Spring is a fairly grim season for Hollywood. Apart from the occasional big budget blockbuster, spring is generally used as a dumping ground for the films Hollywood doesn’t have any [...]
Author Archive for Keifer Derrin
Having worked in IT for over 20 years, Keifer Derrin quit his job to do something new. Not claiming to be a Gordon, Heston or even a Delia, Keifer’s passion for all kinds of food includes trying out new recipes whether they take 10 minutes or 8 hours to prepare. He also enjoys eating out - anything from The Ledbury to Pizza Express and even a local greasy spoon! Keifer also does voluntary work for the Food Chain, a charity that supplies food, meals & nutritional education to people who are HIV+. Check out his food blog at www.donkeyfodder.com
Victoria Sponge
I started watching The Great British Bake Off by accident last year, as I was flicking through the TV channels and came across it. After 20 minutes I was hooked. I’ve seen other cookery competitions but this has to be the hardest. Just 30 seconds of overbaking can dry the recipe out or even make [...]
Pasta Puttanesca
I spent a superb weekend in my favourite city of Amsterdam, but I must remember that I am not as young as I use to be and that I can no longer party for three days in a row with out paying the price. That price was me being very rough and tired on the [...]
Vietnamese Chicken Hotpot
After reviewing the recipes from Skinny Meals in Heels, I decided to try a simple recipe of chicken, ginger and green bean hotpot, served with rice. This is a classic Vietnamese braised dish that is low in fat but full in flavour. The recipe in the book required 500g of chicken but I only had [...]
Book Review: Skinny Meals in Heels
For my birthday in January a good friend bought me a “joke” cookery book called Skinny Meals in Heels, by Jennifer Joyce. He thought it was funny because I’m always talking about trying to lose weight (due to the amount of eating I do so that I can write articles for this blog). He also [...]
Wild Mushroom Risotto
I always think of risottos as largely unhealthy and something to eat now and again, as I always thought they had a lot of parmesan in them. Recently I’ve been told otherwise and that cheese is not used that often and so when searching through my food bible “Good Housekeeping Cookery Book, published by Good [...]
Cheese and Sage Crusted Pork Chop
I prefer my pork chops simply grilled or lightly fried in the a pan, occasionally I just add it to some soup but I wanted to do something completely different. I scanned the net to see what other recipes people had created to change a simple but tasty pork chop into something new After reviewing [...]
Moroccan Chicken
Hands up if you’ve ever heard of onions cut Asian style? It was a new one on me so went to the internet to see if I could find out what it meant and how the onions were cut. After a few seconds I found that It means that you make thick cuts with the [...]
Chicken and Fennel Meatballs
Where does time go, I cannot believe it’s been so long since I last wrote an entry. I am still creating and eating new recipes and I have been visiting new and exciting restaurants and I’m even reading a lot on food in general. I’ve even written a lot, but something always seems to drag [...]
Mushroom Twists
I find it hard to imagine that I use to hate mushrooms as a kid. If my parents put them on my plate we use to play a game of stand off. I was always made to sit at the table until I had eaten them. I can’t remember how long I would sit there, [...]
Meatballs in a Garlic Broth
If you love garlic, you will love this dish. If you don’t like garlic give it a go, because there are other strong flavours in the dish to help keep the garlic under control, like cinnamon and coriander to list a few. Also the garlic flavour is reduced by the boiling of the broth and [...]
Baked Cod with Chorizo and Butter Bean Stew
This recipe is based on the Angela Harnett recipe from her book “A Taste of Home”. I’m not really sure you can call it a stew, but it is very tasty and a dish that is going to become popular in our house. As you gently fry the chorizo, it releases it’s wonderful flavours which [...]
Almond and Orange Torte
The last time I attempted to bake anything it was a complete disaster. One thing it taught me though, I won’t be entering The Great British Bake Off any time soon, maybe in about 10 years time. This also wasn’t perfect because I forgot to dust the torte with the icing sugar, but at least [...]
Turkey Escalopes
It’s official, I’ve become a Nigella Lawson clone. I was looking in my freezer the other day and I came across some frozen breadcrumbs and thought I would use them. When I started this blog I said that I hated the way TV cooks always had stuff just laying around in there freezers or cupboards [...]
Banana and Pecan Muffins
Every time I go to our local supermarket I always go into the fruit section, but unless it’s for lemons or lime for my gin, I end up walking straight through. But, every so often I get a guilt complex and end up buying fruit. Unfortunately though the fruit normally ends up in a compost [...]
Carrot Cake
My other half had a text last week day from our friend Fireman Sam, saying he wanted to see more desserts and cakes recipes. He struggles to cook more than baked beans without burning the toast, so goodness knows how he is going to bake cakes and desserts but miracles never cease to amaze me. [...]
White Fish and Tarragon Fish Cakes
As a kid I hated fishcakes, but then in my day, school and frozen fishcakes were not a very nice combination. Too much potato with cheap fish and even then, too much salt made for a tasteless dish. You couldn’t buy fresh fishcakes from shops and my mother never made them. I changed my mind [...]
Lime Chicken with Sage
Keifer Derrin of food blog DonkeyFodder.com shares his quick and easy recipe for a simple lunchtime chicken dish. I was mooching around the house and was wondering what I could do for lunch. I was in the mood for some chicken thighs, (for me the best part of the chicken- much better than the breast [...]
Moroccan Lamb with Chickpeas
Keifer Derrin of food blog DonkeyFodder.com comes up with an easy slow cooker recipe for a fussy fireman friend. I have a friend, let’s call him Fireman Sam, so guess what he does for a living, yep he’s a doctor….oops, no he’s not, he’s a fireman! A fireman who doesn’t like too many foods, is [...]
Chicken Saag
Keifer Derrin of food blog DonkeyFodder.com shares his recipe for a surprisingly healthy curry of chicken and spinach. I really wanted to eat a healthy meal so I decided on a curry. I can almost hear you shouting curry isn’t healthy with all that ghee, but this curry only has a little oil, and has [...]
Pannacotta with Almond Crumble and Clementine
Keifer Derrin of food blog DonkeyFodder.com creates a favourite dessert of pannacotta with the delicious addition of almond crumble and clementines. I took a cookery course to make three different desserts and this is the recipe for pannacotta with almond crumble and Clementine. I am not a big fan of desserts and so haven’t made [...]
Chocolate and Orange Cupcakes
Keifer Derrin of food blog DonkeyFodder.com has a go at making cupcakes without the helpful aid of a food processor. Out of all the baking I’ve done so far this has been the hardest. I thought cupcakes were meant to be easy. The one thing you definitely need when using this recipe is to own [...]
Malaysian Fish Curry
Keifer Derrin of food blog DonkeyFodder.com cooks a fish curry for the first time. I am finally able to make a fish curry – my other half doesn’t think that fish should be used in a curry as it spoils the flavour of the fish, but I disagree. He also doesn’t like fish that much [...]
Apple Pie
Keifer Derrin of food blog DonkeyFodder.com delves into the world of baking and tries out a recipe for the classic apple pie. I haven’t done any baking for a while, apart from bread, so I decided to make an apple pie, as I’d never made one before. Yes I know I’ve lead a shallow life. Using [...]
Soda Bread or Donkey Bread
Keifer Derrin of food blog DonkeyFodder.com attempts to bake soda bread but instead invents a new kind of bread – Donkey Bread. All will be explained below… I learnt something the other day, not only should I RTFM, see previous post HERE, I should also try and learn my ingredients. I had decided to make [...]
Salmon with Lime and Thyme
Keifer Derrin of food blog DonkeyFodder.com shares his recipe for a salmon dish where the fish is cooked medium rare. If you’ve not cooked salmon like this before, you should try it. After experiencing salmon lightly cooked in Sydney, Keifer now always eats his salmon medium or rare. Whenever we go to restaurants and we [...]
Stuffed Red Peppers with Vegetarian Chilli and Refried Beans
Keifer Derrin of food blog DonkeyFodder.com shares his recipe for a delicious Mexican inspired vegetarian dish. This is an extensive recipe that has four parts to it. First you need to create the vegetarian chilli, before you can stuff and cook the peppers and you need to have the beans cooked before you can refry [...]
Ask City Connect
First Conversations – Does He Like Me?
I am often asked by my clients – “When meeting my potential partner for the first time, how do I know if he likes me or is the one?”.
The cliché [...]
Style
Savile Row – Who’s Who
Anderson & Sheppard, My former employer; where I learned the cutter’s trade from the great Mr. Hallbery. Superb clothes, great traditions and very well priced. What still makes me smile to this day [...]
Relationships
The Dating Diary of Miss X – Chapter 7
In Cha pter 7 of The Dating Diary of Miss X, our very single and very anonymous Miss X talks about how things went with Mr LinkedIn from Chapter 6.
It was very bizarre as I contacted [...]
