Thanks to the awesome Sheri at Green and Crunchy I have a new favourite breakfast, it is quick to throw together and utterly delicious. Continue Reading »
Banana & Peanut Butter Breakfast Wrap
Jan 31st, 2010 by Helen
(My) Perfect Porridge
Jan 24th, 2010 by Helen
Pin Head Oatmeal (Top), Rolled Oats (left), Oat Groats (Right)
I wanted the title of this post to be just Perfect Porridge, but porridge is one of those dishes that elicits a huge variety of opinions as to what is right; porridge afficinados will debate the type of oats, cooking pot, cooking liquid and stirring implement. Every year the Golden Spurtle runs a porridge cookoff with contestents from all over the world, bringing their own oats, water and spoon / spurtle / spurkle / theevil or theedle. One of the things that I love about the foodie world is how something as seemingly simple as porridge can become so complicated. Continue Reading »
Spiced Apple Bran Muffins
Dec 19th, 2009 by Helen
We have a tradition of having muffins for breakfast on weekend mornings. Based on my basic muffin recipe these are easy to whip up first thing in the morning. Using a mixture of spelt and wheat flour makes the muffins more cake like (if you do not have spelt flour use all plain flour), the bran provides a good measure of fiber. Using soft dark brown sugar and leaving it slightly lumpy will produce caramelised specks in the baked muffins. Continue Reading »
The New York Times No Knead Bread
Nov 9th, 2009 by Helen
I am have always been one to jump late onto any bandwagon and this is no exception. 3 years ago a recipe for the no knead bread (adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery) appeared and it took the food blog world by storm with seemingly everyone making it, blogging about it and even stealing each others blog posts.
The recipe is the easiest in the world, simply mix flour, yeast, salt and water, leave to rise for 12 – 14 hours, knock back and leave for another few hours and cook in a preheated casserole dish. I was highly skeptical it would work; and I posted a string of tweets to this effect, but I was proved totally wrong and was very very nicely surprised with my crusty, delicious loaf
I urge everyone to go and mix flour, water and yeast to make a loaf tomorrow, unless you made one 3 years ago along with everyone else, in which case it’s probably time to make another.
Spiced Sweet Potato Muffins
Nov 1st, 2009 by Helen
We have a tradition of having muffins for breakfast at weekends which has been neglected for some months and I was missing my muffins; so I resolved to make some this morning. It is now November and a murky, wet, grey morning so a warming, spiced muffin was required and there was a lonely sweet potato in the bottom of the fridge that needed using up which made its way into the muffin.
These were perfect for this morning with coffee, warming and delicious. My sugar had got slightly damp and I did not sieve all the lumps out which left partially caramalised little pockets of sugar throughout the muffins adding to the deliciousness! Continue Reading »
Will This be the Last Salad of Summer?
Oct 29th, 2009 by Helen
I have a slight love / hate relationship with autumn, it is sad to see the end of summer, but I love the change of the season, the change in the air and the turning of the leaves, but the weather is unprerdictable and I never know what to wear and am usually too hot, too cold or am wearing the wrong shoes when there is a downpour and end up with sodden feet. Even though I have been out of full education for over 14 years, the start of the academic year in autumn to me still seems to be a time for new beginnings, when you still have fresh memories of the summer, when days are still relatively long and sometimes warm and sunny it is somehow more conducive to starting afresh or with new intentions than it is at the start of January.
During October I thoroughly enjoy feeling that summer is not going to give up without a fight; yesterday I sat outside with a friend at the Saatchi gallery for coffee enjoying the sun, wondering if it was going to be the last time we sat outside for a drink this year. Today was another glorious day, I know summer has ended really, but it still having one last kick after the clocks have changed.
With autumn in the air, I had started to think about non summery food and had bought my first cabbage of the year, properly cooked cabbage is delicious, badly over-cooked cabbage is horrible, and an anathema to any right thinking persons taste-buds, sadly many of us have spent formative years suffering institutionalised cooking of cabbage.
However; enough of autumn and badly cooked cabbage, the only vegetables that I had today were cabbage and carrots and I knew that I did not want them cooked with my lunch, so I made a late summer (early autumn) salad of a horseradish and mustard coleslaw, simple, crunchy and the perfect dish for between the seasons and perfect for lunch. This is barely a recipe – more of a flavour guide. Continue Reading »
Fuss Free Flavours Gets Crafty
Oct 23rd, 2009 by Helen
It has been a while, I have mainly been knitting rather than cooking and have also been getting to grips with my new sewing machine which I am more than slightly in love with. I also spilt coffee into my laptop and have been waiting for ages to get a replacement keyboard, get a new screwdriver to fit the replacement keyboard and to muster the courage to take my laptop apart to fit the new keyboard.
Happily the laptop is now working again – replacing the keyboard was actually very easy and a very cheap £40, I can now download several hundred photos and process them, blog some food, send photos of my latest goddaughter (number 3) to her parents and put some knitting photos on Ravelry (My Rav ID is Hippolyra).
So as I now seem to make things as much as I cook, I thought that I may share some Fuss Free knitting and sewing too, the Fuss Free guide to Home Happiness perhaps?
Presto Pasta Nights: 128
Aug 28th, 2009 by Helen
I am delighted to be hosting this week’s PPN for Ruth at Once Upon a Feast and hope that you will find some pasta inspiration for this weekend, if not this friday night due to the time I am writing and posting this. Continue Reading »
Three Tomato Salad with Tomato Dressing
Aug 26th, 2009 by Helen
I have been feeling very uninspired and unexcited about food recently but I was delighted to be given some homegrown tomatos, which were perfectly ripe and bursting with flavour. I quickly made this three tomato salad with a tomato dressing for my lunch, which I thoroughly enjoyed and which I think may have reawakened my interest in food. This simple salad celebrates the different varieties of tomato and is perfect for lunch on a hot summer day.
Pasta with Chicken Liver, Tomato & Mushrooms
Jul 7th, 2009 by Helen
We rarely eat meat and animal products these days, my body seems to work better on a near vegan diet, on the occasions that we do eat meat and diary I prefer to eat organic, free range products and know exactly where they have come from. Consequently I was somewhat taken aback by an odd craving that took me a while to identify as being for chicken livers.
Like much offal chicken livers are relatively cheap, full of flavour and vitamins and minerals, the bad news is that they are high in cholesterol, but I reckon that we had about 50g each of liver, and our diets are cholesterol free for the majority of the time.
I slowly cooked the livers in a tomato sauce with mushrooms, balsamic vinegar adds some depth and the knob of butter makes the sauce far smoother, it does need a long cook, after half an hour the flavours suddenly gel and work together This is my submission for Ruth’s Presto Pasta Nights hosted this week by Graziana of Erbe in Cucina. Continue Reading »