Strawberry and Clotted Cream Cookie Tasting

To say sous chef J was delighted to receive a parcel containing 'goodies' for him to try is an understatement. He was thrilled and desperate to begin testing the contents... so much so that he rushed through his photograph taking in an attempt to get eating as soon as possible.

This is the parcel from Beyond the Bean that caused so much excitement...Inside it, we found 2 large Strawberry and Clotted Cream Cookies from Byron Bay's Gluten Free range. We'd spotted a tweet on twitter from @ByronBayCookies about their newly launched flavour and had been lucky enough to get a sample sent out to try for ourselves.Having opened the cookies (which were a little less than perfect after their journey through the post) sous chef J declared the flavour to be "amazing" - he particularly liked the little pieces of strawberry within the cookie.

Being a kind chap, this is what he left at the end of his taste test...... but, even from that small sample, it was agreed the Strawberry and Clotted Cream Cookies would make a great accompaniment to a cup of tea!

We'll certainly be keeping a look out for these when we're out and about over the summer.

Chocolate Easter Egg Nests

We decided to make some Easter Egg Nests and found this easy recipe online... http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/eastereggnests_93841

Sous chef J found all the ingredients we needed and we prepared for action. Following the recipe, we then heated all the ingredients apart from the rice pops in a bowl over a pan of boiling water. The chocolate mix smelled as good as it looked!









Having added the chocolate mix to the rice pops, they were well mixed to coat the rice.








The mixture was divided (almost equally!) between the paper cases. The Mini Eggs were added and then the nests were ready to go in the fridge. The result will be shared with our pals tomorrow... and we're pretty sure they won't last long!

Our Special Salad Dressing

This is a variation on a family recipe that my mother has used since the 1970's.  No idea where it came from but it's a staple as far as we're concerned.  We gathered the ingredients together... as ever, there are not too many in our recipe.

To make enough to fill our shaker, we used one garlic clove, one teaspoon of Dijon mustard, one teaspoon of runny honey, 100ml rapeseed oil and 100ml vinegar.
To make the dressing, we put 1 teaspoon of dijon mustard (check it's gluten free) and a teaspoon of runny honey in the bottom of the shaker. Then, the garlic was peeled and sliced before being crushed with a little sea salt. This was also added to the shaker.
Next, we added the rapeseed oil and vinegar (we use white wine or cyder vinegar) as well.

Having added all the ingredients to our trusty salad shaker, they looked like this...Sous chef J was then in charge of holding the lid on and shaking and
... this is what we got!

Served over green salad, with avocado, on sliced tomatoes or mushrooms. It is delicious and keeps well.

Store in the fridge and shake well before serving.

If you don't have a shaker then a jam jar will work just as well... and a screw top lid's probably a better idea than the push in type of lid our shaker has!