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

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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...

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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.

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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

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A smoothie cup of blueberries

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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.

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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.

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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/

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