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Pao de Queijo (Brazilian Cheese Bread)

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Posted on 26-12-2011 | By: Shannon

Category : Appetizers, Bread, Nibbles, Sides

This month, for the Secret Recipe Club, we were lucky enough to be assigned Bewitching Kitchen. This is a bit of international food blogger love, because the author of Bewitching Kitchen was born and raised in Sao Paolo, Brazil. So we were pretty excited to try our hands at some Brazilian recipes! I’d been meaning to try Pao de Queijo (pronounced “little cheesey popover things”) for a while now, so this was the perfect excuse! They’re delightful little popovers, be careful, it’s easy to eat a bunch of them…

 

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Almond Poppy Seed Bread

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Posted on 28-11-2011 | By: Shannon

Category : Bread

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This month with the Secret Recipe Club, we’re lucky to be assigned The Gingered Whisk! This is clearly a gal after my heart: she has a category for recipes with alcohol in them. Win.

But I decided to be very brave and not go for a booze-filled recipe. When I read the description of the Almond Poppy Seed Bread recipe, I was hooked. I really like poppy seed, but I’m not so much a fan of lemon-flavored things. And, as a bonus (well, to American readers): this recipe tastes a lot like the poppy seed muffins Costco makes, so now you can just make your own in a size you want instead of having to buy your weight in muffins just to have a couple nibbles. It’s a wonderful breakfast or snack. I admit my batter looks a little thinner than pictured over at The Gingered Whisk, and I’m not entirely sure why, but it tasted perfectly fine.

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Soft Pretzels

Posted on 12-11-2011 | By: Shannon

Category : Bread, Nibbles

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Things are ramping up for the Holiday season. We Yanks have Thanksgiving in two weeks, and I’m hosting my family this year, so that should be an adventure. But that’s stress for another day. This weekend Seattle is headed into crappy weather. The kind of weather you hunker down during: It’s all couch time, all weekend long. So, that also makes it a snacky kind of weekend. This blog has plenty of dessert snackables, so I thought I’d add something a little saltier to the mix. This is a delicious option. It’s admittedly a little labor intensive, at least for the kind of snacking I usually do. But it saves you from spending the entire weekend on the couch, or if you’re having people around, it looks a little nicer than nuking burritos and it’s certainly cozier than opening a bag of chips!

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Grill Week: Sweetcorn and Mozzarella Quesadillas

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Posted on 21-08-2010 | By: Lucy

Category : Bread, Sandwiches

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It’s Grill Week here on the blog so we’re talking about foods that can all be cooked on the grill and make a sunny and food-filled afternoon if combined all together! Let us know how we’re doing in the comments. I love Mexican food but I fully appreciate that over in the UK we probably aren’t doing it right. However, we get by with what we have and enjoy them anyway. That is the British way. Make do and if someone points out it’s not entirely faithful to the original, make an excuse. So here are my entirely unauthentic but still very tasty quesadillas!

Barbeque Rolls

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Posted on 16-10-2009 | By: Lucy

Category : Bread

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The day that Shannon got married was also my birthday and to distract myself from the fact she was halfway across the world and I wasn’t there we had a barbeque. It was also my first attempt to cater for a large group of people. We were expecting about 40 people to arrive throughout the day so the plan was to have food on the go the whole time. I took charge of salads and sides and generally everything that wasn’t meat related. This meant that most of the barbeque was meticulously planned while Doug’s part was largely ignored despite my various “suggestions”. He did however perk up when we bought a barbeque. And while putting it together he remarked that it was just like Lego. It all came together fairly well and the only real barbeque problem we had was getting it to light in a fairly blustery Edinburgh wind. Continue Reading


Prawn fajitas with homemade tortillas and salsa

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Posted on 05-10-2009 | By: Lucy

Category : Bread, Main Course, Seafood

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I think my favourite thing about this dish is how pretty it looks. The prawns, the peppers, the onions, the colours in the salsa, even the tortillas themselves look pretty. See?

Cooking the filling

Cooking the filling

Isn’t it lovely looking? It’s also very quick which is a bonus. You could speed it up even more by buying tortillas rather than making them but they take so little time and taste good enough that I think it’s worth it. This is a great meal to make with someone else as you can tag in and out. If one person concentrates on rolling out and cooking the tortillas then the other person is free to assemble the salsa and throw the other ingredients into a pan (a wok is great for this dish though, as you’d expect from a stir fry). Continue Reading