Disgracefully Decadent Tiramisu (with a Tried and Tested Gluten Free Option and Thermomix instructions)

Put your biggest, stretchiest pants on, and attach steel girders to your dining chairs... this is not for the faint-hearted!!!

To be fair, it's only a centimetre or so of whipped cream more decadent than a standard tiramisu... and a lil' bit of grated dark chocolate... oh, maybe a couple of other bits... but don't be scared! Start this off the day / evening before you want to serve it, and it will keep for a few days in the fridge (well, if it lasts that long!).

I first started making and tweaking this almost thirty years ago, and then there was a period of drought, whereby there were delightful small people around (for which it's wholly unsuitable, unless you omit the alcohol and cook the egg yolk mixture to 70C, but more of that later!), and then coeliac disease, diabetes etc.... but now that the small people are in their twenties, it's come back as a decadent dessert option, and I had to research, re-vamp and remember a lot of it all over again!

It took me a fair while to get it all back to my version of perfection; so now that I've re-perfected it with a gluten free alternative, I'm getting it down onto my blog ASAP before I forget any of it!

I'll put "OPTIONAL" in brackets for the things that I like to add, which may stray a little from Nonnas' recipes, but it's fairly true to what would be acceptable to Italians, so you can make your own choices!

Whichever way you choose to do it, I hope you and your guests love it as much as we do!

Should serve at least 10, depending on your guests' appetites! Try to stay in charge of serving the initial portions and let people come back for seconds, and you might even be able to serve more!!! If you want to serve in individual glasses/dishes, I'd probably go with half portions of the ingredients, to make a good six portions.

Mum's Stinky Nuts!

So-called because cooking them makes the kitchen eye-wateringly "fragrant" (AKA stinky)...!

I've been making these for too many years to remember; both for myself and the family to nibble on, and to share with friends who come over, especially to go with drinks prior to diving into "proper food"!

They're very quick and simple to make in a pan, you just need to toss them for a few minutes - the longest part is waiting for them to cool down, so they become nice and crunchy! After years of making these intuitively, it took me several attempts to measure out the exact amount of spices and liquids tc. to replicate the way I make them, however after giving it a go as written, feel free to change the spice levels to your own tastes, and if you want them saltier, omit the water and add a little more soy sauce to taste - I just didn't want them to be too salty for people the first time they tried them!

Easy Nando's Style Spicy Rice in the Microwave

Who doesn't love a bit of spicy rice with their peri peri chicken?

Fancy making your own, with a little bit of  "cheating" with a no-fail recipe that won't go "gluggy" and will taste just like the real thing - and you can even freeze it and re-heat it again successfully if you've got leftovers!

(Photo pending)

All you need is a microwave and a microwaveable bowl (or if you have a rice cooker, you could use that instead)and you're good to go!.

Roasted Garlic and Roasted Onions

The great thing about roasting a quantity of alliums, is that as well as softening the harshness of raw garic in recipes, and intensifying the sweetness and flavour of onions, you can then freeze them for future recipes.

They are sooo versatile too! Roasted garlic is delicious in dips, mayonnaise, soups, butter (roasted garlic butter rubbed under the skin of a chicken before roasting - yum!), mashed potato, and many other things.

 

Roasted onion (halves) are equally as versatile - all of the above (chopped up for some of them, obviously), and also on the side of roast dinners, sausage and mash, and too many things to mention! 

Cook in bulk to make the most of using the oven, and in order to freeze, squeeze out the garlic cloves first.

How To Cook Brown Rice In The Microwave - Easily!

 

Okay, put aside your skepticism and try this way of cooking brown rice, for perfect results every time!

We all know brown rice is more of a pain to cook than white rice, and sometimes it feels like it takes forever. Well, no more under-cooked chewy brown rice, or soggy, mushy rice - this recipe gives consistent results every single time.

Serves four.

Sweet Cinnamon Apple Peel Crisps

A tasty treat from apple peelings!

Instead of throwing them in the compost heat, why not give this a go?

I've been making morning smoothies for everyone, and I've been peeling the apples in them as my children say they're 'bitty' when I add unpeeled apples. So, now I make a little bowl or container of acidulated water (just water, with a good squeeze of lemon juice), and peel the apples in relatively similar sized peices of peel (I go around the top and bottom in two strokes each, then vertically around the apple). Then, when I have three, I make this naughty little treat!! N.B. Apples with pink / red skins make pretty crisps - I like Gala, Braeburn etc.

Caesar Salad Dressing with Roasted Garlic

A delicious, creamy dressing, packed full of flavour.

This tastes a thousand times better than anything you can buy in a bottle, and you can tweak it to your own tastes.

It's also incredibly easy to make, and if you're gluten free, there's an easy substitution you can make for one of the ingredients, plus if you don't like the flavour of anchovy, you can skip it.

It will keep in the fridge for a week, so get yourself some Cos lettuce (tip: soaking the leaves in ice cold water whilst you prepare other ingredients will crisp it right up), and any 'illegal' toppings you fancy adding to it - I like grilled chicken and crispy bacon, but shhhh, don't tell the purists!

Quick and Easy Oven Roast Cherry Tomatoes

A delicious taste of sunshine all year round!

I'd say this is almost more of a method than a recipe, but either way they're so quick and easy to prepare it's hard to go wrong and you can adapt the 'recipe' to your own tastes.

I prefer to bake mine on Pyrex as the bottoms don't burn, and they don't stick. I've recently fallen in love with Pyrex baking trays, which I only discovered quite recently - especially as they fit really easily standing up in the plate rack of the dishwashers, and don't take up so much room as the good old Pyrex dishes which are always a bit awkward to fit in!

Dandelion Honey (which just so happens to be vegan!)

This tastes just like the real thing and is vegan friendly too!

So if you love honey, making things from what you've foraged, and maybe gifting some to friends and family, this is for you! Now that the dandelion season is almost over, and other flowers (and trees) have started blooming, the bees have had their initial food from waking up and we can share what's left over.

And what's more, if you pour the hot, finished product into hot, sterilized jars, it will last for a year or more in the fridge!

Easy (Cheat's!) Black Bean Sauce

Easy, tasty black bean sauce recipe - save yourself an absolute fortune on those tiny packets of stir fry sauces you get from the supermarket!

No need to buy those over-priced sachets from the chiller cabinet every again - all you need to do is slice up two chillies and grate some ginger, add a few more ingredients and you've got yourself over a litre of sauce that you can freeze which will make around twenty portions or so!

Not only that, if you buy yourself a six pack of Lee Kum Kee black bean garlic sauce (see here for where I get mine, affiliate link which won't cost you any extra), that's twelve lots of the below recipe, which is...erm...  around 240 portions, and it currently costs £12.60 for a six pack. So, if you do the maths, supermarket sachets or jars cost around £1 for a two portion serving (so that would be £120 for 240 portions), so for the price of a few chillies and some ginger root, and a few store cupboard ingredients, you are genuinely saving over £100 overall by making your own - I've even shocked myself working that out!!!

Anyway, without further ado, here's the recipe - oh, and I tried to take a photo of just the black bean sauce, but it just looked like a pan of black stuff (!), so I've used one of my photos of beef in black bean sauce that I've taken previously. I hope you enjoy it!

Easy Thai Red Curry Sauce

Thai red curry sauce is incredibly easy to make, and extremely tasty and fragrant.

 

Who doesn't love a spicy, warming Thai red curry, with all of the variations you can have, and the complexity of flavour.

 

 

Not only that, if you have Thai red curry paste in your fridge, there all kinds of other things you can make with it, such as Thai fish cakes, or crab cakes.

This quantity of sauce makes around eight portions. If you want to make a smaller amount, and a red duck curry for two, see here for my recipe.

Easy Satay Sauce

This is a delicious Thai version of satay sauce, that is ridiculously easy to make (and you can also freeze it) - try it, you won't be disappointed!

This is a scale-up of my original recipe, which also has a marinade for chicken skewers, and a recipe for pickled cucumber salad - the chicken and salad serve four as a main, or more as a starter - you can find the recipe here.

I found it beneficial to scale up, as then you use the entire tin of coconut milk, you don't have to stint on your portion of sauce if you're not limiting your calories, and it keeps really well in the freezer. And if you want to make your own Thai red curry paste, you can find my recipe here.

Wild Garlic Pesto

Make the most of seasonal fresh wild garlic by using it in a delicious pesto!

There's no cooking involved, it only takes a few minutes to make, and you can either store it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or in the freezer for a few months or more.

What's more, you can forage it for yourself when it's in season for free if you're lucky enough to know where there is some - but remember to only take the leaves and not the bulbs, and only take as much as you need. If you can't find any for yourself, you can get it from certain shops when it's in season, or you might be lucky enough to have a friend who has it growing in their garden.

Easy One Dish Cauliflower Cheese - absolutely NO chopping!

No faff, no chopping, one-dish cauliflower cheese!

Forget making bechamel sauce and pre-cooking your cauliflower, you can cheat and do it the quick way instead, and no-one will know!!

 

If you want to make it even easier, you can skip the mustard, nutmeg and onion salt, and it will still taste great!

Honey Roast Cashew Nuts

Dangerously more-ish - make at your peril!

A lovely, naughty, sweet and salty, crunchy snack that ticks all of the boxes!

I don't need to say much more, other than 'Enjoy' (in moderation)!