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I absolutely love Thai food and one of my favourite Thai dishes is a noodle dish called Pad Thai so I’m going to share my Vegetarian Pad Thai recipe with you all. This recipe can also be made with prawns, chicken or whatever you want to put in it too.

Ingredients (Serves 4):

250g/9oz rice stick noodles
4 tbsp groundnut oil
4 garlic cloves, finely  chopped
2 tbsp brown sugar
4 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp tomato ketchup
1 tbsp lime juice
100g / 3 1/2oz beansprouts
75g string beans
4 spring onions, chopped
1 small courgette, chopped
125g / 4 1/2oz deep fried tofu, chopped into 5mm / 1/4inch pieces

Instructions:

1. Soak the rice noodles in hot water for about 15 minutes, drain thoroughly and put to one side.
2. Heat the oil in a wok and fry the garlic over a high heat for 30 seconds. Add the tofu, courgette and string beans and stir-fry for 3 minutes.
3. Add the sugar, fish sauce, ketchup and lime juice and stir-fry for a further 30 seconds.
4. Stir in the noodles, then add the beansprouts and spring onions and stir-fry for a further 30 seconds to cook lightly.
5. Turn out onto a serving dish and serve immediately.

If you’re interested in Thai cookery, Channel 4’s “The F-Word” finalist Angela Malik has a cooking school in London which specialises in Thai and Asian cookery classes. Also for today only Groupon have an offer for a 2 1/2 hour cooking class at the Angela Malik cooking school in London to learn either Thai, Indian, Dim Sum or Vietnamese cookery for only £39 (usually £85). For more details on this offer as well as other Groupon offers you can visit the Groupon website HERE.

For more information on Groupon see my post HERE

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If you happen to be around the Notting Hill area in London then you simply must stop by the Hummingbird Bakery on Portabello Road. Over the years the Hummingbird Bakery has become London’s most famous cake shop stocking fresh hand baked cupcakes, cakes, pies and brownies. At any time on any day there always seems to be a queue of people waiting to pick up their Hummingbird Bakery cake fix. The branch on Portabello Road is their flagship branch and there are also branches in Soho (Wardour Street), South Kensington (Old Brompton Road) and Spitalfields (Frying Pan Alley).

The Hummingbird Bakery first opened in London in 2004. They wanted to provide Londoners with an alternative to supermarket cakes and French patisseries, a place where you could buy real cupcakes, fluffy with buttercream icing, moist layer cakes or genuine American pies. The mouthwatering display of cakes in their shops leaves you wanting to buy out the whole shop but if you have to choose one, go for Hummingbird bakery’s most popular cake, the Red Velvet cupcake. This cupcake has a fresh home-baked taste with a hint of cocoa and vanilla and an extremely addictive cream cheese frosting.

If there isn’t a Hummingbird bakery near you then they have a recipe book which has detailed recipes for all their cakes and creations so that you can make your own at home! The recipe book is available on Amazon here. Alternatively if you live abroad you can get the book from The Book Depository here which gives free international delivery!

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One of my favourite Italian restaurants in London is Carluccio’s. It is a chain restaurant throughout London and the UK and all the dishes that I’ve tried so far have been absolutely scrummy! Each branch of the restaurant also has their own delicatessen shop selling all sorts of Italian cooking ingredients as well as delicious freshly made pastries, bread and cakes!

The thing about me is that once I discover a dish in a restaurant that I really like, I tend to order the same thing every time I go to that particular restaurant. In Carluccio’s I find myself ordering the Penne Giardiniera without fail every time. Penne Giardiniera is basically penne pasta with garlic, chilli, cheese and butter together with deep fried spinach balls and courgette. Sound good? Well now you can make it yourself with the recipe that Carluccio’s uses that I found on their website!

PENNE GIARDINIERA RECIPE
Serves 4

Ingredients for the spinach balls:
700g raw spinach (about 250g when cooked)
half a clove of garlic, minced
1 egg, beaten
a tiny pinch of nutmeg
45g Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, freshly grated
70g dry breadcrumbs
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
olive oil for shallow frying

Ingredients for the pasta:
500g Carluccio’s Penne Regine (large artisan penne from Puglia)
80g butter
2-3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
20g red chillies, finely chopped
2 medium courgettes, coarsely grated
240g Parmigiano Reggiano, freshly grated

To make 28 spinach balls (7 per person):
Boil, but don’t overcook, the spinach in lightly salted water. Press it dry, break open the leaves and tear apart roughly. In a bowl, mix together the torn spinach, garlic, egg, nutmeg and Parmesan. Add about half of the breadcrumbs, to balance the moisture of the mixture. Season with salt and pepper. Roll one ball and fry it, to test for consistency and taste. (If the mixture is too wet, the ball will fall apart during cooking, but too much bread content will lessen the spinach flavour.) Add some more breadcrumbs or seasoning if needed. Fry until golden. Set aside.

To make the pasta:
In abundant salted water, boil the pasta until it’s al dente, perhaps 10-15 minutes. Drain and keep warm. In a pan, melt the butter and heat the garlic and chillies. Add the grated courgettes and fry for a minute or two. Add the cooked pasta and toss in most of the grated cheese (leave some for serving). Season with salt and pepper.

To serve:
In a deep plate or shallow bowl, serve the pasta sprinkled with spinach balls and the remaining Parmesan.

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After a long working week I like nothing better than to order a pizza online from Domino’s and chill out with a movie. Yesterday I managed to get off work a bit earlier so I decided to challenge myself and try to make my favourite Domino’s pizza the Vegetarian Supreme and see if I could come close to making it taste like the original.

Home-Made Vegetarian Supreme Pizza Recipe (makes 1 medium sized pizza):

Ingredients for the dough:

• 200g strong white bread flour or Tipo ‘00’ flour
• 1/2 teaspoon golden caster sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dried yeast
• 2 tablespoons olive oil (I used a garlic infused olive oil for extra flavour)
• 120ml warm water

Ingredients for the pizza & toppings:

• Tomato or pizza sauce (I used Napolina Pizza Topping - Tomato Sauce With Herbs)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Olive Oil
• Onions (sliced)
• Green peppers (sliced)
• Sweetcorn
• Mushrooms (sliced)
• Plum tomatoes (cut into half)
• Mozarella Cheese (150g)

Directions:

1. Mix the flour, yeast and salt together in a mixing bowl and stir in the olive oil. Gradually add the water and mix well until it forms a soft dough.
2. Remove the dough from the bowl and place it onto a flour-dusted surface and knead it for about five minutes until smooth and elastic.
3. Put the dough in a bowl and cover it with a damp towel and leave it for about an hour until it has doubled in size.
4. After it has risen, take the dough out of the bowl and on a flour-dusted surface knead it around to push the air out.
5. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured work surface to form your pizza base. The thickness of the pizza base is to your discretion.
6. Smear the tomato/pizza sauce evenly over the pizza base.
7. Sprinkle the mozarella cheese and sweetcorn over the sauce and lay the onions, green peppers, mushrooms and plum tomatoes on top.
8. Generously drizzle olive oil over the pizza and season with salt and pepper.
9. Place in a preheated oven (220C, 425F, Gas Mark 7) and bake for around 10 minutes until it is crisp and golden around the edges and the cheese on the topping has melted.

 
Home-Made Vegetarian Supreme Pizza

After I made my pizza I called the girls around, ordered the actual Domino’s Vegetarian Supreme Pizza and got them to compare it to my own home-made creation. And the verdict?? Well I think my friends were just being nice when they said that they preferred my pizza because it apparently tasted fresher but I personally think that the Domino’s pizza won hands down as I couldn’t quite get the dough right. Oh well, next week I think I’m going to stick with a Domino’s pizza!

P.S If you collect the pizza rather than having it delivered it’s buy one get one free!

The Winner: Domino’s Vegetarian Supreme Pizza

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