Keylime Pie - just like mama used to make.

I'm currently at home visiting my family for a few days, and whilst food shopping with my mum she announced that my dad had requested her to make a keylime pie using an old recipe she used to bake for him back in the olden days.  After being told in Asda by a useless member of staff that "we don't sell milk in a can", I finally tracked down someone who could point me to the condensed milk and we were on our way...

This recipe has been scrawled onto a piece of note-paper and has been kicking about since before I was born, so due to it being over two decades old we have no idea where it actually originated, but it is delicious nonetheless - so get baking!

8oz/225g crushed digestive biscuits

4oz/100g melted butter

3 eggs

2 tbsp caster sugar

397g can condensed milk

4 fl oz/120ml freshly squeezed lime juice (this averaged at around 2 or 3 limes for us, depending on their size)

1 tbsp lemon juice

rind of 1 lime

300ml double cream

(optional) chocolate for decoration - we grated/curled a few squares of a bar of plain chocolate, but a crumbled Flake or other chocolate bar would have the same effect.

1)  Mix together the crushed digestive biscuits and melted butter, and press into a round 9in/23cm tin - chill for one hour.

2)  Preheat your oven to 160 (140 for fan ovens, or gas mark 3).  Seperate your three eggs into two bowls, and mix the egg yolks with the caster sugar until creamy, before adding the condensed milk, lemon juice, lime juice and rind.  Whisk until the mixture is smooth and thick.

3)  Whisk your egg whites in your second bowl until stiff, before folding into the mixture in your first bowl.  Spoon your mixture onto the top of your digestive base and place on the middle shelf of your oven for 15-20 minutes.

4)  Once removed from the oven, leave to cool and then refrigerate for 3 hours to set (we got impatient to eat our pie and cut into it after only an hour in the fridge, and although still delicious it did not have quite the consistency it should have!)

5)  Whip the double cream until stiff, and spoon into a piping bag to pipe onto the pie (or, alternatively, just slap the cream on top and use a fork or spoon to mould into place.)

6)  Decorate with grated chocolate (and/or grated lime rind if there's any left) and enjoy.

I think this recipe might have benefited from some green food colouring to liven up the middle layer, so if anyone tries this recipe and has some to hand I'd love to know how it turns out.

xoxo la dolce eater.

Come Dine With Me - part one.

So, my boyfriend and I were having dinner with two other friends recently and Come Dine With Me was on the TV in the background, and I (half-jokingly) threw out the suggestion that the four of us should do our own Come Dine With Me, so here goes nothing..!  Adam, my boyfriend, had the unfortunate job of going first, and although I never got round to taking any photos of his meal on the night, I did take a photo of the preparation dinner we made the week before so he could try out his menu.

I bought Adam a new Levi Roots cookbook recently and this held the inspiration for his Caribbean themed dinner - he made these 'Wake-up fishcakes' for his starter, and then these sweet potato fries with jerk chicken and minted garlic and chilli mushy peas for his main.

These fishcakes are such a must to try, they are absolutely gorgeous and a new favourite in our flat: http://www.lovefood.com/guide/recipes/12982/levi-roots-wakeup-fishcakes. The sweet potato shoestring fries are so easy to make and so satisfying; thinly sliced strips of sweet potato fried in olive oil infused with a clove of garlic and a scotch bonnet chilli, and the peas are just cooked as per normal before being slightly mashed with chopped chilli, garlic and mint.

One night down, three to go! Watch this space for more CDWM updates...

xoxo la dolce eater.

Lazy I-need-to-go-food-shopping brunch...

11am, starving, what can I have for brunch? Oh, good, we have eggs, that's fine I can have... oh, we have no bread.  That's okay, I have one garlic and coriander pitta bread in the freezer... will that taste weird? Is there anything in the salad tray that needs using up?

This is the kind of thought process that leads me to the majority of my meals, and the one that led me to this brunch creation today...

 

Lazy I-need-to-go-food-shopping brunch

One pitta bread (mine was garlic and coriander, but any kind will suffice)

Handful of rocket

Half of a red pepper

75g sliced mushrooms

Two soft-boiled eggs

I think this is a very self-explanatory breakfast, but nonetheless:

(skip this first step if using fresh pitta breads and not cheating with a frozen one like me!)

(1)  Pop pitta bread in the microwave for 30 seconds to defrost

(2)  Bring a saucepan of water to the boil

(3)  Finely slice peppers and mushrooms and fry with a splash of sunflower oil

(4)  Add two eggs to the pan of boiling water for 5-6 minutes, slightly longer if you want them hard-boiled instead

(5)  Put the pitta bread in the toaster for a minute or two to warm and crisp up

(6)  Pile up your toasted pitta, rocket, sliced peppers and mushrooms, slice your eggs in half and balance on top with a sprinkling of salt and pepper

(7)  Tuck in.

 

xoxo la dolce eater.

What day is it today?

Pancake day of course!  My first pancake day since discovering cooking, and also my first pancake day of actually having a decent camera to hand (as well as, you may notice, the first post of this blog with a decent camera to hand - it can only get better from here on in terms of picture quality!) 

My intentions of pancake day were to have more than one round of pancakes over the course of the day, to include a savoury option, but alas the savoury pancakes never occured and I am instead destined to only have these ones to brag about. But they were most definitely worth the bragging - fluffy American pancakes with freshly whipped cream, chopped strawberries, dark chocolate chips and a milk chocolate sauce. Greediness at it's finest!  I also made a second batch for the boyfriend with banana and maple syrup, but unfortunately his patience does not last as long as mine and the plate had dissapeared to be demolished before the camera lens had even been removed...

Happy Shrove Tuesday everyone.

xoxo la dolce eater.

Valentines Day

Valentines Day is never too fancy an occasion for us, and this year consisted of a stroll around town resulting in taking shelter in a cosy little coffee shop in the North Laines; mochas, hot chocolates, chocolate treats from M&S and some first-class people watching of the unusual sorts around that end of Brighton.

These were in fact made previously to Valentines Day, although I figured were worth mentioning in the same post as, had I had the time to do any baking in preparation for the day, these are what I would have gone for...

Behold, my white chocolate and raspberry brownies!  Truth be told I don't remember where this recipe originated from, but if I happen to stumble across it again I'll be sure to post it up here.

xoxo la dolce eater.

Chocolate and hazelnut brownies

http://cooklikeyourgrandmother.com/2009/07/how-to-make-perfect-brownies/

This recipe truly does produce the nicest brownies I've ever tasted - I adapted it slightly and added hazelnuts and hazelnut syrup to mine for some little bites of chocolate-y heaven.  Needless to say, the batch lasted all of about an hour in our flat...

xoxo la dolce eater.

Does it get much better than Latin American food?

I don't believe it does.  Las Iguanas is a favourite of mine, I truly am such a sucker for anything spicy served in a tortilla wrap or with rice.  Recently went for lunch with my nearest and dearest for a 'Big Burrito'; tortilla parcel bulging with spicy chicken, peppers, onion, rice, slaw & cheese, topped with homemade salsa, soured cream & guacamole, and a raspberry and elderflower cooler.

 

xoxo la dolce eater.

Spuntino restaurant in Soho.

Last year I took the boyfriend to London for a birthday weekend, and my cousin told me that I must go to Spuntino in Soho - looked online and found no website or menu, but TimeOut rated it so highly as well that we went on a hunt for it.  It did not dissapoint, as the atmosphere and the food was wonderful, we feasted on a variety of mini 'slider' burgers and shoestring fries and other various plates, but the real winner was this dessert:

Peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  Two layers of a thick peanut butter ice cream with a sweet jelly filling and a crushed peanut topping - to die for.  I'm honestly still waiting for the day I have an excuse to go to London any time soon just so I can treat myself to one of these again, I will eat my hat the day someone shows me a dessert as good as this one.

(apologies for such poor photo quality, another one off an old phone that lost all quality after being transferred between phone and Facebook etc!)

xoxo la dolce eater.

Cupcake time

Cupcakes are always an appropriate birthday present - I made these pretties for a friend of mine last year and just rediscovered the photo of them...  White chocolate and marshmallow cupcakes with pink vanilla frosting and a crushed Malteaser topping!

xoxo la dolce eater.

Beautiful box of chocolates at the Taste of Christmas event I went to in London in December. Oh and only £25.99, what a bargain...

xoxo la dolce eater.

A very belated Merry Christmas...

As I said before, some of these particularly seasonal backlogged photos are going to seem completely out of context when I post them now as Christmas is long gone, but I couldn't let the photos pass by...

My festive cookies which found their way under many people's trees last year (the joy of being a student and not being able to afford real presents) - a selection of gingerbread, spiced orange and cinnamon shortbread biscuits.

My festive dessert in Blubeckers White Hart restaurant in Chobham, Surrey (http://www.hcpr.co.uk/chobham/), an absolute favourite restaurant of mine: mulled wine jelly with stewed fruit and clotted cream, beautiful!

And finally my Christmas present to my parents, selected and prepared at the deli where I work in Brighton (http://www.artisanlivetoeat.co.uk/) by me, a festive hamper of little Italian treats! Unfortunately the quality of this picture is rubbish due to it being taken on my phone, and the bottom left corner full of cheese and olives cannot be properly seen :( either way, it went down a treat!

xoxo la dolce eater.

It's taken me so long to get round to starting this blog that I've acquired quite a large backlog of photos that I want to upload, so prepare yourselves for what's coming! Thought I'd set the ball rolling with the Italian in me and a celebration of anything and everything dough-based;
 

 

The beautiful presentation of the Calzone Con Carne Piccante my boyfriend ordered when out for dinner in Ask...

And my first ever attempt at baking a calzone - granted, it doesn't have quite the same artistic flare to it, but my god it tasted good enough to make up for it!

And finally a pizza I recently cooked made up mostly from ingredients in the deli I work in and Jamie Oliver's pizza dough recipe (http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pizza-recipes/pizza-dough) - pancetta, salami, chorizo, chilli, mixed peppers, rocket and mozzarella. Fantastico.

xoxo la dolce eater.

The blogger bug...

... has officially bitten.  I've spent the last few years uploading photos of my proudest food achievements to my Facebook profile, only to receive feedback of "Lydia we don't need to know everything you eat for dinner" - so, blogger, here I am to share my love of all things food with the people that do care!  I've been a student living in not-so-nice student houses for the last two years so my cooking skills had to be very selective depending on whether or not any of my housemates had actually considered doing their washing up for a change, but since moving into a lovely tidy flat last August I've finally been able to be as creative as I like with my cooking and baking, and I LOVE it.  So expect to see my favourite photos, reviews and recipes on here, and most importantly, eat and enjoy.

xoxo la dolce eater.