Dinner Party Triumph

In the midst of my house smelling like an authentic Italian home (picture one of those picturesque little places, nestled deep in the lush hills of Tuscany) home to an Italian mumma who looks strangely like me, only slightly more harassed and more-than-a-little sweaty...it is here that some truly wonderful dinner party creations have been born over the last fortnight; through blood, sweat and tears.

For the past two weeks my boyfriend I have been having a Come-Dine-With-Me-Off with my brother and his girlfriend, with some memorably wonderful and unforgettably bad outcomes, and today I'm going to share the peaks and troughs with you. 

As you know, I'm always in the market for stress-free and taste-full, so this was a perfect opportunity to stretch my kitchen-legs, to flex those admirable cooking biceps, if you will; it could have all gone horribly wrong, especially with such feigned self-belief as that.

This wondrous cook-off idea was mine…after I had cooked a distinctly average spaghetti bolognese accompanied by garlic bread and a little vin rouge (okay, more than a little vin rouge) and a rather-better fruit-bowl crumble, the recipe for which can be found by clicking here. However, this idea led to rather more exciting times than my first and best attempt at feeding everyone, on a rather fragile and slow-moving Sunday. While not particularly exciting, the best advice I can offer you when cooking a spaghetti bolognese is that ketchup, HP Sauce, Lea & Perrins and red wine (one for the dish, two for you, naturally) are the key to worldwide fame in the spag bol department. Not particularly like-a-mumma-used-to-make, but a serious goody nonetheless.

Following this was the first week's trials which firstly saw my (irritatingly lazy/good at cooking when he bothers, instead of ordering a chicken chow mein) brother cook up and absolute storm, with one of the best soup's I've ever tried, later deemed Max's Marvellous Mushroom Soup. To make this truly marvellous creation (I urge you to do this) here's the recipe and method for you, it's enough to serve 4:

Ingredients:

800g button mushrooms
4 spring onions, finely chopped
2g of chive stalks, chopped
2g basil leaves, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
600ml of double cream
1 vegetable stock cube, made into broth
Chilli flakes, optional

Method:

1.) Put your spring onions, chives and basil in butter for a couple of minutes on a high heat, before placing all your mushrooms into the mix. Be sure to add olive oil to ensure you don't burn your mushrooms, cook until reduced a little, then add more butter.
2.) Once reduced, add your prepared stock, then cover and reduce the mixture by half (approximately 10 minutes.)
3.) Blend the mixture, place back into the pan, add your cream, chilli flakes and salt and pepper to taste and cook for a further five minutes, with the lid back on until reduced further.
4.) Blitz for a final time to ensure it is completely smooth and place back on the heat, until suitably warmed before serving.

As you can imagine this simple, rustic but smooth, luxurious soup went down an absolute storm and has been requested/created again since, I have a feeling it will be a firm household favourite in years to come, much to the annoyance of the part of me that still suffers from the curse of lifelong sibling rivalry on an almost daily basis.

The following day saw my boyfriend cook-up a heart attack for each of us, including chicken burgers in cheesy rolls with what we like to call 'fake cheese', we all know what we mean, those perfectly shiny squares of bright orange 'cheese'. I'd hate to see what kind of crazy cow it's made from.
His dish was finished off with mozzarella dippers and sweet potato fries, you know, just in case we hadn't all had enough carbs. Alas, his final dinner more than compensated for this slight oversight and temporary lapse in judgment. Oh the indigestion. Oh the meat sweats.

The next night my brother's girlfriend cooked up a healthy delight (thank goodness) including cooked peppers with overflowing spicy rice, chicken in a garlic and herb sauce and some homemade sweet potato fries. This was finished by the last triumph-of-other-people dish I will mention, before moving on to a well-kept family secret recipe. 

She made adorable puff pastry hearts, packed full of crème fraîche and topped with drizzly chocolate, with gorgeous little chocolatey strawberries served chilled, to the side. 

Adorable, girly and not completely awful for the waistline. Bravo.

Here's how she did it, again, it's enough to make 4:

Ingredients:

Ready-to-roll puff pastry (it's not lazy, it's efficient)
1 egg, beaten
1 pot of crème fraîche 
300g of milk chocolate
250g fresh strawberries
A sprinkle of sugar

Method:

1.) Cut your puff pastry into hearts and use a pastry brush to brush the beaten egg over each heart, before dusting with a little sugar and placing into the oven, on greaseproof paper for 10-15 minutes at 180 degrees, based on a fan assisted oven.
2.) Once cooked through, remove and leave to cool, before slicing each heart in half.
3.) Once sliced, add your crème fraîche and then, when ready place the two halves back together before drizzling yummy chocolate over them.
4.) Lastly, heat up your remaining chocolate and dip the whole strawberries into it, before leaving to one side to cool on some baking parchment.
5.) Serve together and enjoy.

Lastly, on the final and closing night, the fun and frolics fell to me and I decided to do a three course-er, no pressure whatsoever was put on oneself as, of course, one doesn't like to put pressure on oneself at all, does one? Sod that, the pressure was sodding high. Sod, sod, sod.

Growing up my favourite thing in the world, which I genuinely believed God created just for my pleasure (I'm not even religious, but feelings such as that would wash over me like a heavenly cloud with each spoonful) was my Grandma's Lemon Syllabub. Or, as I like to think of it, my Grandma's soaked-in-sherry, oh yeh, right up to the top, it's-lemon-but-that-doesn't-make-you-healthy-it-still-makes-you-a-total-lush-because-it-is-so-full-of-sherry syllabub. 

For my dessert, guess what, my interpretation happened - an interpretation that left everyone hiccuping naughtily and with satisfied, lemon-fuelled, smug looks on their faces.

Begrudgingly, I share the recipe with you now. I say begrudgingly because I fear we will now have a mass exodus of the following items listed in supermarkets all over the world this summer, once you mix all the ingredients together and experience something I suggest you all do, sooner rather than later. 

This recipe offers enough to serve eight people (who have a normal sized appetite for such dishes) or one person (for those, such as myself, who can be utterly dangerous with a large bowl of such yumminess and only one spoon.)

Ingredients:

One pint of double cream
175g caster sugar
Juice and rind of three large, unwaxed lemons
10 tbsp of medium dry sherry (I used Harveys Bristol Cream)

Method:

1.) Firstly grate the rinds of your lemons and place into a large mixing bowl, before squeezing all the juice you can out of the lemons and into the same bowl. 
2.) Then add your sugar, cream and sherry and beat with an electric whisk until thick. Don't over-beat this mixture or it will spoil. You want it like a thick, almost mousse-type consistency.
3.) Place in the fridge for approximately two hours, until set, and serve. I served mine with shortbread rounds which worked perfectly.

After all was eaten and drunk and I felt like I had just completed the London Marathon, I opted to force everyone to have a shot of Schnapps (a-la-after a meal on a European summer holiday style) and we all had the best sleep of our lives. THE END.

PS - if you do take me up on any of these dinner party highlights, then I salute you. Good luck. Go forth and make/break friendships, sweats and crockery. It's a whole lot of fun, if nothing else.

Heaven on the Hill

Today I'm going to be waxing lyrical about my favourite use of commercial space in Frome...Herbs on the Hill. It's a little shop that packs a massive punch. When you first walk in you want to have a quick shower, fall asleep on the spot and go out for a night with your friends...which other shop in the world can offer than with just one pungent smell?

There's little more I love in life than a boiling hot bubble bath, it's the perfect end to any day: tricky, upsetting, happy, exciting...a moment of perfect, bubbly reflection and total content with nothing more than me, myself and I (and the occasional rubber duck, on those aforementioned happy days.) 

Herbs on the Hill seeks to make my already fabulous bath times even better and as a local equivalent of LUSH, it hugely succeeds in doing so with melts and fizzy or glittery offerings to catch my aquatically magpie-esque eye.

Having recently been in Frome on a casual visit, I came home with a box of five delectable bubbly offerings (sorry not sorry) and I wanted to share my fabulous bath time experiences with you, as a result of these showstoppers.

With a wide selection of bath creamers and bath bombs, I urge you to buy them both with the sole propose of using together. This combination means you have all the fun of a bath bomb, but spend the evening also feeling moisturised, due to those yummy melts. The best of both worlds for anyone who's ever bathed, or lived...whichever sounds more dramatic.

Herbs on the Hill's costings for the above items start from about £2.50 making it an affordable bit of luxury, for your every day. I suggest you visit the shop and, to save you some time, here's their address:

30 Catherine Hill,

Frome, 

Somerset,

BA11 1BY

Or failing that, they have a bath-porny website where you can spend a few minutes scrolling through, lusting after your next soak which you can find by clicking here.

Whatever you do, enjoy your bath. Don't ever let anyone hurry you or tell you your skin will be ruined by spending hours in there or deny you the wonder of having a book in one hand, a glass of wine in the other and hot water all around you.

It's one of life's simple pleasures and one to be thoroughly, diva-ly enjoyed. Uninterrupted and unapologetically.

Strawberry Milkshake Cupcakes

Now it's officially summer, or at least, the British version of it (only us Brits would dash outside, with an ice-cold Pimms in hand, ready for some hardcore sunbathing when in reality it's only a little bit sunny, with a surprising chill of those subzero temperatures offered in January still in the air. We will get rid of those faded vest top tan lines, we will…we will.) And that means that it's time to bake in accordance with these new (not to subtropical) climes, so this weekend I whipped up some heavenly Strawberry Milkshake Cupcakes. Bake and enjoy them, I urge you.

These little cakes have plenty of fresh ingredients in them, so it's best to ensure they are kept chilled which, to be honest, adds to the various thrills these little cakes offer. They are a fresh, cakey milkshake of a treat and, if you're anything like me, then you will have often guzzled down a milkshake and thought, "What's the one thing that could make this more heavenly?" and left yourself with no other option or answer, other than, "if it was cakey. Yeh, that would be good."
Although to be honest, that's a relatively standard way to make things better in my world. Oh, the cakiness, the chilledness and oh, OH, the milkshakiness. All hail the almighty flavour-combining powers of the cupcake.

As you can see from my pictures, I topped mine with half a strawberry which looks adorable and more than a little bit British Summertime themed, however do be aware this may shorten the shelf life of your cakes. If you don't eat your cakes quickly once they're baked (I've never known or affiliated myself with someone who is like this, but I'm told that such people exist) then you may wish to replace this with something that's blessed with a little more longevity; there's a time and a place for a trusty sprinkle.

Phew, that's enough of my cake-loving/general ramblings. Here's the recipe for you, go forth and bake.

Ingredients (makes approx 12 cupcakes) :

For the sponge:

70g butter
250g caster sugar
2 large eggs
210g plain flour
100g strawberry milkshake powder (Nesquick is the money shot)
1 tbsp baking powder
220ml semi-skimmed milk

For the icing:

190g butter
600g icing sugar
70ml semi-skimmed milk
175g of strawberry milkshake powder
6 fresh strawberries, halved to decorate
(A couple of drops of red food colouring is optional at this point, don't go made with it though or you'll have a chemically tasting cake problem on your hands)

Method:

1.) Preheat your oven to 170 degrees (based on a fan assisted oven) and select some adorable cupcake cases (take your time choosing these, it's a moment of creative self-indulgence that I truly enjoy, and a little of it, I'm convinced, does you good.)

2.) Beat together all the sponge ingredients until smooth and light, before spooning into the cases and cooking for 20-25 minutes, or until they are cooked through.

3.) Remove and leave to cool completely. This should take approximately one hour, so go walk your dog, read that book you're enjoying or watch a short film but definitely don't fill this time with anything horrid. No ironing, eating salad or talking to boring people, please. Please promise me you won't.

4.) Beat together all the frosting ingredients and pipe onto your cakes before finishing off with half a fresh strawberry (or a failsafe sprinkle or two, as discussed.)

5.) Sit back, eat, get all nostalgic about how these cakes taste of your childhood summers and then go get another one. Blame me, I'm ok with it.

6.) Repeat