The British Larder Inspirational recipe diary

Right I’m ready for the new decade! Christmas and New Year have gone and there is no more reason to indulge in the unhealthy foods. My body feels a bit creaky, squidgy round the edges and bending over to put on my wellington boots is a bit of a mission. I’m in dire need for a rescue remedy and this Oaty, Peach and Pear Smoothie is just the recipe to help me gain control again!

Frankly any tired looking fruits would have done the job. However Mr.P detests bananas and he gets seriously upset when he buys a smoothie on the high street but they all contain bananas even though there is no clue in the name but is hidden in the smallest writing on the back. Hence the challenge is to use something other than bananas to give body to my smoothie.

So I need to make a smoothie

It’s a new year and after lavish celebrations for both Christmas and New Year, it’s time to think twice about what I put on my dinner plate.

This raw salad of fennel, Seville orange and kohlrabi is the perfect dish for a more considerate new year. It’s highly fragrant, superbly fresh and crunchy. I enjoy this delicious side dish with poached salmon or lightly smoked haddock. It also goes very well with char-grilled chicken as the Seville orange vinaigrette brings a delicious freshness to the whole dish.

I’m sure I could hear a few moans when you read the title and saw that I have used chicory. Chicory is another one of those love or loathe ingredients but I must be honest, I have never found chicory to be delicious and had to fight really hard with my taste buds to learn to love the taste. I find chicory incredibly

Happy New Year!! Wow it’s nearly 2010, the end of a decade and time for an extra special New Years party.

This  is the perfect party recipe, it raises the eyebrows every time they are served. The eggs turn the conversation to food, even though sometimes it may only last for a few minutes, but for me it’s enough, as it gives me the feeling of “mission accomplished”. I do have a slight mission in life to make food fun for all people and to encourage them to cook by raising their curiosity in the culinary arts. This will satisfy my life long passion to make cooking both interesting and entertaining for both myself and others.

The trickiest part of making this dish is to open  and clean out the egg shells  without breaking them. I normally calculate  a few extra eggs as you are guaranteed to have a few

The inspiration for writing and making this dish came from Jamie Gorman. Jamie is a full blooded foodie and wine connoisseur, like me he takes every opportunity to chat about food; discuss the latest trends and when Jamie asks me how to do something I am more than happy to help.

Jamie mentioned to me at the beginning of December that he would like to make a beetroot stained salmon gravadlax for Christmas Day, well the juices started to flow. I got all excited and even started to draw ideas on A4 paper. I loved the fact that Jamie was very specific about serving his dish on a black slate and that he wanted to use a spoon.

Inspired I set of to work on my own version of beetroot stained salmon gravadlax. I love a challenge and thought that this dish would be a show stopper for a slap