Tag: cooking

Strawberry_Jam_1
First Time Making, Recipe Review, Recipes

First time making: homemade strawberry and vanilla jam

As it’s summer, and strawberry season, I thought I’d try out Jamie Oliver’s supposedly super easy way to make homemade strawberry jam. While I love strawberry jam, most store-bought versions taste a tad too sweet/artificial for me. The jam with the lowest sugar-to-jam ratio I’ve found is the Streamline Reduced Sugar Strawberry Jam, which is nice as well, but guess there’s nothing like making your own!

It’s my first time trying out this recipe, so I’ve scaled it down slightly (only very, as the strawberries were on offer). Also, I didn’t find any whole vanilla pods in the shops, so used ground vanilla beans instead.

This filled 2 x 500ml jam jars – not quite as expected from what the original recipe mentioned.

Strawberry_Jam_1I used…

Ingredients
800g strawberries
400g jam sugar
4g ground vanilla beans

You’ll also need: a potato masher and 2 jam jars (500ml).

Continue reading “First time making: homemade strawberry and vanilla jam”

Unknown's avatarblenderandbasil1 Comment
Recipes, Sunday Lunch

Dongbei Poussin and Mushroom Stew

Often called a chicken and mushroom stew, it’s traditionally prepared by the bride’s family on the wedding day, but is very much a popular and everyday dish. The actual preparation only takes 10-15 minutes – then you can just leave it to stew on low heat.  The chicken used in the stew is actually closer to a poussin (you can also use corn-fed chicken though), so that’s what I’ve used here. This was one of my favourite stews from childhood, and as it’s a Chinese dish from Dongbei/Manchuria (in the North East), it has quite strong flavours. Continue reading “Dongbei Poussin and Mushroom Stew”

Unknown's avatarblenderandbasil2 Comments
Recipes, Simple Recipes

Cod Fillet with Red and Green Pesto

After a long day’s work, this is one of my go-to fish recipes: it only takes 5 minutes of prep work and 20-25 minutes in the oven (during which you can either cook some greens and potatoes to go with the fish or just enjoy some quiet downtime). It’s also very healthy: a fillet of cod is less than 100 calories, and that’s mostly in protein. Continue reading “Cod Fillet with Red and Green Pesto”

Unknown's avatarblenderandbasil1 Comment