Ham, Egg and Pea Shoot Salad

Spring is such an inspiring time of year. With the (hopefully) warmer weather and all the new growth it's as though a new lease of life is breathed into everything, and for anyone interested in food this time of year is surely a real joy. I sometimes get a lull in my food writing and recipe development for the book - I'm not always in the right frame of mind, sometimes creativity escapes me, sometimes I'm just plain tired - but these past few weeks I've been full of ideas and very active in the kitchen. But then, how could you not be with all the new produce becoming available - asparagus, herbs, new potatoes, spring onions, spinach, etc, etc - and with the sun shining and the warmer weather prompting us to fling windows and doors wide open and drag out the barbecues and picnic baskets?

One of my new favourites, which are making more and more of an appearance these days, are pea shoots; the delicate yet very flavoursome leaves of the pea plant. They're a real beauty in salads, such as this very simple one which I put together recently, consisting only of hard boiled eggs and ham with the pea shoots, and dressed with a mix of snipped chives and crème fraîche. Even if the sun doesn't always want to come out to play, you can always find a little bit of sunshine in a salad such as this.

Easter Cake Bake 2009 - The Round-up

For the third year running I ran my Easter Cake Bake and you excelled yourselves once again; just look at the cakes you baked:






Once again I'm going to open the competition up to a reader vote to find the winner. Let me know which cake you like the best by selecting the blog name (which you can find by hovering your mouse over the pictures) from the poll on the left hand menu. To view the posts click on the pictures.

If you missed out on this event how about entering my regular 'In the Bag' event, hosted this month by Scott over at Real Epicurean

Soft-boiled Duck Egg with Asparagus Soldiers

At long last British asparagus is finally here to be devoured. Yesterday St George's Day marked the official start of the season, which runs through May and June, and today I had my first, long-awaited taste. The asparagus I had came from Herefordshire in England, and it was absolutely delicious; sweet, juicy and fresh. I teamed it with a boiled duck egg with a soft, creamy yolk to dip the asparagus into and ate it in the sunshine in my garden. What a treat!

To make this really easy dish all you need to do is bring a pan of water to the boil, add the duck egg and boil it for 6 minutes for a soft, creamy yolk. You should really use a separate pan for the asparagus, again bringing the water up to the boil then adding the asparagus once you've trimmed the woody ends, then boiling it for about 3 minutes. Remove the asparagus from the pan, cut the top off the egg, add a little sea salt and voilà - a sublime lunch for one.





For more on asparagus take a look at the new UK Food Bloggers Association site - I got my inspiration for today's lunch from one of the members.

Iced Easter Biscuits

When Sarah Smith asked me if I would create a recipe for their monthly newsletter I was very happy to oblige. The Sarah Smith range of home products include beautiful tea towels, aprons, oven gloves and cleaning clothes in bright, floral designs that will certainly brighten up the spring cleaning jobs.

As the recipe was going into the April newsletter I decided to make some easy Iced Easter Biscuits in pretty flower shapes to match the Sarah Smith range. For the recipe visit the Sarah Smith blog