I love traditional Greek salad but on a work trip to Athens last year I discovered this salad originating from the Greek island of Crete. This salad is quite like a normal Greek salad but also has salad leaves and stale bread soaked in olive oil. I am submitting this to my no waste food challenge as a suggestion for using up stale bits of bread. 

I love visiting Greece, the food and scenery are lovely and the people are really friendly. Make up this salad and image you are on a pretty, sunny, Greek island.

To begin with soak the stale bread in olive oil, stack on some salad leaves and then make up the rest of your Greek salad with olives, feta, cucumber and tomatoes. Typically you would also add red onions but I missed them out as didn't have any. I served my salad with balsamic vinegar and extra olive oil.

May's no waste food challenge is focussing on recipe suggestion to use up leftover bread. Do join in and submit a recipe idea.

I was looking for somewhere local for Greg and I to have a little break. Whilst surfing the web I found Handpicked Hotels, a hotel group that specialises in luxury, good food and beautiful surroundings. The hotels are historic buildings which have been sympathetically restored and adapted into accommodation. We chose to stay at Nutfield Priory with dinner and breakfast included. On arrival we were upgraded to a junior suite and our stay was really lovely so just thought I would share some photos.

As you know the weather in the UK has not been very sunny with most of us waking up to rain now for the past month. This weekend was no exception so the photograph above is from their website. The hotel is in Redhill and overlooks the Weald. Despite the rainy weather the view was beautiful with everything looking very green and lush.

Our rate included food from the Chapter menu and it was absolutely delicious. Handpicked Hotels works hard to source their food locally and focusses on seasonal produce. 

This was definitely a perfect rainy day getaway. The hotel is set in lovely grounds, has a spa and pool attached and is very close to lots of National Trust properties. 

I was not sponsored or given any freebies for this post,  I just really enjoyed our stay, thought the service was impeccable, and like to spread the word about things I enjoy.

This is my entry for this month's no waste food challenge which for my May is bread. This is my suggestion for using up stale bread and breadcrumbs. It also ended up being a really good way to use lots of leftover bits in the fridge. A leftover tomato, bit of goats cheese and rocket. I have listed my ingredients below but be very flexible with this recipe and just use what you find.

1. I started by slicing the spring onions and adding these to the mushroom with a knob of butter and a sprinkle of lemon zest. I then layered the tomato, goat's cheese and rocket. 
   
2. Mix the bread crumbs with the grated cheese and arrange on top.
3. Grill for 5-10 mins until cooked and the cheese is bubbling.

These are delicious especially as the butter melts down into the mushroom and the lemon zest really lifts the flavours. Enjoy!

Some shots from my recent trip to Paris.

You may have seen this cake doing the rounds. My mum remembers baking one a while ago. Herman is a sourdough starter that you feed and stir until he makes enough cake for you and 3 starters to pass on. Mine was given to me by my friend Paul and I will be passing mine onto my friends.

My kitchen is currently a thriving living thing with my sourdough starter and Herman bubbling away. I have been reading how difficult it can be to keep starters going but to be honest I am fairly ad hoc with my treatment of the starters (and my house plants) and all seems well.

I expected this to make quite a solid cake but was surprised at the moist and flavoursome result, plus I am a sucker for apple and cinnamon.

If you want to make a starter go to the Herman the German Friendhship Website.
Here are the instructions as they arrived with my starter.   

When I had this brewing in the kitchen I realised it could be entered into baking addict's and caroline makes' alphabakes challenge, which this month has picked the letter H. Of course when I hurriedly blogged this I forgot until I was reminded by Caroline below!

This month's no waste food challenge is bread. Any types of bread and breadcrumbs will be accepted. I have just bought a bread maker and have just learnt how to make my own sourdough. I have been surprised at how well my homemade loaves last. I thought that without the preservatives the bread would quickly go mouldy, but this hasn't been the case. Now that I am making my loaves on demand I have less waste but there is still the bread crumbs and odd stale slice that go to waste. 

I think this might be a popular one for the challenge so I hope I am up to the job of collating! May is very busy for me so do bear with me if it takes me a while to write up my round up post. It would also really help me if you could make sure you email your post to turquoiselemonsblog@gmail.com as this way I can stick them in a folder and make sure I don't lose any entries. Please also link back  to the challenge and include the badge on the left. Thanks.

Just a few of us this April for the fennel no waste food challenge. I was looking to add some new ideas to my recipe book as I seem to always find the fennel from my veg box leftover. 

First up we have Melanie from Edible things who has a really good recipe for Stock from Scraps. As Melanie points out stock is the basis of so many meals so we will start our blog post here. This stock not only uses fennel leftovers but all your veggie scraps. I really do need to get better at using my leftovers for stock. Thank you Melanie.

For your starter or a quick lunch we have Janice from Farmersgirl Kitchen Blue and Green Soup. The blue from blue cheese and the green from leftover bits of veg including fennel. This soup is a fantastic recipe for using up all your leftover bits and bobs lurking in the fridge and even comes with a recipe for gluten free cheese scones.

Next up we have Fiona from London Unattached and her gorgeous Fennel and Smoked Salmon Pasta based on a salad that Janice from Farmersgirl Kitchen posted a while ago. This looks lovely and is making me want smoked salmon and fennel right now!

One of my reader's Martha Angonese has suggested just using leftover bits of fennel in salad and using it instead of cabbage in coleslaw as an accompaniment to fish.
For the coleslaw Martha suggests:
Mix 2/5 part grated carrots, with 2/5 part grated/shredded fennel and 1/5 part onions or shallots (or less - I like it quite onion-y...) and a good dollop of mayonnaise (or a mayonnaise & yogurt mix). You can also add some chopped fennel herb to this (ie the frondy fennel tops) as added flavouring or for presentation.  
Thank you Martha. Definitely going to try this with some fishcakes.

Next up we have a baked fennel recipe inspired by Nigel Slater and blogged by Donna at 52 weeks of baking. I am so glad Donna has added this recipe as it looks a delicious way to use up a fennel bulb.

Lastly I blogged something sweet. I made this fennel and strawberry tart. Enjoy!

Thank you to everyone who submitted recipes and suggestions. I will set the new challenge in the next few days.

Well what a lovely surprise! I have been nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award not once, but twice!

Firstly I was nominated by my twitter friend and reader Ellie from Emerald Pie and secondly by the lovely Janice at Farmergirl Kitchen. Thank you so much to both of you. 

I have been blogging for about nine months now and started off just using the blog as an online portfolio and scrapbook for my recipes and craft tutorials. For a little while I got caught up in worrying about stats, trying to post everyday and keep up with some of the top bloggers. It was beginning to feel like a second full time job. I have stepped back a little and just focussed on the blog as being a space for me to share my ideas and I am really enjoying it. Above all I am really happy to have met some lovely people that share the same interests as me in the webosphere.

Rules for the award are:
1. Thank the person who nominated you for this Award and link them back.
2. Say 5 random facts about you.
3. Spread the  joy by nominating other bloggers.
4. Let the blogger know about the nomination. 

Five random facts about me:

1. I am a massive fan of US drama including, The West Wing, Mad Men, The Wire, Good Wife and CSI.
2. I love going to the gym. Spin class is my chill out time and helps burn off the cake! 
   
3. My boyfriend works for the award winning show Horrible Histories and you can follow his facty tweets here @greg_jenner
4. I work better in a sunny environment.
5. I have a big weakness for dark chocolate.

My five nominations are:

1. Amy at the Weekly Bake Off. Amy is working her way through Mary Berry's 100 cakes and bakes and letting us all join in and compare our baking experiences.
2. Nelly at Nelly's Cupcakes who is always cooking up something super scrummy.
3. Becky has just started her blog at Unapologetically Becky and as well as being my latest baking friend she does lots of brilliant crafting and makes the most gorgeous doorstops.
4. Leila at Persian Living who blogs her very tasty Persian traditional recipes.
5. Fiona at London Unattached who writes about her life in London, balcony gardening, cooking and things out and about in London.

Thank you once again for my nominations!

Last weekend my friend Becky and I had a bit of a baking afternoon and decided to try some cakes in jars. 

Ever needed to transport your cakes? This is a really pretty way of presenting your cake and it also it a good way of making your cakes into more of a full dessert. They can really easily be themes as well.

I made some orange fairy cakes layered with orange butter cream. Each jar has two little fairy cakes, butter cream, sprinkles and in one I added some marmalade. We were thinking that these could be really nice as little Victoria sponges and could be jubilee themed. Again it could work really nicely with different coloured fairy cakes.

You will need:
Fairy cakes
Sprinkles
Buttercream 
Jars - I used nutella jars. The are nice and wide to fit in the cakes and come with a white plastic lid that could be decorated with sharpies. If you use taller jars you can layer more cake.

To make 12 orange fairy cakes:
1 large egg
70g unsalted butter
70g sugar
70g self- raising flour
Rind of 1 orange

1. Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. 
2. Add the orange rind, egg and flour.
3. Spoon into a silicone cake mould. 
4. Bake for 15- 20 minutes until golden brown.

For the orange butter cream:
100g butter
225g icing sugar
1 tablespoon of freshly squeezed orange juice

1. Combine all everything together until light and fluffy.
2. Pipe onto the layered cake.

You might remember that I entered my Disastrous Giant Creme Egg story into an application to Morphy Richards. Well I am very excited to have been picked as a Morphy Richards Innovator. Watch this space for more news and reviews!