Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge: F: Fish: Monkfish Kebabs

 It´s back! The Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge is back and to kick off we´re continuing with the letter F. I knew immediately which ingredient to choose for F! Fish without a doubt! We don´t eat enough of it as I´ve never liked it, neither the taste,the smell nor having to touch it and my hands smelling fishy. We only eat it once a week and I can only eat white fish battered(usually frozen battered tilapia!) and my daughter is also not so keen on fish so hopefully I can discover some new recipes that will change our minds. The first recipe I decided to try out was one I came across in a book about feeding babies and  toddlers and family food; monkfish kebabs. The recipe is very simple and fairly quick to make and it was a hit with both my husband and my son.However, I chickened out of trying it....I think it would taste too fishy for me and my daughter refused to try it at first ,then she eventually tried it but spat it out so a bit of a mixed result.I don´t think this is going to convince my daughter and I to eat more fish though.

If you´d like to join in with the Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge, either make this recipe or make your own fish recipe and blog about it linking back to this page. I´d love to see your fish recipes and get more inspiration of ways to eat more fish especially for those who don´t like fish!

Ingredients (for 2-3 people)

1 tomato cut into 6 slices
1/2 small red pepper,cut into squares
1/2 small yellow pepper,cut into squares
3 mushrooms
monkfish tail cut into about 12 cubes
juice of 1/2 lemon
a pinch of black pepper
1/2 tbsp olive oil

Method:
1.Heat the grill and soak 3 wooden skewers.
2.Thread a slice of tomato,monkfish,red pepper, monkfish,yellow pepper and then a mushroom onto the wooden skewers.
3.Mix olive oil, lemon juice and black pepper together.
4.Place kebabs on top of oven tray covered with tinfoil and brush the dressing over the top.
5.Grill for 5 mins,then turn over and cook for a further 5 mins till fish is cooked.

Cooking England County by County: Cambridgeshire: Duke Of Cambridge Pudding

 I´ve been blogging my way round England county by county to get to know more English regional dishes and recipes to prove that English cooking is not quite as bad as everyone makes out and that it is more varied than you might think . However, with time constraints, I haven´t got much further than Cambridgeshire!!

I discovered this Duke of Cambridge pudding that I´d never even heard of,let alone tried, and as I had mixed peel, which I needed to use up as I hadn´t got round to making a Christmas cake last Christmas, decided to go ahead and make it. Despite it´s name, Duke of Cambridge Pudding is more like a tart or pie rather than a pudding.

I followed this recipe by Pasta Grannies substituting the ready to roll shortcrust pastry for my homemade shortcrust pastry and I think I halved the recipe. The end result is a sticky, gooey tart which reminds me a little of a treacle or syrup tart. It´s quite rich and sweet though so only one helping is enough! It´s delicious served warm and lots of cream...even better I imagine with a dollop of clotted cream or thick double cream!!

Great British Bake Off Technical Challenges: Cherry Cake

 Lately, I haven´t had time for blogging nor for baking and cooking, as I´ve been really busy with other projects.

It´s also been a long time since the Bakers&Friends met up so after nearly one and a half years we finally got round to getting together to catch up over lunch and as is the norm, we all brought savoury and also some sweet snacks. I had some glace cherries that needed using, as I didn´t get round to making a Christmas cake last year, so decided to do a Great British Bake Off Technical Challenge and make  Mary Berry´s cherry cake. which I wanted to try. Also it was the first time I used my Bundt mould too!!

The bake is not a difficult one to do if you follow the recipe closely despite it being a technical challenge although without the recipe I´d probably be lost. I didn´t alter anything and the result is a lovely spongy cake. Although glace cherries are not my favourite, I really liked this cake and it was a hit with my Spanish Bakers & Friends so I´ll definitely be making it again although it can be quite hard to find glace cherries in Spanish supermarkets!!

Cook & Learn about the World: Algeria: Spicy Chickpea Soup (Hu mmus b´il Kammun

Gradually starting to ease back into blogging and have brought back Cook and Learn about the World, which was inspired by the blog Global Table Adventure and to try to get my fussy eaters to try new things and also learn a little about the different countries.

So, I have arrived at Algeria and thought I´d kick off with this soup as I thought it might be something that my OH and children would possibly enjoy as we´ve never eaten Algerian food before. I´m not a big fan of pulses and we hardly ever eat them so it sounded like a good way to get some pulses down us too. This soup is simple to make and is perfect for a cold winter´s day or night and it has a lovely blend of spices that whisk you off to another country.Plus the majority of the ingredients are easy to find in your local supermarket...the only thing I found a little difficult to encounter was harissa.I actually got mine from an English supermarket but if you don´t come across it, you could make your own using Global Table´s recipe for harissa. Again if you can´t find the specific chilli peppers, you could just use what you can find. The smell while it´s cooking is tantalizing and it´s ideal for mopping up with some crusty bread.

I pretty much followed Global Table Adventure´s recipe although I think I used slightly less chickpeas, which were already cooked and as I didn´t cook the chickpeas instead of cooking water I just used tap water. As I´d never tried harissa before I only used a teaspoon of it as the recipe states but next time I might add a little more. Also, as the chickpeas are already cooked, I didn´t cook it as long as the recipe says so instead of simmering for an hour, I probably only simmered it for a further 30 minutes. Unfortunately, I couldn´t persuade either of my children to try it which is a pity as I think they would´ve enjoyed it as it is quite similar to some Spanish food.

In order to learn a little about Algeria, which I have to admit I don´t know much about myself, we looked at my daughter´s The Usbourne Children´s Picture Atlas and found Algeria and saw that the capital is Algiers and that the Sahara dessert and Atlas mountains can be found in Algeria and that the people of Algeria use camels.We will hopefully learn a lot more about Algeria as we cook a couple more dishes from this country.

Mad Hatter´s Teashop & Patisserie

Another of the foodie places on my bucket list of places to visit while on my recent trip to the UK was Mad Hatter´s Teashop & Patisserie, a lovely café & teashop which I discovered on Facebook.
I booked a table ahead to avoid disappointment,which was lucky as it is a fairly small café and is pretty popular.

Mad Hatter´s is known for it´s afternoon teas and cakes but they also do hot lunches...I think hotpot was on the menu when we went! They also specialise in baby showers and are even expanding and taking over the shop next door in order to be able to cater better for special events, such as baby showers. The cafe is tastefully decorated in soft,pink pastel shades with their yummy cakes displayed on the counters, which you can´t help but drool over!!

 We ordered a savoury and a sweet afternoon tea and there was also the choice of a Christmas afternoon tea. The savoury  afternoon tea consisted of sandwiches with various fillings, soup of the day...which that day was leek & potato, pork pie and quiche and a giant scone with fresh cream & jam. The sweet afternoon tea came with sandwiches with a variety of fillings...cheese & Branston pickle, ham & piccalilli, tuna mayonnaise & Coronation chicken. As I am a bit fussy and don´t like tuna, they didn´t have any problems with changing the tuna mayo sandwiches for extra coronation chicken ones. We also got a vanilla slice,a coffee renoir...I changed my coffee renoir for carrot cake,brownies and  giant scone. The afternoon teas are for a minimum of two people but I think there is enough for 4 people...we couldn´t manage all of it as we were too full so they packed what we couldn´t eat into boxes for us to take with us. Although a little on the expensive side, it was well worth it as everything was delicious and you get your money´s worth...as I said we couldn´t eat it all!! The service was also good and they were very friendly. It definitely didn´t disappoint and I totally reccommend it as a special treat. I´d love to go back again sometime.