Adriano cooks on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. Part of his routine is to pour himself a glass of wine and open a packet of crisps or something similar to munch on. He also brings me, in my study, half a glass of wine and a few of his nibbles in a bowl. For me, this a symbol of the days when I am not working and I can do my own thing. But the crisps are not exactly healthy; in fact they are super unhealthy. So, on Saturday, I decided to make our nibbles myself and this might become a part of the routine rather than bake cupcakes or something equally decadent which are not kind to the waistline. For this first venture into nibbles land, I made these tasty little fritters with grated courgette, cheese and sundried tomatoes and fried them in a little oil to crisp them on the outside. I then combined the remains of the contents of a bottle of chilli sauce and tomato sauce together with the rest of a jar of tomato and onion chutney to make an accompanying sauce, which was a great … [Read more...] about Courgette & Cheese Fritters – Low Fodmap
Mediterranean Pies – Low Fodmap
I have a mission to create small portions so I can't overeat. The two dishes in the photo were for me and Dario. I made a massive one for Adriano and he ate it all without blinking. I thought there would be enough saltiness in the bacon so added only a wee bit extra salt to the egg mixture. Adriano thought it needed more but I didn't, so tread carefully with the seasoning. This really is nothing more than a fancy omelet wrapped in bacon, but it looks better like this in dishes rather than slopped on a plate. And the most important thing was that once I had finished mine, there was no more to eat. I guess this dish is gluten-free too. I had planned to serve it with a loaf of crusty bread but it got all eaten before dinner so I made some potatoes and a mixed salad. There are lots of vegetables in this dish so the salad is not strictly necessary but I get withdrawal symptoms if I don't eat some kind of salad in the evening. By the way, it was very quick to prepare and then cooked … [Read more...] about Mediterranean Pies – Low Fodmap
White Raspberry Chocolate Cookies
I have made these cookies before here but this time I changed the dried fruit and chocolate ingredients. I consider it one of my best granola bar/cookie recipes to date and so, when I was sent a bar of Whittakers' white raspberry chocolate, I decided to make them again and incorporate some of the bar. I say “some of the bar” because by the time I got around to do the baking, Adriano and Dario had almost demolished the bar. They swear I hadn’t said to keep their hands off it, but I know better. Whittakers sent me the chocolate as part of a promotion to advertise that 20% of the profits of this newly developed flavour go to Breast Cancer research. I agreed because I wanted to eat the chocolate and it was certainly no hardship to include it in a recipe. The 20% to breast cancer is a fortunate by-product since this is truly a cruel killer of women. Get your checks ladies and stay out of the statistics. As for the recipe, I doubled it to make sure we wouldn’t run out of them during … [Read more...] about White Raspberry Chocolate Cookies
Lemon Curd Cupcakes – I got to use the excess berry cream cheese frosting
I love weekends! Especially productive weekends when I have something to show for my efforts at the end of it. I was born with this creative bent and that means I have to be constantly creating and to have an end product to gaze in wonder at. Not that everything I create is worthy of wonder but I give it a good shot. The strange thing is that my creativity is usually poured into my non-work hours. I have never had a particularly creative job while working for someone else though there have often been small elements of each one where I could express a little creativity. But when you work for someone else, you have to follow the company lines and that feels like wearing shackles. Hence, I am creative in my spare time and this blog is a great fit. I have such fun cooking, then styling and photographing the food. But having said all that, I think one of my careers had its own creativity even though there was no end product I could touch. I taught English as a second language for … [Read more...] about Lemon Curd Cupcakes – I got to use the excess berry cream cheese frosting
Mini Chicken Lasagnas with Wonton Wrappers
You will have seen the photo story of lasagna making I photographed in Italy and now I have made my own quick version. There is no comparison but we working mothers and wives have to find shortcuts or we would have to wag work in order to make the original versions of these time-honoured recipes. It was such a pleasure to watch the making of the pasta sheets from scratch but I used wonton wrappers. It was the first time I had used them and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy they are to handle. They separate easily and don't rip. I will be using them again for all sorts of things. I decided to make this a chicken lasagna to shake it up a little and also to not seem to be imitating the lasagna that Laura made in Italy. I really loved the fact that these lasagnas popped out of their containers without hassle. That made them easy to eat. See the copper dish containing the lasagna in the photo and the two copper containers behind it? I bought them all in flea market in Italy for … [Read more...] about Mini Chicken Lasagnas with Wonton Wrappers
From Ugly to Pretty – Orange, Chocolate & Coconut Cookies
I found this recipe at one of the blogs I visit regularly, Anja's Food 4 Thought. I made a few minor changes and increased the quantities since we needed enough to last a week. When the cookies came out of the oven (see below) they were super ugly and I had to think long and hard about how to make them photogenic. I had all that berry cream cheese frosting left over from the beetroot cake I made so I stiffened it up with more icing sugar and piped it on top. With this intervention they were starting to look prettier. I then melted a little dark chocolate and drizzled a little over each one. Now we had something worth photographing. I pulled out over-the-top props like the wreath of red roses and the bunch of berries I bought in Italy for a euro and photographed the result. By the way, the cookies taste great and Anja's cookies looked a whole lot better than mine in the raw state. This is not a low Fodmap recipe. Orange, Chocolate & Coconut Cookies Print … [Read more...] about From Ugly to Pretty – Orange, Chocolate & Coconut Cookies
