Feast of Easter

Made Simnel cake, Easter biscuits and Chocolate Nests - sampled each one

Had an Easter Egg Hunt - ate a chocolate egg

Sported Easter Bunny glasses - very fetching

Decorated hard boiled eggs - didn't win a prize (and didn't eat them)

Next year - egg rolling and Easter bonnet parade I think. Watch this space!

Happy Easter everyone

Choco-lots

Easter is approaching and the shops are full of chocolate eggs. Well, let's face it, they've been around since Boxing Day and I have already succumbed to several Cadbury's cream eggs this year. Abroad shop windows glisten with glossy chocolate displays. In Utrecht we saw their home bred Miffy chocolate rabbit disappearing down a chocolate rabbit hole. A friend brought her son a beautiful chocolate sphere from Tuscany and when he opened it there was a penknife inside! Not sure how that got through customs!

In the last year I have had some strangely named chocolate from the continent. Fuchs from Switzerland; Bumm in Budapest and just shared Tony Chocolonely in Holland!

Regular readers will know I am something of a chocoholic and I look forward to receiving my very own chocolate egg which I hope not to have to share with anyone! 

Going Dutch

Four days away with three friends visiting three destinations in Holland. The trip was organised for we art lovers who also, it turns out, appreciate floral arrangements and enjoy food. I was the lone vegetarian and was anxious to try Dutch food.

My main courses consisted of a satisfying omelette brunch, a Greek version of Melanzane parmigiana and Italian pasta and pizza. Not very Dutch I agree. However, in one typically Dutch restaurant I enjoyed an appetiser of cheese with mustard, a main course of vegetables with croquettes and a dessert of apple tart which were all delicious. For snacks we had Patatje oorlog which are potato fries with a mayonnaise based dip. 

It would seem the Dutch are fond of all things sweet and the hotels and restaurants were generous with their cakes and sweetie bowls.

Breakfast in one hotel brought back childhood memories. In 1970 our family stayed with friends in Holland. Bear in mind this was in the days before Nutella had hit our shores and chocolate for breakfast seemed outrageous. My eight year old eyes had popped out on stalks to witness Hans, Annette and Diane sprinkling their morning bread with Hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles). Naturally my sister and I had joined in, luxuriating in the decadence of such a sweet treat at breakfast. Trying it again in 2017 was almost as much fun.

We also ate Stroopwafel which is a thin waffle filled with a sweet, sticky syrup. These are available back in the UK and my son has taught me to balance one on top of my steaming cup of tea until it's soft and pliable. Just watch out it doesn't fall in though!

Mum's the word

This saying means it's a secret/say nothing about this. I, however, am happy to share and tell you I've had a lovely Mother's Day spent with one of my children, my mum and my mother-in law. Lucky us.

Breakfast was made by my daughter. Banana and Blueberry French toast with a dollop of yogurt on the side. It's actually a recipe created by Jamie Oliver some years ago for Red Nose Day.

Butter bread thinly on both sides

Toss berries in honey to sweeten 

Mash bananas & add to blueberries

Beat eggs in a bowl with caster sugar & splash of milk

Dip bread in until soaked

Sandwich fruit mix between 2 slices of eggy bread

Fry on both sides in a little butter pressing down all the time

Once golden & crisp remove from pan & dust with icing sugar

Serve with either yogurt, ice cream, cream, creme fraiche & remaining fruit

Something scrummy for your mummy! 

Taste not waste

I hate to waste food and try to think up ways of using left-overs whenever possible. You can type your list of sad and lonely ingredients into Google and it will come up with a recipe.

The things I throw out the most are soft, sprouting potatoes, bags of half eaten lettuce and bread! I try to make breadcrumbs when the bread is stale but sometimes it becomes a race against mould! The other problem is that I still shop for a family of four, forgetting that my children have (temporarily) flown the nest to University.

And then there are the things I hang on to. This week I performed a cull on my dried herbs and spices. Like the Michael McIntyre sketch, they sit there at the back of the cupboard waiting to be used whilst "arrogant" salt and pepper sit on the kitchen table. There were many out of date culprits, the worst being cayenne pepper dated December 1998! OMG! That one has moved house with us ... twice!

Filled with heavenly benediction

Woke up to spring sunshine so after walking the dog I went out for Sunday Brunch. On the menu; Eggs Benedict served with spinach, upon request, (instead of ham). I quite often make poached eggs on toast at home but it seems more of a treat to eat them Benedict style on an English muffin with just a smidge of brown sauce on the side.

There are several theories as to why these eggs are so named but the most likely is that New Yorker Lemuel Benedict visited the Waldorf Astoria and asked for a hangover cure combination of toast, bacon, two poached eggs and a hooker (splodge) of hollandaise sauce. And the rest, as they say, is history.

On a Jamie Oliver Ministry of Food course some years ago, the first thing we were taught was how to make the perfect poached eggs. Friends scoffed at how basic a lesson that was. However, since then I have followed the simple rules and, in our house at least, am a legend in that department. Look it up. I'm sure Jamie won't mind you poaching his ideas!

Giving vegetarians the heads-up

At my History of Art class this week we touched on the 16th century Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo.  The son of Biagio, he worked on stained glass windows and frescoes. He was famous for his portraits, done using fruit, vegetables, flowers (and sometimes fish) arranged in such a way as to represent a likeness of his subject.

These portraits were a very early form of surrealism and could very well be the symbol of vegetarianism! Instead of the classic green V sign on our labels, how great would it be to have a work of art staring back at us.

Funnily enough, we call old people with white curly, permed or set hair "cauliflower heads" as in "we'll catch the biddy bus with all the cauliflower heads!" Arcimboldo was definitely a-head of his time.