Daffodil Soup London

I am not going to tell you that this loaf is healthy or good for you but take a closer look: courgettes and pineapple (two of your five-a-day), and coconut. And it's CAKE so that's a win-win, right? I know what you're thinking. Step away from the vegetable drawer. But stop a second and consider the carrot cake. A vegetable. One that's quite sweet and full of goodness. And we all know what happens when you put carrots in a cake: you get dense, moist, not-too-sweet cakey loveliness. Courgettes take the results to a whole new nutty level, and the pineapple and coconut add a tropical twist. I think this cake is moist and flavourful enough not to need icing but you may not agree, in which case a cream-cheese combo a la carrot cake would work well, as would a chocolate ganache if you're trying to camouflage the cake's central theme (no one will guess, but don't ask them to try until they've had three slices). It was Nigella who started me on this road a f...

I have so far resisted the urge to write about food and contribute recipes, knowledge and hopefully humour to the blogosphere and confined my posts to Facebook and Twitter (@daffodilsoup). But increasingly I find I have more to share and instead of just greedily "consuming" well-crafted contributions from others I am gonna do this thing! I am concerned about continuity and quality - I have felt the pain of bloggers crippled with writers block or, simply, exhaustion. I have my fingers crossed, so here goes. I am a trained chef, I cook for a living, I am self-employed and work from my home kitchen mostly, although I do undertake assignments in professional kitchens and so, hopefully, know of which I speak. I also have an Advanced wine qualification from the Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET), and teach wine appreciation and offer food-and-wine tastings as part of Daffodil Soup . As a former journalist I tend to cast a very critical eye over most things, especially restaur...