More Secret Kitchens!

Thanks for your photos of your gorgeous secret kitchens...keep them coming!  Email us at office@mysecretkitchen.co.uk
What do you love about your kitchen and what's cooking?!
Clare
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Sally's Secret Kitchen

Mat in action!

Your Secret Kitchen

I'm a sucker for home magazines; I love drooling over the pictures of glossy high end kitchens from modern city chic apartments to rustic farmhouses - the ones with the hand-made-cost-a-fortune type kitchens. In those pages, it looks as if nothing gets spilled or burnt and never needs cleaning - and come with perfect children and a labrador!

The majority of us have modest, simple and most important, fully functioning culinary spaces. Does a perfect show-home kitchen mean perfect cooking every time?  Maybe, but still, we all have the opportunity to make gorgeous meals whether you have a dual fuel, 6 burner range with sous vide option or an oven that needs a broom handle to keep it shut (I've been there!). That's our philosophy at My Secret Kitchen - we want to help you make your meals more amazing regardless of how your kitchen is styled or if you have the latest kitchen gizmo or not.

Mat and Vi's Secret Kitchen

Take my nephew Mat and his girlfriend Vi - they have just moved in together and are blissfully happy and proud to be in their first place together. I asked them to share what they have been cooking in their compact and bijou little kitchen. Gracing their foot stool - spicy thai papaya salad, bangers and mash and a rather incredible-sounding dish from Vi's native Poland of fried chicken with peaches, curry powder, chillies, soy and single cream served with rice. My personal favourite was the egg and soldiers which I'm sure tasted even more fabulous because it was cooked in their own secret kitchen.

Its true what they say about the kitchen being the heart of the home and you know the one about kitchens and parties. The art of making and preparing food is magical and I hope that as our company grows we can continue to be inspirational with our foods into the heart of your kitchens.

If you'd like to send us your photos of your secret kitchen, we'd love to send you our Lemon & Chipotle Spiced Sea Salt - perfect for making pretty much anything really tasty and would be amazing with that egg :-)

 (email your photos to office@mysecretkitchen.co.uk)

So here's to your secret kitchen and to making your meals more amazing, Enjoy,

Clare
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Open and Enjoy

Lets face it, most of us need to get dinner on the table in under 30 mins.  Week-end cooking and entertaining is where we can spend more time and effort in creating ellaborate dishes that taste great but why should we compromise mid-week?  So, here are a few ideas to make those every day meals more amazing with My Secret Kitchen products lending a helping hand.  The products features are particularly suited to just 'open and enjoy' with your mid-week suppers, Enjoy!

Featuring: Tapenade with Smoked Garlic & Lemon & Chipotle Spiced Sea Salt

A new meaning for Ham, Egg and Chips?

Poached egg, parma ham and new potatoes roasted in Oak Smoked Rapeseed Oil and sprinkled with Lemon & Chipotle Spiced Sea Salt. All made extra tasty with a few teaspoons of Tapenade with Smoked Garlic.

Featuring: Jumping Jack Chilli Jam & Wild Garlic Secret Spices

Gourmet Burgers at home

Grilled butterflied chicken breast glazed with Jumping Jack Chilli Jam in a toasted bun and Wild Garlic Secret Spices mayonnaise.

Pasta with a difference

Artichoke Pesto pasta with camembert, lemon & pinenuts.  Roast chicken and cherry tomatoes with Balsamic Reduction.

                                                                       

Breakfast, lunch-on-the-go or an easy family friendly dessert  Granola, greek yogurt and Maple Caramel Sauce topped with plums, peaches and chocolate shavings

Confessions of a chocolate lover

Clare Moran - Co Founder My Secret Kitchen

I know I know, its Lent, but with Easter just around the corner who hasn't got chocolate on their mind?

At My Secret Kitchen we are also promoting our Ultimate Chocolate Brownie and Chocolate Peppermint Sauce in March and April so what a lovely excuse to experiment with chocolate again. In our Brownie Bliss recipes we have created Coconut Brownies with a Lime Glaze or for a simple and equally delicious dessert Ultimate Chocolate Brownies with Chocolate Peppermint Fondue



I'm in awe of anyone who's decided to give up chocolate for 40 days - or indeed to give up anything food related.  Trying to give up anything I love is a near impossibility and believe me I've tried, but I am proud to be a very happy chocolate fiend.

(Have you read 'Beyond Chocolate' by Sophie & Audrey Boss? thoroughly recommended)


So, here are my 7 chocolate confessions in all their chocolatey glory...




1. I count chocolate covered raisins as one of my '5 a day'
2. As a student, for 6 months I lived on brain food of Kit Kats and black coffee
3. Yes, it was me who stole the chocolate buttons from the kid's sweet tin late last night
4. The little pea sized brown smudge on the sofa is evidence of the bar of cooking chocolate that side-stepped straight to my tummy
5. I buy low-fat hot chocolate mix - and then prepare it with double cream
6. I always lick the bowl when making Ultimate Chocolate Brownies - and never share
7. Petit dessert pots made with Chocolate Peppermint Sauce are the only cure for a case of the Mondays

Clare
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Tagine Dream

I’ve fallen in love all over again - with Moroccan flavours.   

Our recent launch of Saffron Tagine Paste has inspired me so much; Phil and I had friends for dinner on Friday and and once again we turned to North African cuisine and flavours for inspiration. 

What’s even better is that I realised so many of My Secret Kitchen products could lend a helping.  

Our Moroccan Menu:

Moroccan Spiced Banana Soup with Duck & Fig Rolls

Featuring: Saffron Tagine Paste, Wild Garlic Secret Spices, Fig Pudding Pickle
This may sound a little crazy, but the combination of our tagine paste used in a base of onion, potato, carrot and chicken stock with a couple of ripe bananas give the soup a gorgeous spicy yet sweet flavour and velvety texture. The duck rolls are made with shredded cooked duck meat and our fig pudding pickle reduced with a pear and a touch of honey then rolled in phyllo pastry and shallow fried.

Saffron Marinated Chicken with Chermoula Couscous and Aubergine Tagine with preserved lemons

Featuring: Lemon & Chipotle Spiced Sea Salt, SmokedRapeseed Oil, Wild Garlic Secret Spices, Tapenade with Smoked Garlic, SaffronTagine Paste
This is a really simple dish that takes care of itself - chicken thighs marinated in a saffron spiced marinade with our wild garlic secret spices and then slow cooked to be extra tender. Couscous is always a dream to prepare - as long as it is well seasoned, here I made a chermoula dressing to add flavour.  The aubergine tagine used pre-roasted aubergines and our tapenade with smoked garlic, combined with our saffron tagine paste and finely chopped preserved lemons.  Seasoning with our Lemon & Chipotle Spiced Sea Salt completes each of the dishes.

Pistachio Ice Cream, Mango & Mint Sorbet & Ras El Hanout Caramel

Featuring: Mango Mojito Dessert Sauce, Maple Caramel Sauce
My favourite kitchen gadget has to be my ice cream maker.  For this dessert I prepared a pistachio ice cream - with a touch of maple caramel sauce as well as a mango and mint sorbet made with pink grapefruit.  The ras el hanout caramel was an interesting moroccan touch made by caramelising sugar and a little water, pouring onto a baking sheet and sprinkling over the ras el hanout seasoning and leaving to cool before breaking into pieces to garnish the dessert.

This month, our teams of consultants are testing out the soup with the duck and fig rolls at their team meetings - its a tough job but someone's got to do it!

Happy cooking,

Clare

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Cherry Bakewell Baby

On Monday I had the pleasure of meeting our first consultant in Cornwall – Lynne Ratcliffe. As we prepared for her launch tasting together, her husband Nick (also very keen to see how it all works) popped out to the local shop to get some refreshments for their tasting guests. When he returned, he was hiding a packet of cherry bakewells under his arm in a ‘I just couldn’t resist’ kind of way. We all love guilty pleasures and since some of you may be embarking on a chocolate free zone for the next 40 days, here’s something to satisfy your sweet tooth and I admit, a blatant showing off on my part – anything you can do I can do better, this one is for you Nick….

Cherry Bakewell Bread

1 My Secret Kitchen Original Beer Bread Mix

50g ground almonds

50g caster sugar

50ml veg oil

2 tsp almond essence

100ml lemonade

100g glace cherries

125g icing sugar

20ml cold water

Preheat oven 190c and line a 1lb loaf tin. Empty the bread mix into a bowl and add the ground almonds and sugar and stir together. Reserve 6 of the glace cherries and chop the rest in half and add to the dry ingredients and mix. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add the vegetable oil, almond essence and lemonade. Mix thoroughly and quickly before putting in to the loaf tin and bake for 25 - 30 minutes. Make the icing by mixing the icing sugar with the water. When the loaf is cool, top with the icing and the reserved whole cherries.

Pancakes Pronto

Its nearly Maple Caramel Sauce Day...

Fancy something a bit different this pancake day? We’ve put our creative heads together and perfected a recipe using Lemon & Bergamot Shortbread Mix to make amazing drop scones!  Light and fluffy (rather like American style or scotch pancakes) these are divine with melted butter. Or for the more adventurous, turn them into mini sweet blinis with dried cranberries and orange - just waiting for a topping of cream and warm Maple Caramel Sauce.

Did you know you can order with us online by 2pm and receive your delivery the very next day, or contact your local consultant for free delivery so there’s no excuse not to celebrate this year!

200g My Secret Kitchen Lemon & Bergamot Shortbread Mix
1 medium egg
110ml milk
Oil or butter (unsalted) for frying

Put the Lemon & Bergamot Shortbread Mix into a bowl and make a well in the centre.  Add the egg and milk into the well and whisk together thoroughly.  Leave to stand for 10 minutes and whisk again.  Heat a frying pan with a little oil (or unsalted butter) and using a dessert spoon, add spoonfuls of the batter into the hot pan.  Cook for 1 -2 minutes until the edges start to curl and bubbles appear on the surface, turn and cook on the other side until fluffy and golden brown.  Freeze any leftovers for emergency breakfast supply when you’re fed up of cereal or run out of milk!