My Last (Very Green) Supper at Harlinger Street

After four and half years living in South London with my friends Zoe and Claire, it is time to move north of the river and live with the boyfriend. In an effort to clear my freezer and cupboards before the move at the weekend I thought I would get creative with whatever is left and make a dinner for the three of us, it just so happened that everything ended up green!

We started with a cocktail, it is based a Brazilian Caipirinha and put into practice what I learnt at the Shake It Cocktail lesson last weekend. I named it the Rumpirinha and tastes like cola cubes, and is what Emily has taken to calling this drink.

The Rumpirinha

Ingredients:

• 30ml Morgan Spiced Rum

• Half a lime, cubed

• 3 tsps caster sugar

• Ice, lots of it!

Method:

• In a cocktail shaker, muddle the lime and sugar together

• Add the ice and rum

• Pop on the shakers lid and shake well

• When the shaker becomes frosted it should be done.

• Pour into a old fashioned glass (we didn't have any so used martini glasses)

It started with homemade pea and mint soup as I had loads of frozen peas! Really simple to do and very tasty.

Pea and Mint Soup - Serves 6

Ingredients:

• 400g frozen peas

• 1 onion, finely chopped

• 1 celery stalk, chopped

• 50g butter

• 1.5 litres vegetable stock

• few sprigs of mint

• salt and pepper

Method:

• Fry the celery and onion until soft

• Add the stock and seasoning, simmer for 20 minutes

• Add the peas and mint, bring back to the boil and simmer for 6-7 minutes

• Blend well, add more seasoning if you think necessary

This was followed by a pesto bake with chicken, cashews and green vegetables, served with a green side salad and garlic bread.

Pesto chicken bake with cashew - Serves 6

Ingredients:

• 450g pasta (I used penne)

• 100ml double cream

• 1 jar of pesto

• 2-3 courgettes, chopped into disks

• 10 balls of frozen spinach, cooked (you could use a bag of fresh)

• 50g cashews

• Packet of ready salted crisps, crushed

• 250g cheese, grated

Method:

• Preheat your oven Gas Mark 5.

• Boil your pasta until al dente.

• While you wait for the pasta, pan fry the chicken until sealed, then add the courgettes and cook through until the chicken is cooked.

• Add the cooked pasta, chicken and courgettes to a large baking dish, add the cream, pesto, cashews and spinach, mix together throughly.

• Top with the crisps (they had a crunchy layer) and then the cheese.

• Bake in the oven for 25 minutes.

• Serve with a side salad and garlic bread.

We were then throughly stuffed so skipped the ice cream sandwiches and just ate the cookies and a mint thins with a nice cup of tea on the sofa - A perfect last night in together!

Square peg in a round Battenberg...

A couple of months ago when I was on a photo shoot with work, the very lovely food stylist mentioned how to make a round battenberg. In my head I couldn't quite figure out if it would work or not so when the boyfriend mentioned he loved battenberg I thought I would save the trick until his birthday and do it as a surprise.

His birthday is tomorrow but as we always have cake at work I made it late last night (and had a sugar high from eating the left over marzipan and couldn't sleep!) to bring in today to celebrate. The basic recipe was based on one by the Hairy Bikers but I added some ground almonds and then made it round instead of rectangular.

It was a big hit with everyone at work and kicked the shop brought cake's butt!

Round Battenburg Cake

Ingredients

For the cake:

• 175g softened butter, plus extra for greasing

• 175g golden caster sugar

• 3 free-range eggs

• 175g self-raising flour

• 50g ground almonds

• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (or use almond extract if you love almonds)

• red food colouring

• yellow food colouring

• 2-4 tbsp warm water

For the covering:

• 6 tbsp apricot jam

• 500g ready-made marzipan

• 2–3 tbsp icing sugar, for rolling.

Method

Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas 5.

Grease two 20cm/8in round tin with butter and line with baking parchment.

Put the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, ground almonds and vanilla in a food processor and pulse until well combined (you can use a hand mixer instead).

If the batter is a little stiff add a tbsp of warm water at time until you are happy with the consistency.

Divide the batter in half and put one half in a different clean bowl.

Add a few drops of red food colouring to one bowl and fold it into the batter until it is well blended.

Add a few drops of yellow food colouring to the other bowl and fold it into the batter until it is well blended.

Spoon the cake batters into each one of the prepared tins and smooth the surface with the back of a spoon.

Bake in the centre of the oven for about 25 minutes, or until the sponges have risen.

Cool in the tin for five minutes, then remove each sponge from the tin and turn them out onto a wire rack. If the sponges have risen unevenly, press the surface gently until level. Leave until completely cold.

To assemble the cake, take two pastry cutters, one smaller than the cake and the other smaller still. Cut out a circle from each cake using the larger cutter so you get a large doughnut shape and a smaller circle, on the smaller circle use the small cutter so you get a medium doughnut shape and small circle.

Warm the apricot jam in a saucepan then press through a fine sieve.

Now take the large pink doughnut and put the medium yellow doughnut in the middle, then put the pink small circle in the middle of that. Brush all over with apricot jam.

Place a third of the marzipan on a surface dusted with icing sugar and roll into a circle to fit the size of the cake. It should be about 5mm thick.

Place the marzipan circle on top of the first layer of the cake and brush with apricot jam.

Layer on the yellow pink doughnut and put the medium pink doughnut in the middle, then put the yellow small circle in the middle. Brush all over with apricot jam including down the sides of the entire cake.

Place a the rest of the marzipan on a surface dusted with icing sugar and roll into a circle to fit the over the cake. It should be about 5mm thick.

Using the rolling pin to gather up the rolled marzipan place it carefully over the top of the cake to create a smooth covering. Gently smooth the marzipan down the sides of the cake, pressing it gently onto the surface of the sponges.

Trim any marzipan overlapping the edges to create a neat edge.

Hot & Sticky Prawns

The past couple of times I have visited my Auntie Sue's she has cooked up this delicious recipe. Hot and sticky prawns with rice and coriander is slightly sweet and spicy, one of my favourite flavour combinations!

The best cake ever?

I had the best ever feedback on my latest cake, one person even said it was "The best cake ever they had ever eaten". Nigella's Chocolate and Guinness cake blew everyone away, Mat put it in his top 5 cakes, a high honour indeed.

My photography is just not good enough and as I spied this beautiful image on another foodie (and one of my favourite) blogs - What Katie Ate I thought I would use that instead.

I will be making it again soon - makes my mouth water just thinking about it.

Fantastic Foodie Freebie

I picked up a 'Simply Beef and Lamb' leaflet when I was in the butchers last week, for a freebie it's actually packed with some really interesting recipe ideas but my favourite has to be this...

Find the full recipe here

I was also really impressed with the design, it has lots of lovely food photography and all printed on uncoated stock. If you visit their website they have many more interesting recipes www.simplybeefandlamb.co.uk