VALENTINES TAPAS AT SEASONS CAFE & DELI

Hannah and I were lucky enough to enjoy a wonderful evening of tapas at Seasons Cafe & Deli on Thursday evening, starting with a lovely glass of Champagne followed by some fantastic Tapas, thanks to Fleur and her team.

We chowed down on a selection of dishes including sticky Chinese ribs with sesame seeds & plum sauce, crispy squid with lemon, shredded Catalan chicken, tomato sauce & Parmesan, half an avocado with crayfish, lime & chilli (my personal favourite) and smoked salmon and cream cheese & dill pate on Crostini all washed down with a delicious bottle of Rioja. We even managed space for dessert, and what a dessert it was! Missisippi mud pie for me and a Banoffee Pie for Hannah, the chef had created a wonderful Cherry tart and I got a photo of, what a masterpiece.

All in all we had a wonderful time and are set on returning whenever we get the chance. Maybe for the Hawaiian night coming up in March?!

NOT PALEO - CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

This idea has been floating around in my brain ever since I posted my Banana Bread photograph on flickr and over the weekend I setup my micro studio (an IKEA cutting board and blanket for backdrop) to start shooting. I found a recipe for chewy cookies and decided on a half batch (because cheat day only comes once a week) then got down to shooting, in case you can't follow along with the photos I've reposted the recipe below:

Ingredients

Serves: 9

• 125g plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 85g unsalted butter, melted
• 150g brown soft sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 150g chocolate chunks

Preparation method

Prep: 10 mins |Cook: 15 mins

1. Preheat the oven to 170 C / Gas mark 3. Grease baking trays or line with parchment.

2. Sift together the flour, bicarb and salt; set aside.

3. In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and caster sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon. Drop cookie dough onto the prepared baking trays, with each cookie around 4 tablespoons of dough (for smaller cookies, drop 1 rounded tablespoonful and adjust baking time as necessary). Do not flatten the dough. Cookies should be about 8cm apart.

4. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking trays for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.