Nigella Lawson's Italian Apple Pie

We've unpacked my cookery books! Finally after months of having to cook from memory I'm able to try out the huge list of recipes I've flagged for testing. One of the books I was really looking forward to getting my hands one was Nigellissima: Instant Italian Inspiration and so when I decided to have my family for a summer supper in the garden I cooked two recipes from it. The first was a pasta dish which was perfectly nice but needed some tweaking (in my opinion). The other recipe was this Italian Apple Pie which I did at the last minute realising I'd forgotten about pudding and I had some apples that needed using up.

I was really focussed on the pasta and indeed so focussed that I was happily gossiping outside not realising that the alarm was going off to let me know the pie was reading - meaning it had a few charred patches. A disaster I thought, bin it immediately. However, I was persuaded to serve it and I am so glad it was saved from the bin. It was incredibly delicious and unusual and actually very light for what is basically a cake (the sponge was so good I'm going to use this method for other cakes) and great with double cream (and strawberries on the side) for a pudding or indeed with a cup of coffee as elevenses, It is incredibly easy to make and Ned loved it so much that he learnt to say 'cake'!

Italian Apple Pie

Serves 8

100g soft unsalted butter, plus more for greasing
250g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder 
pinch of salt
150g caster sugar
2 eggs
zest 1 unwaxed lemon
1 tsp vanilla extract
75ml full fat milk, at room temperature
3 pink lady apples, or any crisp eating apples (approx 500g in total)

You will need to grease a 22/23cm springform cake tin and line the bottom with baking parchment. Pre-heat the oven to 200C/Gas Mark 6/400F.

1. Into a food processor put the flower, baking powder and a pinch of salt, 100g soft butter, caster sugar, eggs, lemon zest, and vanilla extract, and blitz until it forms a thick smooth batter. Then, with the motor still running, pour the milk gradually down the funnel to lighten the mixture.

2. To do this by hand, beat the butter and sugar together until pale and creamy, then beat in the eggs, followed by the flour, baking powder, salt, vanilla, lemon zest, and milk until you have a batter with a soft dropping consistency.

3. Halve 1 of the apples, the peel, core and chop one half into approximately 1cm cubes, add these to the batter and either pulse to mix, or beat in. Pour your batter into the springform tin.

4. Quarter and core the remaining apples (including the unused half apple), leaving the skin on, then finely slice them and arrange in concentric circles (or how you can) on top of the cake batter.

5. Mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle this over the apples, then bake for 40-45 minutes, by which time the cake should be risen and golden. Piece with a metal skewer, should have only a few crumbs sticking to it when removed.

6. Leave to cool for 1 hour, before springing it out of the tine to cut and serve warm, or leave to cool completely once out of the tin

How to switch a Bugaboo Bee pram from parent facing to outward facing and how to get your kid to sleep on a train

On my other blog I try to do a video every Friday. As it's a make-up and beauty blog I don't put the videos up here very often but one of my most popular videos is about my pram (typical) so I thought another one may be useful...

Jamie Oliver's Incredibly Delicious Chicken Salad

As you may know my latest love is Jamie's 15-Minute Meals and anyone who's been coming to our house has been getting fed from it. I could do each recipe as I try them but as I've yet to try a dud this would be a bit of a one theme blog and I would be in trouble with the publishers. So I thought I would go for this one because so far it has been the one that Joe made the most excitable noises over and it's the one I thought he'd like least because it has 'salad' in the title and he's a boy.

It didn't take me 15 mins but not far off and it was really filling. We finished it between three of us but we're quite gluttonous - it would do four (as the recipe suggests) for lunch or if you had a pudding. I left out the lemons though because I hate them and THIS IS MY HOUSE JAMIE. And the cress. I just can't be doing with cress.

Incredibly Delicious Chicken Salad

Serves 4

for the salad:
1 head of broccoli
4 x 120g skinless chicken breasts
1 heaped tsp ground coriander
olive oil
1 mug (300g) Bulgar wheat
2 preserved lemons
1 bunch radishes
2 spring onions
½ a bunch fresh mint
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp sunflower seeds
1 punnet of cress

to serve:
4 tbsp fat-free natural yoghurt
2 tsp harissa
1 lemon

1. Fill up a medium pan with a lid, with boiling, salted water. Trim the end off the broccoli and cut the head to florets and add to the pan., cover and boil for 4 minutes.

2. On a large sheet of greaseproof paper, toss the chicken with the salt, pepper and ground coriander, then fold the paper over and bash with a rolling pin til it's about 1.5cm thick. Put into a large frying pan with 2 tablespoons of olive oil on a high heat turning after 3 or 4 minutes until golden and cooked through.

3. With tongs, remove and drain the broccoli (leaving the water in the pan on the heat) and put on a hot griddle until nicely charred.

4. Cook the Bulgar wheat according to the instructions on the packet in the broccoli water with the preserved lemons if you are using them.

5. Halve or crush the radishes, trim and finely slice the spring onions and the top leafy half of the mint then toss it all in a bowl with the extra virgin olive oil and vinegar and season to taste.

6. Drain the Bulgar wheat and tip into a large serving bowl, then mash and mix in the preserved lemons and arrange the broccoli on top.

7. Toss the sunflower seeds in the chicken pan, then slice the chicken and add to the salad scattering over the seeds and snipping over the cress.

8. Serve dolloped with the yoghurt and drizzles of harissa and with lemon wedges on the side.

Jamie's 15 Minute Meals

I don't usually do full book reviews on here. I think it's more useful to review individual recipes that I have tried that worked, however I love this book so much it's getting it's very own post. SO THERE.

I wasn't that keen on the Jamie's 30-Minute Meals: A Revolutionary Approach to Cooking Good Food Fast . Because there was often three parts to each meal there would usually only be one part that I liked the sound of and that seemed to defeat the point of the book for me. I bought it for Joe because he wanted it and it really is his sort of food and he really likes the whole timed aspect of it (never taken him less than 45mins but our kitchen is tiny and Jamie doesn't factor in having to actually wash up half way through) and it's really the only recipe book he cooks from. But while I was at a friends house waiting for her to change my godson's nappy I picked up Jamie's 15-Minute Meals and flicked through it and was incredibly surprised to find I wanted to cook 85% of the things in there. That's huge - I'm an incredibly picky eater.

I may be getting old (veering towards 31) but I recently decided that if I could have ten minutes to sit down with a celebrity-that's-not-Slash, Jamie Oliver would be in the running for that prestigious honour. Why? Because I think he is generally interested in people (and it's all about me obvs) and is actually a nice guy I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU SAY.

Anyway I bought Jamie's 15-Minute Meals and tonight I'm planning on cooking my second thing from it and I've only had it a couple of weeks This is unheard of. It just lives on the kitchen table tempting me to cook from it. If tonight's recipe goes well and I remember to take pictures then I will post it up here but for now here are some reasons why this book is awesome...

1. It has great compromise food. Quite often Joe will get home at 9pm and want to eat. I don't want to eat at 9pm but I'm too gluttonous to cook and watch him eat and not eat anything myself. It has a lot of lighter, salady things but with meat in that suit both of us and actually are great for this time of year when you want to cook something filling but not meat-and-two-veg.

2. It's completely different to his other books. New recipes, new types of ingredients, slightly new way of writing. It must be really hard to keep churning them out even if you do have new recipe ideas but it's a completely different book to Jamie's 30-Minute Meals: A Revolutionary Approach to Cooking Good Food Fast (and I mean that in a publishing way not in a literal stupid way...).

3. There are great ideas but it's not too wacky. I don't like lemon (but you know that), I don't like courgette or aubergine but I also don't want to be driving to a business park in Park Royal (no park, no evidence of royalty) to buy some suspicious smelling paste or a gadget to make edible cellophane (sorry Heston). If there's something I don't like (preserved lemons in tonight's recipe) I leave it out or substitute it and it doesn't really matter. You are not going to get halfway through a recipe (supposedly 7.5 minutes in) and discover you need something that is hard to find during daylight hours let alone 8.30pm. Don't get me wrong sometimes I want wacky. I do. But with an 18 month old, two dogs and a husband who thinks that playing football on a Tuesday until 9.30pm is fun I mostly want yummy and simple.

4. I LOVE JAMIE (sorry that slipped out).

5. I prefer his outfit on Jamie's 15-Minute Meals to Jamie's 30-Minute Meals: A Revolutionary Approach to Cooking Good Food Fast (this is a well rounded review isn't it). 

Chicken Zorba

This recipe has been in my family for years. So long that I have it written in my first ever recipe book (when I was about 14) and we still eat it now. My favourite way to eat this is with warm flat tortillas, salad, strips of cucumber and tomatoes. A great thing to have prepped ahead of time (marinade the chicken anywhere from 30 mins to overnight) for a spring/summer lunch and it's what we had as our first lunch in the garden in our new flat.

Chicken Zorba

serves 4 (light lunch)

4 chicken breasts
1 tbsp vegetable oil
juice of 2 limes
1 level tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tumeric
handful of mint, chopped
pinch of salt
150g Greek yoghurt
170g houmous

1. Mix the lime juice, spices and salt together in a bowl or bag big enough to marinade the chicken.

2. Cut the chicken into thin strips, mix with the lime juice and spices and marinade for at least 30 minutes.

3. When you are ready to eat mix the yoghurt and homous together and put into a serving bowl.

4. Heat the vegetable oil in a frying pan and fry the chicken for 8-10 minutes or until it is cooked through.

5. Sprinkle with mint and serve with the houmous/yoghurt mix, tortilla wraps, and salad.

The Cottage - The Finished Bathroom

So it has been ages since I have written an update about the cottage and that's because all of a sudden it was finished and we had a one week slot when Joe was free to get everything moved back in and it's all been rather surreal. The finished cottage is absolutely beautiful and I can't believe I ever doubted our decision to extend the bathroom. What we have now is a gorgeous family bathroom that is actually fun to be in, with a huge bath and enough room for the little boys to have a full-on fun bathtime rather than squeezing in one at a time.

So here is what it was like before...

This is taken standing in the doorway

Taken from the same angle as the above photo

The whole bathroom from the new doorway

It is so light and airy now. I'm particularly pleased with the flooring which is Unnatural Flooring in Savannah which we also have in the downstairs bathroom. Incredibly easy to wipe clean/dry, warm and comfortable for bare feet or for babies to lie on and really smart looking and (supposedly) long wearing. I also love the long brick shaped tiles which make the bathroom look as big as possible.