Macaron Madness

Never one to dismiss a foodie band waggon before at least giving it a try, a little while ago I had a go at making macarons . Intricate little beasties and when I made them set to replace cup cakes as the trendy cake of choice.

This ladies heared and gents is the result of my first attempt and given the stories I had  about how difficult they are too make I was really impressed. Not very refined I grant you but still very yummy.

That said I’m not sure I’ll be making them again in a hurry as they are quite a faff. This is a pretty good recipe and I missed out things, like most of the first stage and aging the egg whites over night and they still worked for me. I also just filled them with nutella because after the mixing and tense cooking process I couldn’t be bothered making my own. There are lots of exciting colour and flavour combinations out there and maybe I’ll have another go at some point.

Taste of Summer

It was very grey and rainy this morning which made me think of our sunny summer holiday on the Isles of Scilly. How’s this for a beer garden with a view?

The view is from the beer garden of the Turk’s Head St Agnes, a gorgeous little pub on the smallest island and a bit of a foodie heaven. I went camping on the main island a lot as a teenager and it was brilliant going back.

Tiny acorns

Myself and Dan have had our allotment for nearly three years now and I will post more about it here I’m sure. Dan describes it a little ominously as our first big project together, but it has become a place to chill out and socialise as well as providing us with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables for a fraction of the cost of buying them.

Over the past nearly three years it has gone from this…

to this

Which despite the weeds and constant battles with slugs and snails makes me feel happy every time I visit and cheers us up when we need a lift.

White Chocolate and Raspberry Tart

This recipe is cobbled together from a few different ones as but the result was pretty good. We had friends coming over for dinner and I wanted a quick dessert I could make the day before but would look impressive. I also wanted to use some of the raspberries from our allotment as they have been very good this year.