Category: Breakfast

  • Panettone with Christmas cake ice cream

    Panettone with Christmas cake ice cream

    Oh the weather outside is frightfulBut the fire is so delightfulAnd since we’ve no place to goLet it snow, let it snow, let it snow Said no one in Wellington ever. This is what I’m having to put up with. For a summery, sunny city, however, there are surprising number of wintery scenes. Christmas cards…

  • Dinner on a budget: Bacon and egg congee

    Dinner on a budget: Bacon and egg congee

    We are all familiar with that countdown to January payday. Those five weeks from Christmas to the end of the first month of the year lasts an eternally long time, years not weeks, as we wait, nervously gazing at our empty bank accounts and wondering how much we should chip into our savings. January is…

  • Eat the Seasons: Your Essential Guide to Autumn

    Eat the Seasons: Your Essential Guide to Autumn

    Without a doubt, autumn is most people’s favourite season, mine included. There is a freshness in the air after the sticky heat of summer, along with a brisk chill and lingering smell of smoke from the bonfire of dead leaves raked up in someone’s garden. You gradually add more layers to your wardrobe; thick jumpers,…

  • A Step-by-Step Guide: Strawberry and Star Anise Jam

    A Step-by-Step Guide: Strawberry and Star Anise Jam

    Sooo… It may be time to address the elephant in the room. The one covered in jam. One of my weaknesses is jam. (Correction: my only weakness? Alas, no, cake!) Any friendly, regular readers of these blog posts may recall the occasional tribute to jam – deliberating over it, buying it, eating it, fawning over…

  • Homemade granola

    Homemade granola

    It has always been assumed you’re either a morning person or not. Like the Marmite conundrum, you either love those early starts – some bounding out of bed at the sound of the tinny alarm bell, maybe even squeezing in an energising run to start the day – or you need multiple alarms to get…

  • Eat the Seasons: Spring

    Eat the Seasons: Spring

    Spring is here. The Beast from the East – although tremendously tiresome and dangerous – is a mere blip on our radar now we can do the important things, like wear trainers instead of winter boots. My feet actually feel lighter as I skip along through the overcast British drizzle. I wouldn’t go as far…

  • How to make the perfect scrambled eggs

    How to make the perfect scrambled eggs

    The first lesson at Leiths School of Food and Wine taught us how to scramble eggs. Our tutor was meticulous, regularly repeating, ‘Now, this is VERY important’ which I would immediately scribble down in my notebook margin, ‘very important!’ with lots of aggressive capital letters, and, like the good pupils we were, we all leaned…

  • The perfect Christmas hamper and Buck’s Fizz Marmalade

    The perfect Christmas hamper and Buck’s Fizz Marmalade

    Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without the obligatory food gift. Whether it’s a caddy of fancy tea or some homemade relish, we hope to extend the period of gastronomical indulgence beyond the last week of December. Long-life preserves, granola or spiced fudge can be stored in the stuffed ‘junk food cupboard’ (which, of course, everyone has)…

  • Toblerone for dinner

    Toblerone for dinner

    It’s Saturday evening and I’m in bed eating a Toblerone. I told myself to find a small package of this devilish triangular chocolate; a few quick nibbles and that’s it, I’m sedated from my chocolate cravings. This hunt for a small bar was completely unsuccessful, however (do they only exist in duty free?) and I…

  • A perfect ingredient: eggs

    A perfect ingredient: eggs

    Our fridge is always overstocked with eggs. Sometimes we may have as many as twenty-four, a twelve-pack on top of the other creating a double-decker army of yolks and whites behind their amour of shells. Within hours this number depletes. How, I really don’t know, either we love them or we have an egg-stealing ninja…