Polenta, Lemon & Thyme Quick Bread

Until last year I had no idea what Quick Breads were, but a Martha Mondays challenge meant that I made a wonderful quick bread involving pistachios.  I turned to Martha again for the Daring Bakers challenge this month.  A Polenta Quick Bread with Lemon and Thyme.  It spoke to me as soon as I saw it.  ‘Make me, make me’ it said.  And make it I did!

The Daring Bakers’ February 2012 host was – Lis! Lisa stepped in last minute and challenged us to create a quick bread we could call our own.  She supplied us with a base recipe and shared some recipes she loves from various websites and encouraged us to build upon them and create new flavor profiles.

As far as I can tell, quick bread is really, cake.  Like pound cake.  I didn’t really care for this recipe, it was a bit too sweet with the lemon and reminded me more of a lemon cake – which had gone wrong.

And now I have a box of polenta in the cupboard which is saying ‘use me, use me’ and use it I shall.  Recipes to follow soon.

~ Pru

Are you following me on Twitter or Pinterest?  If not, then click on the links.  It would make my day, possibly my week too!

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Wholewheat Spaghetti with Lemon, Rocket and Pistachios

It’s Martha Mondays day today and it was my pick this week.  So I chose this.

You know, at the beginning of a new month I get all my Martha Stewart Living magazines out and look through them.  I have six January issues and this came from the ‘Spa Cuisine’ section of the January 2007 issue.

Simple: wholewheat spaghetti, lemon, onion, rocket, pistachios and olive oil

I fancied cooking something more healthy and something that I could make when I get in from work.  This ticked both of those boxes.  We never eat wholewheat pasta at home but we actually liked it very much and couldn’t really tell the difference.

Now this is a strange recipe and I found that my food processor was a bit big to get the pistachios and lemon to finally chop, in the end I put the lemon and pistachio mix back into the food processor to give it another whirl whilst I added the olive oil.

The verdict?  We liked this.  Alot.  Mum wolfed hers down and I quickly followed.  I think this might be work in progress as I would like the pesto to be a bit runnier and I might put some parmesan on top next time.

I can’t wait to see what everyone else thought of it.  Did you make this?  What did you think?

~ Pru

Are you following me on Twitter or Pinterest?  If not, then click on the links.  It would make my day, possibly my week too!

If Life Gives You Lemons …

… it’s too cold for lemonade silly, make this cake instead!

I don’t think I have ever declared anything to be the best on my blog.  I think its a huge claim to make but I can say that this lemon cake recipe will be our go to recipe from now on.  There are many things in its favour:

1.  It’s a Dorie Greenspan recipe adapted by Ina Garten.

2.  It’s yoghurt and oil based instead of using butter.

3.  There’s a glaze AND icing.

See, it’s perfect in so many ways!  And this cake is seriously good.  It’s easy to make, requires a bowl and mixing jug, bakes within 50 minutes and is very, very tasty.  The link is here.

I tweeted about how fantastic this cake is and Dorie Greenspan replied to say that the cake is very adaptable.  She suggested instead of lemon using vanilla beans, lavender or Greek yoghurt and rosemary.  I’m going to have to make the rosemary version (with some flaked salt on top).

If you try this cake, please let me know what you thought of it.

 

~ Pru