Happy New Year …

It’s a bit late I know but I wish everyone ‘wordpress related’, be they readers, followers or bloggers, a very Happy 2014. We’ve spent yet another day being bombarded by rain and wind, we were in real need of some sunshine. For us, our sunshine came in bowls and in a bottle:

This lemongrass cordial was made prior to Christmas and still tastes light and refreshing. Our dinner this evening was a Prawn Biryani, one of our favourite prawn curries – the key I think is in the spice blend: shallots, garlic, fresh ginger, cloves, cinnamon stick, cardamom seeds, turmeric, coriander seeds and a finely chopped chilli:

To finish, we had the most amazingly light Lemon Sponge. The recipe was from my new ‘Leon, Book 2, Baking and Puddings’ which my mother-in-law gave me at Christmas. I’ve tried a few recipes from this book (including Coconut Macaroons which I made yesterday, honey was included in the recipe and they tasted incredible, I’ll have to make them again just so I can photograph them) and each one has worked really well. This sponge pudding has an element of soufflé about it, it’s really light and the lemon hit givs it a real zing:

So, whilst we’ve had non-stop rain today, we’ve had at least a small ray of sunshine in terms of food. Hopefully tomorrow will be little less wet!