Pork and Chive Dumplings

On a whim I decided to make chinese dumplings/potstickers. Its something I had being craving for a while and as with most things I crave I ended up in the kitchen attempting to make them. The great thing about these is that once you have made the filling you can relax in front of the TV or pop on some music and get to forming the dumplings. I stuck to the traditional pork and chinese chive filling but to be honest I wasnt 100% happy with the taste. The pork flavour was a bit funky and a little linear even though there is garlic chives, sesame oil, soy sauce, and garlic. If I was to make these again i’d add some ginger and maybe a little chilli to give a bit of heat and spice.

Pierre Herme’s Salted Caramel Macarons

I have since made another version of these and they were much better

Paris is one of my absolute favourite places in the world and im planning another trip very soon, either later this or early next year. One of my favourite things about the city is its wonderful food culture and my absolute favorite place to indulge is Pierre Herme (not exactly an original choice but you cant dispute excellence). The things he sells look amazing, enticing and delicious and they taste just as good as they look. Herme is well known as one of, if not the, best places to get Macarons, those lovely little indulgent almond cookies filled with ganaches, creams and caramels.

Peanut Butter Crispy Bars

Sometimes simplicity is more appealing than complexity. These PB bars from “Baked” were just the key, very simple and the oven didn’t even get turned on. I adore baking but sometimes I dont want to cross my fingers and hope I did everything right. With a recipe like this everything is done and finished fast. The crispy layer is the first thing you do and is the only possibly tricky thing as it involves a bit of sugar/syrup work, but I think the idea of boiling sugar is much worse than the actual process. The other 2 stages are simplicity itself, if you can melt chocolate you can make it. They are also addictive but then I should have known they would be, I mean chocolate and peanut butter in a bar! no question it was going to be good.