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Cupcake week (14th - 20th September)

A whole week of cupcakes, amazing! As if the OxNosh team needed any excuse to bake. And bake we did. And Internet shop, too. More of that later…

Cupcakes (and I mean the embellished type), are undeniably American, and with ounces of cream cheese frosting on their over-sized form their nationality speaks through whatever disguise they are given. Girls love them for their colours, sparkles and fancy cases; guys love them for their two-bite muchability. And what’s not to love?

Speaking as a member of the fairer sex, there’s something pretty appealing about being able to legitimately accessorise baked goods - literally the more outrageous the better when it comes to cupcakes and muffins. And here’s where that Internet shopping I alluded to comes in- Cakes Cookies and Craft Shop took a large bite out of my account this month in the form of sparkles, cupcake cases and silver balls.

And the result? The most blinged-up cakes this side of New York. All enjoyed with a nice cuppa, how very un-American.

I made three classic recipes to celebrate cupcake week - why not try the delicious hummingbird recipe here, a mix of tropical banana and pineapple, mixed with cinnamon and pecans, coated in artery-clogging cream cheese icing and a few pretty embelishments.

Useful things to note:

  • Generally fill your cases up to 3/4 full of raw cake mix - this is usually the right amount of mixture to rise just proud of the case
  • Make sure your baked cakes are cool before you ice them - otherwise the icing can melt
  • If you don’t have a piping bag, no worries - icing can be spooned and spread onto cakes, or else for a piping bag effect, fill up a freezer bag with icing and squeeze into one corner, carefully snip the point of the corner off, and then pipe to your heart’s content
  • Cream cheese icing can be frozen - so if you make replicas relojes too much just pop it in the freezer in a sealed box (or freezer bag), and whisk once defrosted (defrost in the fridge overnight, not microwave)

Posted in Cooking, Veg Box, baking.

Vegetarian Week: 18-24th May

Always eager for a food-related challenge, OxNosh are going to be foregoing the meat for a week as it’s National Vegetarian Week.

Continued…

Posted in Uncategorized.

Brasserie Blanc

Restaurant page

Brasserie Blanc – set menu with wine, £11.35-17.30

Ramond Blanc claims that if his Michelin-starred Le Manoir is a delicate waltz, the brasseries are the Can Can. Our meal was a fun experience, but perhaps rather less exhilarating than the Can Can.
Continued…

Posted in Uncategorized.

The Big Freeze

We’re a nation of wasters, its official. According to lovefoodhatewaste.com, nearly a third of all the food bought in the UK ends up being thrown in the bin when most of this could have been eaten. One way to cut back on the huge amount of food we throw away, and cut down on costs is to exploit our freezers as the potential goldmines that they are.

First, the rules: one, wrap everything well in either a freezer bag or plenty of cling film to prevent ‘freezer burn’ which is caused when direct contact with the cold air causes food to dry out. Chicken breasts, fish fillets and steaks all freeze well when wrapped individually in cling film.

Continued…

Posted in Cooking.

Tarting up a veg pot - Moroccan Squash Tagine

I love aubergine, so much so that it’s perhaps my favourite vegetable - it’s all in the texture for me, the meltingly soft flesh held firm by the shiny black skin, a sponge for flavour. A great dish for Aubergines is involtini - griddled or grilled slices of aubergine wrapped around a flavoursome filling, baked until the flavours have melded and the aubergine flesh is meltingly soft.
Continued…

Posted in Cooking. Tagged with .

Al Andalus

Restaurant page

My best tapas experiences have always involved being on holiday with my family in Andalucia; a quartet of non-Spanish speakers, subsisting off our ability to point at interesting-looking dishes in various bars. Al Andalus, the tapas bar on Little Clarendon Street, proved an exciting prospect – familiar dishes in a great setting. One of the other beautiful things about tapas is the sharing, and Al-Andalus caters well for people such as myself who find the prospect of sharing rather nerve-wracking – what if the last piece of tortilla disappears before you have a chance to sample it, busy as you are tucking into patatas bravas with spicy tomato sauce? Luckily, the provision of side plates means you can grab a bit of everything before it disappears. And you will want to.

Continued…

Posted in Eating Out, Restaurant Reviews, Uncategorized.

Tarting up a Veg Pot - Spicy Seafood and Vegetable Soup

Continued…

Posted in Cooking. Tagged with .

Tarting up a Veg Pot - Tuscan Bean Pizza

Third in line to be pimped was the Tuscan Bean Stew veg pot. Continued…

Posted in Cooking. Tagged with .

Tarting up a Veg Pot - Mexican Wraps

This was the challenge. Take one of the lovely little veg pots that Innocent have started making and come up with a way to make them a bit more ’special’ for dinner. We think they’re a great idea as they’re tasty, packed full of veggies and no nasties.
Continued…

Posted in Cooking. Tagged with .

Lighter Eating

This week we received: Onions, Carrots, Potatoes, Parsnips, Purple Sprouting broccoli, Beetroot, Salad Pack Continued…

Posted in April, Cooking, Seasonality, Shopping, Veg Box. Tagged with , , , , , , .