Elderflower Cordial

A lovely refreshing summer drink, quick and easy to make. Makes great gifts too!

Makes 1.5 litres.

30 elderflower heads

3 pints/1.7 litres of boiling water

900g caster sugar

50g citric acid

2 unwaxed lemons, sliced

2 unwaxed oranges, sliced

Rince the flowers. Pour boiling water over sugar in a large pan. Stir and leave to cool. Add citric acid, oranges and lemons and then flowers. Leave it a cool place for 24 hours, stirring occasionally. Strain through muslin and store in sterilised bottles. Keeps for 3 months. Refrigerate once open.

Rhubarb upside down cake

This is an excellent cake... and a great way of using up rhubarb if you have a particularly prolific patch! I took a cake along to a cake sale at St Paul's Carnival and someone liked it so much they bought the whole thing!

About 4/5 sticks of rhubarb

a generous sprinkling of dark brown sugar

175g butter

175g caster sugar

175g self raising flour

3 eggs

vanilla essence

Heat oven to 160/170 degrees C. Line and greece a 7 inch cake tin. Chop up the rhubarb into short lengths (2 cms), lay in tin packed tightly (2 layers is fine) Sprinkle over the dark sugar. Cream the sugar and butter (softened) until soft and fluffy. Add 1 tbsp flour, then eggs one at a time. Add vanilla essence. Fold in rest of flour. Spoon on top of the rhubarb, smooth over leaving a small well in the middle. Bake for 45 mins. Allow to cool for 15 mins before removing from tin. Turn cake upside down onto serving plate. Cool slightly before serving with vanilla icecream.

Lemon Meringue Pie

coming soon

Galletas de Avena

coming soon

Sweet peppers stuffed with seafood and chipotle sauce

This is a version of 'Chiles Rellenos con Mariscos y Salsa Chipotle'. This is a delicious recipe. Normally it would use poblano chillies but as these are very hard to find in the UK, we find that the large long red peppers which have a sweeter flavour than normal peppers make a good substitute. You can always add some chilli to the filling to make it a bit spicy if you want.

4 large mild chillies (eg poblano), or long sweet peppers

Filling:
1 onion
seafood/fish/prawns etc
olive oil
4 anchovies

Sauce:
1 onion
1 garlic
2 x tinned tomatoes
4 tbsp cream
1tbsp chipotle sauce

Sauce: Fry onion, garlic, add tinned tomatoes and cook for minimum of 30 mins. Then add cream and chipotle.
For the filling: fry the onion, add the seafood, cook for 15 mins.
For the chillies: Slit the chillies length ways, take out the seeds and veins. Bake at 180 degrees C for 20 mins.
Stuff the chillies with the filling until very full and return to the oven for 15-20 mins. After 10 mins add the sauce and continue until end of cooking time. Serve with green salad, rice or crusty bread.

Linguine a la putanesca

This is one of the staple pasta sauces in our house. Quick and easy, and can be made from the store cupboard. Yum.

1 onion
2 garlic cloves
1 small can olives (chopped)
3 anchovies
2 cans tomatoes
3 dried red chillis

Fry onion and garlic. Add olives, anchovies, chillis and tinned tomatoes. Simmer for 30 mins. Serve with linguine and a good sprinkling of parmesan.

Butterbeans in a creamy tomato sauce

4 cloves garlic
1 large red onion
3 bay leaves
1 glass white wine
8 tomatoes
1 pack butter beans
2 tbsp cream
1 tbsp tomato paste
thyme
salt/pepper
1/2 pack feta cheese

Cook the beans according to the packet and reserve some of the liquid. Fry onion and garlic. The add tomatoes and fry for a few more minutes. The add the wine, beans with their liquid, herbs, tomato paste and seasoning and simmer for about 20 mins. Add cream and simmer for another 5 mins, add feta and simmer for another 5 mins. Serve with crusty bread.