Blueberry hot cross buns

HAPPY EASTER BLUBERRY HOT CROSS BUNS

A friend back home suggested that I attempt to make hot cross buns for Easter, so here they are. I was amazed at actually how easy these were to make and though my oven does tend to burn everything I try to bake, these turned out well. Without any raisins in my cupboards, I used blueberries instead. The only problem was when I was kneading the dough, the blueberries split a little however the end result was blueberry tinged hot cross buns, they were delicious! I will make these again next year, and keep the blueberries. Happy Easter weekend everyone x

Follow @LoisBickerton

Blueberry cheesecake wow!

 So we are in the middle of our charter season out here in the Carribbean and all is going well. We took guests on a charter around St Kitts, St Barths, St Martin and the BVI just recently and this is what I served them for pudding one night. This was homemade/boatmade cheesecake from scratch with the recipe from Leon's Pudding cookbook. It is made with creme fraiche, yoghurt and philadelphia and it was truly amazing. I treated myself to a slice after the guests finished their coffee's and I have to admit to having to retreat to my cabin for a 20 minute lie down, it was that delicious! Its two months now until we return to Europe and I am getting mightly excited about seeing the lush green hills of home, those summer smells and all my dear family and friends that I miss so much. Roll on June...

Follow @LoisBickerton

Pancakes in the Caribbean

Its Ottolenghi's fine green pancakes with lime butter. A healthy brunch. I actually managed to get hold of some organic greens the day before, so these are organic spinach pancakes. My recipe was adapted from Ottolenghi due to not having access to self raising flour, which meant I used all purpose flour and guessed how much baking powder to put in, but they turned out a lovely thickness. Hope you all enjoyed your pancake day recipes.

Follow @LoisBickerton

I made potstickers!

I am so happy to have made these, I just love gyozo or wontons. I used the fab recipe from 101 cookbooks, these will be a perfect starter for my charter guests.

Aren't they stunning!

They are so tasty too, with some soya sauce!

Here is the recipe, thanks Heidi - http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/golden-potstickers-recipe.html

Follow @LoisBickerton

A smoothie cup of blueberries

Follow @LoisBickerton

Butternut squash and garbanzos falafels

A tin of garbanzos (chickpeas)

Whizzed up with roasted butternut squash, a little bit of flour, garlic, oil and water. Baked in the oven with a sprinkle of sesame seeds.

Made these beautifully tasting falafels, which I served on sprouting bean tortilla wrap with advocado and tomato. A super nice lunch, simple as that.

Follow @LoisBickerton

I look forward to breakfast

I look forward to breakfast A LOT. . . . . because we have started making our own granola and yoghurt. We love our cereal and yoghurt, normally back home in England we would eat Dorset Cereals, because they are delicious and healthy and I am a Dorset girl. I have found it hard to find any nice cereal out here, and because everything is imported from America, its so expensive. Last week I found a health food shop in Road Town, it was like being a child finding a sweety shop. I bought some rolled oats and that evening Brendan and I mixed it up with some dried fruits, pecans and maple syrup popped in the oven and there we go - breakfast for the week. Brendan is an even bigger fan of cereal than me, so he has now decided that he will make our cereal each week. So whilst comfortable with our weekly granola-making, I thought that maybe I could have see about making our own yoghurt. Again, yoghurt is expensive out here, we always run out of it so why not try making our own. My only concern is that we only really keep UHT milk onboard the boat and wasn't sure if this would be any good for making the yoghurt with. After a bit of research, I established that this is possibly the best thing to use. So currently as we speak my starter and milk are mixed together fermenting and I am hoping that tomorrow morning we will have both homemade granola and yoghurt for breakfast.

And here it is, our homemade breakfast this morning!

Feeling proud this morning. We are sat out at anchor at the moment, a long way from any shops so being self sufficient like this is important. This batch of yoghurt tasted lovely though a little thin, so today I will make the next batch and attempt to thicken it up.
Making Yoghurt
1. Start with pouring 500ml into a very clean pan.
2. In a very clean bowl, add a tablespoon of yoghurt with a little bit of milk, mix together and leave aside. This is your starter.
3. Begin to heat your milk in the pan, insert a thermometer into the pan and heat the milk to approx 90 degrees celcius.
4. The trick to making it thicker so I have read is to try and keep the milk at this temperature for up to 20 mins.
5. Now let the milk cool down to about 45 degrees.
6. Once it has cooled to the above temperature, add your yoghurt/milk starter.
7. Now keep this bowl covered in a warm places for about 8 hours.
8. The yoghurt should now be made, it will probably have some whey on the top which you can then get rid of.
9. You just made your own yoghurt, next time you make it just use a tablespoon of your own made yoghurt as your starter.

Follow @LoisBickerton

Red Grape and Rosemary Foccacia Bread

Inspired by yet another blogger Deb from Smitten Kitchen, see link below.
Foccacia bread is a great thing to make, and a real crowd pleaser. The first foccacia bread I ever made was Rick Stein recipe from his Meditteranean book. This was one of the best recipes I have used so far, though unfortunately I don't have this book out here in The BVI.  This time I followed the smitten kitchen recipe below. It turned out well, and tasted delicious with a smudge of goats cheese topping. Delicious!

3/4 cup (177 ml) warm water (105° to 110°F)
2 tablespoons (30 ml) milk, slightly warmed
1 1/2 teaspoons (6 grams) sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons (5 grams) active dry yeast
2 cups (250 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon (3 grams) salt
6 tablespoons (90 ml) olive oil
1 1/2 cups halved Concord, red or black grapes, seeded
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary needles
2 tablespoons (8 grams) raw or another coarse sugar
2 teaspoons coarse sea salt

Alternatively you could just use your favorite foccacia recipe but just substitute your normal flaouring for the grape and rosemary.

http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/09/grape-focaccia-with-rosemary/

Follow @LoisBickerton

Mulberry tree cuttings

Here we go, first sight of what will hopefully one day be a beautiful Mulberry Tree. These are planted in pots back home in England in Dads greenhouse. There are about 30 of them and we are hoping one will take. Dad has tried before with cuttings from my granny's tree (which was a cutting from our old mulberry tree i grew up under as a kid) but they never survived. We are keeping our fingers crossed with these!

Follow @LoisBickerton

Discovering The British Virgin Islands and eating quinoa

The greatest thing about living on a boat is being able to take your home with you on a weekend away. We decided to take her to the west side of the British Virgin Islands to discover anchorages and activities to take our guests later in the season. We visited some beautiful places, and ate some delicious home boat cooked food.

Whilst in St Lucia I managed to pick up some black quinoa from an amazing deli and restaurant called The Starfish. It has travelled all the way up to the BVI with me and I have yet to use it, saving it like a precious gem. This weekend was time to try this black quinoa, I have only ever had white before. Quinoa is one of the healthiest grains out there, loads of protein and fiber and can be easily used instead of rice.

So this is how it started…on Saturday I had been inspired to make Lebanese Fattoush featured on My New Roots Blog. I had been given Zaatar and Sumac at a wedding in Beirut last June so I was glad to finally have a good reason to use it. The salad was so refreshing and zesty. I teamed it with another favorite salad Blackeyed pea salad and dry fried some flat bread. This has been the beginning of our detoxing healthy lifestyle we are trying hard to focus on. It was the perfect meal as we sat in our beautiful anchorage.

<Blackeyed Pea Salad Recipe>

That evening we had some meaty Mahi-Mahi (caught on our Atlantic Crossing) to eat, which I marinated typical Caribbean jerk style. I cooked up some of the black quinoa and combined it with the Blackeyed Pea Salad that we had left over from lunch. This meal looked absolutely stunning and tasted amazing.

Sunday morning we lifted anchor and moved on to the next anchorage. I decided to make some quinoa galettes that I had seen on 101 cookbooks with last nights leftovers. I combined more black quinoa into my quinoa/blackeyed pea salad from last night, then added two beaten eggs, a pinch of salt, some parmesan and some panko breadcrumbs. Next, heating some oil in a pan I put a small handful of the mixture into the pan and patted it down a little into small rounds. I cooked several of these until they were well browned on the bottom then carefully turned them over to brown on the other side. A few fell apart but they still tasted good you just have to be really gentle with them. 

I served these patties to my lovely boyfriend (who loves my meals and gratiously does the washing up) with our leftover fattoush salad. I can tell you that this was probably the best meal we have eaten in days. I will definitely be making these again, perhaps next time I will make them more defined round shapes, or maybe they are better a more rustic shape. What do you think? I am also thinking these would be delicious with some thai flavoring, or perhaps with feta cheese? 

Follow @LoisBickerton

Thank you New Zealand - for savoury muffins

These are my delicious butternut squash and feta muffins. . . . unbelievably good!

Follow @LoisBickerton

Mojito Magic in the Virgin Islands

Last night I had mojitos - I freakin' love these! Next time I make them it will be with a pestle too!!

Follow @LoisBickerton

Everyday Sunday Breakfast Burritos

You should try these, they are delicious. Don't you wish everyday was Sunday. Sundays for me are about cooking, listening to music (currently listening to Martin Harley and Ed Sheeran), doing things that make you feel the happiest. These breakfast burritos are a perfect start to a Sunday. Thanks to my current favorite fellow blogger for this recipe and inspiration http://sproutedkitchen.com/

You need a packet of wheat tortilla, tomatoes, onions, eggs, coriander, advocado and baby spinach.

Firstly pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees celcius. Cut up your tomatoes and onions and place in a baking tray, top with olive oil, salt and pepper and roast for 10-20 mins whilst you prepare your other ingredients.

Next, chop up your coriander and slice your advocado. Then crack your eggs (2 per person) into a bowl along with salt, pepper and chilli flakes. Whisk up your eggs until they are an even yellow colour. On a low heat start to scramble your eggs in a pan. Low and slow is the key with scrambled eggs. Whilst your eggs are scrambling (is this a word), you can put your tortillas in a pan to dry fry but don't burn them.

Once your eggs are cooked, mix the chopped coriander up with them. Spoon your eggs out onto each tortilla, then spoon your roasted tomato and onion onto the eggs. Top with baby spinach and advocado. Fold your tortillas and serve as soon as possible. Enjoy them.

I am thinking about doing these again next weekend but possibly with a Mediterranean twist.

Follow @LoisBickerton