I currently work between 6.45am and 3.15pm, and have developed a bit of a ritual once I arrive home from work in the afternoon. Most days I make myself a sandwich or salad to have during my workday, normally around noon. So once home I tend to feel ready for a snack to tide me over until dinner.
I recently wrote about the lovely day I spent at the Foodies Festival on Clapham Common and my purchase of some passion fruit curd from The Bay Tree (see here). Three weeks on and I've almost finished the jar, it's so delicious! This is because each afternoon, when I get home from work and am ready to put my feet up for a little while, I tuck into a scone spread with this tasty curd...
I like to enjoy it with a mug of peppermint tea, which I've been enjoying as an alternative to breakfast tea or green tea. I know that drinking green tea is known to have multiple health benefits, but as hard as I tried I have never been able to develop the taste for it!
Instead, I find drinking peppermint tea refreshing after a long day, and it's known for being beneficial for the digestive system. I just feel that a mug of peppermint tea relaxes me after a long day... and I personally think it tastes so much better than green tea!
My current favourites to drink are Pukka's Three Mint tea, Teapig's Liquorice & Peppermint tea, and a lovely blend of Moroccan Rose & Mint from Wilkins and Edwards that I bought at Greenwich Market. More on those another time....
Lisa x
I found this recipe in an old Easy Living Magazine I was flicking through last week - it was featured as an idea for homemade gormet picnic foods. Whilst I have no upcoming picnic plans I was inspired to give this recipe a go - I'm not a massive fan of fizzy soft drinks so I mostly drink water, cordials/squash and tea whilst at home. My family gets through numerous bottles of Robinson's orange squash and Bottlegreen's elderflower cordial! So trying to make my own cordial really appealed to me for a bit of a change.
I'd never made a homemade cordial before, and didn't realise how easy it is to do. The cordial tasted delicious and my family loved it - it wasn't long before it was all gone! I really liked the passion fruit flavour too - when I looked in my local Sainsbury's store there weren't any similar flavours to this, so it was definately more of an exotic flavour to the standard orange squash I normally drink!
Recipe - Passion Fruit & Orange Cordial
Makes about 750ml
Ingredients:
375g sugar (I used white caster)
6 oranges
3 passion fruit
Method:
1. Add the sugar and 375ml of water to a saucepan. Add the zest of one of the oranges to the pan and bring the mixture to the boil - simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring every so often to dissolve the sugar.
2. Squeeze the juice from all the oranges and scoop out the pulp from the 3 passion fruit. Add this to the saucepan and allow the mixture to cool.
3. Once cool, strain the mixture and put it into a bottle. I didn't have anything of a suitable size, so used a couple of empty gin bottles that my mum normally uses for making sloe gin for christmas!
You can dilute the cordial with either still or sparkling water - it will keep for up to 5 days in a sealed bottle in the fridge. Make sure you give the bottle a bit of a shake before each serving, then dilute to your preferred strength.
Lisa x
