Irish soda bread

I seem to be surrounded by soda bread all of a sudden. First, we received a care package of soda bread and raspberry jam from Paddy the Baker (he’s one of the Irish expats in ...

12 hour lamb with pistachio tabouleh

I love cooking first thing in the morning. This weekend found me in the kitchen at 7am on Saturday, gathering ingredients for a banana cake. That was followed by setting a bolognese a-simmering and...

Noti's torte

One of my favourite things about my job is getting the chance to attend family celebrations with people from a wide variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds. It’s such a thrill to be able to be a ...

Chocolate peanut butter brownie

People have literally been stopping me in the street to rave about how much they loved the chocolate peanut butter...

Indonesian skewers

Still enjoying the last vestiges of a recent mini-break to Bali, I decided to recapture the moment at home with this recipe for

Kobeba (beef and cracked wheat slice)

I’m mad for Northern African and Middle Eastern flavours at the moment. Well, not really at the moment, for quite a while now. Ever since I was lucky enough to attend a five-day cooking school in...

Laotian pork laap salad

Given my druthers, I could quite easily live on salad. Not nasty, limp little side salads, but big butch ones with lots of ingredients, crunchy bits and plenty of protein to keep me feeling...

Croatian blackberry pie

After two weeks of eating out every night, I recently put my foot down and told Mr Ed that I wanted to cook, dangnabbit, not just eat. The concept that someone might want to cook is a foreign one to...

Kung Pao chicken

For some reason, Kung Pao chicken puts me in a US-sitcom state of mind. It seems like the kind of Chinese dish that is ordered...

Cuban three-milks cake and guava pastries

Hello readers. First up, apologies for my absence. There’s really no excuse for being too busy to cook – what could be more important? I had grand plans to bake up a storm over the weekend, but...