Marie Cookpad

  Some days are just busy.  The last few days this week I have been busier then a "Hen hauling wood" as my old friend Leona would say!  Writing articles, doing laundry, appointments, etc. They say there is no rest for the wicked!  I must have been rather naughty lately I guess!    Just because you are busy and don't have a lot of time that doesn't mean you can't get something tasty on the supper table!  These Maple Baked Beans on Toast are the perfect light supper entree for when you have a bit more on your plate to handle than normal.    With a little bit of pre-prep, they basically cook themselves!  Its amazing what you can do with a few store cupboard ingredients!   This tasty recipe uses things I generally have in my larder at all times . . .  tinned cannellini beans, a good bottled tomato passata . . .     Maple syrup, a good balsamic vinegar.  Today I used a Maple Balsamic from ilGusto , but you could ...

  I adore Pizza, in any way shape or form.  Generally speaking, I like to make my own.  Of course when I was younger, that usually involved using a pizza kit/mix from the shops, either Chef Boy Ar Dee or Kraft and we always enjoyed them.  In fact that was the first kind of pizza I ever had.  I had a boyfriend when I was 16 who introduced our family to it and we all really enjoyed it.   Those mixes are not something you find readily available over here in the UK, so I now make everything from scratch.  I have a favourite pizza dough that I like to use.  A few years ago I tried a Deep Dish Pizza recipe that I also enjoyed.  Todd also enjoyed it and he is not a pizza lover!    I discovered a Cast Iron Deep Dish Pizza Dough on Pinterest the other day from Cafe Sucre , which I thought I would like to try and so I printed it out, and yesterday was the day I finally got around to trying it!    I have to say that this was one of...

  As anyone who has been reading this blog for a while knows, the Toddster is really not very fond of pasta at all.   I do make it from time to time, but more often than not I make something completely different for him, or he has the sauce, but on a potato instead.  I adore pasta myself and cannot imagine anyone not loving it, but then again, I would never eat snails or frogs legs, but there are a lot of people who adore them.  I guess we all have our own likes and dislikes, and its okay!   Today I cooked a simple spicy tomato cream sauce to have with some cappellini.  I chose this for a number of reasons . . .  one . . . I quite simply adore simple tomato sauces, using tinned tomatoes.  (I always use a really good Italian brand myself, Ciro brand . . .  especially when it's a sauce that isn't going to be cooked for a long time period.) You want to use a tinned tomatoe that has a really nice flavour, and Cirio are the best tasting...

  I think if I were to have to pick a favourite kind of soup for myself out of all the soups, tomato soup would be right up there near the top.  I adore soup, and I especially like homemade soups.  As I have told you in the past my mother made really good soups from scratch, but one kind she never did make from scratch was Tomato Soup.  We always had tinned tomato soup, and I was always very happy with that.  I still am, having a particular liking for the Heinz brand of tomato soup.  I don't think it ever disappoints.  I am trying harder though, these days, to cook everything that I can from scratch and that included Tomato Soup.   This Tomato & Rice Soup is a particularly nice one!   It is simple, using nothing at all out of the ordinary, in fact I am guessing that you would have everything in the house right now to make it.  Good tinned plum tomatoes.  I like Cirio myself.  In a soup where the tomato is the star, you...