Carrot and Coriander (Cilantro) Soup

Well here in the UK the winter seems to be sticking around for a bit longer and generally overstaying it's welcome. This is a lovely warming soup that is perfect for heating you up on a cold evenings. The nutmeg and lemon juice add a nice edge to the soup, but if you prefer to omit them, please do. Similarly, the cream is simply there for for consistency, so if you'd rather leave it, feel free.

Spiced Apple, Pear, and Ginger Loaf

It's been a busy few weeks and I've had no time for blogging recently; hopefully with the end of term looming I will have a bit more time to blog in the near future. This is a recipe for a marvelous cake that I made recently; I wanted to make a pear/apple ginger loaf but struggled to find a suitable recipe, so I did what I usually do and combined several. It took a few tries before I got the recipe right but this one turned out lovely - the golden syrup really gives a lovely moist consistency to the cake, and the stem ginger tastes fantastic.

Red Onion, Tomato, Pesto and Mozzarella Tart

I tend to think of tarts as spring/summer dishes, but recently had an urge to make a puff pastry dish. This is a pretty straightforward tart to make and tastes great hot or cold; I was lazy and bought pre-rolled puff pastry so all I had to do was assemble and cook. I added the mozarella after the tart had been cooked, as I really love uncooked mozeralla, but you could just add it to the top before baking if you prefer. I also used a mixture of large tomatoes and cherry tomatoes; cherry tomatoes have a nicer taste, but take a lot more time to prepare.

Naan Bread

I tried out making naan bread for the first time recently and was very pleased with how they turned out. Different recipes seem to suggest different methods (and different ingredients) and I'm quite pleased with this recipe, though I cooked the naan in a frying pan and I think it might have been better to grill them instead, so you could try that. I stuck with plain naan bread for now but it would be relatively straightforward to make garlic/coriander naan by adding the extra ingredients at the cooking stage. This recipe makes a lot of naan bread, but it does take a little bit of time to cook them, so it's worth making lots as you can wrap the naan bread in foil and freeze them to eat at a later date. This recipe uses yeast, but if you'd rather use a recipe without, you might want to try this one.