Marie Cookpad

  I love to cook, and I love to eat.  I worked as a Personal Chef for a number of years for a very wealthy American Family here in the UK, where every meal had to be a production.  I didn't mind.  It gave me the opportunity to stretch, and it was what I was being paid to do.  It was the dream job in many ways for the consummate foodie.   To be honest however, it is not how I like to eat and cook in my personal life.  With the exception of Special Occasions, I want to cook  . . . and I enjoy . . . simplicity.  Less is more in my kitchen.    I prefer simple ingredients, put together quickly, easily and in a delicious way. You can call me lazy if you want to, but it truly is what works best for me.  I don't want to spend hours and hours in the kitchen cooking . . .  or cleaning up!    For most of my every day cooking meals like this Skillet Sausage, Peas & Rice work well for me.  Its the type of thing I lik...

  My ex-mother in law Elizabeth made wonderful blondies.  Kind of cakey, with a lovely almost butterscotch flavour and topped with a lovely brown sugar fudge icing.  I just realised this morning that I don't have that recipe on here.  Time to rectify that methinks.  Look for that soon! Its actually a recipe that I was given by my ex when we were teenagers dating.  It is handwritten in his schoolboy writing and he mis-spelled the title . . .  "Camel Squares,"  instead of Caramel Squares.  A part of their charm.    Not quite a Blondie they are much more cake like.  Every now and then I do feel the urge to indulge in them, or in a Blondie. I've made quite a few Blondies through the year and this is the recipe I finally settled on as being the perfect blondie.    So what is the perfect Blondie?  I suppose that all depends on who you are asking.  This is what it means to me.  A perfect Blondie is like a brow...

   This is a cake recipe I have been eye-balling for quite some time now.  It closely resembles other cake recipes that I have seen, called Cinnamon Flop Cake, Amish Cinnamon Cake, etc.  I have tried a few of those and they didn't turn out very well, which is why I have waited so long to bake this one.    With no eggs and not a lot of fat . . .  I  had my reservations about it . . . but the photo in the cookbook looked really good . . .   It comes from this cookery book, written by Mary Younkin, creater of Barefeet in The Kitchen.com .  You can also find her recipe, with pics, here. Its a great blog and this is a fabulous cookbook.   It looks really good and I think you will realise why I wanted to bake it.  I love Cinnamon and I adore Cinnamon Toast.  Today I decided to take a chance and I baked it.   This has to be one of the easiest cakes I have ever baked.  It uses things I always have in the house and there...

  A friend of mine on Instagram posted a ham and cheese panini on her feed the other day and it looked amazingly delicious.  I thought it was bacon, but she said no, ham . . . it looked sooooooo good! I have been thinking about it ever since   . . .  except in my mind it was bacon, not ham  . . . I do so love the occasional bacon sandwich.    Back in my early days here in the UK, Todd and I worked together at a BP service station that had a cafe attached.  They sold tons of bacon, sausage, as well as  bacon & sausage baguettes every morning.  You would see the same guys buying them every day.    I was always mystified by the draw of them.  They used the cheapest nastiest bacon and sausages.  You should have seen the grease in the bottom of the warming cabinet that would have to be cleaned out at the end of every day.  Blech!  Blech!  Blech!    I only like to use a good quality bacon ...