A whole meal that can be cooked in one dish is my kind of recipe. I happily developed this for Sainsbury’s Recipe Collection: One Pot. Packed full of fresh flavours, it makes for a deliciously light alternative to a full-on roast.
Mummy ‘E’ came over and helped Giuseppe with the garden – while I ‘slaved’ away in the kitchen in order to pay the workers with a tasty lunch.
Sssshh…they don’t need to know there wasn’t much to it.
KEEPING AN EYE ON ALL THINGS BRITALIAN
Sunshine food
A slower-paced, sunny weekend, made me think of holidays in Italy. Inspired, I sprang into action – English sunshine doesn’t hang around. Here are two ways to taste Italy quicker than you can say, ‘how long is it until our next holiday?’
Edible art: It’s the real deal!
Espresso Martini in Soho or afternoon tea in Park Lane (with compulsory touristy pics of Buckingham Palace)? You won’t find me saying no to either. But for the same price as two cocktails in London my mate Nic found a great Groupon deal: Chocoholics Afternoon Tea. We literally inhaled yummy open sandwiches, savoured endless cups of tea and marvelled over (and ate) designer cakes that sat on top of an artist’s palette made of chocolate. Set in the peaceful surrounds of the Hilton hotel – perfect for uninterrupted girlie catch-ups. All of this and one of the prettiest doggy bags I’ve ever seen!
KEEPING AN EYE ON ALL THINGS BRITALIAN
Take care!
Food & Arts Festival, The Medicine Garden, Cobham
A sunny day, friends, music, crafts, artisan cakes and pizza! What more could you want? Well a shorter queue for the pizza might have been nice but looking at that perfectly bubbled, charred, wood-fired pizza crust, I was prepared to wait. The English pair running the stall took the same care as any Italian I’ve seen making pizza.
KEEPING AN EYE ON ALL THINGS BRITALIAN
Up-cycled Easter eggs!
Kids (and the big kid in you!) will love making these super-cool hot chocolate spoons. The odds might be slim, but if you’ve got any Easter eggs leftover, melt them down for this recipe and give them a new lease-of -life!
For lack of plentiful Amarene cherry trees in south west London, I headed to a plentiful supermarket instead. From the deep-freeze to warm toast, my hand-picked tubs of frozen cherries embraced a bit of a make-over.
Makes 3 medium jars
Eggstravaganza Simnel cake
Great British Bake-off contestant Cathryn Dresser’s Easter Simnel cake recipe on This Morning inspired me to get baking. I’ve swapped some of the ingredients to match up with what my Britalian kitchen cupboards had to offer. Hopefully my ‘alternative decorations’ will make the family smile and the camomile won’t send them to sleep!
Sunny chicken with garlic and chilli veg
Dessert: Rhubarb and apple crumble
Lemon and thyme is a bit of a classic but as I’m lucky enough to have jars of freshly dried oregano from Mamma Romeo – which as soon as I open remind me of a peaceful, sunny afternoon in Southern Italy… and pizza! This chicken simply demanded a sprinkling.
A modern-retro menu that brought a great big spoonful of nostalgia to the table! A few gorgeous Italian ingredients give my essentially British menu a little magic touch. Can you spot them?
britalian kitchen 