Marie Cookpad

   I don't think I have ever met a scone that I did not fall in love with. Sweet or savoury, they all hit the spot with me.  People tend to think that scones and biscuits are the same thing, which is not exactly true, although they may seem very similar in texture and taste.  And that is not to confuse British biscuits (which are cookies) with North American Biscuits (which are a type of quick bread similar to a scone!)  Are you confused yet?     A biscuit is not a scone people and a scone is not a biscuit.  The two are definitely not interchangeable!  To be sure, they are composed of basically the same things  . . .  fat, leavener, dairy and flour . . .  but the very way that they are put together generally results in a somewhat different animal altogether.  Biscuits tend to be light and airy, with almost visibly defined, flaky layers.  A scone, on the other hand, whilst also light and somewhat airy, has an almost crumbly texture.  When you are making a good biscuit, the fat is &q

  I cooked a roast chicken at the weekend.  We love roast chicken in this house.  You can't beat it. With a roast chicken you always get at least three meals from it.  One on the day, one with the leftovers and another with the bones when you make a delicious soup.  With Roast Chicken, its always a winner/winner chicken dinner!   I have tried all sorts of recipes for roast chicken, all good  . . . but this one here is my absolute favourite. way of doing it.  You always end up with a tender, well flavoured, moist chicken, with crisp skin.  Its so delicious!   After we have had our chicken dinner, I always like to strip the meat off the bones. I may be odd, but I don't like the flavour of chicken that has been chilled on the bone. I prefer it off the bone once it has been cooked and cooled. So just strip it off and chill it in the refrigerator, ready to use for casseroles or sandwiches, fried rice, etc.   Don't ever get rid of the bones!  That's a big no/no. I usually lea

  I allowed myself to be tempted into buying a huge bag of cauliflower florets the last time I was at Costco. (I also bought a huge bag of broccoli!)  There are worse things I could have been tempted by, let me tell you! That place is a veritable Aladdin's cave of scruminess. Don't get me started on the cakes, pies and muffins.  I have never bought them, but boy oh boy are they ever tempting! Its only because there are only two of us and I have limited freezer space that keeps me from caving in and buying those! (Especially the muffins!)  So anyways, I reckon buying big bags of vegetables is not all that bad of a temptation to succumb to in comparison!  It does mean that you need to use them up though!   This is a beautiful soup.  Curried Cauliflower Soup. It also happens to be the soup I ended up having to scrape off our carpet the other day when Todd fell, but thankfully it is lovely and thick, so that wasn't too much of a problem!  It was so delicious Todd wanted two he

  I have always loved potatoes. They have long been my favourite vegetable.  As a type 2 Diabetic however, these days they are more than often off my menu. I have had to rethink a lot of my old favourites and try to create new favourites. Oddly enough new potatoes are not as bad for you as old potatoes, and sweet potatoes are actually the wisest choice of all the potatoes. High in fibre and vitamins, they are also considered to be low GI, which means they won't spike your blood sugars as much as regular potatoes.  Great news for me, because I also love sweet potatoes!   And by that I don't mean the sugar and marshmallow laced variety that you will see on some tables, I like them just plain, with a bit of salt and pepper, nothing else needed . . .  well sometimes a bit of garlic and some parmesan cheese, but I am more of a savoury sweet potato lover rather than a "sweet" sweet potato lover, if that makes sense.   A casserole I used to love was made using lightly fried

  This happens to be one of our favourite cookies and I can't believe I have never showed it to you before today!  I went to bake them this morning, and was looking for the recipe in my online recipe file, only to  discover that it wasn't there, which meant I had never baked them for the blog.  I had to rifle through my big blue binder for the recipe, which was so not a problem, because I love rifling through my big blue binder!   This is a very old recipe which has a story attached to it.  I love old recipes, and I especially love old recipes with stories attached! Don't you???  Apparently the original recipe was found pasted on a piece of paper pasted into the drawer of an old table, hand written in fading ink, in an old fashioned script . . . "For Ella."   I don't know how true the story is, or who Ella was, but the story certainly has its charm, and I never fail to think about Ella and her charms whenever I bake them.  She must have been very special ind