Tag: snack

Home-made herb & spice bar nuts

Home-made herb & spice bar nuts in a bowl | H is for Home

If we fancy a pre-dinner drink (or perhaps drinks if we’re ushering in the weekend), we love to accompany them with tasty snacks of some kind. This recipe for herb & spice bar nuts, which caught our eye online, looked absolutely perfect. We’ve just given it a go… and it turned out to be a very good decision. Great rewards for relatively little effort.

Nuts mixed in an aluminium bowl Melted butter, sugar, salt, chopped fresh rosemary and cayenne pepper

I used 100 grams each of hazelnuts, cashews, walnut halves, pecans and whole almonds. However, you can use whatever nuts you like or have in the store cupboard; peanuts, brazils and macadamias. If 500 grams is too large a portion for your needs, it’s really easy to just halve the recipe.

Home-made herb & spice bar nuts

They were gorgeous – and so moreish! In fact, they’re a great snack to include on a party buffet table; they really suit being eaten with beer, wine and whisky.

Click here or on the image below to save the recipe to Pinterest

Home-made herb & spice bar nuts recipe | H is for Home

Home-made herb & spice bar nuts
Serves 6
Ingredients
  1. 500g/18oz unsalted mixed nuts (e.g. peeled peanuts, cashews, brazils, hazelnuts, walnuts, pecans or whole unpeeled almonds)
  2. 2tbsp coarsely chopped fresh rosemary (from two 8cm/3-inch sprigs)
  3. ½ tsp cayenne pepper
  4. 2tsp Muscovado sugar
  5. 2tsp salt
  6. 1tbsp unsalted butter, meltedBar nuts ingredients ingredients
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Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350ºF/Gas mark 4
  2. Toss the nuts in a large bowl to combine and spread them out on a baking sheet
  3. Toast them in the oven until they become light golden-brown, about 10 minutes
  4. In a large bowl, combine the rosemary, cayenne, muscovado sugar, salt and melted butter.
  5. Thoroughly toss the toasted nuts in the spiced butter and serve warm
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Adapted from Nigella Bites
Adapted from Nigella Bites
H is for Home Harbinger https://hisforhomeblog.com/

Price Points: Ruby chocolate

 Ruby chocolate | H is for Home

Have you heard of ruby chocolate? It’s touted as being the new, 4th chocolate; falling in behind its dark, white and milk kinsfolk.

Ruby chocolate hasn’t been around for that long – it was invented by Barry Callebaut, a Belgian-Swiss cocoa company, in 2017. Even so, it’s already had a mixed reception from many. Some claim that it’s not a legitimate ‘new’ type of chocolate; it’s just a new method of processing.

Remembering back to my school days and learning about cocoa production in geography class, the cocoa pod develops from green, to red, to yellow… at which point it’s ripe and ready to harvest. The ruby version is manufactured by picking the pods when they’re still red – hence the pink colour of the cocoa beans and ‘butter’.

Apparently it tastes like white chocolate infused with raspberries; creamy and fruity with a slight sourness. It makes a perfect chocolate choice for Valentine’s Day and wedding or anniversary present.

  1. Magnum ruby ice lollies – box of 3: £3.89, Tesco
  2. Fortnum’s ruby chocolate bar, 70g: £6.50, Fortnum & Mason
  3. 12 ruby chocolate & sakura truffles: £15.80, Etsy

I dare you to watch this video from Callebaut without your mouth watering… go on, I bet you can’t do it!

shop ruby chocolate

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Prices & links correct at time of publication.

12 ruby chocolate & sakura truffles
12 ruby chocolate & sakura truffles
£15.80
Fortnum’s ruby chocolate bar, 70g
Fortnum’s ruby chocolate bar, 70g
£6.50
Magnum ruby ice lollies – box of 3
Magnum ruby ice lollies – box of 3
£3.89
12 ruby chocolate & sakura truffles
12 ruby chocolate & sakura truffles
£15.80
Fortnum’s ruby chocolate bar, 70g
Fortnum’s ruby chocolate bar, 70g
£6.50
Magnum ruby ice lollies – box of 3
Magnum ruby ice lollies – box of 3
£3.89
12 ruby chocolate & sakura truffles
12 ruby chocolate & sakura truffles
£15.80
Fortnum’s ruby chocolate bar, 70g
Fortnum’s ruby chocolate bar, 70g
£6.50
Magnum ruby ice lollies – box of 3
Magnum ruby ice lollies – box of 3
£3.89
12 ruby chocolate & sakura truffles
12 ruby chocolate & sakura truffles
£15.80
Fortnum’s ruby chocolate bar, 70g
Fortnum’s ruby chocolate bar, 70g
£6.50
Magnum ruby ice lollies – box of 3
Magnum ruby ice lollies – box of 3
£3.89
12 ruby chocolate & sakura truffles
12 ruby chocolate & sakura truffles
£15.80
Fortnum’s ruby chocolate bar, 70g
Fortnum’s ruby chocolate bar, 70g
£6.50
Magnum ruby ice lollies – box of 3
Magnum ruby ice lollies – box of 3
£3.89

A round-up of our top 5 biscuits and cookies recipes

A round-up of our top 5 biscuits and cookies recipes | H is for Home

We’ve been through our past year’s stats to find out what have been our most popular biscuits and cookies recipes. There’s a mixed bunch in the collection; both British and American recipes get a look in.

Home-made Scottish shortbread petticoat tails with a mug of tea | H is for Home

  1. Scottish shortbread

A classic recipe brought to us by a classic home cook – Delia Smith. This is the recipe that I use as a starting point for most of my shortbread variations. It’s fair to say that this is probably the most popular of all our biscuits and cookies recipes.

Honey almond brittle biscuits | H is for Home

  1. Honey almond brittle biscuits

These thins are from a recipe I found in the Guardian; devised by Tamal Ray, a Great British Bake Off alumnus. Quick to bake and best eaten on the day of making – they lose their snap pretty quickly.

Gypsy creams | H is for Home

  1. Gypsy Creams

I’m not sure of the origin of these biscuits. I think they’re British – but why are they called gypsy creams? These double-decker lovelies are full of oats, chocolate and golden syrup.

Butter-dipped biscuits | H is fior Home

  1. Butter-dipped biscuits

This recipe is for biscuits – but not the kind of biscuits that we’re accustomed to over here in the UK. These American biscuits are more closely related to our scones than anything else. Do you pronounce it ‘scons’ or ‘skowns’?

Salted butter chocolate chunk shortbread | H is for Home

  1. Salted butter chocolate chunk shortbread

This is the other shortbread recipe in our short-list. Our attempt at Alison Roman’s famous salted butter chocolate chunk shortbread recipe featured in a news round up in 2018, and this post went ballistic!

Click here to save this post to Pinterest!

Falafel

'Falafel' blog post banner

Home-made falafel in pitta | H is for Home

We both love Middle Eastern / North African / Arabic food, but not necessarily the same fare. Justin regularly makes lamb and chicken dishes with ras el hanout mix, sumac or harissa.

spring onions and garlic cloves in a food processor spring onion and garlic purée

I’m not a big fan of either of those spices and I find harissa too hot. I prefer paprika spiced cous-cous, tabbouleh, baba ganoush, hummus and falafel.

Falafel ingredients in a food processor

I’ve made all of the above except for the falafel. It’s something that I normally pick up on the deli counter at the supermarket, but this week I thought I’d make my own.

falafel mixture in a food processor falafel mixture in a food processor

Falafel is so easy to make – just stick the ingredients into a food processor, whiz, chill and fry.

frying home-made falafel

We’ll be having it with warm pitta, tomatoes, mixed salad leaves, coriander, yoghurt, chilli tomato sauce… and Justin will be adding a bit of the aforementioned ras el hanout and sumac to his!

home-made falafel cooling on a wire rack

Falafel

Print recipe Pin recipe
Prep Time 1 hour 10 minutes

Ingredients
  

  • 1 bunch spring onions roughly chopped
  • 6 garlic cloves
  • 200 g dried chickpeas soaked overnight (625g once soaked/tinned)
  • 1 bunch coriander roughly chopped
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp chilli flakes
  • 2 tsp cumin
  • juice of ½ a lemon
  • 75 g plain or gram flour
  • Vegetable oil for shallow frying

Instructions
 

  • In a food processor, pulse the spring onions and garlic cloves and pulse until finely minced
  • Remove the mixture and set aside
  • Add the chickpeas, coriander, salt, chilli flakes, cumin and lemon juice to the food processor and pulse until roughly chopped but not completely puréed
  • Return the spring onion & garlic mixture to the food processor, along with just enough flour so that when you pulse the processor the mixture begins to form a ball and isn't sticky. Add more flour, tablespoon by tablespoon if the mixture is still too wet
  • Transfer the mixture to a bowl, cover in cling film and refrigerate for an hour
  • Once the mixture has chilled, use a small ice cream scoop or spoons to form the mixture into balls (roughly 3 tablespoons per ball). You can still add additional flour at this point, if the mixture is too wet to scoop.
  • Put a large frying pan over medium heat and add a liberal amount of vegetable oil so you can shallow fry
  • Allow the pan to pre-heat for 3 minutes before adding the falafel balls, one by one, flattening slightly, browning them on the first side for 3 minutes, then flipping them once and flattening and browning the second side until the mixture is cooked through
  • Transfer the falafel to a wire cooling rack and immediately season them with salt. Repeat this process until all of the falafel have been cooked
  • If you don't want to cook them all off, put the remaining uncooked balls onto a parchment lined tray, cover in cling film and put it in the freezer for an hour, remove and put the balls into a freezer bag and back into the freezer until ready to use
Serve 3 or 4 in a warm pitta with lettuce, tomatoes, yoghurt and/or chilli sauce