Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary
fuel that adventure
A 3 layer ice cream cake with an Oreo cookie base. When I was a little girl growing up in rural East Coast Canada (a tiny village on Cape Breton Island, to be slightly more specific) we lived a 45-minute drive away from the nearest supermarket. This meant that we did our big shopping trip …
For when you’ve got those chocolate cravings and don’t want to break the healthy eating plan! I’m not on a diet. I don’t even like the word diet. It implies that you are denying yourself something, a restriction of enjoyment, a temporary solution to a problem. Fad diets aren’t sustainable, and they’re not a healthy …
An Optimum ThermoCook recipe. It’s our wedding anniversary this coming weekend. Two years ago in gale-force winds my husband and I got married. It was a small ceremony with close family and friends with an overnight stay in a hotel and a lovely meal afterwards. Nothing too extravagant. It was a steampunk wedding though. (You …
The idea for these raw chocolate and clementine mini cheesecakes with a chocolate hazelnut crust has been bumping around inside my head for quite some time now, ever since I tried The Rawtarian’s raw cheesecake recipe a few months ago and was really impressed with how light and creamy the cashew based filling was after blending …
aka how to salvage a failed attempt at making chocolate hazelnut spread. I like experimenting in my kitchen, I really do. Sometimes (quite a lot of the time, if I am to be honest!) it doesn’t quite go according to plan. I had a notion to make some homemade chocolate hazelnut spread recently. Ok, if …
aka Cocoa Zucchini Bread depending on what side of the pond you’re on! It’s veg box season! Each week we get a gorgeous surprise selection of whatever happens to be ready to pick. I’m not fussy with what I get; I’ll work with whatever is in season, but I have to confess that courgettes are …
Because sometimes you just have to. I detest food waste. I really do. Back in February this year I made my husband a batch of experimental brownies as a welcome home treat after his adventures in India. The brownies were awful – truly awful. I’d put far too much cocoa powder in it, skewing the …
Chocolate, peanut and marshmallow swirl cupcakes! Give me s’more! Did you ever enjoy s’mores as a child? Picture it, an open camp fire, two graham crackers smeared with peanut butter, chocolate chips pressed into the sticky peanut butter so that there were no gaps at all, two or three giant marshmallows stuck on the top …
A recipe commissioned by Redmond. As a food blogger I am regularly approached by a wide variety of food related companies looking for honest opinions about their products or services. I love these challenges – trying out new things is something I really enjoy, so when Redmond contacted me last year asking if I’d …
In collaboration with Alpen Swiss Muesli. Are you a breakfast skipper? I am. I try not to be. I know I shouldn’t be, what with breakfast being the most important meal of the day, but I just can’t bear to eat anything for the first few hours after getting up. I’m just not hungry! Saying …
“These gluten free brownies give my tummy a hug!” Gluten-free brownies Brownies come in a variety of textures, and everyone has their favourite version. Some like them cakey, some like them fudgy. Some think they should have frosting and some prefer them without nuts. At this time of year (Easter) some like them with copious …
In collaboration with Dr. Oetker Baking. I absolutely love organizing and throwing birthday parties for my children. It’s one of those things I can get completely immersed in what with all the planning and creativity. I also might be overcompensating for the fact I’ve never had a birthday party of my own! They don’t get …
Because sometimes chocolate chunk cookies are required. I’ve made cookies! Regular readers will be aware that it’s been ages since I’ve posted anything even remotely sweet and indulgent like a cookie or cake recipe. That’s because I’ve not been making such treats, or anything even hinting at calorific as I attempt to lose the extra …
100% plant power! I absolutely love weight lifting. Lifting heavy weights is not something I ever thought would interest me when I was younger, when my active trim self never had to pass a moment’s thought about the food I put into my mouth. I stayed slim naturally. Age, growing three babies, laziness and a …
A great edible gift idea that the kids can make! When I was a little girl there was a Christmas sweetie tray on the kitchen counter at my grandmothers house. It was filled with American gum drops (you know, the big semi-hard ones covered in sugar), assorted chocolates and jelly beans. It was just there …
Eat one… if you dare! I love Halloween. I mean, I seriously love Halloween. Unfortunately, Halloween in Shetland isn’t nearly on the same scale as the Halloween of my rural Canadian childhood, where houses would be decorated up inside and out (with some teenage twerp invariably blowing up our carefully carved jack o’lanterns with fire crackers). …
Before I started receiving a weekly organic vegetable box the only beetroot I’d ever really tried was the pickled variety from the supermarket. Occasionally I would pick up a pack of boiled, ready to eat, shrink-wrapped beetroot to make the chocolate beetroot cake recipe from the Green & Black’s Chocolate Recipes book (2003). It made a …
Deliciously dark chocolates with a secret ingredient, or two! You should make these and sell them at the shop! – two veggie phobic boys, age 6 & 8
Some days require raw chocolate chip cookie dough. A day during the summer holidays when a month’s rain falls in one go is most certainly a raw chocolate chip cookie dough day, and not just any ordinary chocolate chip cookie dough – it’s got to be a triple chocolate chip cookie dough day. Chunks of white and …
“If any man has drunk a little too deeply from the cup of physical pleasure; if he has spent too much time at his desk that should have been spent asleep; if his fine spirits have become temporarily dulled; if he finds the air too damp, the minutes too slow, and the atmosphere too heavy …
