Baker & Foodie Content Creator
My name is Lee, welcome to my pages. I hope we can have fun together?
When I’m not developing recipes for others, writing guest blogs, writing my own blog, or even trying to learn how to paint, I’m usually spending time with the amazing Mr G (my husband) or with my lovely daughter or my lovely son (very proud mum).
What is this all about? Great question. This site is about real cooking and baking, real recipes and real mistakes.
No filters here, (although i’d love to find a filter that can take ten years worth of laugh lines away. Just me, whats happening, and whatever cameras or phone i have to hand .
There are many things that get under my bonnet and wiggle around, one of those is food waste. If i buy ingredients specifically for a recipe, and i only need a small amount of the ingredients, i want to be able to use the rest up and not have to throw them away. My mum used to say , “Waste not Want not” is that still a saying ?
For me, waste is not just about using up all the ingredients. What about leftover food? If i’m able , i hope to give ideas as to how to use up any leftovers too.
Be Brave
Cooking isn’t hard , neither is baking, its all about being brave and being ok with making mistakes
All tagged Lee & The Sweet Life
Sometimes there isn’t enough time in the day to spend hours making and decorating a cake, but even when the days a rush, there’s always time to make this Pink Prosecco & Pistachio Loaf Cake with Pink Prosecco Icing. This recipe is easy to bake, moist to eat and satisfying enough to make everyone happy. Perfect for any celebration, mothers day or birthday and easy enough for even the children to get involved.
Avocado & Fresh Tomato Salsa Recipe.
Fresh salsa is a joy to eat and so easy to put together that it seems silly to buy it if I’ve the ingredients to hand, and the ingredients are so easy to get hold of, so why not?!
The addition of the avocado in this salsa gives it a creamy edge, the freshness is brought by the fresh lime juice and zest, and of the tomatoes, of course add body and make the salsa have a juicy and thirst-quenching mouth feel.
Miso Chocolate Tart with Sesame Chocolate Biscuit Base, fashionable flavours for 2024. The addition of the of miso paste and sesame seeds turns this chocolate tart into something decadent and moreish. Easy to bake and put together just, which just adds to the pleasure of this tart.
Gift - Cookies in a Jar recipe. Making these gift jars for family and friends for Christmas , birthday or for any celebration . Choose a flavour that you love and substitute this for the sprinkles in this recipe. Sprinkle sugar cookies are a great present , adding all the ingredients in the jar, writing out the method on a pretty card is bound to make someone smile.
An easy recipe to use fresh cherries on this Fresh Cherry Frangipane Tart. Let the super juicy cherries drip down into the warm golden frangipane as the cherry glaze shines on the top. An incredible way to use seasonal cherries .
Making this easy blackberry custard tart isn’t difficult. This blackberry custard recipe is so easy to make and delicious to eat. Cooking with seasonal fruit is the what this tart is about, a perfect tart to have when ever there are blackberries in season. Custards tarts don’t need to be vanilla, especially when they taste this good and are tis easy to bake
Its slightly browny, sightly caky but 100% indulgent! A dense fudgy cake, so go to another recipe of your looking for a light and airy cake. The cake itself is moist because of the courgettes, rich and indulgent because of the cocoa, and as if that’s not enough, the delectable smooth dark chocolate ganache certainly tips it over the edge.
Lots and lots of basil ,both dried and fresh, with tons of black pepper, all goes to make the tomato sauce luxurious , layered and as if it has spent hours on the stove top being mixed with love.
This tomato sauce is a keeper!
Unbaked cheesecake, a staple at most get togethers in the UK, probably because it’s so blooming easy to make, and this Fresh Peach Jar Cheesecake isn’t any different.
Madeleines, the cake of the gods and just to make them extra, I’ve added a strawberry flavour dough to the middle and drizzled a little dark chocolate over one of the edges before adding a few chopped nuts, just to finish off.
Perfect Hand Stretched Goats Cheese thin based pizza with stuffed crust & home-made charred cherry tomato Sauce. So easy to make it should be added to your family recipe book. Using St Helens Farm Goat cheese in the charred crust and on top of the pizza makes it perfect for any get together or tea table.
Sweet Potato & Wild Garlic Gnocchi in a Three Tomato Cream Cheese Sauce with Charred Sesame Oil & Ras El Hanout Courgettes recipe has a few steps to it but is a super easy dish to make.
Enjoy the gnocchi in a big bowl with the charred courgette on the side. Gnocchi is a great make ahead dish, letting them sit in the fridge until the next day. Just re-heat the sauce, cook the gnocchi and then let them sit in the warm sauce until each one is coated in the sauce.
Lamb Peka- A Croatian Lamb Dish , a recipe that needs to be in every family recipe book for those days that you need amazing flavours but don’t want to work too hard. Full of flavour and a Croatian dish and sends love smells around my kitchen every time i make it.
Slow Cooker Shredded Chicken Lettuce Wraps, an easy to made and delicious to eat recipe thats great for those days when i want to have the comfort of the slow cooker and also want it to taste a little lighter. Introducing the magic powder of Vegeta, a Croatian staple in every kitchen that is always right next to the paprika, another staple.
Chicken Thigh Pie with Red Pepper, Baby SweetCorn Surrounded by Rosemary Flaky Pastry – Made with Chicken Cuppa Soup
Not much time to get stuff together, so a batch of my 30-minute flaky pastry, some packet chicken cuppa soup mix and I was ready to go. There always seems to be just a little pastry left.
Those bits left over from rolling out, and i cant bear to waste them, so i always have to find something else to use them for and what i wrap the pastry around depends on what i have lying around
Honey Nut Cornflake & Coconut Biscuits recipe – Gluten Free recipe. So easy that making them with kids is a great way to spend an afternoon of messy baking.
Then there’s the fact there’s no need to rush out to the shop if I want to satisfy my sweet fix, all of the ingredients are in my pantry right when I need them.
Pistachio Cream Filled Biscotti recipe, a combination of layers of smooth pistachio cream surrounded by a firm yet crumbly twice baked biscuit. Not too sweet and nothing difficult about making these, which is why they are on my favourite biscuit list. Fancy biscuits that are so tasty.
Saffron & Pistachio Biscuits, a recipe that is so easy to make and once you’ve tried them, you’ll be addicted to their flavour and beautiful golden colour.
Lattice Pear & Tinned Peach Pie recipe
Easy , tasty and so pretty too. Using tinned peaches means this pie can be made even in the winter months. Sweet short crust pasty thats really crumbly tops fresh pears and tinned peaches.
Making a lattice top for a pie is very easy and strangely satisfying. Take a look at the recipe to see exactly how easy it is!
Pear Frangipane Tart recipe.
With the ground almonds, soft sweet pears, buttery crumbly pastry and the added lemon zest, this Pear Frangipane Tart tastes deliciously indulgent and fresh.
If, like me, you’re a make ahead kind of person, preferring to spend as much time around the dinner table chatting (the lovely Mr G would say chatting a little too much ), then it’s a perfect pudding to get together the day before, either cooking it to eat cold or, get it all ready to bake on the day to eat warm.
