Category: Autumn
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Bangers and Mash with the Best Onion Gravy
Smoothies are all well and good, but I can’t escape the fact it is January. I didn’t expect the south of France to be sunshine and rainbows 12 months a year, but honestly, the other day it was warmer in Edinburgh than in Toulouse. And so, understandably, I’m in hibernation. The shutters are down, metaphorically…
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Easy Stovetop Maple Pecan Granola
It’s often at this time of day – around 4pm – that my stomach alarm clock tinkles gently. It’s not the alarming buzz of the one which always inconveniently rings whenever there’s a moment of silence whilst in company; my physio is very polite and hasn’t mentioned it yet. But at 4pm I am alerted…
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Toffee Apple Pie with Easy Homemade Pastry
The beginning of November is marked by a sudden chill in the air, cold hands and feet for people with poor circulation (including yours truly), conkers and shiny toffee apples. Or at least, the toffee apples make an appearance in the UK, the same can’t be said for here in France. So, to recreate that…
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Spiced butternut squash muffins
This post was originally published while I was living in Manchester, on 29th October 2018, and I think these little spiced butternut squash muffins deserve so much more from me than being buried in my archives! Here they are with some updated photos. The spooky glamour of Halloween ended quite abruptly for me a couple…
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How to make crumpets
Gaylord will be the first to tell you that I am a messy cook. According to him, when he’s faced with the washing up which I always insist ‘really isn’t that much’, I have somehow managed to use every pan that we own to make breakfast. In my defence, Turkish eggs – poached eggs served…
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Apple and Custard Cinnamon Rolls
Unlike babka, whose introduction started with ‘the babka incident’, cinnamon rolls have always had a ubiquitous presence in my life. I don’t recall my first cinnamon roll, although while at university in Manchester, my friend Anthony and I once visited Rollers thanks to the intoxicating scent of cinnamon hitting us like a brick as we…
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French recipe: Creamy Leek and Potato Soup
To quote Elizabeth Gilbert, since living in France, “I’ve been doing rude things to my body.” However, it seems unlikely that this leek and potato soup will help. While Liz made sweet love to pizza and pasta and gelato in Rome over the course of four months in her book ‘Eat, Pray, Love’, I have…
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Classic lasagne with three cheeses
Before you immediately click off this recipe because of course you know how to make lasagne, or you may be apologetically shrugging as if to say ‘so sorry Ally but my mum’s recipe for lasagne is unbeatable’, I’m just going to quickly say – you haven’t tried this lasagne. And I’m also going to place…
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How to Make the Best Charcuterie Board
It was during my first visit to see Gaylord in France that I realised how seriously the French take charcuterie. While it took me another year to eat snails, then a whole year after that I finally encountered frogs legs, charcuterie has been a weekly snack since my plane touched down in 2020. As you…
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Moist Carrot Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
Unlike many bakers, I didn’t grow up baking at my grandmother’s knee. In fact, my most regular activity in my granny’s kitchen was drying the dishes (can you even qualify that as a skill? – ‘oh her baking is delicious’ ‘you haven’t seen anything, just watch her dry up’). My granny was of the generation…