Sweet evening with Canderel

The lovely ladies from Canderel invited me to an afternoon tea party to test out some recipes and after being stuck in London traffic for one hour - to go a distance of 4 miles, I finally made it to their lovely and peaceful kitchen! When I finally made it I was treated to lovely cocktails, amazing olives and a mini cooking lesson with Canderel. For those of you that enjoy sweetners instead of sugar (less calories for those of you watching your weight), Canderel has some great recipes that you can make (that are very easy!) I missed the walnut bread making but made it for the brownies, mini strawberry trifle pot, (easy & yummy) and the chicken tagine (divine).

Below is the recipe for the uber delicious walnut bread. I think I am just big fan of bread and anything with added nuts or seeds is always a healthy bonus. Thanks to the Canderel peeps for such a lovely evening and check out their site for more recipes and vids. Bake away!

Walnut Bread (Serves: 8)
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 40-45 minutes at 180C or Gas Mark 4

Ingredients:

•  8 tablespoons Canderel
• 225g plain flour
• 1½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp bicarbonate soda
• Pinch salt
• 50g half fat sunflower margarine
• 1 large egg
• Grated zest from 1 medium orange
• 150ml fresh orange juice (use the juice from orange in this recipe and compote recipe)
• 100g roughly chopped walnuts
• 4 tbsp skimmed milk

Grease a 2lb loaf tin and line with non-stick parchment paper or pre-formed liner.
Put the Canderel, flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a bowl and stir together.
Beat the butter and egg with orange zest until creamy (the mixture will look curdled, this is OK). Add the orange juice and stir well. Add the dry ingredients and walnuts then mix until just combined. Add the milk to give a soft consistency. Spoon into the tin and bake in pre-heated oven for 40-45 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning onto a rack to cool completely.

Enjoy with jam or butter!

Island food needs tasting
Bye bye London Town for a week! I will chat to you soon bloggies, but I must depart this fair city for the Mediterranean ocean for a short while.

I will be eating and drinking on some lovely islands and examining some underwater creatures with my snorkel gear. Ciao, ciao for now! Will have some food adventures to share next week!

In the meantime, try this strawberry and balsamic vinegar recipe from the New York Times, it sounds amazing.

http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/featured-recipe-strawberries-with-balsamic-vinegar/

Strawberries With Balsamic Vinegar

Yield 4 to 6 servings

Time 15 minutes

Mark Bittman

Caleb Kenna for The New York Times

Summary

Strawberries with balsamic vinegar will not hold for any length of time. You can sugar the berries an hour or two before serving them, but no longer. Sprinkle on the vinegar and pepper, very judiciously, just before serving. Feel free to mix in some blackberries or blueberries for color; their addition is a striking one. The berries, of course, can be served solo, but for an even more elegant presentation, add a few crisp cookies or a slice of pound, sponge or angel food cake.

Ingredients

• 1 quart strawberries, rinsed, hulled and sliced
• 1/2 pint blackberries or blueberries, optional
• 1/4 cup sugar, or more to taste
• 1 teaspoon high-quality balsamic vinegar, or more to taste
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• Chopped fresh mint leaves for garnish, optional

Method

• 1. Toss strawberries and other berries, if using, with the 1/4 cup sugar, and let sit for 10 minutes or longer. Do not refrigerate.
• 2. Sprinkle with the vinegar; toss gently, then taste and add more sugar or vinegar if necessary. Sprinkle with the pepper, toss again, and serve, garnished with the mint, if you like. Spoon into a glass or bowl, and serve next to cookies or a piece of cake.

Strawberry mutantThis poor mutant strawberry still tasted good! R left it on my desk with this little note.

Cooking update: I actually baked yesterday afternoon, I made chocolate cupcakes, coconut and pineapple cupcakes and strawberry shortcake cupcakes with cream cheese and regular frosting, yum! It was a test run for D's wedding cake; they got the thumbs up from the crowd last night and the only thing left this morning was the crumbs and the mess from the party.

Mmmm ....Canada"Mmm…Canada" celebrates our nation in a culinary way: what foods and drinks taste like Canada to you?

That is the question put forward to me from Jennifer from The Domestic Goddess food blog and Jasmine at Confessions of a Cardamom Addict, they are working on Taste Canada - a project asking people what Canada tastes like to them. Great idea, non?So here is what initially came to my mind when I read their email on what reminds one of Canada. Growing up in Ontario we always had an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables in our fridge, in our lunchboxes and on our tables. We ate seasonally and we did a lot of family trips to the 'Green Belt' (mainly St. Catherines) to pick our own fruit at different times of the year. In the fall we went apple picking and in the summer we went strawberry, peach and cherry picking.

It was a day out, it was fun and it was a great way to spend the time with family. It was cheaper to 'pick your own' and the fresh fruit we got was incredibly tasty; am not sure if farmers really made more money as we ate so many strawberries while picking we should've left some extra money! I even forgot my shoes one weekend and went strawberry picking with only my funny slippers. My forgetfulness still continues to this day.

Back to strawberries...on the way to the cottage we picked a few baskets then headed to the beach, swam all day like little sea lions and came back for lunch or dinner to eat more strawberries. At lunch one day we decided to make a strawberry sandwich. I think my cousin Mary or Tami invented this - not sure who can take the credit?

We cut up loads of the little strawberries - they were tiny bulbous and strangely shaped, not the perfect kind you get in the shops today and laid them on freshly toasted bread with melted butter and sprinkled it with sugar. The sweet and the salty mixed with the sugar and the warm bread made it the most excellent and delicious sandwich ever. What an invention! I should sell these from a little stall somewhere. They are sooo good.

So that was what we ate for lunch or snack almost every weekend (during strawberry season) - a strawberry sandwich. We were picky eaters when we were young so I guess our parents thought as long as we were eating something why not a strawberry sandwich for lunch!

I made one the other day for the blog and it was good, but the strawberries were nothing near the ones that you get in the Niagara St. Catherines - Canada's fruit belt. I can't wait to have another strawberry sandwich at the beach again - will have to show my nephews how to make one so the tradition continues.

Happy Canada Day for all reading this on July 1st!

Maple syrup is Canada's top contribution to the food worldOne of the few pics taken of the dessert pancakes we had with real Canadian maple syrup on Pancake Tuesday / Shrove Tuesday. Mmmmm....not sure there is anything better than fresh strawberries, bananas and blueberries drizzled with maple syrup?

Happy Valentine's Day too...there is no chocolate for me as I gave it up for Lent but flowers and candy are a good substitute!

Fat Tuesday's Menu

• Chocolate and strawberry pancakes with maple syrup
• Lemon and sugar pancakes
• Blueberry and strawberry pancakes with honey
• Strawberry and chocolate pancakes
• Spinach/veg and cheese pancakes
• Ham / cheese / spinach and mushroom pancakes

Kash flipped the pancakes, Neil brought the wine and the Scottish jokes, the batter chilled on the balcony, BH brought some tipsy banter and we mixed the batter sans whisk although someone went to other flats in the building asking for one - how neighbourly!

It took about 4 hours to make pancakes for all but they were delicious and it was good fun. Real pics to come as ours were more like crepes than the fluffy buttermilk ones in the pic above.

Now what are you giving up for Lent? Kash is giving up chips, crisps, biscuits and sweets (and she is doing the Three Peaks Challenge)- I am going for chocolate, crisps and biscuits and others at work were trying to figure out what they were going to give up today. Vicki said she was giving up -going out to eat- but she said that as we were at Dim T restaurant at lunch?! I guess she starts Lenten sacrifices a day later than most; and she said if she gets asked out on a date then she will have to break the rule again, and it doesn't count for breakfast or lunch!
Not a very religious bunch really.