Watercress & Rocket Soup With Garlic, Ham & Feta Welsh Rarebit

I’ve had an odd craving for green leaves recently. There’s something about green food that’s ridiculously appetising to me, I love a good salad but even though it’s spring, most days it feels way too cold for salad. Soup is kind of like a hug in a bowl and you have no idea how happy it makes me to have a bowl of green food in front of me and I get the added bonus of sort of stomping on those leafy cravings.

I like soup but honestly I tend not to eat it that frequently, I always find a bowl is too much because it makes me feel all sloshy; you know like when you’re really thirsty and you down a glass of water and then it feels like there’s a river in your belly, it’s kind of like that but a little more ...swampy. I probably shouldn’t say stuff like that, I think I’ve really perfected the art of saying things that potentially put people off eating, never mind, this is obviously called waffle and whisk for a reason! This soup is delicious though and you know it's good when I still eat two bowls regardless of the potential stomach sloshing.
Also, I can’t sing the praises of this Welsh rarebit enough; I’m all but drooling thinking about it. Do you know what Welsh rarebit is? No? Well we’re on the same page then! I Googled it about a week ago when I decided to make this and apparently it’s sort of like cheese sauce on toast.

I’m sure you’re wondering what I’m going on about seeing as I made it but this is another one of those “how my mother makes it” kind of things where that’s all I ever knew Welsh rarebit to be. Turns out, not that much like Welsh rarebit at all, although I only briefly looked it up and it seems relatively open to interpretation.

I’m not sure why I’ve never thought it switch it up before and add garlic and different types of cheeses but I just opened myself up to a world of possibilities, next stop anything I can find in the fridge! For now though this is the best Welsh rarebit I’ve had and I’ll still stand by that fact you can’t really go wrong with cheese and garlic, add in a little ham and I’m about ready to get back in the kitchen and make more of this.

Grilled Pineapple, Lime and Chilli Quinoa Salad

I’ve had a pineapple sitting in the kitchen for a while now, don’t worry not too long it’s only just ripe. The pineapple originally was for a recipe that I just cannot for the life of me get right, it tastes amazing like addictively amazing but it always looks completely horrible so I figured I should take a step back for a few weeks and tackle it again some other time, it will be revisited though and it’ll definitely be worth the wait.

I was looking through last year’s diary writing down all the ideas I ended up skipping because they weren’t fully formed or I wasn’t in the mood to make so I could have them all in one place and came across spiced pineapple salad, yep, not fully formed, I get easily distracted. Anyway, I’ve been on a bit of a chilli kick recently, got a lot of those in the fridge too also involving another recipe I won’t be posting yet because I might look a little bit obsessed with chocolate cookies which side note: I kind of am.

Anyway back to chillies; I don’t dislike spicy food, I just sometimes don’t see the point in it but ever since I went to Devon and pretty much everything vegetarian I picked up involved chillies, especially this chickpea roll from some nice lady in a little market in Dartmouth, this market basically sold honey, meat, rugs, pastries and fish, I have had dreams about it ever since and definitely need to try and re-create it, but I’ve kind of been converted to adding a little spice to my food so there is no better time to make a “spiced pineapple salad”.

With the time change, lighter evenings and the random bouts of sun in England my brain has definitely been tricked into thinking it feels like spring outside so I’ve already started craving green leaves and all things salad related. I seriously love a good quinoa salad, I feel like I make more quinoa salads than I do other mains but that’s probably not true, I probably just think about quinoa salads more than anything else.

This quinoa salad is sweet and spicy and tangy and I’m not sure what more you could ask for. The pineapple was the perfect ripeness it almost didn’t make it in the salad because I was picking at it while I was shooting, although that would have been a pretty sad pineapple salad minus the pineapple. I refrained and finally grilled it which just made it even more delicious and add the tangy lime and spicy chilli dressing on top while still hot and I could probably just eat a bowl of the pineapple on it's own as dessert. Dessert-like elements in salad can't really be a negative.

Coconut & Seed Dark Chocolate Bark topped with Mini Eggs

This should probably be starting with something like “Easter’s coming up soon” but no, in true fashion Easter is in two days and I am late to the having an organised life party! If you could call eating copious bags of mini eggs preparation though I am definitely overly prepared. Lateness aside this is definitely something you can make last minute, it's really easy to whip together and I might be tempted to say I’d take a bowl of this over an Easter egg, well, unless it’s a G&B 70% Easter egg then it’s a pretty tough tossup, better yet just make this with green and blacks 70% chocolate.


There seems to be a little bit of a theme running in my bakes right now in the form of chocolate, seeds and coconut, and when I thought about making bark all signs pointed to it needing seeds and coconut. The best part about adding seeds to bark is the crunch; I love crunchy food it’s incredibly satisfying to eat not that I had much chance to eat this because it all but vanished in 24 hours. While staring at hundreds of photo of this (yes, I got a little snap happy, note to self: don’t do that) I managed to forget about the fact it was sitting in the kitchen ready to be eaten, I’m not really sure how that works but by the time I got to the box there was only 4 pieces left. If this hadn't have been inhaled a few days ago this would have been the perfect thing to have out on Sunday bear that in mind if you're planning on keeping it a few days, if you have a chocolate hungry family you might need a few chains and a padlock.

I guess I have to mention what I have in the last couple of posts but just a quick public service announcement: if you didn’t know seeds are healthy! If you make this with a really good quality, high percentage dark chocolate with only a few ingredients (I’ll always sing the praises of green and blacks) and take off the mini eggs this has the workings of an indulgent and healthy vegan snack. Although side note you could also add reese’s pieces, if big bags of those were widely sold over here I would be all over that.

Seedy Double Chocolate Chunk Cookies

This might be a little bit of a bold claim but I think these might be my favourite cookies.

I went away last week and my obsession with these cookies went as far as me acquiring the ingredients, which was a little bit of a mission because supermarket are lacking around those parts, cute fishing villages and soggy beaches (okay, they weren't that soggy) but the most you’re going to get is a quaint little village shop and a metro/express/local version of a supermarket that probably stock the weirdest combinations of food that make entirely no sense. Case and point, no dark chocolate and only dark brown sugar.....of all the brown sugars I don't quite believe that dark brown sugar is the most versatile, what's the deal Tesco metro! I'm going off point; the point is I went out of my way all because of my love for the cookies....and maybe a little because I have a slight issue with chocolate at the moment.


One of the reasons I'm so incredibly happy with this recipe aside from the fact that they’re the yummiest cookies I've ever had is that I've finally worked out how to make double chocolate chip cookies so they're moist (I apologise for the word choice) and cookie like and don't need a kilo of chocolate in them. Nigella Lawson’s double chocolate chip cookies are the bomb but 400g of chocolate is not something I have casually laying around the house to make cookies with and melting chocolate to stir into cookies just means more washing up and I mean l believe in things being worth the wait but I don't particularly want to have to wait for my cookies please and thanks.

I am all about making recipes with things you always have in the house because who knows what you're gonna do at midnight on a Sunday evening when all of the shops are closed and there is no chocolate, well you make chocolate cookies obviously. Also can I mention, there's something that goes on in my brain when I add seeds to things it’s like that "practically a salad" quote although more like...there's seeds in this....they're good for me....and really how bad is dark chocolate....that's good for you....and I mean all that balances out the bad stuff right? Anyway, I'll stop waffling and get on with the recipe.

Pistachio & Coconut Dark Chocolate Covered Bites

Easy, quick, simple and healthy; a lot of boxes that make me very happy to tick when it comes to a recipe and knowing something that is ridiculously tasty is healthy just makes it that much more enjoyable.

I actually made these for Mother’s Day and over a week later here I am with the recipe. Yes, I am terrible I get it, it bothers me more than it bothers anyone else but the real reason this is late is because I can’t make decisions. I realise you’re probably sitting there thinking what’s that got to do with food but when I’m editing photos and can’t decide which combination of shots look best together I literally have to walk away from the computer. If I talked about how much decision making, usually about insignificant things, is an issue for me you would probably think I was a little crazy.

I think it was probably two years ago that I made coconut bites, fake bounty, mock mound bars, whatever you choose to call them and my mum couldn’t leave them alone. They disappeared in a matter of hours so I thought something similar would be a good thing to make for Mothers Day, I added pistachios because well they’re pistachios what more do I need to say but it was national pistachio day recently and I actually love photographing green food.
These are so simple to make, I apologise you have to wash up a food processor after you’re done, I swear having to wash kitchen appliances is the worst, the most time consuming part is waiting for them to freeze and then impatiently waiting for the chocolate to set before you can devour them. Also if you want a deeper pistachio flavour there’s a note at the bottom of the recipe about toasting the nuts before blending them.