If life gives you lemons...

It's really hot and I have a cold - WTF?  I need Vitamin C and I need refreshing.  We have a heap of lemons and some mint in the garden.... 

Lemonade from Feel Good Food by Mim Beim & Gul McCarty

4 cups water

juice of 4 lemons

2 tablespoons of honey (raw/cold pressed if you've got it)

handful mint leaves

Pour water and lemon juice into a jug and stir well.  Add honey and stir until dissolved.  Add more water or more honey to taste.

Add mint leaves and refrigerate for 2 hours or until thoroughly chilled.  Drink with ice!

The book also suggests I need to eat chicken soup, lots of garlic and ginger, chilli, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, parsley, basil, onions, miso, oranges, thyme, cloves, cinnamon, more raw honey, nasturtiums (!) and 3 litres of fluid daily (water, tea or soup)!!

I'll get back to you.

all I want for Christmas is...

It's totally churlish to start writing a Xmas wish list on January 2nd but....  I want Santa to bring me an ice-cream maker come Dec 2009!  I have been inspired by this recipe but the hardcore whisking required dulls my enthusiasm somewhat.  Perhaps someone out there who owns a magic ice-cream making device could try it and let me know how it goes?  Even post some to me in an esky marked 'urgent'?!

It's an English recipe and I love how it specifies English over French lavender - historical cultural divisions run deep!

Lavender & Honey Ice-Cream 

from madamesays.com

2 teaspoons lavender petals (English not French)


4 tablespoons honey (acacia if you have it….but not essential)


2-4 tablespoons icing sugar (use 2 to start off with and then add to taste - I tend to use more like 2 1/2)


Juice of 1 lemon


1/2 pint double cream


1/4 pint greek yoghurt

 

Marinate the lavender petals with the honey, icing sugar and lemon juice for an hour or so.
Lightly whip the cream and mix in the honey/lavender mixture.
Fold in the yoghurt.

Freeze - either in an ice-cream machine (if you have one - if you do, you don’t really need to whip the cream, just mix it with the yoghurt/lavender/honey mixture and put it in the machine until done), or if you don’t have a machine, put into a wide-ish shallow plastic container in the freezer and check every 45 minutes or so to see if ice particles are developing and give a good beat with a whisk to disperse them. You should ideally do this about 3 or 4 times.


Take out of the freezer about 15-25 minutes before serving to allow to thaw a little (this mix sets very hard).

Slack

Nearly a month without a post!  I feel like a bad blogger - a blog is for life, not just till the novelty wears off etc etc... 

Now it's New Year'

s Day and I'm a little headachy, very lazy and in my PJs before it's even dark outside.  Seems appropriate to post a recipe for the Easiest Cake Ever which I served at my little NYE VIP BBQ last night.  Well, perhaps there are easier cakes to make, but I bet they aren't as good as this; the ratio of ease (of method) to please (that which you bring to your appreciative cake-eating audience) on this one is very satisfying.  And see how I coined a little rhyming thing there? I work best in pyjamas.

Claudia Roden's Orange and Almond Cake - one of my very favourites.

2 oranges

5 eggs, beaten

250g castor sugar

250g ground almonds

1 teaspoon baking power (use gluten-free and the whole cake is celiac-friendly)

Put the oranges, whole, into a saucepan and fill with enough water to cover them.  Boil gently for two hours (keep an eye on the water level and top up if necessary).  Heat oven to 200C and butter and flour (if going gluten-free use appropriate flour or some extra almond meal) a large, spring-form cake tin.

Remove oranges from water and let them cool before putting them into a blender or food processor, or turning them into pulp with a stick blender in a large bowl.

Add sugar, almond meal, baking powder and eggs to oranges, combine well and pour into prepared tin.  Bake for about an hour or until skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out (mostly) clean - the joy of this cake is it is very moist but the outside goes a nice deep brown and is slightly crisp.

Easy pleasey!  Thanks Claudia!