Strawberry Ice Cream

Strawberry Ice Cream - 3

I’m hoping a suitably refreshing ice cream recipe in this scorching weather will make up for radio silence the last few weeks. We’ve just got back from two weeks in Italy split between three locations – a dear friend’s wedding, my parents’ house up in the Tuscan mountains and down by the sea in Senigallia, a sweet little town in Le Marche we’ve been visiting since I was seven. Nino stayed up well past his bedtime on multiple occasions, got to play properly in the sea and sand for the very first time, dined in a Michelin starred restaurant and ate mussels, clams, whole prawns (sucking the ‘prawn brains!’ from their heads with unabashed glee), wild boar and rabbit for the first time. We ate equally well, soaked up plenty of sunshine and indulged in the gift that is grandparental babysitting including an – unheard of – day of lunching and lounging by ourselves. All in all, it was bliss.

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Peanut Butter & Jam Cups

Peanut Butter & Jam Cups - 6

A couple of weeks after Nino turned one, I’d weaned him fully onto cow’s milk. For someone who wasn’t sure how easy it would be – before getting pregnant I’d always assumed there was some sort of ratio between boob size, quantity and quality of milk produced (there isn’t) – I’m super proud to have breastfed my baby for over a year. It’s a controversial topic, and some mums choose to feed on demand for a whole lot longer whilst others are on bottles of formula from the get go, but for me it’s been a wonderful experience. Crazy, beautiful, physical and emotional, tough at times but a brilliant journey that’s reconnected me with my body, our baby and afforded me hours of quiet contemplation in an otherwise hectic year. Continue reading

Happy Birthday Nino: White Chocolate & Lemon Birthday Cake

This time last year we were still in hospital. Forty eight hours after he was born, Nino had an emergency balloon septostomy in the paediatric intensive care unit of the Royal Brompton Hospital, a precursor to the open heart surgery he would undergo nine weeks later. I can remember sitting waiting for him to wake from the anaesthetic as if it was yesterday: the flutter and fall of his tiny chest, the sleepy beeps of a dozen life support machines, the artificial light illuminating our twenty four hour world and the sweet nurse suggesting, gently, for the eleventh time that I try to get some sleep myself.   Continue reading

Strawberries & Cream Scones

Strawberries & Cream Scones

Strawberries + cream = Wimbledon. Which means the recipe for these strawberries and cream scones is exactly one day too late. Sorry. I was far too busy popping these moreish little morsels into my mouth whilst watching the final yesterday to think about posting them online, but if you look on the bright side you’re now 350 odd days ahead of schedule for planning in snacks for Wimbledon 2016.

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Raspberry & Pistachio Eton Mess

Raspberry & Pistachio Eton Mess Meringues will always make me think of my Granny.

Not my paternal grandmother – a skilled home baker whose larder was always stocked with a homemade chocolate cake, fluffy scones or knobbly rock buns the size of a fist – but my mother’s Mum. The same amazing woman who would serve stale Maltesers had little interest in baking, producing meringues from a packet and filling them with cream from a can, yet somehow this dessert remains utterly magical in my memory. Continue reading

Strawberry, Chocolate & Pistachio Ice Cream Bars

strawberry ice cream

Smooth strawberry ice cream encased in dark chocolate & toasted pistachios

While I’ve not quite reached the age where I’m ready for children, I often wonder what it will be like to have them around: how I’ll bring them up, how their personalities will develop and, importantly, what I’ll feed them.

I want my children to understand where food comes from, how important it is, to realise that meat doesn’t just arrive pre-packaged and devoid of all fat and sinew and that the investment of just an hour or so a week can produce better bread than you could ever buy pre-sliced and stacked sky high on the supermarket shelves. Continue reading