• Shortbread in four different flavours; rosemary and sea salt, lavendar, chocolate and chilli, and Lime. My mum gave me a simple shortbread recipe which I have been using for the past three years and love it. They are incredibly easy to make and these new added flavours all turned out really well.
• Guinness cupcakes.  These were my least favourite creation from the evening. The miniature cakes themselves look great and are difficult to dry out because the beetroot keeps them moist and spongy. The disaster was the icing. The recipe was followed but it was so runny which made it difficult to work with if you want to make a cupcake look pretty.
• Banana Bread. I’ve made this plenty of times before but this time tried a new recipe and also added additional ingredients to it ; chopped walnuts, 1/4 tsp ground allspice, 1 tsp cinnamon. The result was perfect. The bread didn’t dry out which it often tends to do in my temperamental oven.
• Zucchini Ricotta Cheesecake. This was by far my favourite recipe from the baking session. Very similar to a quiche but without the pastry, this is a delicious melt in your mouth savoury cheesecake which is best served 10 minutes after exiting the oven or at room temperature the next day.

I was looking for vegetables to go with the Nigella Lawson Pork Steak with Port & Figs recipe I was preparing last night for four of us. There were three good sized stands, one organic, with a great selection of fruit and veg. I bought two huge bags of bramley apples and conference pears aswell which were very reasonably priced and all ended up in the apple crumble cake dessert. My other half also bought a selection of home made sausages and dry cured back bacon. We sampled lavendar jelly, banana jam ( which reminded me a bit of baby food), delicious melt in your mouth goats cheese, and ginger conserve.

The market was inspiring. Although smaller than expected ( perhaps it grows in the summer) it had a variety of stalls selling great produce and gave me plenty of ideas to start planning for our own food stall. Next farmer’s market on the list to explore is Stoke Newington.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to take a recipe book to my boyfriends so that I had something there for inspiration and would hopefully encourage me to start working through all the recipes I have marked in my ever expanding collection of cook books. Moro East was the chosen one and the first recipe I decided to try was Mansaf. Considered the national dish of Jordan, this saffron and yoghurt soup with miniature lamb meatballs is divine. The ingredients was doubled last Sunday so that we had enough to last us two lunches each at work. I would have happily had it for lunch every day this week, it just keeps you coming back for more. Unfortunately I can’t find a direct link to the recipe but I have found it on another person’s blog; Cooking Up A Storm.  The meatballs do take quite a long time to prepare but it is really worth it. Give yourself a couple of hours so that you have time to leave them in the fridge for at least 30 minutes whilst you start making the rest of the soup.

Photo Courtesy Blueberry Hill Cakes

A friend came over for dinner last night and very kindly brought with her a Blueberry Hill Valentines Biscuit which Harrods was stocking in their food hall up until 14 February. If you check out their blog you will see a great selection of photos showing the decoration process of these delicious treats.

Blueberry Hill Cakes was set up in 2010 by two university friends who both have a tremendous passion for baking. As you can see from their gallery they certainly have an eye for beautiful decoration producing a variety of cakes from Good old fashioned to Corporate and Bespoke.

If you are interested in sampling some of their creations, they will be running a Cake & Pampering Day at The Cavendish Arms, Stockwell on Sunday 18 March which happens to be Mothers Day. Visit their blog for further information and booking details.

Now that we’ve had snow it feels like finally we’ve had a proper winter so I thought I would share a really good warming dish a friend recently introduced me to. Chestnuts seem to be incredibly popular at the moment, or maybe I’ve only just picked up on how good they are to cook with. My favourite ice cream when we recently visited Milan was Chestnut and a friend made a brilliant roast just before Christmas which included chestnut stuffing. Two weeks ago was the first time I used chestnuts in a recipe and I’m so glad I did because now I’m keeping a look out for any other recipes which include this delicious ingredient.

Nigel Slater’s Chestnut stuffed mushrooms requires 3 tbsp madeira. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any on my shopping trip so I settled for sherry instead. In all honesty I couldn’t taste it at all and think it was a bit of waste buying a huge bottle. However I have used it several times since in a really lovely recipe; Sausages with Sherry Caramel Glazed Pears. Slater’s recipe is very easy to follow. The most time consuming part is chopping the chestnuts. It is meant to serve 3-4 but we still had plenty of stuffing for second helpings.

We bought a poulet au citron pre-prepared spice mixture whilst we were out there but that lasted about two seconds so I’ve tried several recipes hoping to find something that is equally as good. I can’t remember where I originally found this one but I have adapted it slightly and hope that it is relatively easy to follow. If you have a tagine dish to make this in that is great. I have one that can feed up to 4 so I tend to use a casserole dish if I’m feeding larger numbers.

tagine de poulet au citron (serves 6-8)

• 10 chicken thighs ( if you can buy a mixed pack with thighs and legs that is better)
• olive oil
• 1 lemon, chopped into 8 half moons
• 2 medium onions, roughly chopped
• 3 large tomatoes
• 3 carrots, cut into 1 inch chunks
• 7 new baby potatoes, cut into 1 inch chunks
• 2 large tsp ginger
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1 large tbsp honey
• 1 large handful of raisins or green olives
• 200ml vegetable/chicken stock
• 1 large handful of parsley, plus extra for serving
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. In a large casserole dish heat olive oil over a medium heat and add the chicken thighs. Cook for 5 minutes until they start to brown a bit. Whilst these are cooking peel the skin off your tomatoes ( the easiest way to do this is to put the tomatoes in a pan of boiling water for 1 minute. Run under cold water and leave to cool  then peel off the skin and cut into rough chunks)
2. Add the onions, tomatoes and ginger and cook for a further 2 minutes.
3. Pour in the stock with the honey,turmeric, potatoes and carrots. Put a lid over the dish and leave to simmer for 25 minutes.
4. Add the lemons and raisins/olives and leave to cook for a further 20 minutes.
5. Remove the lid and stir in the parsley.Season to taste. Continue cooking for a further 10 minutes then remove from the heat.
6. Serve with couscous and extra parsley.

The restaurant can be found in the second half of Brixton Village Market, a short walk from the tube station. Two of us shared the legendary butter bean and rosemary hummus topped with spiced ground lamb, pomegranate and parsley and the spicy lamb mergueze sausage wrap. I would have happily licked the plates clean.

Following on from that we selected a dessert from the specials board – orange blossom cake with cream cheese frosting.

With the Agile Rabbit directly opposite playing live music on Thursday and Friday evenings, the atmosphere was incredible. I’m already planning to go back next week and test their February menu.

This recipe comes from Dan Lepard and was featured in a December 2011 issue of The Guardian (I nearly always find an amazing new recipe in their weekend colour supplements). Like cupcakes, macaroons seem to be a bit of a trend in London at the moment. Last October a friend bought me a ticket to the Experimental Food Society’s Exhibition at The Truman Brewery. There they had a hand painted tree covering an entire wall bearing macaroons in all sorts of colours. It was a beautiful display and certainly caught lots of people’s attention.  The Great British Bake off also did a series where home bakers were challenged to make these light baked confections. A work colleague raved about it, consequently I had macaroons on the brain for several days and by coincidence I stumbled across Lepard’s old-style macaroon recipe.

With very few ingredients these are incredibly easy to make. It’s unfortunate that the centres don’t remain a vibrant beetroot colour ( as you can see from the photo above it’s pretty spectacular) but in many ways I prefer that because you get two very beautiful tones; a rose pink shell with a peach centre. My photo below doesn’t do them any justice because the lighting was wrong on my iphone but nevertheless these were a delight to make and hopefully next time round we can try and experiment with other natural food colourings avoiding using any E numbers.