roasted vegetable and lemon couscous

This is a really tasty light lunch, or would also work well with fish.

Roasted vegetable and lemon couscous (serves 4):

250g couscous
1 yellow pepper
1 red pepper
2 courgettes
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
1 lemon
olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 190C. Cut peppers and courgettes into 1 inch pieces and slice the onion. Put into a roasting tray with the crushed garlic and a couple of tablespoons of oil. Season, and roast for 30 minutes. Cook couscous in bowl with boiling water and 1 tablespoon oil. Fluff up couscous with a fork, add the vegetables and combine. Add juice of the lemon and more oil if needed. Season to taste.

river cottage brownies

On Saturday, I baked brownies using a recipe from "River Cottage Everyday". They were delicious! I didn't have any beetroot so I opted for the classic option instead, and increased caster sugar to 275g and reduced flour to 125g. I love the other recipes in the book too, definitely worth buying!

fairy cakes - yum!

This is the fairy cake recipe Mum taught me when I was little, they're still delicious now!

Fairy cakes with lemon icing (makes 12)

for the cakes:
110g butter
110g sugar
110g self-raising flour
2 large eggs

for the icing:
juice of 1 lemon
300-400g icing sugar
food colouring

Preheat oven to 180C/Gas 4. Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and mix together. Sift in flour and combine well. Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden, and cool on wire rack. Put lemon juice in bowl and gradually add icing sugar until you have a smooth spreadable icing. Add a couple of drops of food colouring to colour the icing. Spread onto top of cooled cakes with the back of a spoon. Eat!

bread pudding

I made bread pudding yesterday using this recipe, and it was actually pretty easy. It tastes lovely too!

marmalade making!

I've been meaning to make marmalade for a while, so today I used Pam Corbin's recipe. It worked perfectly, although it was a very sticky process, and boy there was a lot of sugar! Now we have 4 lovely jars of seville marmalade to keep us going this year.