parmesan and sesame bites.

A little Christmas gift idea or perhaps as a festive snack for the family, these Parmesan and sesame bites are super easy to make and with only a few simple ingredients too. As part of a Christmas series with Parmigiano Reggiano, I'm embracing one of my favourite cheeses with three festive recipes. 

Parmigiano Reggiano is a hard, Italian cheese which has a PDO credentials. King of Cheeses, it's one of the world’s oldest and richest cheeses - still produced today as it was nine centuries ago. For hundreds of years, this very special product has only be allowed to be made in particular areas of Italy, with selected dairies and producers. The rules of cheese-making this way mean that it's always a high quality product which has a true ancient origin. The result is fantastic, I'm sure cheese lovers will agree.

sesame teriyaki flat iron steak.

 

Japanese cuisine is a favourite in our household. Whether it's recipes passed down through tradition or an inspired take on a classic. When Sous Chef asked if I'd like to review the Sushi Collection Santoku Knife I couldn't wait to add this sleek and sophisticated tool to my knife block. Made in Japan, the knife is fully forged from high carbon stainless steel, with a magnolia wood handle – the traditional wood to use for sushi knives

As the description suggests, it's a very versatile knife which can be used for much more than just sushi. Santoku knives are especially good for three main preparation techniques – chopping, slicing and mincing vegetables. I thought that I'd try it out for meat slicing with this sesame teriyaki flat iron steak - which is super simply and yet looks pretty impressive as part of a Japanese inspired banquet.

my ultimate comfort bolognese.

A comforting Italian inspired bolognese recipe, ideal to batch cook for an easy midweek meal. Combining pork and beef mince, this hearty recipe goes towards your five a day with sweet, softened red peppers and slightly salty black olives. Serve up with your favourite pasta and a good grating of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Though for me it has to be spaghetti. Classic.

9 winning recipes for wimbledon.

Be winning at Wimbledon with these tasty picks for the British Summer of sport. From nostaglic strawberries and cream to that familiar sip of classic Pimms, I've rounded up a few of my favourite food blogger recipes you will absolutely 30-love. Whoever knew tennis could be so tasty? Without further ado let's serve up these recipes... game, set, match!

burleigh's gin bramble.

A gin bramble inspired recipe, in collaboration with the fantastic Leicestershire based Burleigh's distillery. Made with two parts of their export strength gin, one part raspberry liqueur and topped up with ginger ale, this is a refreshing mix of fiery ginger, sweet raspberry and botanical gin. Perfect for sipping on this Summer...

avocado & bacon burger.

A super easy barbecue recipe for the Summer. I've teamed up again with Iceland to show how the #PowerofFrozen is perfect for BBQ season. Their 100% beef quarter pounder burgers and easy bake cobs are such handy ingredients to have in the freezer ready for sunny days. In this avocado and bacon burger recipe, I simply cooked up their super tasty burger patties with slices of crispy bacon and ripe avocado in a soft burger bun. The beef burgers are essentially just great quality beef with a seasoning of salt and pepper - frozen food doesn't mean rubbish food! Serve with their easy-to-cook sweet potato fries for the ultimate Summer feast!

jerk king prawns with rice and peas.

Degustabox are a monthly subscription perfect for foodies. Each month takes you on a new adventure, discovering around 10-15 new food and drinks products and seasonal treats as well as some well known household brands. If you love food and you like surprises, this one is for you (just try not to peek online at what's in the box...) 

This month I've collaborated with Degustabox to create an inspiring recipe using the products inside. Delving in April's Degustabox, I came across the likes of Green Lady Sparkling Tea, Pimms Cider and mouthwatering sea salt, garlic & rosemary Popchips. These were all perfect for a weekend picnic in the recent sun.

For this king prawn recipe though, I've taken the latest Levi Roots Jerk Cook 'n' Coat Instant Marinade along with Veetee's Wholegrain and Quinoa Rice. This Caribbean inspired recipe takes just moments to rustle up, leaving you with a vibrant and spicy seafood dish to enjoy on sunny evenings. For the marinade, you simply pour over whilst you cook the king prawns. And the rice is microwavable or easy just to warm up on the hob too as you add in the kidney beans. I served alongside a fresh and zesty mango, lime, avocado and coriander salsa. Bright, healthy, colourful and it goes towards three of your five a day. But most of all, mouthwatering!

mexican style bean ball tacos.

Happy Cinco de Mayo! And what better way to join in the celebrations than to create a Mexican banquet brimming with colour, flavour and passion. For over eighty years, Old El Paso have been the go-to guys for effortless but fun recipe kits and condiments; helping families and friends for conjure up Mexican feasts time after time. Full of colour, texture and flavour, the Mexican cuisine lends itself to bringing simple ingredients to life. 

Featuring their Smokey BBQ Stand 'n' Stuff Soft Taco Kit, I've come up with a vegetarian recipe that's super easy to make and even quicker to devour. This Mexican style bean ball recipe is made from red kidney and borlotti beans before being stuffed in the taco shells with guacamole, salsa, tomatoes, the heavenly smokey sauce and lashings of fresh coriander and lime.

smoked salmon and cucumber canapés.

Hope you're all enjoying the festive season and had a wonderful Christmas! With 2015 coming to an end and 2016 just around the corner, I've put together a super simple canapé recipe to impress your guests! This smoked salmon and cucumber canapé with lemon and dill crème fraîche takes just minutes to put together and seconds to devour. Perfect for nibbles at New Year's Eve parties, just get that fizz chilling and pop on your favourite party dress! 

pumpkin, cheddar and sage soup with parmesan crisps.

A creamy and delicious seasonal soup made from sweet pumpkin, indulgent cheddar and a hint of fragrant sage. Make ahead and serve with nutty pumpkin seeds and a parmesan crisp for the perfect Autumn Winter starter. After Halloween and Thanksgiving, why should the pumpkin recipes stop there? This is one to enjoy all season!

a bloody mary brunch with ketel vodka.

Is there a finer meal of the day than brunch? Kicking back on a Sunday morning, the scent of rich coffee circulating through the kitchen and a couple of eggs frying in a hot pan. You've got your favourite record on and the comfy armchair is waiting for you to snuggle back and delve into your gooey eggs with an extra twist of black pepper and sea salt. But not before you Instagram it of course.

This weekend, I created a rather spectacular brunch if I may say so myself. Inspired by the Ketel One bloody mary and brunch recipes from around the world, I created a mouthwatering stack of spring onion and dill potato rosti with oak smoked salmon, topped with a fried egg with a runny yolk. I served it up with an Australian inspired Bloody Mary recipe, which has an extra dash of balsamic, squeeze of lemon and is topped up with pale ale. 

switch the fish: sesame seared japanese loch trout.

If you're a regular here on my little blog, you'll know that I do love my seafood. Salmon sashimi, king prawn tempura and light and crispy calamari to name a few favourites. Even though I'm open to all fish varieties, and love using sustainable coley, pollack and river cobbler in place of white fish, it isn't often enough that I create recipes with lesser known fish varieties. 

Sainsbury's are challenging food bloggers to create recipes with alternative fish offerings - a campaign aiming to broaden the choice of fish we all eat. If customers asks for one of the "big five fish" that make up 80% of the fish sales in the UK (salmon, tuna, haddock, cod or prawns) they will be offered a portion of either sea bass, coley or hake for free.

I went for loch trout and decided to put my favourite spin on a recipe - Japanese. Inspired by the fragrant flavours of Japan, this recipe features a zingy soy and sesame marinade, steamed veg, sticky sushi rice and lots of sesame seeds to create a donburi style rice bowl with seared sesame trout laid on top.

miso king prawn tempura.

As a lovely little welcome to the Sainsbury's Food Blogger Community, the friendly lot sent me a parcel of products to play with. Guess what - it was Japanese themed. I was in my element! I've had a mini deep fat fryer for a while now, so had to get involved with homemade prawn tempura. By marinating the king prawns in miso paste, I create a miso prawn tempura recipe with a slight sweet and fruity flavour.

pesto salmon and kale wholemeal spaghetti.

A super simple dish which makes for a great evening meal. Packed with veggies, delicious pesto salmon and wholemeal spaghetti, this kale pasta dish is three of your five a day. Summer comfort food, if you will.

chorizo scotch eggs.

I've been wanting to try a scotch egg recipe with a twist for a while. Since getting a tiny deep fat fryer, I've tried out fried goat's cheese, triple cooked chips, vegan banana fritters and now even parsnip shoestring fries. But with the picnic season soon upon us - chorizo style scotch eggs had to happen. With a hint of sweet paprika and a bit of a kick, these can be made as hard or soft boiled scotch eggs to your liking. So simple and really satisfying to make.

gousto food box review.

lately i seem to be discovering lots of foodie delivery boxes - a brilliant idea for busy families, working couples, a one off treat for a bbq and beyond. but which one to choose? the way gousto works is you firstly select the size which suits your lifestyle, then pick the recipes you like the look of from their weekly list. the box was packed with special ice packs which kept the food cool even in my back garden whilst i was at work (i would've been so sad if a leicester fox ran away with my goodies!) and i loved how some of the ingredients had a little pun on the packet... thyme to cook!

packed with local, organic and seasonal ingredients, it was impossible to decide which two of the meals to pick. i tried to go with more challenging recipes which ingredients or combinations that i'd not tried before. so i should say that there were clear time scales on each description and i probably went with the recipes with lots of prep which took around 30-45 minutes - there are quicker ones! :)

the dishes i chose were thai beef chilli and lime wraps and garlic chicken with creamy kohlrabi mash.

my first attempt at homemade pasta.

shopping list
♥ a pasta machine
♥ 300g "00" grade flour
♥ 3 eggs
♥ a pinch of salt

so for those of you who follow me on twitter or instagram, you'll know that pretty much all i've done over the christmas period is take pictures of my pasta adventures. this was a christmas present from my grandparents and a brilliant one at that.

they also bought me a right pasta recipe book which i have since tried along with my attempt at pasta bows, which i'll post soon. i've also learnt, though i'm sure this is probably something all over the internet already, that the ratio is pretty much one egg to 100g of flour. so here's how i did it... (ish)

firstly, i made a sort of well out of the flour ready to crack the eggs into. i haven't actually looked into why you can't use a mixing bowl to make pasta - does anyone know?

next, i carefully cracked the eggs into the flour to give a rather volcano-esque result. this is followed by a pinch of salt which i've read is really important for the taste. 

i then used a fork to tentatively break the eggs and begin to slowly stir in a little flour. WITHOUT breaking the floury walls. i love this bit as you start getting sort of stringy bits of gooey white flour and egg mix. you then slowly add in more and more of the flour as you dare - this should end up looking a little more like picture 5.

to get from 5 to 6 to 7, it depends on the consistency of your dough. if it seems really dry, add a little water, if it is too sticky, add some of the 00 flour. keep rolling it around until it starts to look more spherical. 

next is the kneading process. as best i could describe in picture 8, keep pushing the dough out and folding it back over itsel.. another technique is to fold it into itself or fold lengthways into itself. i just kept pushing and pulling it around for around 5-10 minutes until it felt really stretchy and the pasta dough kept trying to shrink back.

you then roll it as best you can that you could get into a pasta machine. at the widest setting, begin to roll through. though, even when it begins to get thinner, fold it over itself again. this will create the elasticity of pasta :) eventually you will be able to go smaller and smaller on the settings as it starts to look and feel like fresh pasta. i then put it though the linguine setting which was fiddly to say the least. but i was pretty happy with the results. leave to dry for an hour or so and serve with your favourite sauce. yum.