Turkey fajitas

I’ve been cooking with turkey for sometime now (this white chilli is a regular dish in our house). It’s too healthy a meat to be reserved just for Christmas. Not only is it low in fat but it contains many essential vitamins and minerals too (for more details on the nutritional benefits of turkey visit the British turkey website). Below is my entry in to their competition to create an all year round recipe using turkey and pappadew peppers.

I’ve cooked this recipe a number of times now. Not only is it delicious but it is also on the table in less than 30 minutes. Fajitas are also a really fun dish to share with friends. Simply put the turkey mixture in the centre of the table along with a plate of warm wraps, a pot of the yogurt mixture and a bowl of grated cheese and let everyone make their own fajitas.

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Hamlyn quick cook recipe books review

As much as I enjoy cooking, there are many days when I don’t have much time to spend in the kitchen cooking. Other days I happily spend longer in the kitchen baking our bread, a cake for a special occasion or trying out slightly more time consuming recipes. When time is short I often fall back on a few much loved, simple recipes. Sometimes though I feel stuck in a cooking rut when it comes to quick meals.A few weeks back I was sent a collection of 6 cookbooks that might just be the answer to those evenings when you get home from work, tired and hungry. Hamlyn quick cook books each contain 360 recipes that can be cooked in 30 minutes or less. Each page includes 3 recipes that share a common group of ingredients/theme and is paired with a full colour photograph of one of the dishes. The 3 recipes are always one that can be cooked in 10 minutes, one in 20 minutes and one in 30 minutes. For example I chose to cook crab fried rice which took 20 minutes but if I only had 10 minutes I could have cooked crab and rice salad with lime dressing or if I wanted to spend 30 minutes cooing I could have cooked crab and rice cakes with lime dipping sauce. Each page also contains a unique code that if you type into their website you can download a recipe to print or have the recipe emailed to you (text only) so you could access it on your phone to buy the ingredients on your way home from work for example.

Crab fried rice (20 minutes)

Fresh from the oven round up – April, hot cross buns

This month’s Fresh from the oven challenge was to bake hot cross buns. The challenge was hosted by the little loaf, who kindly shared her own recipe with us. I think you’ll agree that all the entries look and sound delicious. It was great to see so many entries and a nice mix of the traditional with some interesting new twists such as hot cross loaves and muffins as well as different flavour combinations. Next months challenge will be hosted by La cuisine de Sarah and will be announced on the 1st May. Utterly scrummy food for families will be publishing the round up at the end of the month.The little loaf

Two greedy Italians DVD review

If like me you enjoy Italian food, you may have watched two greedy Italians when it was shown on the BBC last year. The new series is due to be shown this month and ahead of it the first series has been released on DVD today.

Fresh from the oven April

This month’s fresh from the oven is being hosted by the little loaf. You can find her challenge post here. Don’t forget to read the rules here and remember to check back here at the end of the month for the round up.

In case you missed it, the round up for March is here.

Hotel chocolat extra thick Easter egg review

With Easter just around the corner, you can’t help but have noticed the shops are full of Easter eggs. Hotel Chocolat kindly sent me one of their extra thick Easter eggs to review. I chose the rocky road to caramel as I love caramel and the rocky road half sounded good too.

As you can see it arrived beautifully packaged. Inside there are two Easter eggs halves each with a handful of chocolates nestled inside.

The eggs were indeed extra thick. The picture above is a bit deceptive as the eggs are not that thick all the way through. But I would say they are at least twice as thick as standard eggs and the extra thickness at the edges is an added bonus.

You can see the caramel egg above which consists of two layers of chocolate. The outer layer is caramel chocolate and the inner is 40% milk chocolate.Below you can see the rock road egg which is again 40% milk chocolate stuffed with puffer rice, chocolate chunks and biscuit pieces. I enjoyed both halves but my favorite was the caramel side. However for my husband it was the oposite way round. The chocolates inside were pralines and caramel based. They were all absolutly delicious as I have come to expect from Hotel Chocolat.

Overall we both loved this Easter egg and if money were no object (it retails at £26 which to me is definately the luxury end of the Easter egg market) this would without a doubt the Easter egg I would be giving this Easter. You can see Hotel Chocolat’s full range of Easter eggs here. There is something for every budget, from the much more affordable £5 right up to £70.

Thank you again to Hotel chocolat for sending me this egg to review.

Fresh from the oven February round up

Thank you to everyone who has taken part in the first month of the new style fresh from the oven. It is great to see a good mixture of old members supporting us in this new direction and new members joining in too. The record for the quickest up take of a recipe has to go to Claire of Things we make who start baking bagels within an hour of the announcement post going up!

Next months challenge is being hosted by Lavender and lovage so please visit her blog on March 1st to see what challenge she has set. The round up for March will be on utterly scrummy food for families.

Things we make

the little loaf. pink recipe diary Signor biscotti.Mimi’s kingdom

Photographic yearCurious cuisiniere

My custard pieValentinaSlice of my life

Sweet samsationsLavender and limeDelicio8Pippi u kuhinji

Egg fried rice with char sui pork recipe

I’m the first to admit that I cook too many risotto and pasta dishes especially during the week, as they are so simple and I know I like them. Every now and then I decide it’s time to try something new and this was one such week. I still like to cook simple, quick and healthy meals most of the time and this week I decided to go down the Chinese food route. I got a copy of Ching’s fast food (Ching-he Haung) for christmas and decided it was about time I tried cooking something from it.

We have an electric ceramic hob which are not suitable for cooking with a wok unfortunately. This has always been my excuse for not cooking Chinese food before (my husband loves his Chinese take aways and has been trying to get me to recreate some of his favorite dishes at home for years). Both the char siu pork and the egg fried rice recipe can be cooked at home without a wok. I cooked the egg fried rice in a frying pan and we had no complaints so don’t let not having a wok or a hob suitable for wok cooking put you off making your own egg fried rice any longer.

Butternut squash and red pepper soup

It has been bitterly cold here for a few days now and today it finally snowed. Snow has been falling gently all afternoon and I can’t think of a better way to spend a snowy day than by keeping warm in the kitchen. This is a very simple soup that I found in the free magazine that I picked up in my local sainsburys. The squash and the sweet potato combine to give the finished soup a silky, smooth texture and the flavour of the red pepper is not over powering. Finished with a scattering of mixed seeds over the top and some freshly baked malted grain bread on the side, this is my idea of a perfect warming and nutritious winter lunch.

Fresh from the oven – February challenge – Bagels

Fresh from the oven has been baking bread as a group since June 2009. In that time we have baked a lot of bread and the members have changed a lot too. For our first challenge in this new format I wanted a recipe that even our longest standing members wouldn’t have baked as part of the group but also something that was straight forward enough to inspire new bakers to join in. I also wanted a recipe that allowed bakers to get creative if they wished. So with this in mind I have settled on bagels and hope that you all enjoy it.All the details about how to take part are here. I look forward to seeing all your bagels and a round up will be published on purely food at the end of February. Details of March’s challenge will be included in the round up.