Featured Recipe
Chicken Normandy
Wednesday, October 15, 2025 |
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A hearty French casserole that is perfect for a late-summer or fall weeknight meal. Normandy is a region in Northern France noted for its dairy, pastires and signature fruit – apple. So, rather than cooking chicken in chicken broth like many typical one-pot chicken meals, we used Calvados and apple cider for the recipe. If you don’t have Calvados at hand, just use regular brandy. For Chicken Normandy, firm, tart apples that can hold their shape during cooking are the best. I used Boskoop, but Braeburn, Granny Smith or Pink Lady are equally great.
Lamb and Date Pastry Rolls with Plum Ketchup
Monday, October 13, 2025 |
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Today I have another delicious snack idea and a quick recipe using storebought puff pastry. These minced lamb puff pastry rolls with dates are really tasty, hearty finger food that are sure to win you over with their unique flavour. The fact that they are quite easy to make is just another bonus for all snack lovers. These savoury pastry rolls definitely need a creamy sauce to go with them. As I used lamb, and it’s autumn, plum ketchup is the obvious choice. However, a simple garlic yoghurt dip or Greek tzatziki would also work very well.
Chewy Fig Leaf Sugar Cookie
Saturday, October 11, 2025 |
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These chewy cookies are just like a sugar cookie, but with fig leaf powder for a fun twist. Homemade fig leaf powder and infused oil adds notes of vanilla and coconut to a simple sugar cookie while fig leaf infused sugar lends a lovely green to the topping. You can leave them plain just like traditional sugar cookies or glaze them with some white chocolate.
Poppy and Plum Rolls
Thursday, October 09, 2025 |
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Fluffy, moist, fruity and delicious, these poppy seed and plum rolls are a real treat. They are perfect for your next birthday party or picnic. For these sweet dough buns, we start with a yeast dough with poppy seeds and prepare a cinnamony plum compote while the dough proves in a warm place until doubled. I set aside about a cup of compote as the serving sauce. Otherwise, they taste just as delicious with a vanilla sauce or a lemon icing.
Braised Chicken Thighs with Fig Leaves
Tuesday, October 07, 2025 |
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Fig leaves are used in cooking to flavour foods such as meat, cheese or desserts, to make fig leaf tea, flavoured sugar, liqueurs, syrup or oil or used as wrappers for fish. They are also traditionally used in baths to relieve rheumatic complaints and muscle tension. The distinctive flavour and aroma are reminiscent of toasted coconut and vanilla with a hint of green tea. In this recipe, I used a bouquet garni made with fresh fig leaves, spring onion gruns and coriander stems to infuse that coconuty vanilla flavour into the chicken thighs. If you have access to fresh fig leaves, then just use a traditional bouquet garni with a bay leaf, parsley stalks and a few sprigs of thyme together with a a strip of leek or celery. It’s not exactly the same thing, but delicious all the same.
Köttbullar – Classic Swedish Meatballs
Monday, October 06, 2025 |
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Köttbullar slathered in gravy and plated with mashed or boiled potatoes and lingonberry sauce are indisputably the national dish in Sweden. They are eaten everywhere: at home and parties, in canteens and fine dining restaurants, hospitals and prisons. Anyone who really thinks that authentic Swedish köttbullar should taste like they do at IKEA has never eaten any truly good one.
Everyone has their own favourite recipe, and most people will, of course, say that their mother's recipe is the best! Impress your friends with homemade Swedish meatballs using this simple recipe!
One of the secrets of this Swedish classic is the deliciously sweet caramelised onions and a dash of cream in the meat mixture. It's not just the meatballs that make this dish such a classic comfort meal, the creamy sauce is just as good. And don’t forget the lingonberry! If you cannot find lingonberry in your local supermarket, try IKEA or online shops or use cranberry sauce instead.
Fig Leaf Infused Sugar
Sunday, October 05, 2025 |
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Dry some fresh picked fig leaves in your oven or dehydrator at 40C/100C for about 2 hours until dry and crispy. Then grind them into a powder and mix with sugar. This create an infused sugar with a unique nutty, coconuty flavour with a hint of green tea for use in desserts, beverages, and baked goods. Use it like you do with vanilla sugar.
Crispy Tea-brined Chicken
Saturday, October 04, 2025 |
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Skin-on, boneless chicken legs marinated in a brine of freshly brewed tea seasoned with rosemary and pan seared to perfection. Serve with a nutritious gluten-free buckwheat salad.
You need to brine the chicken for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight, for the flavor to come through, or up to 24 hours. The aromatic salty-sweet brine pulls its flavors into the meat and tenderizes it before you begin cooking, you'll never eat dry chicken again with this method. This recipe used Darjeeling tea, but other black tea, like Early Grey, Lapsang souchong or Celyon black tea are great too.
Quince Jelly
Friday, October 03, 2025 |
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Quinces are sort of cousins to apples and pears, but they're an entirely different fruit altogether. They can’t be eaten fresh. To enjoy quinces, they must be cooked until completely soft and falling apart. When fresh, they’re hard as a rock, bitter and astringent. Once cooked, the cream coloured flesh will turn pink with a floral flavour.
The ingredients for this quince jelly are quite simple, and all you really need are quince, water and sugar. But a little bit of star anise, cinnamon, or ginger brings a warmth and extra dimension to the aroma of the fruit. Quince is very high in pectin, so lemon is not required for making the jelly. However, fresh lemon juice will heighten flavour of the fruit. You do not need to peel your quince before cooking it to make jelly. Nor do you need to core it. Just scrub off the furry coating and wash them clean before using.
Serve quince jelly as part of a cheeseboard, or alongside pork or game dishes, or with some homemade bread or crackers.
Kohlrabi Apple Carpaccio with Styrian Pumpkin Seed Oil Vinaigrette
Thursday, October 02, 2025 |
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This refreshing and crunchy carpaccio variation with kohlrabi and apples scores points thanks to its fresh ingredients and a nutty, earthy Styrian pumpkin seed oil vinaigrette. Toasted pepitas and parsley make great toppings. Easy and delicious!
Since pumpkin seed oil is rather thick, you can use 1-2 tablespoons water or broth to dilute the dressing. You can also make this into a simple salad by cutting kohlrabi and apple into sticks, which then tossed with the dressing.
Biscoff Cookie Butter Cookies
Wednesday, October 01, 2025 |
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These bakery style cookie butter cookies are absolutely irresistible. The dough, made with Lotus spread, Lotus biscuits and chocolate chips, is baked in the oven in no time at all to yield thick, chewy, rustic cookies. You won't be able to eat just one! You can either use Lotus Biscoff brand of cookie butter or other cookie butter. Feel free to swap out chocolate chips for butterscotch chips, white chocolate chips or even nuts, but keep the amount the same. For an even more chocolatey treat, dip them halfway into chocolate icing after they have cooled.
Sugar Free Italian Plum Ketchup
Tuesday, September 30, 2025 |
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A mild, fruity, and tangy ketchup made from large, sweet, and juicy Italian plums. You can certainly use other stone fruit. Use damsons if you can find them as they are spicy, tart with a high pectin content that makes them ideal for, ketchup, jams and preserves. If you’re looking to change up your normal routine, give this plum ketchup a try. It’s fast, easy, fun, and tasty. It should stay fresh in the fridge for a month since it contains no-added sugar.
Pumpkin Cheesecake Brownies
Monday, September 29, 2025 |
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Super chocolaty, moist and with a fine pumpkin cheesecake swirl: these pumpkin brownies literally melt in your mouth! Served with a hot cup of tea, they really put one in the mood for autumn.
Is there really pumpkin in there? DEFINITELY! The all-rounder Hokkaido is mixed into the brownie as a pumpkin cheesecake swirl. It not only gives the little chocolate cake a visual upgrade, but also a special juiciness and mild sweetness. Spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice are also included and make this autumnal treat perfect. If you like, you can also add a little ginger or simply use pumpkin pie spice blend. Fancy a little crunch? Then stir in some chopped nuts or pumpkin seeds to the batter.