The best burrito in town

In the relatively small area around work I am spoilt for choice for a burrito, the increasingly popular Mexican street food!

All are really tasty to be fair but each have their pros and cons...

There is Daddy Donkey, housed in a massive take away truck on Leather Lane - very tasty and they have a loyalty scheme but the queue is often huge and the prices have recently increased to £6 for a chicken burrito with guacamole They by far have the quirkiest branding.

Next up is Burrito Bros, one of the only ones with a permanent home, again yummy and they do a smaller size option as sometimes a huge burrito is just too much for an average lunch (and is cheaper too). The people in their shop are really friendly too and I think the quickest. They are even open late and have a tiny Tequila bar downstairs but I have only tried it out for lunch so far.

The only one I have not tried yet (but hoping to rectify this situation on Friday lunch) is Luardo's on Whitecross Street. I spotted it before as they are served from a cute green van with very nice typography on the side, plus at this food market, you can buy food from the stalls and eat at one of the pubs on the street.

Finally, my preferred one - Freebird on Exmouth Market. They also have a few other locations in London too and on the side they also serve griddled chicken skewers with unusual salads from a stall called Pincho Pinxto, still very filling but feels slightly healthier. I think this is the place for burritos and fajitas I choose over any other is because...

- the medium salsa has a great kick but is full of flavour rather than hot spice

- the meat is tender and good quality

- the guacamole is chunky and not as sloppy as some of the other stalls

- and especially because their customer service is great!

I got back to my desk last week and my chicken fajita was lacking any chicken but I didn't have time to go back and change it so I tweeted them and they very kindly offered me a free one the next day. I went up and all the staff were so apologetic and lovely and as I was picking one up for the boyfriend too, they gave me that one free as well and a can of pop! Without this kind of customer service I would have gone to one of the other stalls instead. Many businesses (especially small ones) can learn from their example as you can always forgive people making mistakes (we all do it) as long as they make it right, which Freebird Burrito's did!

Keeping it simple with friends

We had our first few friends round to visit the new flat (on mass rather than the odd one here and there) before heading to a Guilty Pleasures wig party at Koko. I wanted to keep it simple so we just grabbed some pizza's from the Pizza Express range in the supermarket and potato wedges and dips, a bit of a cop out but tasty and lined our stomach for the night ahead!

I wanted to make a little bit of an effort though so whipped up some easy fairy cupcakes which looked really fun on my two tier cake stand and a cocktail called the 'Truly British' before the British summer is truly over.

Fairy Cupcakes

Makes 16

Ingredients:

For the cakes

• 115g unsalted butter

• 115g caster sugar

• 2 eggs, beaten

• 115g self raising flour

For the icing

• 200g icing sugar

• about 3tbsp warm water

• a few drops of food colouring, optional

Glacé cherries, chocolate strands and silver balls (or whatever you fancy) to decorate.

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C. Put 16 paper cases in two bun trays.

2. Beat together the butter and caster sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy.

3. Gradually add the eggs, beating well after each one.

4. Fold in the flour lightly (it recommends to use a metal spoon but I just used my silicone spatula).

5. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases so each one is about half full.

6. Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes. remove when springy to the touch and cool on a wire rack.

7. When cool make the icing, sift the icing sugar into a bowl and stir in enough water to make a smooth paste that is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon.

8. I divided the icing into three bowls and added a couple of drop of yellow food colouring to one and red to another and left one uncoloured.

9. Spread the icing over the fairy cakes and decorate as desired.

Adapted from a Marks & Spencer recipe book called Easy Cupcakes.

Truly British Cocktail

Serves one

Ingredients:

• 50ml gin
• dash elderflower cordial
• apple juice to taste

Method:
1. In a tall glass, pour the gin over ice
2. Add a dash of elderflower cordial and top up with apple juice
3. Stir well and garnish with a slice of apple for a truly British taste.

Blueberry Breakfast Muffins

For our morning team meeting at work I made some blueberry muffins the night before and warmed them through in the microwave the next day for 30 seconds and served with lots of butter.

Not only yummy they were so simple to make and had loads of blueberries in so did not feel too unhealthy! The recipe is from the Nigella website but was posted by a reader called Psappha.

Blueberry Muffins

Makes 18

Ingredients:

• 280g Self Raising flour

• 3/4 tsp salt

• 67g sugar

• 2 tsp baking powder

• 2 eggs

• 4 tbsp butter, melted

• 175 ml milk

• 300g blueberries, well-dried

• Optional: 1 tsp grated orange or lemon rind muffin

Method:

Makes 18 muffins

1. Wash the blueberries and drain. Sprinkle a tea towel with flour and roll the blueberries in it. Wrap the now lightly floured berries and leave for a good 30 minutes or so to dry completely.

2. Preheat oven to 425F/210C/Gas Mark 7.

3. Sift the flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder into a large mixing bowl.

4. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs. Add the melted butter and then the milk.

5.Quickly stir the liquid ingredients into the dry, confining yourself to only 10-15 strokes. Leave the lumps as too much handling will result in tough muffins.

6. Add the floured blueberries and the optional rind if you are using. Briefly fold in the berries. Spoon into the prepared muffin pans, allowing the mixture to fill about 2/3 of the cup. Bake in the hot oven for 15-20 minutes. Muffins will be a light golden colour when fully cooked.

7. Remove at once from their tins. Serve with plenty of butter. To really make this a meal, scramble some eggs to eat with the muffins!

Chorizo & Feta Frittata

My boss at work keeps chicken's and always has too many eggs to eat so when he remembers he brings in these home reared free range eggs for the team. I took a batch home on Wednesday night and decided to make something suitably eggy with them.

I made a huge frittata with chorizo and feta by Rachel Allen recipe from BBC food. It was delicious and great cold for lunch the next day. I had to substitute marjoram for fresh parsley and added a little of the parsley to the side salad I served it with to make it feel really fresh and hold on to the last few days of summer. This would be perfect for a picnic.

Potato, chorizo and feta frittata

Ingredients:

• 250g/9oz potatoes, peeled and sliced into 1cm/½in cubes

• 6 tbsp olive oil

• 1 onion, peeled and sliced

• 8 free-range eggs

• 100ml/3½fl oz single cream

• 1 tsp salt

• 1 tbsp fresh marjoram, chopped

• 125g/4½oz chorizo, sliced

• 125g/4½oz feta cheese, crumbled

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
2. Place the potatoes into a saucepan of boiling water. Boil for five minutes, or until just cooked. Do not overcook the potatoes or they will go mushy. Drain the potatoes of the excess water and set aside.
3. Heat a 25cm/10in ovenproof frying pan. Add three tablespoons of olive oil and the sliced onion to the pan. Cover the frying pan with a saucepan lid and sweat the ingredients over a gentle heat until the onion becomes soft and slightly golden. Then remove from the heat and set aside.
4. Whisk the eggs in a clean bowl until they are slightly frothy. Then add the cream, the salt and the fresh marjoram.
5. Add the sliced chorizo, the cooked onions and the potatoes to the bowl and mix well.
6. Heat the remaining olive oil in the frying pan. When the oil is hot, pour in the egg mixture and stir briefly to distribute the ingredients evenly.
7. Sprinkle the crumbled feta cheese on to the top of the mixture. Place the pan in the preheated oven and bake for 25-35 minutes or until the centre of the mixture has set. Then remove from the frittata from the oven and allow it to cool for a couple of minutes.
8. To serve, place the frittata onto a large serving plate or a large cake tin lined with baking parchment (if you want to transport it on a picnic). Serve warm or at room temperature.

A teeny tiny (but all mine) kitchen

I have been a little quiet on the blog recently as I have been moving in with the boyfriend to a new place, together, just the two of us... So for the first time ever the kitchen is all mine, I have to share with Mat but generally I am in charge of this room. Just to point not because I am a women and this is where I belong but because I love cooking and baking - for me its a big part of me de-stressing and it makes me happy to feed others (and myself for that matter) well.

One of my favourites things about having a kitchen that is mine has been getting out all the bits and bobs I have been saving for a place of our own (up in the Midlands we call it your bottom drawer) and all the new bits we can buy.

So here are some of my kitchen favourites…

The Joseph Joseph index chopping board set, a birthday present from Emily. Colour co-ordinated four board set with symbols for different ingredients - raw meat, fish, veg and cooked food.

Sharp knifes, we have two paring knifes at the moment which are sharp and really great to use, one by Jamie Oliver and by Kuhn Rikon. We are saving up for some more good ones, our ideal would be by global but they are a bit pricey.

All our new cooking utensils from Zeal, non scratch on the pans, sturdy and pretty too.

The Magimix Nespresso coffee maker, very expense when new but was a hand me down from my Auntie to my mom to us. Perfect coffee anytime.

A fan assisted electric oven - no hotspots so all the cookies and cupcakes I have made so far have been evenly cooked and it has a built in timer so I cant forget how long they have been in for.

Joseph Joseph digital scales - I think they maybe another reason the baking has gone so well, precise measurements are a new thing to me but I am enjoying the accuracy. They are really to use and you can measure liquid as well as dry ingredients and the dish is conveniently scooped shape making it easier to pour from.

A lovely moving in present from Emily was a screen printed oven glove - almost too nice to use! The design was by Stuart Gardiner and is of a hand with the words love tattooed on one side and cake on the other.

Nice teacups and wine glasses, nothing really matches but I quite like that.

I also had a lovely moving in present from my team at work, some salt and pepper mills from Cath Kidston that look a little bit like me and the boyfriend.

Our some new pans (we are still waiting for the wok!)have just been delivered. They were a bargain from Achica, a discount website for homewards, so I will let you know what they are like when I have used them!

Even with all these great kitcheny things I am still lusting after a KitchenAid...

Red Velvet Cupcakes & Cookies - Hello neighbour!

I am going to start this post with a little rant as the photos I took of all my efforts got lost by silly iphoto so I am just going to have to make them all again to fully capture the experience. I do have this delightful snap of the cookies though in quite a sexy rustic setting.

I purchased my first Nigella Lawson book a good few months ago after warming to her in her last TV series - Kitchen: Recipes from the heart of the home (and falling in love with the very popular Chocolate and Guiness cake), the book is of the same name and I have been drooling over the gorgeous photography and mouthwatering recipes every time I want to make something different.

The perfect excuse came up as I have just moved into a new place with the boyfriend and wanted to introduce us to the neighbours and we had friends coming round to be nosey. I wanted to try the Red Velvet Cupcake recipe as it is one of my favourite flavours but I had been unsuccessful when I tried the recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery book before. The Nigella one was perfect though, it still uses a ridiculous amount of red food paste (rather than just the liquid dye as the colour is more vibrant) and the slightly sour cream cheese topping.

I also went for the chocolate chip cookies as it has been so long since I made some, I can not even remember ever baking any - surely a crime against baking! These were amazing and went down really well at our morning team meeting at work. Slightly crispy on the outside and soft in the middle, I also think the posh vanilla extract I bought made a big difference to the flavour.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Makes 24

Ingredients:

• 250g plain flour

• 2x 15ml tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted

• 2 teaspoons baking powder

• 1/2 teaspoon bicarb of soda

• 100g soft unsalted butter

• 200g caster sugar

• 1x heaped 15ml tablespoon Christmas-red paste food colouring

• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

• 2 eggs

• 175ml buttermilk

• 1 teaspoon cider vinegar

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 170°C and line the muffin tin with paper cases

• Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder and bicarb in a bowl

In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar, beating well, and when you have a soft, pale mixture beat in the food colouring and vanilla.

• Still beating, add 1 spoonful of the dried ngredients then 1 egg, followed by some more dried ingredients, then the other egg, followed by the rest of the dried ingredients.

• Finally, beat in the buttermilk and vinegar and divide the batter between 24 cases. • Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes and when done leave to cool on a rack before adding the all important frosting.

Buttery cream-cheese frosting

ingredients:

• 500g icing sugar, sifted

• 125g cream cheese

• 125g unsalted butter

• 1 teaspoon cider vinegar or lemon juice

• chocolate sprinkles and/or red sugar to decorate.

Method:

• Whizz together the cream cheese, butter and icing sugar.

• Pour in the cider vinegar (or lemon) and whizz angina to make a smooth icing.

• Ice each cupcake and decorate with chocolate sprinkles and red sugar.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes approx 14

Ingredients:

• 150g soft unsalted butter

• 125g soft light brown sugar

• 100g caster sugar

• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

• 1 egg, fridge-cold

• 1 egg yolk, fridge-cold

• 300g flour

• 1/2 teaspoon bicarb of soda

• 1 x 326g packet of chocolate chips

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 170°C/Gas mark 3. Line a baking tray with baking parchment.

• Melt the butter and let it cool a bit. Put the brown and white sugars into a bowl, pour the slightly cooled, melted butter over them and beat together.

• Beat in the vanilla, the cold egg and cold egg toll until the mixture is light and creamy.

• Slowly mix in the flour and bicarb until just blended, then fold in the chocolate chips.

• Take a large tablespoon of the cookie dough and drop onto the baking sheet, put them about 8cm apart. You will have to do two batches so keep the cookie dough in the fridge between batches.

• Bake for 15-17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on a baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks.

I do like to be beside the seaside

For my work's company summer away day we were treated to a traditional day out by the British seaside. We headed to the picturesque Leigh-on-sea to have lunch at The Boatyard, a restaurant overlooking the Thames estuary that was awarded best Essex restaurant and has the claim to fame of being one of Rod Stewart's favourites places to dine!

We arrived off the coach with our buckets and spades and headed straight to the pub whilst we waited for our table reservation for all 100+ of us! I just couldn't resist one of my beach side favourites - cockles from the traditional cockle shed, which I know they are not to everyone's taste but they just remind me of my childhood as I always used to have a jar with chips. We visited one of the famous Osborne Bros sheds and they were really fresh and totally moreish.

We then headed to the restaurant for more sophisticated fare and was welcomed with a Pimms reception out on the sunny (but quite blustery) outdoor deck.

We then spread out over around ten large tables and tucked into a delicious three course meal. I was really surprised by the quality and presentation of food and the service as it is often difficult to get it right when catering for such a large group.

I started with the mixed seafood cream cheese tart, which was gooey due to the cheese and even though not overly fishy it was a great combination and balanced well with crispy pastry.

I stuck to the seafood theme and went for the oven baked fillets of trout with a capers, again these were cooked to perfection, the skin crispy and the flavours quite delicate. This was served with vegetables and new potatoes.

I was starting to fill quite full by this point but could not resist the selection of ice cream!

We then took a leisurely stroll to Southend-On-Sea to go on the dodgem's and 2p machines in the arcades.