Pickled Onions and Biscotti

An odd combination! I have had some kitchen successes and failures this week: the pickled onions were a success, but alas the biscotti were not!

The pickled onions were originally spring onions that I left in my veg patch a little too long and had become salad onions. I can't see why they wouldn't work in place of the button onions/shallots that you would usually put in pickled onions.

The recipe I used was based on this BBC one, but I substituted about 1/5 of the malt vinegar with balsamic vinegar (I love honey and balsamic vinegar in a salad dressing so thought it would also translate well in this recipe). I halved the recipe as I only had a small amount of onions - just enough for one jar.

Given a shake now and again, they will be perfect with some cold meats and cheese at Christmas!

What didn't go so well were the Chocolate and Hazelnut Biscotti. Again, inspired by Great British Bake Off, I thought I would have a go at some biscotti - I loved some that an Italian friend had made once.

Contrary to how GBBO portrayed it, they were ridiculously easy to make, and look fairly good too, but sadly they just taste so disappointing - there is not enough flavour at all. It hasn't put me off making some more but I would go for a recipe that has some kind of spice or a much richer flavour.

Love Mrs Jones x