All That I'm Eating

Recipe ideas for budget meals, everyday cooking and a little indulgence. Travel inspiration and restaurant reviews too.

Mince Pie Crumble Bars

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Mince Pie Crumble Bars, out of the oven

In my perfect world, a mince pie would be 70% pastry, 30% mincemeat. It’s not that I don’t like mincemeat I just don’t like too much of it. That’s where my mince pie crumble bars come in. A thick layer of buttery shortbread, a spiced mincemeat middle and further crumbly shortbread on the top. Let’s be honest, it’s mostly biscuit with a hint of Christmas. Perfect.

Ingredients

You will need (for 12 mince pie crumble bars):

  • 300g softened butter
  • 100g sugar
  • 400g plain flour
  • 1 small jar mincemeat

Method

Grease and line a baking tray or dish. The one I used was approximately 20cm x 30cm. Preheat an oven to 170C. read more

Christmas Meal Plan

By 12 Comments

At Christmas there are four things that I like to do: eat, go for walks, play games and watch festive television shows. I do like to plan ahead and this year is no different with my Christmas meal plan. With a plan in place there’s no last minute rush to the shops for those forgotten ingredients and no blank looks when someone says “What’s for dinner?”. With a little bit of careful planning, some batch cooking and a few shortcuts I am looking forward to a relaxed festive break. read more

Mince Pie Fruit Loaf

By 18 Comments

Mince Pie Fruit Loaf Baked

I love a mince pie, but they have to be just right. I want the pastry to mince filling ratio to be almost 50:50; too much filling and you can forget it. Preferably my mince pies will be warm and covered in (clotted, ideally) cream. However, I can’t possibly eat that every single day and I still need my mince pie fix. This is how my Mince Pie Fruit Loaf came about; designed to have all the fruity spiciness from a mince pie but without the pastry and cream. Don’t worry, there’s still plenty of butter for spreading!

Ingredients

You will need for one loaf:

  • 30g dried cranberries
  • 125g raisins or sultanas
  • 60g dried figs, chopped
  • 300ml strong Lady Grey tea
  • 425g strong white bread flour
  • 7g fast action yeast
  • 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg, grated
  • 1/2 tsp mixed spice
  • 30g caster sugar
  • Zest 1 orange
  • 60g butter, melted
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 150ml milk, plus extra for brushing

Method

Stir the cranberries, raisins and figs together with the tea then leave to stand for an hour or so. Drain well and put to one side.

I used a mixer for this recipe but you could easily make it by hand with a bowl and a wooden spoon.

Add the flour, yeast, spices, sugar and orange zest to a mixing bowl and stir lightly to mix it all together.

Whisk the melted butter, milk and egg together in a small bowl. While the mixer is on a low speed slowly pour in the milk mixture. Once it’s all been added increase the speed slightly and tip in the drained fruit.

Knead the bread in the mixer for five minutes or so. Cover the bowl and leave the bread in a warm place for 50 minutes or until doubled in size.

Lightly flour a standard sized loaf tin. Knock back the dough lightly then shape it to fit the loaf tin and pop it into the tin. Cover again and leave in a warm place for another 30 minutes.

Preheat an oven to 190C. Brush the top of the bread with a little milk then bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes and the top is golden brown.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool a little before removing from the tin and cooling on a wire rack.

This fruit loaf is wonderful in two ways. Firstly, take a slice when it’s cooling down after baking and just watch the butter melt into the bread. The photo above shows my very lumpy butter, that’s how I like it so it forms pools across the slice as it melts. Secondly, serve it toasted for breakfast, again with a good scraping of butter. The fruit, spices and orange are so festive and it keeps so well you can enjoy it for days.

Ultimate Hot Chocolate Gifts

By 11 Comments

Assembling the hot chocolate gifts in jars

I love a good hot chocolate; not too sweet, not too bitter but full of chocolate flavour and I have been working on perfecting my recipe for the ultimate hot chocolate. This recipe is too good not to share, and what nicer way to share it than making some (ever so pretty) make-your-own hot chocolate gifts. You need only four ingredients, a few empty jars, some string, paper and your very neatest handwriting. A word of warning: make sure you make enough to keep one for yourself.

Below are the amounts to make enough mixture for one person so double, triple, quadruple and all sorts depending on who you are making for.

You will need (per person):

  • 1 tsp sugar – use golden caster sugar for a lovely caramely flavour
  • 2 tsp cocoa powder
  • 2 tsp malted milk drink (Horlicks or similar)
  • 2 tsp dark chocolate, chopped

Make up the jars however you like along with instructions for how much milk to add. For each person to make an average mug you need to add 150ml milk and the hot chocolate mix to a saucepan. Whisk and gently heat it all through until smooth and warm.

The jar below contains enough mixture for two people so I gave it to my parents to enjoy in a moment of calm before Christmas.

I love giving something homemade as a gift and this one requires absolutely no artistic skills whatsoever. Fine by me, I am somewhat lacking in the dexterous department. For something to go with the hot chocolate you could try making some of the pretzel christmas trees. They take barely any time to make either so these are ideal as last minute gift ideas. With this hot chocolate mix I can safely stop looking to improve on my recipe; this is my absolute ultimate hot chocolate so I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Christmas Food and Gift Guide

By 7 Comments

Berry Brothers and Rudd

If someone is kind enough to get me a gift for Christmas I love it when said gift is food or food related. I think it’s a very personal thing to give, whether it be something they have made themselves or taken time in choosing for you. This is my Christmas Food and Gift Guide; a range of different food and drink ideas from all sorts of places and companies.

Berry Brothers and Rudd had their Christmas preview all the way back in July when I ventured to the famous shop in London to learn more about their festive offerings. There were plenty of fabulous hampers, some just wine and some wine and food, to see and they all sounded great. A particular mention must go to the Cambrook caramelised peanuts that come in one of the hampers, they were absolutely delicious. Their signature gin (above) was very enjoyable too. Berry Brothers and Rudd don’t have a fantastic reputation and pedigree for nothing so you know if you’re getting wine from them it will be a fine example of that wine. They have launched their new book ‘Exploring and Tasting Wine’ which I am keeping my fingers crossed I get a copy of this year! Exploring and Tasting Wine is £30 and their hampers start at £31.50. read more

Cranberry and Pistachio Chocolate Truffles

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Cranberry and Pistachio Chocolate Truffles

I can find it hard to know what to give people for gifts. When I’m not sure I normally cook or make something for them instead; it’s personal and I quite enjoy doing it. This is the other recipe that I developed for Kenwood (see crumble here) and I think they look a bit like Brussels sprouts if you stand far enough away (and squint). My recipe for Cranberry and Pistachio Chocolate Truffles is really simple and I find I usually have these ingredients in the cupboard at this time of year.

Ingredients

You will need (to make at least 12-15 truffles):

  • 150g good quality dark chocolate (70%)
  • 150ml double cream
  • 25g dried cranberries, roughly chopped
  • 75g shelled pistachios

Method

Break the chocolate into pieces and add to the bowl of your mixer.

Heat the cream in a pan until almost boiling.

Turn the mixer on to a low speed then pour the hot cream over the chocolate. Turn the mixer speed up a litter for a few seconds to thoroughly mix in all the chocolate. If you need to, scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure all the chocolate melts.

When it looks well combined, add the chopped cranberries then give it all one final mix before pouring into a bowl and putting in the fridge to set.

Blend the pistachios in a food processor to a fine crumb.

When the truffle mixture has set (at least 30 minutes in the fridge) spoon out the mix into portions then roll into a ball with your hands. Roll each truffle in the crumbled pistachios.

Rolling the truffles is really therapeutic but you will get chocolately hands so don’t say I didn’t warn you! I hope you enjoyed watching the film that goes with making these. Using the mixer for this means the truffles cool down a bit quicker so if you’re in a trifle of a truffle rush and need some quick it can help speed it up. The dark chocolate is so good with the sweet, sharp cranberries and the crumbled pistachios aren’t just for looks, they give a great flavour and crunch too.

Thank you to Kenwood for my Chef Sense Mixer and for the days filming. All opinions and words are my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that support me.

Christmas Food Gift Ideas

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Christmas Food Gift Guide - All That I'm Eating (1 of 4)

Every year I have at least one person say something like, “Oi, you like food, what do I get >insert friend/relative/colleague’s name here< for Christmas? They like food too”. Firstly I am never likely to respond to an, “Oi”, but talk about the impossible question. How do I know that they do or don’t like blue cheese, a selection of miniature spirits, dark chocolate or that special coffee that comes out of a kopi luwak? So for all of you who have someone even mildly interested in food to buy for, here are some Christmas food gift ideas. The list may get a little longer if I try anything from now on that I think is worthy of including.

Carluccios Christmas Food Range

Way back in July I went up to London for a Christmas in July event held by Carluccios. It was the hottest day of the year so far but that didn’t stop them from creating a very pretty snow scene out the front of the shop. I ate a huge variety of different festive treats and really liked that they had three different panettones (all with wonderful packaging) to choose from depending on your taste.

The packaging across the whole Christmas range was really nice; it is distinctive and classy and the gift sets (sweet and savoury) would make a great gift. A few things deserve a special mention for being too moreish:

  • Perle di Mandorlato (£6.95/130g) – chopped torrone, almonds, honey and a little salt all mixed together coated in caramel and white chocolate. Not something that I would normally go for but these were so good and I’ve not had anything similar before or since.
  • Struffoli (£2.95/80g) – (a wonderful word to say) they are deep fried pieces of dough, tossed in honey and sprinkled with hundreds and thousands and candied peel.
  • Babà al Limoncello (part of the Festa dei Limoni set £29.95) – little sponge cakes soaked in Limoncello syrup. Ignore the instructions to serve with coffee, mascarpone or ice cream and just get a fork.

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    Boozy Hot Chocolate with Nutmeg Marshmallows

    By 12 Comments

    homemade marshmallows on top of hot chocolate

    Marshmallows have always scared me a little; I thought they were terribly complicated to make and completely not worth the time. As it turns out they take nowhere near as much time or effort as I anticipated and they are so much better than any marshmallow I have had before. So to end my series of festive posts this makes a great winter evening drink. Add a little rum for the adults and a little extra milk for the children, a marshmallow in the mug and even better if you have some forks and an open fire to toast the rest.
    If you don’t fancy adding any alcohol then leave it out, or you could give these peanut butter hot chocolates a try instead!

    Ingredients

    You will need (for two hot chocolates):

    • 60g 70% dark chocolate
    • 50ml rum, whisky or Cointreau
    • 225ml whole milk

     
    You will need (for plenty of nutmeg marshmallows):
     

    • 1 tbsp icing sugar
    • 1 tbsp cornflour
    • Vegetable oil
    • 8 sheets of gelatine
    • 2 egg whites
    • 450g unrefined caster sugar
    • Nutmeg

    Method

    Sift the icing sugar and cornflour together. Rub a tin lightly with the vegetable oil then dust with the cornflour sugar mix.

    Put the caster sugar in a pan with 200ml water and bring to the boil. Boil until it reaches 127C on a sugar thermometer.

    While you wait for the sugar to boil put the gelatine sheets into 150ml water. read more

    Potato, Swede and Bacon Dauphinoise

    By 4 Comments

    Roast potatoes are important in any roast dinner. Sometimes I find I can pay them a bit too much attention and end up spending less time on the other vegetables. This dauphinoise recipe is a great way to use some swede to make a great side dish and also incorporates potatoes so you can do a two in one. Not to be greedy but there’s no reason you couldn’t have this and roast potatoes for a roast! read more

    Christmas Trifle

    By 10 Comments

    I’m not one for Christmas pudding or Christmas cake. It’s a bit too intense for me. I think if I made my own my opinion may change but until then I’ll stick to alternatives. It doesn’t help that I despise marzipan. To make an equally lovely centrepiece I thought I’d try my hand at a festive trifle: mulled wine jelly, panettone and orange juice and softly whipped cream reminiscent of a snow scene. All it needs is some edible glitter; but they’d run out when I went to get some. read more

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