Happy Spring! Lemon and Ricotta Muffins Recipe

Spring is the time of plans and projects

Leo Tolstoy

It’s finally March! For us that means there are warmer, brighter, lovelier days ahead. And astronomically speaking, the beginning of Spring on 20 March. Thanks to a couple of unseasonably warm days earlier in the week, our Spring bulbs have made their move from their winter hiding places under the soil, straight up into the light above. The daffodils are flowering in our window boxes, ushering in the new season with their tall stems and smiley faces. 

Throughout March, according to my copy of Food For Free, we’ll be foraging for hop shoots, jack-by-the-hedge, morel, nettle, sweet violet and velvet shank. I’m looking forward to making nettle pesto, and bright green nettle pasta. I’m also hoping the tiny sweet violet plants in our courtyard and the hedgerows around Segur will flower, so that I can perhaps make some crystallised sweet violet flowers, as featured here. So pretty, and oh so fancy!   

But as well as foraging, March is the time to begin planting seedlings inside. At our house we’re focusing on stripy heirloom beets, basil, and red and yellow cherry tomatoes. In homage to the season ahead, and the bright light and excitement it brings, I made these lemon and ricotta muffins. The citrus zing and their yellowy colour reminds me of all the things I love about this time of year. I hope you like them. Here’s the recipe:

Recipe

(Makes 12 muffins)

2 cups plain flour

½ cup raw cane sugar

1 cup fresh ricotta cheese

1/3 cup milk

2 eggs

6 tablespoons butter

Zest of 2 large lemons

2 tea spoons baking powder

Two spoons fine white sugar (for sprinkling on top of the muffins)

½ tea spoon salt

Step One: Preheat the oven to 200C. Grease the muffin tin.

Step Two: Mix the dry ingredients (flour, cane sugar, baking powder and salt) in a large bowl.

Step Three: Mix the wet ingredients in a medium bowl. Whisk the ricotta, milk, melted butter, eggs and most of the lemon zest (holding some back to top the muffins).  

 

Step Four: In the large bowl, make a well in the dry ingredients, and pour in the wet. Stir gently until mixed. Pour the ingredients into the muffin tray. 

Step Five: Top each muffin with fine sugar and lemon zest. Bake for 20-25 minutes. When the muffins are done, the tops will be golden. Dip a fork in to one muffin to check. If it come comes out clean the muffins are cooked.  

Et voila, enjoy with tea in the sunshine! 

Vanilla scented lemon and rosemary shortbread cookie recipe

Happy February everyone! It’s officially the last month of winter - in this northern hemisphere anyway. While I have been enjoying the crystal clear days, blue skies and frosty mornings, I’m desperate for spring. Even in my new (vintage) shearling coat I fill chilled to the bone. Added to this I’m desperate for the scent of flowers, the sight of leaves on trees, the sound of birdsong, and the taste of foraged goodies. 

Through the short days when there is barely anything to pick or forage, rosemary has been my readily available, abundant friend. Up the narrow, cobbled, medieval lane behind our house there is a rosemary bush growing innocently, and rather triumphantly, out of an old stone wall. It’s not really owned by anyone, the ancient house overhanging it is long deserted, and most of it is growing over the steep cobbled public path.   

I’ve been focused on finding new uses for rosemary all winter. A couple of weeks ago I attempted a lemon and rosemary possett, and while the fusion of lemon and rosemary was fabulous, there were some texture issues. Cream in France is dissimilar to English cream, and I’m still searching for something that will set. Nevertheless, I’ve come across several recipes for lemon and rosemary shortbread and cookies recently. And there are no cream issues with cookies! 

We’re heading to Munich tomorrow morning for a few days to visit my good friend Alice who recently gave birth to gorgeous twin daughters. They’ve been suffering a little with the long Bavarian winter. So I thought I would bake and take with me some cookies, along with a bunch of organic decaffeinated teas that Alice has been missing in Munich.    

The recipe I used is an adaptation from one I found over at Pete Bakes. I chopped and changed a couple of things, adding vanilla seeds, as opposed to vanilla essence to give the cookies a slightly more decadent edge. I also rolled the cookie dough log in chopped rosemary, vanilla sugar and finely chopped rosemary to infuse the edges with an extra zing.

The result? Perfect little cookies that travel well, flavoured with earthy rosemary, which balances beautifully with zingy lemon zest. Beware these cookies are so tasty that once you start eating them it’s really difficult to stop. So before you bake, make sure you’ve got somewhere to take them, or people to share them with.   

The recipe makes around 40 small cookies. You can also roll the dough log and leave it in the fridge for a few days, if you fancy serving the cookies hot.

Recipe

1 cup of unsalted butter (room temperature)

3/4 cup raw cane sugar

2 1/4 cups plain flour

1 egg

½ vanilla bean

1 tbsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped

2 tsp grated lemon zest

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp vanilla sugar

Step one: Chop the butter into small cubes and together with the cane sugar place in a large mixing bowl. Use a hand mixer to mix the sugar and the butter until the mixture is pale and light in colour.  

Step two: Then add most of the egg, vanilla seeds, salt, sifted flour, and most of the lemon zest and rosemary (hold a little back to roll the dough log through), and mix together. Once the flour is added the dough will morph into a consistency you can knead.

 

Step three: Roll the dough into a log, seal with plastic cling film and refrigerate for an hour or longer.  

 

Step four: Set the oven to 180C. Scatter the remaining lemon zest, rosemary and vanilla sugar on a clean surface. Remove the log from the fridge, unwrap it and roll through the mixture, lightly covering the outside of the log. 

Step five: Once it’s covered line a baking tray with aluminium foil, or baking paper. Cut the log into 5mm slices and place on the baking tray. Bake for 12 minutes, and then cool on a wire rack.   

What do you think? Any other cookie combinations you can recommend?  Or just leave me a comment so I know you stopped by! thanks 

Red Rice Salad with Lemon Sesame Dressing

Kristoph and I recently took a holiday to Bali. Actually Kristoph is not as comfortable as I am with the concept of “holiday.” In his view those that say they need a holiday, should re-evaluate their lives, so that they can find more enjoyment in every day. It does sound quite harsh, but perhaps philosophically I see his point.  

So Kristoph called our trip a “reconnaissance” mission. Reconnaissance, because for the last couple of years we’ve been toying with the idea of a move to the tropics. We thought perhaps we could set up home in Bali, live in a rainforest, close to a river gorge, and grow more things to eat. I’ve been (not so subtly) marketing the idea to him for a couple of years. 

As it turned out Bali was far too hot for Kristoph. No sooner had he landed, than he morphed into a quintessentially “hot English” struggling with the powerful sun, and the slightly repressive humidity level. Although we both adored the snorkelling over colourful reefs, battling rivers to reach remote waterfalls, meeting monkeys, and hurtling through jungle tracks on mountain bikes devoid of breaks, the traffic was horrendous, and on a few occasions, soul destroying.

There are over two million people living in Bali, and despite being a huge island – it takes four hours to drive across it (we did it, twice), each year more and more people trade their scooters for cars. Although we’re no longer contemplating a move to Bali, we both loved the diversity of the island’s landscape, and the opportunity it affords the Balinese culture. They grow everything. We visited clove forests, orange groves, coffee plantations, walked through jungles of cacao trees, as well as the ubiquitous picturesque rice patties.

Bali is largely a rice bowl. It’s been grown in Bali for centuries, and the landscape has been slowly and permanently moulded into spectacular green terraces, running like giant steps over the mountain landscape. There’s red rice, black rice, white rice, super fast growing rice, and countless further varieties. Growing rice is hard work though. Every year, lured by the powerful incentive of tourist dollars, more farmers turn away from their ancestral terraces. The land is left, or turned over to developers, as once were farmers, take up employment as drivers, or as hotel staff. 

Despite this worrying trend, others persevere, tapping into the organic market, with its hunger for (organically grown) nutrients and super-foods. Such is the case with Jatihiwih Fragrant Red Rice, harvested annually on the southern slopes of the UNESCO world heritage site, Mount Batukaru. Credited with practicing the most ecologically sound rice growing techniques in Bali, farmers produce red rice, as grown on the slopes for centuries, and still rich in vitamins, minerals, folate and fibre.

And so today’s recipe is my first experiment with this nutty red rice. Keeping to my cleansing approach to food this January, I added it to a salad with steamed spinach and kale, dressed with a lemon, sesame and mandarin vinaigrette.

I hope you enjoy it, here’s the recipe:

Recipe

(serves two for side dishes)

1 cup red rice (if you can’t find any, use wild rice, or brown rice)

2 handfuls of kale (chopped)

2 handfuls of baby spinach (chopped)

For the dressing:

2 tbsp sesame oil

1 tbsp whole grain mustard

1 shallot (finely chopped)

Juice of 1 lemon

Juice of 1 mandarin

Ground black pepper

Step 1: Prepare the rice, as per the instructions on the packet. My red rice requires socking overnight – so this recipe can require some forethought.

Step 2: Prepare the dressing. In a screw top jar place all of the ingredients. Shake them well. 

Step 3: Chop the spinach and the kale. Add the kale to the steamer first. Leave it steam until tender and then add the spinach. The spinach only needs around 30 second. 

Step 4: Mix the rice, together with the kale and baby spinach. 

Step 5: Add the dressing, to taste. You’ll probably have a little left over. Enjoy!               

To the Lighthouse – for BBQ snapper

I recently returned home to Australia for the wedding of two very lovely friends. The ceremony was under a huge tree in a botanical garden, and the reception overlooking Port Phillip Bay in St Kilda.  

After a fabulous dinner at The Aylesbury, with ricotta nudie that was so good it brought a tear to my eye, I headed to the coast, to catch up with more family and friends. 

When I was home earlier in the year, some friends and I baked a snapped on the BBQ, and it was incredibly succulent. As soon as I mentioned to my brother that I was planning on barbequing a snapper for friends at their holiday house in Airey’s Inlet, he offered up a fish he’d caught over the weekend. A sizable six pound fish! He also volunteered to come to dinner to help eat it – as there was far too much for the three of us. 

The fish was delicious although the BBQ was perhaps a little hot and singed the outside a little more than I would have liked. Next time, I’d cook if for longer on a lower heat.

Airey’s Inlet is also gorgeous. A tiny town on the Great Ocean Road, with giant sandstone cliffs, secluded beaches, and a proud little lighthouse.   

Here’s the recipe:

Whole fresh snapper (gutted and clean)

Ginger

Chilli

Dukkah

Lemons

Foil (enough to wrap the fish)

Step 1: Get your brother, or your fishmonger, to clean and gut the fish (to my mind, that’s certainly not the most romantic part of fishing). Light the BBQ.   

Step 2: Chop the ginger and chilli finely, and coat both sides of the fish in it. Sprinkle dukkah over both sides.

 

Step 3: Slice the lemons and make a line on top of the fish.

Step 4: Wrap the fish in foil and pop it on the BBQ. You will need to cook the fish on both sides. The time on each side depends on the size of the fish and the heat of the BBQ. The best way to ascertain when each side is cooked is be opening foil packed and using a fork to break open the skin of the fish to expose the flesh. You will know it is cooked when it is soft and white. 

Enjoy! Got a favorite way to cook snapper? Please share it, I'd love to try it!