Tag Archives: recipes

Adventure lamb with Mark Sargeant

British food has become more than just your meat and two veg as international flavours are influencing home cooking.

Research by Simply Beef and Lamb has found that British people, especially children, are more adventurous at mealtimes.

The Michelin starred chef Mark Sargeant has been working with Simply Beef and Lamb to create some easy lamb recipes and spoke to Siren FM about the changes in our tastes.

Chef Mark Sargeant chatting about exciting lamb recipes | Photo:  Robert Nunn via Flickr

Tagines, curries and enchiladas are just some of the international dishes that have become popular in our kitchens. Research found that parents are also making these dishes for their children, admitting that their kids are eating more exotic foods than they did at their age.

Mark encourages children to try new foods and says: “I get very excited by the prospect of my daughters growing up with a really wide and varied palate. It’s very important for me to get in there at a young age and that wasn’t done so much certainly when I was younger.”

Being creative in the kitchen helps when it comes to being more adventurous with food. Mark says: “That’s where it’s so good to be relaxed in the kitchen. Understand that you’ve got a lovely piece of lamb and understand what goes with it and what you like and hopefully you’ll end up with some really good adventurous recipes.”

Mark’s top tips when it comes to cooking lamb this spring are:

  • Quality  — “Try and get really good, organic good quality lamb. That’s the most important thing. If you start with good lamb then you’re going to end up with a fantastic dish,” he says.
  • Be adventurous — “If you want to keep it simple that’s completely fine… but try and be a bit more adventurous.” Mark mentions that the Simply Beef and Lamb website is filled with plenty of recipes  and promises: “Your spring lamb will never taste as good as it has before.”

You can listen to the full interview with Mark Sargeant below. This interview was originally broadcast on Siren FM.

Cooking to save lives recipe book

Excitingly one of my cake recipes has been published in a local recipe book.

Me and Sam Pidoux posing with our recipes | Photo: Sam Pidoux

The Cooking to Save Lives book has been published by the Lincolnshire based first aid charity Lives. Over a couple of months they collected recipes from local restaurants, cafes and people to create this guide to the county’s food.

Back in the summer Steve Hyde from Lives visited Siren FM to talk about what the charity does and to explain their project. Essentially Lives need to fundraise almost a million pounds a year to keep running and Steve thought a recipe book would be a good way to raise some money. He approached Chris Strawson, who works for local printing company DPS Printing, and he had the idea to fill the recipe book with dishes from restaurants and cafes from around the county.

You can listen to that interview on Food for Thought from last summer here.

It was after that meeting that Sam Pidoux, who regularly helps out on Food for Thought, came up with the idea to submit some of our own creations to the book. Sam came up with gluten free chocolate brownies made using beetroot as one of the ingredients so the pressure was on to come up with something good.

Usually when I am baking I will follow recipes but I couldn’t submit someone else’s recipe and pretend it was my own. There was one cake that I had come up with myself for my Dad’s birthday. He loves those chocolate and lime sweets and I wanted to use those flavours in a cake. After some experimenting with how to use lime in cakes, I created a delicious chocolate and lime marble cake. The recipe was different and something special to me so I thought it was a good choice for the book.

In early December Lives and DPS Printing held a party at the Electric Bar in the centre of Lincoln to celebrate the launch of the book. It was my first chance to see the book and I was very impressed. It was great to see people interested in my cake and to see all the other dishes that were in the book.

You can pick up a copy of Cooking to Save Lives from a few local cafes and restaurants including Angel Coffee House, Burton Road Chippy and The Old Stables. Alternatively you can buy the book online as well on the Lives website.

Hollywood’s hunger

Paul Hollywood likes to stare. It’s a wonder he manages to make any bread in between all the staring. Yet he does, and he now has his own BBC cookery show to tell us how to make bread too.

Paul Hollywood's bread | Photo: BBC

Each week Hollywood offers up a different slice of bread history and culture. In the first episode Hollywood explored the bread classics: bloomers, ploughman’s and malt loaf. He occasionally flirts with meat and cake recipes, but the series is predominantly, as the title suggests, about bread.

This week his focus was on flat breads. They might be really interesting but it looks like making them will be more effort and hard work than my little kitchen could handle. He started by visiting different restaurant kitchens to learn how to make impressive looking flat breads.

It was all very educational but then Hollywood began to act like he was in his own episode of “The Generation Game” all about bread. He would see the experts doing it and then decide that he could do it better. Annoyingly Hollywood didn’t end up plating up some rubbish, like Generation Game contestants normally would.

Hollywood has landed this series after showing off his baking skills on “The Great British Bake Off”, playing the bad guy to Mary Berry’s comforting figure. Innocently it makes sense that Hollywood, a keen and knowledgeable baker, wants to get the nation making their own bread, as he says: “I can’t just be beaten by a piece of dough, it ain’t going to happen.”

Not so innocently, the Hollywood stare seems to have caught some people’s attention. Nicknamed the ‘Silver Fox’ he seems to be a bit of a sex symbol. Looks aside, he does end up playing up to his reputation. He likes to get his hands messy, demonstrating how he likes to use his hand as a mixer. He also started to pound his dough roughly against the table, instead of just rolling out his flat breads. He isn’t doing himself any favours.

The important test for any cookery show is does it make people want to cook. Hollywood surely knows that he has a battle on his hands. Any person watching a heavenly chocolate cake being made on the telly would surely try making it themselves? You show someone how to do meat, potatoes and veg a bit differently then someone will give it a go. But even if you show how amazing it is to make your own bread, then almost everyone will say: “That’s nice but it costs about £1 in the shop.”

However, he does make it look simple and that’s encouraging. Make your own judgement and watch “Bread” on BBC iPlayer.

When food means more than eating

The Lincs2Nepal logoI use this radio show to find out about some of the best food that Lincoln has to offer. Sometimes though the purpose of a cafe is more than to make good food but also to try and help out others. This is the message of Cafe@Lincs2Nepal and I met up with the owner Garry Goddard to find out more. Also there are some more recipes for you to try out this week.

Listen to this week’s podcast below:

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Lincs2Nepal | Photo: Charlotte Reid

Cafe@Lincs2Nepal is not run for profit so everything raised goes towards helping under-priveledged people in Nepal. The cafe, which is on Burton Road in Lincoln, does seem very far away from Nepal but there is a good reason for the charitable efforts. The owner Garry Goddard spent some time in Nepal and after what he saw felt as if needed to do something to help out.

The cafe is the most recent way for Lincs2Nepal to help out the people of Nepal. There is already a small shop which sells Nepalese crafts. The cafe is also completely vegan friendly. Garry started off by talking about the recent opening of Cafe@Lincs2Nepal.

You can listen to the interview with Garry, in full, below:

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This week’s recipes include chicken teriyaki and toffee muffins. You can hear the recipes scattered throughout the show and find the details online.

Chicken teriyaki

Chicken teriyaki | Photo: Charlotte ReidIt isn’t a authentic Chinese recipe, nevertheless it is a delicious dish and only needs a few ingredients.

You can check out the recipe and a video guide here.

Toffee muffins

Toffee muffins | Photo: Charlotte ReidThese muffins aren’t too sweet, instead they use fudge pieces to add a nice gooey centre.

You can check out the recipe and a video guide here.


In the meantime you can listen to the show live with songs and on the radio every Wednesday at 2pm on Siren FM.

Interviewing the Greenhouse Coffee Shop

In the second episode of Food for Thought I speak to Pauline Moore who runs the Greenhouse Coffee Shop as well as trying out how to make a three course meal that you could try for yourself at home.

Listen to this week’s podcast just below:

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The Greenhouse Coffee Shop in Lincoln | Photo: Charlotte Reid

Burton Road, which is just beyond the famous Steep Hill of Lincoln, is home to the Greenhouse Coffee Shop. Pauline Moore’s cafe is a little different to what you would expect as she serves up hearty portions of curry as well as a huge variety of cheesecakes. In our conversation Pauline and I speak about what it is like to get people in Lincoln trying out different places by trying out special evenings and using Twitter.

You can listen to the interview with Pauline from the Greenhouse Coffee Shop, in full, below:

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Also on the programme is some recipes for a three course meal spread out amongst the show. If you want more information then you can follow these easy recipes.

Garlic dough balls

Garlic dough balls | Photo: Charlotte ReidThese dough balls can be made quite easily earlier in the day and then just need to be warmed up and covered in heated garlic butter.

You can find the recipe and a video guide here

Tomato pasta

Tomato pasta | Photo: Charlotte ReidIt is a really simple recipe but very yummy and can be made really quickly. And of course the meal has bacon in it which is a guaranteed success.

You can find the recipe and a video guide here.

Chocolate brownies

Chocolate brownies | Photo: Charlotte ReidThese brownies are delicious and very chocolatey, and of course there will be plenty left over to spread across the whole week and not just one meal.

You can find the recipe and a video guide here.

In the meantime you can listen to show every Wednesday at 2pm on Siren FM.