June 14, 2013Posted in Recipes, VegetarianTagged Chez Foti, ciabatta, delicieux, four seasons food, herbs on saturday, italian, italy, lavender & lovage, panzanella, salad, tuscan, tuscany13 Comments

Panzanella is a tasty and satisfying Italian summer salad, perfect for picnics and eating al fresco. We enjoyed it last weekend when the sun was shining and it felt like we were on holiday in our own garden. The weather has sadly turned greyer and damper, but I am hopeful the blue skies will return. Hope, hope!

I took this recipe from a cookery book called Yolanda’s Kitchen, written by Yolanda Pearson who was born in Normandy to a French mother and an Italian father. With that kind of a background, it’s not surprising Yolanda can cook. Yolanda is a good friend of my husband’s family. As a boy, Jason used to play with Yolanda’s son Simon whenever they visited their holiday cottage up in Shropshire and he has very good memories of eating well at their house.

According to Yolanda…

This traditional Tuscan snack gets its name from the ‘Zanella’, the ditches by the side of the fields where the farm labourers used to sit to eat their lunch, and ‘Pane’ (Italian for bread). Thus they mixed leftover and dried-up chunks of bread with whatever salad ingredients their vegetable patch had in season, hastily dressed with wine vinegar and olive oil and enjoyed in the open air as a one-course meal.

I find the salad is enough on its own for a good lunch. I’ve been taking it to work this week in my lunchbox, and it’s surprising how crispy the ciabatta stays even when it has soaked up some of that tasty dressing. I do have to apologise though when I open it up, as it rather reeks of garlic! It’s also good as part of a picnic or served as a side dish with a barbecue.

Tuscan Panzanella

Serves 4

1 ciabatta loaf
200 cucumber
3 spring onions
2 celery sticks
1 garlic clove, crushed
250g small plum tomatoes
2 Little Gem lettuces, leaves torn
handful of basil leaves
150ml extra virgin olive oil
50ml red wine vinegar
1 tsp white sugar
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 160°C / gas mark 2-3.

Cut the ciabatta into bitesize cubes, place them on a baking tray and bake in the oven for 5 to 10 minutes, until it gains just a little colour. Leave to cool.

Peel, deseed and slice the cucumber. Finely slice the spring onion. Dice the celery. Mix together with the crushed garlic.

Cut the plum tomatoes in half. Yolanda says here to remove the seeds, but I must admit I didn’t bother with this bit.

In a large salad bowl, mix together the bread, tomatoes, lettuce leaves, chopped vegetables and torn leaves of basil.

In a small bowl, mix together the oil, vinegar, sugar and salt and pepper.

Pour the dressing over the salad and toss well before serving.

As this is salad is perfect for picnics and outdoor dining, I’m entering into Four Seasons Food, a wonderful new challenge hosted by Chez Foti and Delicieux. The theme for the start of summer is Picnic Food & Outdoor Nibbles.

And as it contains lots of fresh basil, I’m also entering it into Lavender & Lovage‘s ever-popular Herbs on Saturday challenge.

Salted peanut butter and dark chocolate truffles for Father’s Day

June 10, 2013June 12, 2013Posted in Cakes and biscuits, Puddings and desserts, UncategorizedTagged chocolate, chris evans, lindt, marmite, peanut butter, salted, truffle12 Comments

It’s not long until Father’s Day, so if you’d like to make the daddy in your life a little homemade sweet something that’s not too sweet and is, in fact, also a little bit salty, how about some of these…?

The lovely people at Lindt recently sent me some of their 70% Cocoa cooking chocolate to try out and so my daughter Mia and I decided to put it to the test by making some chocolates for Daddy.

My husband Jason is a big peanut butter fan and it’s the usual topping for his toast in the morning. Following a rather bizarre tip a few months ago from Chris Evans on his breakfast radio show, Jason’s now taken to combining peanut butter with Marmite on his toast. He loves it – something to do with the contrast of the sweet and salty apparently.

So that’s what gave me the idea for the filling for these chocolate truffles. Don’t worry, there’s no Marmite in there – just a pinch of salt to give that deliciously moreish sweet-savouriness, plus they’re topped with a little sprinkle of chopped salted peanuts too. The gorgeously smooth, dark Lindt chocolate works very well with the crunchy, gooey peanut centre, making for rather sophisticated truffles despite the main ingredient being every little (and big) kid’s favourite.

Jason was very happy with his early Father’s Day present. I fully expect the whole lot to be gone by the time I get back home from work this evening. The one thing he said they could do with was perhaps a touch of chilli. He’s a major chilli head as well you see. Maybe next time.

Salted peanut butter and dark chocolate truffles

Makes 24 chocolates

4 digestive biscuits, crushed
125g crunchy peanut butter
50g butter, melted
70g demerara sugar
good pinch of salt
200g dark cooking chocolate
25g butter
handful of salted peanuts, finely chopped

In a bowl, combine the crushed biscuits, peanut butter, melted butter, sugar and salt and chill in the fridge for around 30 minutes.

Taking a teaspoonful at a time, shape the peanut butter mixture into balls and place on a baking sheet covered in clingfilm or baking parchment. Freeze for 15 minutes.

Melt the chocolate and butter in a microwave or over a double boiler (a bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water) and mix together well. Using a cocktail stick, dip the peanut butter balls into the chocolate, ensuring it is entirely covered. Place on a plate covered in clingfilm and sprinkle each one with some chopped peanuts, working quickly before the chocolate sets.

Chill in the fridge before placing the chocolates into petit four or mini cupcake cases.

And if you want to give Daddy some chocolate this Father’s Day but don’t fancy making your own, we can recommend Lindt’s Strawberry Intense, another sample they sent us, which is rich and dreamy without being overly sweet. You see their full range of Father’s Day chocolates on the Lindt website.

Disclosure: Lindt provided me with sample bars of their 70% Cocoa cooking chocolate and Strawberry Intense. No money exchanged hands and the views expressed here, as they are throughout my blog, are completely my own.

Warm pea and chilli salad

June 7, 2013Posted in Recipes, VegetarianTagged asda, chilli, green beans, mustard, new potato, open farm sunday, peas, potato salad, salad, spring onion10 Comments

It is Open Farm Sunday this coming Sunday (9 June) and as I mentioned in an earlier post, we’re looking forward to spending the day at Wookey Farm, meeting the goats, enjoying tractor rides and wanging a few wellies!

In the run up to Open Farm Sunday, many of the initiative’s sponsors have created recipes to celebrate British farming by showcasing British produce. I was invited to try out this warm pea and chilli salad, courtesy of Asda magazine.

It’s a lovely summery dish, also featuring new potatoes, spring onions and green beans in a tasty mustard dressing. We ate ours with some simple chicken satay, but it would be equally good on its own with some crusty bread to mop up the dressing, or as an accompaniment for a barbecue.

Warm pea & chilli salad

Serves 4

350g new potatoes
350g peas (frozen or fresh)
200g fine green beans, trimmed
3tbsp olive oil
4 spring onions, trimmed and sliced
1 or 2 red chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
1tbsp cider vinegar
1tsp clear honey
1tsp Dijon mustard

Boil the new potatoes until just tender, then drain. When cool enough to handle, halve or quarter them, depending on size. Put in a bowl.

Add the peas and beans to the pan with enough boiling water to just cover them. Bring back to the boil and simmer covered, for 4 minutes. Drain and add to the potatoes.

Heat 1tbsp oil and cook the spring onions and chillies over a low heat for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat. Add the rest of the oil, the vinegar, honey and mustard. Season.

Add the warm dressing to the potatoes, peas and green beans and toss together before serving.

Open Farm Sunday

The eighth annual Open Farm Sunday on 9 June 2013 provides a great opportunity for the public to truly get to know how their food is produced and how the countryside around them is cared for.

For more information and to find a farm near you that’s taking part visit www.farmsunday.org

Review: Kerry LowLow

June 5, 2013June 5, 2013Posted in Meat, Recipes, ReviewsTagged asparagus, broccoli, chicken, kerry, lowlow, pancetta, purple sprouting broccoli, risotto2 Comments

This is a sponsored post.

Sick of cliches about diet food? The ‘gals’ from Adland are sure to put a smile on your face!

We don’t eat a lot of processed cheese in the Bangers & Mash household, but I am trying to keep an eye on my weight so when Kerry invited me to try out their LowLow cheese spreads I was keen to give them a go. This spoof ad made me chuckle and I love the idea of cutting down on our fat intake without sacrificing on taste. Can it really be possible?

While LowLow probably won’t replace a couple of slices of a mature local Cheddar in my lunchtime sandwich, I was impressed with LowLow as a cooking ingredient and will use it again as a substitute for full fat soft cheese or maybe even cream in certain dishes.

Kerry sent me recipes for Pancetta Wrapped Chicken and Spring Vegetable Risotto and I put them to the test on my family, including my discerning mother who was over from Spain to stay this weekend. I played with the recipes a little to suit the tastes of my brood and also to make the most of what happened to be in our fridge, particularly the heaps of wild garlic and purple sprouting broccoli we have to use up.

The first dish I tried out on my family was the Pancetta Wrapped Chicken. Both my husband and mother pulled faces when they saw I was cooking with a low fat cheese spread, and I rather wished I hadn’t told them beforehand what I was up to. Personally I thought the end result was rather good. I don’t think I would have spotted the cheese was a low fat alternative if I hadn’t already known, but Jason and my mum were convinced it tasted different to normal soft cheese. However, they still ate it regardless and the children wolfed theirs down quite happily. Here’s what I did…

Pancetta Wrapped Chicken

2 large sweet potatoes
1 tsp Cajun seasoning
low-fat spray
4 chicken breasts
125g LowLow Mature Cheddar Spread
8 sun-dried tomatoes
8 slices of pancetta
300g spring greens
black pepper

Preheat the oven to 180°C (gas mark 6).

Scrub the sweet potatoes, dry with kitchen towel and slice into wedges. Place in an ovenproof dish, spray with a little low-fat oil and sprinkle with Cajun seasoning. Roast in the oven for around half an hour until soft inside and a little charred on the outside.

Meanwhile, prepare the chicken breasts by cutting a slice in each one at the thickest point, to create a pocket. Spread a quarter of the LowLow Mature Cheddar Spread into the pocket and pop a couple of sun-dried tomatoes into each one.

Wrap 2 slices of pancetta around each chicken breast, making sure to seal the pocket.

Place the chicken breasts on a baking tray and spray with low-fat spray. Season with black pepper. Cook for 20 minutes.

While the chicken is cooking, shred the greens and steam for 4-5 minutes.

When the chicken is cooked through, slice and serve with the greens and sweet potatoes. Enjoy!

When I made the Spring Vegetable Risotto the following day, I learned from my previous mistake. This time I didn’t tell anyone I’d used LowLow when I served up this lovely fresh and creamy risotto. It went down an absolute treat with adults and children alike, and my husband and mum both requested second helpings. The LowLow gave the dish a rich cheesiness, which wasn’t too cloying, and rather good to know wasn’t piling on the calories at the same time. Here’s how I prepared the risotto…

Spring Vegetable Risotto

2 tbsp olive oil
1 large shallot, finely chopped
300g risotto rice
1.25 litres vegetable stock (hot)
200g spears of asparagus spears, trimmed at an angle
200g purple sprouting broccoli
100g frozen peas
125g LowLow Mature Cheddar Spread
large handful wild garlic, roughly chopped

Heat the oil in a large, heavy-based saucepan. Add the shallots and sauté for 3-5 minutes until they are soft. Stir in the rice so it is coated with oil.

Pour in a ladleful of stock and stir. Cook, stirring regularly until the stock is absorbed. Continue until the stock is used up and the rice is tender all the way through.

In the meantime, steam the asparagus and broccoli until just cooked, retaining a little bite.

When the rice is cooked, stir in the asparagus, purple sprouting broccoli, LowLow Mature Cheddar Spread and wild garlic. Cook for a minute or two until the vegetables are heated through and the cheese has melted. Serve immediately, sprinkled with a little extra wild garlic.

If you’d like to try Kerry’s LowLow yourself, I have five vouchers each worth £3 to give away. Simply leave a comment below saying why you’d like to try it.

Round Up: May’s Recipes for Life challenge

June 3, 2013Posted in Competitions and challenges, RecipesTagged blog challenge, challenge, lemon, recipe challenge, recipes for life, rhubarb, spice, swallow charity2 Comments

I knew when we announced the three ingredients for May’s Recipes for Life it would prove a popular month for the challenge, and I wasn’t wrong. Faced with a trio of rhubarb, lemon and spice, food bloggers demonstrated just how creative they can be in the kitchen, concocting both sweet and savoury dishes from fools and muffins, ice creams and sorbets to curry and cous cous and even spaghetti!

Let’s take a look at each of those lovely seasonal rhubarb dishes in turn…

I got the rhubarb party started with a simple Rhubarb Compote. It’s very good as an accompaniment to roast duck, pork or lamb, and if you make a little too much, use up the rest in a big thick cheese sandwich. My compote is flavoured with ginger and mixed spice, but you could go with whichever spices take your fancy really.

I love a good fool and this Rhubarb, Ginger and Lemon Fool from Claire at Under The Blue Gum Tree looks especially good, don’t you agree? Tracking down fresh rhubarb in South Africa proved something of a challenge but I admire Claire’s dedication to the cause as she succeeded eventually in finding “a few gnarly sticks” at her local grocers which she was able to transform into this delectable entry.

Next comes the turn of Sarah at The Garden Deli who brings us these Rhubarb and Lemon Scones as a tempting teatime treat. They sound incredibly easy to make, which is always a bonus in my eyes, and I can just imagine they’d be perfect served straight from the oven with some butter and jam. I’m making myself hungry just writing this…

I’ve discovered that rhubarb infused with star anise is one of my favourite flavour combinations of all time, which is exactly the combination brought to us by Fun as a Gran with her Rhubarb, Lemon and a Spice entry. It looks a great pudding for anyone watching their sugar intake, as both the sponge cake and stewed rhubarb are made using agave sugar.

Michelle at Utterly Scrummy Food for Families made the most of the glut of rhubarb on her allotment by whipping up a big batch of this utterly scrummy Rhubarb and Vanilla Jam. I’ve never tried making jam with rhubarb before and so didn’t realise that it is rather low in pectin, which is what generally helps jam to set. I was interested to hear that Michelle uses lemon juice and the pips in a muslin bag to increase the pectin levels. I’m storing that tip away for future reference…

I’d considered attempting some Rhubarb Crumble Muffins myself but when I saw these beauties from Chez Foti I knew mine would never be able to compete. Don’t they look so good and sweetly satisfying? And they’d be just as good for breakfast as they would at teatime or as an after-school snack. Yes, I can imagine munching one or two of these at just about any time of day!

So instead of making muffins, I came up with Spiced Rhubarb and Lemon Sorbet with Cinnamon Cookies. They’re both incredibly easy to make and there is something just so magical about the perfumed flavour of star anise with the sharp tang of rhubarb. I could eat this all day. And all night.

Another icy treat comes in the fabulous form of this Rhubarb Ripple Ice Cream with Hazelnut Oat Clusters from Elizabeth’s Kitchen. Doesn’t it look sensational? I can just imagine how good that creamy rhubarby ice cream tastes alongside the nutty crunch of the hazelnut clusters. Oh yes, this is my kind of dessert.

It’s the turn of Ness at JibberJabberUK to tempt us next with her pretty Rhubarb, Lemon and Ginger Friands. There’s something very cute about mini loaves; I think I might have to get myself some mini loaf tins so I can have a go at these. They look perfect for a properly civilised afternoon tea.

It was a delight to welcome Rich In Flavour to the Recipes for Life challenge for the first time and what a wonderful first entry! This Spiced Lemon & Rhubarb Cheesecake looks simply gorgeous and I love the sound of the lemon syrup flavoured with star anise and Szechuan pepper. I simply must try this recipe!

Janice from the Farmersgirl Kitchen baked us another batch of muffins; this time Spiced Rhubarb & Lemon Muffins, featuring cinnamon and “little nuggets of intense crystallised ginger”, which sounds right up my street. They look lovely and moist and as with the earlier muffins from Chez Foti, I can easily picture myself consuming a few of these with a mug of coffee for a lazy Sunday morning brunch.

Fun as a Gran returns with a second entry next; a very creative Rhubarb Syllabub served with a lemon meringue, which I imagine would bring a perfectly light crunchiness to complement the smooth creaminess of the rich syllabub.

Laura at How to Cook Good Food always comes up with heavenly creations and this Lavender Poached Rhubarb with Ginger Custard Cream is no exception. It sounds like Laura has been getting through quite a lot of rhubarb recently from her allotment, including rhubarb vodka which I’m rather intrigued by, as well as raw rhubarb in an Ottolenghi sour salad. But this poached rhubarb is definitely the one I want to try first. Simply beautiful.

There is nothing remotely foolish about this Fennel Rhubarb Foolish from Mel at Edible Things. She flavours her rhubarb fool with fennel seed and it is garnished with candied fennel. This sounds to me like an incredible flavour combination; one Mel was inspired to come up with after eating fennel-flavoured sausages with roasted rhubarb as part of a rhubarb tasting menu at the Rollende Keukens festival in Amsterdam. Love it!

We have a second helping of Rhubarb Ripple Ice Cream now, this time from Helen at The Crazy Kitchen and served with Mini Spiced Lemon Cookies. As Helen says herself, this is “bloody gorgeous”!

I really wasn’t expecting to see a curry amongst our entries this month, but here it is, a Pork and Rhubarb Curry with Lemon Pilau Rice from Spurs Cook. Martin says he got the idea of using rhubarb in a curry by a certain celebrity chef who stir fries pork with rhubarb. He decided to go in a slightly different direction and came up with a curry. Inspired!

Here’s another delicious savoury rhubarb dish – The Crazy Kitchen’s Moroccan Lamb & Rhubarb with Lemon & Coriander Cous Cous. Helen freely admits she’s not completely convinced rhubarb even grows in Morocco but it’s the cinnamon and dried fruit in this dish that give it a wonderful Moroccan flavour. It’s an incredibly easy recipe, mostly throwing things in a pan and leaving them to do “their thing”, which is the kind of cooking I adore, and I know my family would really go for these flavour combinations.

Back to baked goodies next with this Rhubarb, Lemon and Ginger Cake, a second tasty entry from JibberJabberUK. Ness made it for her local Clandestine Cake Club meeting and it was completely devoured save for one slice. And those clandestine cake makers certainly know their stuff!

Why do pizzas have to be savoury? This is the question posed by Helen at The Crazy Kitchen as she delivers a fabulous Rhubarb and Custard Crumble Pizza. Isn’t it a great idea? Another lovely simple recipe from Helen that I can’t wait to try out.

Not content with three rhubarb dishes, here comes Helen at The Crazy Kitchen with entry number four! She offers us a scrumptiously rib-sticking Lemon and Rhubarb Pudding that reminds me of an old fashioned pud my Nana often makes. I’m starting to drool slightly thinking about just how satisfying this would be. Nom nom!

Guess what? Here’s The Crazy Kitchen with her fifth (yes, I said fifth!) entry for May’s challenge! This time she’s rustled up a Cheese and Rhubarb Chutney Tart – is there no end to Helen’s culinary talents when it comes to the humble rhubarb?! I’ve been thinking I should make a rhubarb chutney to use up some of the bags of rhubarb stocking up my freezer, and now I have the perfect recipe.

I’m really pleased to welcome another first-timer to the Recipes for Life challenge. The Grumbling Tummy has created another tempting Rhubarb Ice Cream which she serves with Lemon Spiced Biscuits – I can’t believe this is the first time Hazey has made her own ice cream as it looks fantastic.

I was surprised to receive a curry recipe this month, and I was equally surprised when Matt and Corpy told me they were planning on making Poached Rhubarb Spaghetti as their entry. I was totally intrigued to see how it would turn out and the two dads didn’t disappoint. Doesn’t this look so good? I know my girls are going to love it when I give it a go very soon.

Finally here is another entry from yours truly – a simple Rhubarb Cinnamon Cake which I made the other weekend for a friend with diabetes using a sugar alternative. It’s not half bad and we ended up eating some the next day for breakfast. How many times have I mentioned eating cake for breakfast in this post now I wonder?

So you see what I mean? A truly eclectic assortment of wonderful rhubarb recipes and not a single crumble in sight, unless you count crumble-topped muffins, which I don’t. Who’d have thought rhubarb could be so very versatile?

Now it’s time for the announcement you’re all waiting for… The winner of May’s Recipes for Life challenge…

The cookery group at SWALLOW found it nigh on impossible to settle on a single winner, and so we have two – one for a savoury dish and one for a sweet.

The winner of the sweet category is The Garden Deli for her beautiful Rhubarb and Lemon Scones. We all thought these looked so deliciously delightful, yet so simple to make too, which is what we look for in Recipes for Life. Congratulations Sarah!

And the winner of the savoury prize? Well, it had to be The Crazy Kitchen for her incredible Moroccan Lamb and Rhubarb with Lemon and Coriander Cous Cous. Another dish that’s simple to prepare and absolutely packed full of flavour, this had to win top place – even though it means Helen has now won three months in a row! This woman is on a serious roll! But seriously Helen, you totally deserve it and we’ll all been staggered by the support you have shown this challenge. Thank you!

Thank you also to everyone who entered May’s Recipes for Life. I was blown away by the number of entries this month, every one a winner its own right. If you’re stuck with a glut of rhubarb, you can’t fail to be inspired by this little lot!

Watch this space for details of the three ingredients for June’s challenge – I’ll be announcing the next lot very soon and I really can’t wait to see what you make of them. Until next time!