Fascinating Food II

So many of you enjoyed the previous one that I thought I would get more facts about food.

The First is from a super fun site called Today I Found Out and the next is some other food facts I think is weird and wonderful......

·        

·        Peanuts are salted in the shell by boiling them in a heavily salted solution, then allowing them to dry.

      Celery has negative calories.  It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. It's a pity that celery doesn't taste like chocolate

·         The canning process for herring was developed in Sardinia, which is why canned herrings are better known as sardines.

·         Honey is believed to be the only food that does not spoil.  Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs has been tasted by archaeologists and found to still be edible. Why would anybody taste mummy honey????

·         Cheese closes the stomach and should always be served at the end of a meal.

·         A quarter of raw potato placed in each shoe at night will keep the leather soft and the shoes smelling fresh and clean. OKAY that's different!!! How long can you use the same potato or should you use a new one each day?

Everybody these days are talking about buying in season produce. It is hard to keep up though. Are strawberries in season?  And what about these mangoes? 

By buying seasonal you can ensure that you have fresh produce that will have more flavor and aren't grown with UV lights. You ensure that you are supporting local produce and not buying produce that is being imported from Spain, England, or Australia.

Here is a very clever chart for South African seasonal Produce.

Fascinating food

Food is the most wonderful thing in the word. Yet some times it can be weird and wacky. Counting down from ten.....

10. Coffee

The Fact: The most expensive coffee in the world comes from civet poop

Kopi Luwak are coffee beans that come from Civet (a cat sized mammal) poo. The animals gorge on only the finest ripe berries, and excrete the partially-digested beans, which are then harvested for sale. Kopi Luwak is the most expensive coffee in the world, selling for between $120 and $600 per pound, and is sold mainly in Japan and the United States, but it is increasingly becoming available elsewhere. 

9. Feast

The Fact: The largest food item on a menu is roast camel

The camel is stuffed with a sheep’s carcass, which is stuffed with chickens, which are stuffed with fish, which are stuffed with eggs. This feast is sometimes featured in Bedouin weddings. Someone discovered the word stuffed and just went crazy.....

8. Bugs

The Fact: The FDA allows you to sell bugs and rodent hair for consumption

The FDA allows an average of 30 or more insect fragments, and one or more rodent hairs, per 100 grams of peanut butter. Now I'm worried.... well what hasn't killed you.....

7. Soup

The Fact: The first soup was made of hippopotamus

The earliest archeological evidence for the consumption of soup dates back to 6000 BC, and it was hippopotamus soup! 

Recipe goes: Catch one hippo

I go: What???? How???? I ask again HOW????

6. Liquorice 

The Fact: Liquorice is also used to flavor cigarettes

Liquorice is used to enhance the flavor of cigarette smoke. Licorice extract may be applied to cigarette tobacco to enhance and harmonize the flavor characteristics of smoke, improve moisture holding characteristics of tobacco, and act as a surface active agent for ingredient application.

5. Worcestershire Sauce

The Fact: Worcestershire sauce is made from dissolved fish

Worcestershire sauce, the popular English sauce, is made from dissolved anchovies. The anchovies are soaked in vinegar until they have completely melted. The sauce contains the bones and all. That explains the weird milky sediment..

4. Popsicle

The Fact: The Popsicle was invented by an 11 year who kept it secret for 18 years.

The inventor was Frank Epperson who, in 1905, left a mixture of powdered soda and water out on the porch, which contained a stir stick. That night, temperatures in San Francisco reached record low temperature. When he woke the next morning, he discovered that it had frozen to the stir stick, creating a fruit flavored ice treat that he named the Popsicle. 18 years later he patented it and called it the Popsicle.

3. Microwaves

The Fact: Microwave cooking was discovered accidentally, when a chocolate bar melted in someone’s pocket

This is very true and very scary – imagine what it was doing to his leg! The fact is, Percy LeBaron Spencer of the Raytheon Company was walking past a radar tube and he noticed that the chocolate bar in his pocket melted. He then tested popcorn in front of the tube (surely turning up the power and standing out of the beam), and it quickly popped all over the room. He is (obviously) known as the inventor of the Microwave oven. 

2. Peanuts

The Fact: Dynamite is made with peanuts

Peanut oil can be processed to produce glycerol, which can be used to make nitroglycerin, one of the constituents of dynamite. Note however, there are other processes that can be used to make dynamite without using peanuts at all. How bad is it to survive an accidental explosion of dynamite just to find out your allergic to peanuts.

1. Coconut Water

The Fact: Coconut water can be used (in emergencies) as a substitute for blood plasma.

The reason for this is that coconut water (the water found in coconuts – not to be confused with coconut milk, which comes from the flesh of the coconut) is sterile and has an ideal pH level. Coconut water is liquid endosperm – it surrounds the embryo and provides nutrition.

Homemade easy

We like to go out and buy ingredients and food that is different from the normal everyday ingredients. Vanilla Sugar, basil infused olive oil, herb crusted cream cheese and really anything with the words gourmet, homemade or farm style in front of it.

The crazy thing about all of this is that it is just so easy to make yourself but we simply don’t have the know-how. 

Today I’d like to share some of my own favorites with you. Easy short cuts that will make your friends think you are the best cook they know. And most of these things should not take you more than 15 min.

Flavored oils

What flavors you want in your oil is up to you.  

This is just some basic steps to make sure that you know how to infuse the oil and from there you can experiment.

Citrus Oil

2 x lemon and orange peel

1 cup of olive or vegetable oil

Take the peel of the fruit make sure you don’t get a lot of the white flesh.

Give it a rough chop and add it with the oil.

Heat up the oil until it looks like the oil is about to start frying the ingredients. (Little bubbles form)

Take it off the heat and store for use once it is cooled down.  Leave the aromatic ingredients in the oil once you store it.

Use this oil for salads and frying fish.

You can do this with chilli, thyme, onions, and basically anything. The key here is to make oils and use them with other flavors that work. Also the amounts of aromatic ingredients depend on the intensity you want.

Marinated feta

1 Tub of feta

2 lemons

Sprigs of thyme

1 clove of garlic

2 tbls of course black pepper

1 ½ cup of olive/ vegetable oil

Zest the lemons and chop the garlic fine

Add the thyme, pepper, zest and garlic to the oil.

Heat up the oil until it looks like the oil is about to start frying the ingredients. (Little bubbles form)

Take it off the heat and let it cool to room temperature.

Now cube your feta and add it to the cooled down oil. Put all of this back in a container and store until you can use it.

Use it for anything like salads, quiches and cheese platters.

Wake up Muesli

We all like muesli for breakfast but sometimes it gets boring. Here is a way to spice up those nuts. I do this one bag of muesli at a time and always try something different if you want to keep it fresh.

1 kg Bag of muesli (doesn't matter what flavor it is.)

2 tbls Filter/ percolator coffee

1 tsp Vanilla essence

½ tsp Cinnamon

50g sugar

Preheat you oven grill to its medium heat. Number 4 or 5 depending on the oven

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and make sure it is evenly mixed through.

Put the muesli in a baking tray and make sure that the muesli is spread out evenly and not layered to thick.

Roast the muesli for 5 minutes about 15 cm from the grill. Keep an eye on it as you don’t want it to burn and it does burn very easily. 

You just want to heat it up a little bit to release the flavors. You will start smelling the coffee beans and the nuts roasting.

After the 5 minutes pour the roasted muesli on your kitchen counter and spread it out so that it can cool down. Keep moving the muesli around every minute so that it doesn't build up steam and go soft. Do this until the muesli cooled.

Once it is completely dry and cool store it for use.

The coffee and cinnamon gives the muesli a whole new taste. You can always add orange zest, ginger and even a bit of rooibos tea leaves (from the tea bag) for a whole new combination. Keep playing around with flavors and tastes.

Balsamic Marmalade

A beautiful and sticky condiment that was brought to fame by Woolworths. This is my recipe. You work in a ration system for this recipe and it I all about feel and your own personal taste. The ratio is 1: ½ : ¼  

1kg Onions chopped 

500 ml balsamic vinegar

250 ml sugar

Salt and pepper

Fry the onions in a pot until they are translucent. (no browning)

Add the Balsamic Vinegar and sugar all to a pot and bring to the boil over a medium heat. Let it reduce slowly until the liquid is reduced by half.

Add salt and pepper to taste and then store it in a jar for use over cheese, salads and in roasted vegetables.

Keeping the Big Blue, Green

Okay, so these days there are a lot of things you have to check when buying food. Free range, dolphin free, Organic etc.  As much as this is a big pain for some of us it is a very important that we familiarize our self with these things.

SASSI (South African Sustainable Seafood Initiative) is the new thing and has brought to our attention to the following issue. Certain species of fish are either depleted as a result of over fishing or the manner of fishing causes environmental damage or a high bycatch. (The term “bycatch” is usually used for fish caught unintentionally in a fishery while intending to catch other fish. - Wikipedia)

So what can we eat and what not and why? This is where we get annoyed. Luckily SASSI understands human beings as well as fish and made it easy for us. On the SASSI web site they explain it all in a very easy and human friendly way. All fish is divided into three categories; Green, Orange and Red and by following these color codes we can make well informed decisions I our restaurants and grocers.

·         Green

This is the group from which consumers are encouraged to choose, as it contains the most sustainable choices from the healthiest and most well-managed populations. These species can handle current fishing pressure.

·         Orange

This group includes species that have associated reasons for concern, either because the species is depleted as a result of over fishing and cannot sustain current fishing pressure, or the fishery that catches them may cause particularly severe environmental damage and/or has high bycatch, or the lifestyle of the species makes it vulnerable to high fishing pressure. Consumers are encouraged to think twice and consider the implications of these choices.

·         Red

This group includes both unsustainable species, which are from collapsed populations or have extreme environmental concerns and/or lack appropriate management, and species that are illegal to buy or sell in South Africa (no-sale species). These species should never be bought by consumers. Fish highlighted in bold in this category are illegal to sell in South Africa.

This sounds all like a lot of trouble but just by making the little right choices we can make a big difference. So I ask you why not? Make sure what you take from the Big Blue, is Green

Here is the link to the SASSI Web site where you can view the lists of fish and why they are green, red or Orange.  http://www.wwfsassi.co.za/?m=1

Here is a Downloadable pocket size index card that you can stick on the fridge and make sure you do your best to help where you can.   http://www.westerncape.gov.za/other/2010/9/sassicard_2010.jpg

Mushroom Stir Fry

Okay so I’m back in full force after a busy time at work where I didn't have a lot of time to blog.

Keeping up with our little fungi friends here is a nice little dish. It’s my own creation and even though it has no meat in it (you don’t even miss it) it is filling and healthy as well.

If you have to you can add some cut up chicken breast to it but cook it separate and add at the very end or it will turn black.

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 pkt button Mushrooms                                                            1 can Butter beans

1 Bell pepper                                                                             15 cherry tomatoes

45 ml oil                                                                                     15 ml soya sauce

15 ml balsamic vinegar                                                                Salt and pepper               

1 pkt Brown Mushrooms                                                           1 Leek

1 Stick of celery                                                                         1 Onion

1 Clove of garlic/ 1 teaspoon of garlic                                         1 tbls sugar

Method

Chop all your mushrooms into thin slices to allow short cooking time. Do not mix the two types of mushrooms.

Chop the leek onion celery and garlic clove finely

Half the cherry tomatoes and cut the bell peppers into slices (Julienne)

Strain the water of the butter beans

The fun starts now that everything is prepped.

The key is to think fast and work faster.

Heat your oil in a frying pan or wok until it is just starting to smoke. Don’t turn down your heat at all during the cooking process.

When a light smoke is rising from the oil throw in your leek onion celery and garlic clove.

Give it a quick stir then add the button mushrooms, bell pepper and butter beans.

Stir and let it stand for 1 minute while frying.

Mix your soya, balsamic, sugar and salt and pepper together.

Now add the tomatoes and the brown mushrooms give it a good stir but do not over work it as the brown mushrooms break up and make the whole dish black. Drizzle the soya dressing over the whole dish. Let it fry for 3 more minutes without too much stirring maybe maximum two times. Take it off the heat and stir on last time.

Serve with rice or noodles and make sure you also dish up the sauce at the bottom is packed with flavor.

Bread, bread and some more bread

Here is a delicious bread recipe that I have found. There is only one thing better than the smell of fresh bread and that I actual fresh bread. So here I hope you have tons of baking fun.

400g flour

300ml Water (luke warm)

7ml instant yeast

5ml salt

5ml sugar

10 ml oil

My attempt at this recipe.It came out good! Bring the butter and cheese

Mix the flour, yeast, salt and sugar together.

Then slowly add the water while mixing the dough with your hands or a mixer.

When most of the flour is combined start kneading the dough in the mixing bowl to get the excess flour to be picked up. (Don’t stress if there is some left and you can’t get it picked up it’s not the end of the world)

Now take the oil and pour it on a flat surface. Knead the dough on this surface for 10 min

Let it rest under a damp cloth for 10 minutes then knead the dough for ten more minutes and rest for ten more minutes then a final knead and let it rest for 45 minutes.

Heat your oven to 180°C

After the dough has rested the last 45 min oil your baking tray and shape your bread in your desired shape.

Now bake the bread for about 30 to 40 minutes depending on the shape. Round breads take longer to bake through.

Check if your bread is cooked by inserting a knife into it. If it comes out clean it’s cooked.

Enjoy with butter and jam while still hot.

Optional: Put a little oven proof bowl with water in it in the oven to get a really nice and crispy crust.

Monday Dinner Made Easy

Monday Morning.Get up, you’re late for work and breakfast is a cup of coffee. At work you have an hour for lunch but you’re stuck answering an email and now you only have forty minutes so you inhale a Snacker bar. Driving home you rush because you have an appointment at 18h00 and you finally get home at 19h00 for the first time and all you want to do is put up your feet and relax. Not feeling any passion for any cooking you go to the closest directory and call a fast food chain with free delivery. Now it's Tuesday and Friday seems so far away.....

This is how all of our lives go during the week. We have either no time for cooking or even worse no time for eating. So the only solution is take-aways. No, there is another option but usually its so tasteless that we do not even consider buying it. Frozen foods.

Okay, I can hear you going “No Way!!!” What if I said that Chefs sometimes cook and prepare food then freeze it and later defrost and cook it again and serve it to you. This is not your local deli, this is your top restaurants as well.

Now why can we not prepare frozen foods? It’s because we have had so many bad experiences with store bought frozen food. I have found a site that can help us all eat healthier and then also help us save time by doing frozen foods. There are so many recipes on these sites you will never get bored. The food is full of taste and great flavors. Why not try it this weekend. Cook for lunch and/or dinner this coming week. Take it out to defrost on Monday morning and then you know that when you come home on Monday the only oven that will be working is Chef Mike warming up your food in 30 seconds and there you have delicious food. Here are a few good links that I even reference sometimes. 

Hope you like it.

http://happymoneysaver.com/making-50-freezer-meals-in-one-day/

https://pinterest.com/lornee56/frozen-dinners-made-at-home/

http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/dinner/planning/dinnerplanning_prepfreeze.aspx

White chocolate and orange tart

This is one of my own recipes and it is simple but also one that you will never forget. I like it because it is a fresh dessert with the necessary sweetness and guilt.

White chocolate and orange tart

(serves 4)

120 g white chocolate

2 cups cream

2 oranges zest

5 ml orange essence

5 ml vanilla essence

½ cup sugar

10 ml gelatin

• Half a pack tennis biscuits

• Heat the cream with the orange zest, sugar, vanilla essence, orange essence and bring to a simmer.

• Soak the gelatin in 10 ml water to make it soft and add it to the cream mixture.

• Once the gelatin is added take the mix of the heat and add the chocolate and stir till it is all melted and mixed in to the mix well. Do not let the gelatin boil it won’t set.

• Crush the tennis biscuits and put them in a thick layer on the bottom of the serving dish.

• Now pour the mix over the biscuits and put in the fridge for 90 min to set. Once it is firm to the touch you can serve the tart.

• Serve with whipped cream (not sweetened) to break a bit of the sweetness or if you like serve with sweetened whipped cream. You can even serve it with a bit of orange marmalade or just orange slices.

High Steaks Cooking

Steaks, the big question are where we can find a good one. Well it’s not that difficult. Don’t grab the car keys yet you’re not going anywhere. There is only one place that serves a steak like you want it. Be it medium with mushroom sauce or well done with salt and pepper. At this place they do not judge how you eat your steak and they serve it with your favorite drink. This place is your kitchen. Well after you read this it should be.

Don’t be scared of cooking this piece of meat. Some people fear cooking steak and they have good reason. Somewhere in your life you probably had a steak that you could wear while running the Comrades or so raw that you swear it just made a sound. That’s what we have as a reference and so we are afraid to cook it because we know how much we hated that person that served us those steaks and don’t want our friends to feel the same towards us. (If this is the point where someone says: “They won’t hate me because they are real friends and real friends love each other” then I dare you to give you friend a tough piece of steak.)

Like I was saying don’t fear it because one of the most feared Chef in our universe has made it easy for all of us.

This recipe comes from Gordon Ramsay’s F Word and he also used it on his cook along show. If you want watch the video at the end of this post all this information is in there as well.

Gordon says “don’t be afraid to cook a steak on the big night. If you follow these simple rules, it will be easy. Let the pan get nice and hot. If there’s no heat in the pan, there’s no color. If there’s no color, there’s no flavor”. Make sure the steak is relaxed, meaning it’s at room temperature. A relaxed steak will cook quicker, and won’t be stone cold in the center. Ingredients needed to cook a perfect steak couldn't be simpler, so grab a steak next time you’re at the market, and treat yourself to a delicious meal.

Keep in mind, stove cooked steaks can produce lots of smoke while cooking. Open the windows before you start, and turn on the exhaust fan.

Ingredients:

• New York Steak (or your preferred cut)
• Salt
• Freshly Cracked Pepper
• Butter
• Vegetable oil (not olive it starts to burn quicker)

Directions:

Use a generous amount of salt and pepper to season the steak, and gently press it into the meat with your fingers. The thicker the cut of steak, the more salt and pepper you will need.

Use a heavy pan for cooking steak. Cast iron pans work best for this particular meal. Get the pan nice and hot, and then add the oil. Wait for the oil to heat up; it should just start to smoke before adding the steak. Add the steak and push it down in the center with your fingers to ensure the entire steak is touching the bottom of the pan.

It’s very important to only flip the steak once during cooking. Moving the steak around while cooking it will only drain it of essential juices and lead to a less than desirable result. For rare, cook 2-3 minutes on the first side, then flip the steak. About 1 1/2 minutes into the second side, melt butter into the pan. Spoon the butter over the steak, ensuring to cover the entire steak. When the steak is just about finished, turn it onto its back, fat side down. Cook for about 30 seconds to reduce and soften the strip of fat. Remove steak from pan, and baste again with butter from the pan. Leave to rest, and then slice if desired

.

You can test doneness of the steak by comparing the firmness of the steak to parts of your hand. Rare is on your thumb muscle, near your palm, medium is near the outer edge of your thumb, and well-done is where your wrist meets your hand. Watch the video for a visual explanation of firmness.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtIiR7DBAqY

Bacon Wrapped Eggs

Bacon Wrapped eggs

The weekend is here and come Saturday morning we all want a delicious breakfast in bed. So I will share one of my favorites with you and it is so easy you can almost cook it while in bed. And it looks very impressive.

Serves 2

Ingredients

4 jumbo eggs

8 slices of bacon

100g grated chedddar cheese

20g fresh chopped parsley

150g chopped Mushrooms (Any kind, Vegetable of the month) http://chilliout11.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-little-fungi_20.html

Salt

Pepper

20 ml olive or vegetable oil

Method

Preheat your oven to 180°C

Take 4 ramekins or even teacups or small bowls. Make sure its oven proof

Line them with two bacon pieces each

Break one egg into each ramekin

Season with salt and pepper


Cover the egg with the rest of the bacon and bake in the oven for about 20min for soft eggs 30min for medium

While they bake, take the mushrooms and fry them in some oil with the chopped parsley and salt and pepper.

Once your eggs are done layer the mushrooms on the plate and the eggs on top and finish by topping the eggs with some cheddar cheese.

Always season all your food to your own taste

Back to basics

Here’s the problem with recipes and cooking programs on the television. There are a lot of words they use that you and even I do not understand. Sauté, Braise, Blanch and Refresh.

Before I studied to become a chef I thought that Blanch is a word used after the word Carte, I thought raise was always miss spelled as Braise and refresh was a button that I clicked on when the internet page stopped working. You can see how this would make cooking difficult.

Now how much do you hate going out for dinner, sitting down, opening a menu and reading this:

Filet Mignon Crème Florentine topped with Demi glace and served with Courgette Au Gratin

Huh??? As I’m typing this even Microsoft Word is going "THESE ARE NOT WORDS!!!!!!"

 To break it down if you would order the above dish you would get Beef fillet steak garnished with creamed spinach topped with a rich beef sauce and served with some baby marrows grilled with cheese on top.

She misunderstood the recipe totally.

Okay so the next question is why do chefs use these words? Well it is like medical or legal terms. It is there so that we can say Sauté onions instead of fry in a hot pan with a bit of oil or butter. Most of these terms are French and I would not dare suggest you study them before going out for dinner but it is good to familiarize yourself with some of these. 

Knowing these basics will help you to read a recipe better and also help to improve your menu knowledge when you go out for dinner.

So here I leave two links to the best online cooking glossaries. Hope this helps!

http://www.keep-your-home-cooking.com/cooking-terminology.html

http://wikieducator.org/Culinary_Education/Cooking_Glossary

A Little Fungi

You get Button, Brown, Caesar’s, Cauliflower, Beef and summer truffle. You can eat them raw and cook them. Some of them are poisonous and some are edible. And let me tell you the edible ones are the best vegetable under the sun. Of course I’m talking about mushrooms.

Shiitake Mushrooms grow in East Asia and is used in allot of the cuisines there. It is also used in medicine.

Mycophagy, the act of consuming mushrooms, dates back a very long time ago. Edible mushroom species have been found in Chili in ancient ruins, but the first reliable evidence dates back several hundred years BC in China. The Chinese used mushrooms for food and for medicine. We all know that Ancient Romans had food tasters. This cruel tradition started because the wealthy Romans would buy mushrooms and then have the tasters taste them to see if they were poisonous.

Ceasar's Mushrooms. A delicious Mushroom that was a favorite under the Roman Empire.

Today we have a great variety of mushrooms available to us and you don’t have to go to some doggy part of town or have someone else risk their lives for you to get access to them These days simply walk into a local grocer and you will most likely be able to find the normal mushrooms as well as some more exotic ones.

The Champignon Mushrooms also known as White or Button mushrooms. These guys are available everywhere these days. Fresh, dried or canned. In the early stages its called Button Mushrooms and later when it is mature we know it as the Brown or Portobello Mushroom

Enokitake Mushrooms are one of the more exotic Mushrooms that you will find these days in our local grocers.

Mushrooms are very healthy and contain selenium which is a good-for-your-bladder nutrient. This helps to prevent bladder cancer as published last year in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. Mushrooms help boost your immune system and also contain a lot of antioxidants. They contain Vitamin B which is good for your metabolism. And the big surprise is that they contain Vitamin D. Mushrooms are the only fruit or vegetable that can produce this Vitamin. In America they have now started to expose the mushrooms to high levels of   ultraviolet B just before going to market converts more of the plant's ergo sterol into the so-called sunshine vitamin. Oyster mushrooms are a good source or iron. 

Plus, mushrooms are low in calories: Six medium white mushrooms, for example, have just 22 calories.

The summer truffle is part of the truffle family and is regarded as one of the most expensive "mushrooms". Chefs describe this "mushroom" as the diamond of the kitchen. These days you can buy truffles or even get truffle infused olive oil. Truffles have a strong taste and has to be used in small quantities as it can easily over power a dish

Mushrooms farmers Carla and Quentin started their own “at home mushroom farming kit”. This is a kit that helps the regular person to grow their own mushrooms. 

Read their story at http://www.foodwithastory.co.za/View-Business/385/The-Mushroom-Factory and if you would like order go to http://www.mushroomfactory.co.za/

The Mushroom Factory kits. This one is growing Oyster mushrooms.

Mushrooms are the best and most delicious vegetable according to me. Mushrooms will be the Vegetable of the month and I will be posting a recipe every week that will focus on these little beasts and to bring them to their rightful place on your menu.

Food Convertions

Here is a link to online food conversions
Believe me this helps allot
http://www.jsward.com/cooking/conversion.shtml

Good Honest Food

I have always loved good honest food. Well let’s be honest, I love any food even the devilish kind. People like Maggie Beer, Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver are the unofficial faces of your country side good honest food. They have easy recipes, working with ingredients that is in season and easy to find. The food they serve is pack with flavor and has a certain farm style feel to it but all is done with a drizzle of elegance.

Now with Easter coming up, and for me Easter is all about the good and honest, it is important to keep your eyes out for those fresh but ever elusive hot cross buns. These little buns of joy are delicious when hot with butter and a cup of tea. The problem we have is for us to enjoy them hot we need to heat them up at home after driving back from the bakery or grocer and they seem to dry out sometimes… So this is the time, get practicing to make your own hot cross buns and come Easter time you can serve the freshest hot cross buns in town to all your friends and family.

I do not have a recipe for them so after a long search for the best hot cross bun recipe ever, I found this recipe and it seems to be easy and delicious. Nigella has put together a devilish hot cross bun recipe. If you like you can omit the cardamom and cloves.

I can’t wait to try these….http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/hot-cross-buns-3216