Favourite Recipes and Cookbook Recommendations!
6 of our favourite published recipes from our own cookbooks and 2 new books that have arrived on our shelves!
Like so many of you, Lisa and I are having a bit of a “crazy daisy time” at the moment. Schools, colleges and the sun is out and things are ridiculously busy. We appreciate your taking time out to (hopefully) enjoy our most recent newsletter. If you don’t already you can subscribe to receive future editions by hitting the button below.
Lisa is entertaining a houseful, with her lovely parents staying for a fortnight (who I’m so pleased to have met when we visited in 2022) and Lexie is home, too.
For me - it’s planning as my son, George, who many of you know, is off to University in Bristol and moves in two weeks time! Weirdly his two drum kits are staying here. Excitement and nerves for both of us.
Usually we would now be posting our monthly update on “What is in Season” for the month. A huge amount of work goes into this particular monthly newsletter, and we are putting our hands up and saying “sorry - we are struggling a bit”. Never fear though, it is on the way and will be with you next week. We are so thrilled with the feedback we receive about this newsletter and are still dancing with excitement that Substack chose this as a featured newsletter a couple of months ago. We must be doing something right!!!
But we don’t get off that easily! Instead we are here - talking about one of our favourite subjects — cooking and cookbooks!
If you wonder where we hang out when we're not cooking or writing our Substack, we’re over on Instagram! Come follow us if you love videos, more inside scoop into our lives and kitchens, frivolity and fun!
Scroll on down for favorite recipes from our own cookbooks! We’ve each picked 3 which was a challenge! Sort of like picking a favorite child.
COOKERY BOOKS!!!
We both have a recommendation for you for recently purchased cookery books, and we would also like to share with you three stonking favourite recipes included in one or ‘tuther of our own two published cookbooks!
Jane’s Choice
So Good - Emily English
Food you want to eat, designed by a nutritionist.
It is a rare thing, when someone makes a recommendation to me to buy a cookery book, but that is just how this one came onto my radar. My lovely pal, Em, recommended this book. She had and still is enjoying creating the meals featured.
She is right. I browsed through the recipes, with an “OOOh that looks good” or “must try that one” - by the end, I was reaching for the post-it pad to mark which were taking my fancy.
I should add for all of the many, many hundreds of cookery books on my shelves, I am so rubbish at actually cooking recipes from them. I’ll take one to bed and browse through it, like a good novel, but rarely does it make it to my kitchen to cook a dish!
This is a great book to trigger your interest in “Eating Healthily”. The recipes, yes are healthy, but they look great and really appeal to my taste buds. An excellent selection is on offer for all meals of the day. I am really keen on improving my own gut health, so I shall definitely be trying these recipes (amongst others)
Toasted Sesame & Ginger Chicken Salad
Fish Pie with Garlic & Parmesan Crumb
Matcha Overnight Oats.
It’s a GO BUY from me.
foodie notes: I’ll pop a flick through video on our Instagram page, so that you have more insight, if tempted to buy.
Lisa’s Choice
What’s Gaby Cooking - Grilling all the Things
If you look up “magnetic personality” in the dictionary, you’ll absolutely see a photo of Gaby Dalkin. Or, if you “Google”…….showing my age a bit! When she posts videos and Reels, you feel like you’re having a chat with a good friend. She’s one of the very first accounts I started following back in the early days of Instagram. Her recipes are as bright as she is, and being a California girl myself, the way she cooks, the ingredients she uses always reminds me of home.
This is her newest book and I was lucky enough to get a ticket to the book signing. It was at Crate and Barrel and they capped attendance because she also spoke and did a Q&A with her husband and dad. Since it was a smaller audience, and the setting a bit more intimate, we all got to know her a bit better and hear more of her story on how she started and how her background as a personal chef instigated her starting her food blog.
This is a fabulous book whether you are a grill aficionado, would love to grill but feel intimidated or are somewhere in the middle.
Some of my favorite recipes:
Juicy Lucy — the genius move with this burger is to put the cheese INSIDE the patty, so it melts out the instant you bite into it.
Spicy Whole Grilled Fish — grilling an entire fish is so much easier than grilling a fillet. My personal fav is branzino, if you can find it, but trout is also excellent!
(oooh Lisa, I’ve never heard of branzino - done a bit of research for a UK alternative and I am coming up with Sea Bass, Bream or Snapper as great options).
Grilled Caesar Salad — once you grill your romaine, there’s no going back!
Foodies Across the Pond Cookery Books
Here are the links to buy your books. Thank you in a advance, if you make a purchase.
The Recipes - 6 of our favourites from our own cookbooks
Sticky Date Cake
Any cake with dates in the ingredients is a safe bet as those sticky delicious dates, will help to keep your cake moist for longer. This is one of my absolute favourites!!!
Ingredients:
225g / 9oz pitted dates
300ml / 10floz boiling water
150g / 6oz caster sugar
100g / 4 oz unsalted butter
3 large eggs
200g / 8 oz self raising flour
1 x teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 x teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 x teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract
Toffee topping:
75g / 3oz soft brown sugar
50g / 2oz unsalted butter
3 x tablespoon thick double cream
22cm/9" loose bottomed or spring release round cake tin, greased.
Chop the dates and put in a bowl. Cover with the boiling water and set to one side to cool.
Directions
Preheat the oven to 180’c/350’f/Gas 4
In a bowl or mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until creamed, light and fluffy.
Crack the eggs into a bowl and lightly beat to loosen the yolks. Slowly add the egg to the butter mix bit by bit. If the mix starts to curdle, do not worry, just add a tablespoon of flour, before continuing with the eggs.
Mix together the flour, cinnamon, ginger. Fold into the cake mix, one tablespoon at a time. It will be a dry mix.
Add the vanilla and bicarb to the dates and water, combine and then pour into your cake batter. Stir until everything is mixed together and turn into the prepare cake tin.
Level and cook in the oven until well risen, golden and firm. This should take an hour. If you are not confident, cook for another 10 minutes. Leave in the cake tin.
Make the toffee topping for the cake. Put all of the ingredients into a saucepan and over a medium heat, stir until the sugar has dissolved. Increase the heat, so that the sauce starts to boil and then reduce to a simmer for three minutes.
Pour the toffee sauce over the cake and leave the tin on a wire cooling rack for everything to go cold. Once cold, remove from the tin, and slice ready for the picnic.
Foodie Notes: For a slightly more grown up cake add a couple of well chopped balls of stem ginger removed from their syrup.
Myrtle’s Gourmet Sausage Roll
Ingredients:
Makes 8 large or 16 cocktail size
2 packs ready rolled puff pastry
a little plain flour for dusting a surface
1 kilo/ 2 lb free range pork sausage meat
1 x large onion, finely chopped
2 teaspoon dried sage
1 x tablespoon fresh sage, chopped
2 x tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
1 x heaped tablespoon sundried tomatoes, chopped
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Beaten egg, loosened with a little milk for glazing
100g/ 4 oz grated parmesan cheese
1 x tablespoon nigella seeds (black onion seeds)
a slug of oil
Parchment
Instructions
Preheat oven to 180'c (fan oven)/350’f /gas mk 5
Warm a slug of oil and fry the chopped onion until soft and translucent. Leave to cool.
In a bowl, combine the sausage meat, onion, sage, parsley, tomatoes & seasoning. Combine well. I find it easiest to use my hands for this job.
Flour your surface and lay out your sheets of pastry. Divide each into two, along the length of the pastry.
Lay your sausage meat into two long thick sausage-like shapes, down the length of the 4 panels of pastry.
With a pastry brush, wet the edge of the pastry with water. Flip the pastry over to cover the sausage meat and to meet the other edge of the pastry. Press down to stick the two edge, forming your sausage roll Using the blunt side of a knife "knock back" the edge of the joint, by tapping the knife along the two joined edges of pastry.
Mark the size of the sausage roll that you would like and cut with a sharp knife.
Transfer to a baking sheet covered with a layer of parchment. Snip some air vents into the tops of the rolls, using a scissors and glaze each with egg wash. Sprinkle on the parmesan and onion seeds.
Bake. Timings will depend upon the size, I recommend starting to check after 20 minutes, though if large they will probably need 30 minutes.
I use a probe to check that the temperature is over 85'c/185'f, the pastry will be golden brown.
Transfer to a cooling rack and store in a refrigerator.
Foodie Notes:
These freeze brilliantly well cooked, or made and in the raw stage
Do invest in good quality free range pork, it makes the world of difference. I went through 5 butchers before finding the one i was happy with.
Gingerbread Marshmallows
A luxurious “hot chocolate” deserves special marshmallows. This is a recipe from “Sweet Tings” created by Annie Rigg. They make a special gift, are delicious toasted, but “WOW” with a hot choc! I recommend reading through the recipe before you start making. It helped me as I am a bit of a marshmallow novice, but now a total convert!!!
They should come with a warning as they are so delicious!
Makes 30
Ingredients:
Sunflower oil for greasing
2 tablespoons icing sugar
2 tablespoons cornflour
6 leaves – platinum grade gelatine
2 large egg white
200g / 8oz caster sugar
Pinch of salt
2 teaspoons ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Generous pinch of ground allspice
Generous pinch of ground cloves
Generous grating of nutmeg
100g / 4oz light soft brown sugar
2 tablespoons molasses or black treacle
2 tablespoons golden syrup
20cm Square baking tin
Sugar thermometer
Instructions:
Lightly grease the baking tin with sunflower oil, line with non-stick baking parchment, and lightly grease the parchment.
In a small bowl, combine the icing sugar and cornflour. Dust the inside of the lined tin with a tablespoon or so of the icing sugar mix.
Place the gelatine leaves in a bowl, cover with cold water and leave to soak and soften while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
Place the egg whites in the clean bowl of a free-standing mixer fitted with whisk attachment. Add 1 tablespoon of the caster sugar and salt, but do not start whisking yet. Mix all of the spices together in a small bowl.
Tip the remaining caster sugar, soft light brown sugar, molasses, and golden syrup into a medium sized saucepan. Add 150 ml water and set over a medium heat to dissolve the sugar. Bring to the boil and cook gently and steadily until the syrup reaches 120’c/248’f on the sugar thermometer.
Working quickly, slide the pan off the heat and start whisking the egg whites on a medium/fast speed until stiff peaks form. Drain the softened gelatine and blot dry on a clean tea towel. Add to the hot syrup and combine quickly with a rubber spatula.
With the mixer on slow/medium speed, pour the hot syrup on to the egg whites in a slow and steady stream. Take care not to pour onto the moving whisk, you do not want splatter. Be careful, this syrup is hot hot hot. The egg whites will foam as the hot syrup is added. Increase the speed and whisk for a further 3-4 minutes, until the mixture is thick and glossy.
Add the spices and whisk for 5 seconds to combine.
Pour the marshmallow into the prepared tin and spread until level. Leave to cool to room temperature, then cover with clingfilm and cover for 4 hours or overnight until firm.
Tip the reserved icing sugar mix onto a baking tray. Turn the marshmallow out of the tin and onto the baking tray and carefully peel off the lining paper. Use a greased knife to cut into pieces, tossing each piece into the icing sugar mix as you do so.
The marshmallows will keep for up to one week in an air tight box.
Gin and Elderflower Tonic
A gin and tonic, with extra lime, is one of my absolute favorite summer drinks. But I'm always looking for a way to make it even better. Adding a splash of elderflower liqueur amplifies the gorgeous botanical flavors in the gin. If you're not a fan of gin, I highly encourage you to try more botanical blends which taste more like citrus and less like a pine tree. Tonic matters, here, too, and Fever Tree really is the best.
Ingredients
2 ounces gin (or 2 shots) (I'm a huge fan of The Botanist, Hendrick's or Oola)
1 ounce (or 1 shot) elderflower liqueur (St. Germain is fabulous!)
Tonic water (highly recommend Fever Tree or Q)
fresh lime wedges
Directions
Fill a glass with ice. Add the gin and elderflower, mix gently with a spoon. Top off with tonic water and a couple wedges of fresh lime.
Cold Cucumber Soup
This is my mom's recipe and I can't remember a Summer when she DIDN'T make this. She made it for all her Summer parties, picnics, and nights at the Hollywood Bowl (a popular outdoor concert venue). On hot summer nights, she'd wake up early in the morning, while the house was still cool, to prep the soup. She usually served it with a chilled shrimp salad, but it's equally delicious next to all your grilled summer main dishes.
Ingredients
2 tablespoons butter
3 cucumbers (2 peeled & sliced, 1 peeled and grated)
1 leek (sliced, white part only)
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon flour
3 cups chicken stock
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup heavy/double cream
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
White pepper
Sour cream
A few sprigs of fresh dill
Directions
In a large stock pot, melt butter. Add 2 peeled and sliced cucumbers (reserve the 1 peeled and grated cucumber for later), leek and bay leaf. Sauté gently for about 20 minutes, or until tender but not browned. Stir in flour until fully incorporated. Add chicken stock and salt. Simmer for 30 minutes.
Blend mixture, half at a time, in an electric blender and strain through a fine sieve. Chill.
After it's had a chance to cool off, add the 1 peeled and grated cucumber you had set aside, cream, and lemon juice. Stir in dill and a sprinkle of white pepper. Chill in refrigerator for at least one hour or overnight.
Serve in chilled mugs with a garnish of sour cream and fresh dill.
Smoked Salmon Terrine
This is one of those apps that once you make it, your friends will ask for it again and again. You've been warned! It's also fabulous because you can make it early in the day, or even the day before!
Ingredients
8 ounces/220g cream cheese
4 ounces/110g fresh goat cheese
4 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
1 pound/460g smoked salmon, skin removed, flaked, divided (use hot smoked or cold smoked)
2 large radishes, trimmed, finely chopped
⅓ cup finely chopped red onion
½ cup drained capers, chopped (if you use the small capers, no need to chop)
3 tablespoons finely chopped chives
Pumpernickel bread, crackers, endive (for serving)
Directions
Line a 6"-diameter ring mold, 6"-diameter cake pan or spring form pan, or 16-oz. ramekin with plastic wrap, pressing it along the bottom and up the sides, leaving some plastic wrap overhanging the sides. Pulse cream cheese, goat cheese, and lemon zest in a food processor until well combined and very smooth and creamy.
Press a third of smoked salmon into an even layer across the bottom of mold. Spread half of cream cheese mixture evenly over salmon, smoothing surface with a rubber spatula.
Toss radishes and onion in a small bowl to combine, then scatter over cream cheese mixture and, using spatula, press down lightly into mixture. Top with half of remaining salmon, making an even layer, then scatter capers over. Spread remaining cream cheese mixture over capers and finish with a final layer of the remaining salmon.
Using the overhanging plastic wrap, cover dip with plastic wrap and chill at least 1 hour to let dip set and flavors meld.
Uncover dip and carefully invert onto a plate. Remove ring mold, then carefully peel away plastic. Top with a dollop of crème fraîche, caviar and chives.
Serve with endive, pumpernickel bread or crackers.
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xo
Lisa & Jane
Your Foodie Friends!
Just signed up the other day. Hubby and I are testing some of the cocktails for a dinner next Sat we are hosting. The Gin and Tonic kicked up a notch with the St Germain is fabuloso!!!! Even our 23 yr old son said "that is very nice". Tomorrow night will be trying out the blackberry one. Most likely making the cool cucumber soup for a first course. Tempted by the smoked salmon terrine for the app. Loving all the great insight. Thank you ladies!