Come the cold bright light of New Year’s Day, I, perhaps like the majority of the population, consider some New Year’s Resolutions.  They usually last a week or so before being abandoned.

I think that New Year is possibly the wrong time to decide to make changes to your life.   In the Northern hemisphere it is winter, dark, damp and cold.  I struggle with the lack of daylight and find getting anything done a chore, setting high expectations is akin to donning a hairshirt and doomed to failure at the first hurdle, which serves to make me feel inadequate and miserable.    Instead I have set a few goals, and have resolved to look after and value myself more.   After all if I cannot do that for me, how can I expect others to?

Goals can be reviewed either when the clocks go forward, or at Easter, both times of spring, growth, rebirth and renewal, and longer lighter days which will put me into the right mind set to make changes, decisions and plans.

Similarly I am skeptical of the “January Detox” diet.   This month I have planned to try and eat better, and am thinking of it of giving my system a break.  I overdid it in both November and December and felt ghastly, also I have put on a few pounds, I want to lose them before it becomes a problem.   I’ll try to eat a diet that is predominately plant-based, with perhaps more raw food than usual.    I’ll try to drink a little less, and will certainly think before reaching for the bottle and corkscrew, but in the spirit of looking after me, if I think that having a glass of wine will bring me pleasure than I certainly am going to have one.    Moderation is key, and, perhaps the only resolution that any of us need?

On to the Bircher muesli.

I have mentioned before how I spent most of my adult life thinking that I did not like cereal, when in fact it was an aversion to cow milk.   It is one of the few breakfasts that keeps me going until lunchtime, which is always a bonus.     Made the night before it makes the perfect breakfast to grab from the fridge before work and eat at your desk, far healthier than a Danish or bacon sandwich!

I make my own muesli, using a 4 grain mix of equal quantities of oats, wheat, barley and rye flakes (the last 3 are available in Wholefoods bulk section for a bargainous 99p a kg),  then I add a mix of seeds, nuts and dried fruit.  80% flakes and 20% “bits” seems a good ratio.      If you buy packed muesli check the ingredients, added sugar, and boring “bits” are common, and packet mixes are far more expensive than making your own.

Ideas for the bits are seeds – pumpkin, sunflower, hemp – there is little point in linseed – grind a spoonful and sprinkle then on instead.    Nuts – raw cashews, almonds, walnuts, cob & hazelnuts.   Fruit – unsulphured apricots (makes such a difference to taste), dates, figs, cranberries, raisins, currants, sultanas etc.

Recipe: Bircher Muesli

Serves 2

Ingredients

125g / Scant cup muesli – preferably homemade
2 oranges – juiced
1 apple grated

To Serve

Fresh berries
Yogurt

Last thing at night grate the apple and stir into the muesli.   Pour the orange juice over, there should be some juice at the bottom of the bowl.   Give a good stir, cover and leave in the fridge overnight.

Serve with fresh berries and yogurt.

Sending this to both this month’s Breakfast Club where the theme is detox and to this month’s Frugal Food Fridays.

Both events are blog hops, so please take part, grab the code and hop from blog to blog!

Frugal Food Fridays!

Breakfast Club

I am quite a fan of the liquid breakfast and will have a smoothie 3 or 4 times a week.   That one glass can easily hold all of your 5-a-day, and by pulping rather than juicing the fruit and veg they can count towards multiple portions!

This month the theme for Breakfast Club is Stars and Stripes, and with Thanksgiving at the end of the month, what could be more appropriate than pairing cranberry and pumpkin.      Not only is this a glorious cheerful colour on a dismal November morning it is also delicious, with the tartness of the cranberry providing an excellent wake up call to your taste buds.

This was inspired by both Dom, who also submitted a smoothie for breakfast club this month, and Johanna, who gave me the idea of thickening a smoothie with pumpkin.

Like the green smoothies which I regularly make which have no hint of spinach or kale, you really cannot taste the pumpkin here.     The next time I roast either squash or pumpkin I shall prep extra (without salt or pepper) specifically for smoothies.

If you get a taste for smoothies keep a box of ingredients in the freezer.    With a good blender chunks of banana, pineapple, stone fruit and individual berries and grapes can all be whizzed up from frozen for your breakfast.     Whizzed frozen banana is especially thick and creamy, and by itself makes and excellent ice cream.   A stick blender should be enough to whizz soft fruit with a few frozen additions.

I added some ground linseed for some added omega-3.

How do you style a smoothie to look photogenic?

Recipe: Pumpkin and Cranberry Smoothie

Quantities are approximate – use what you have.

Per Person

2 heaped tbs roasted pumpkin or butternut squash
1 handful cranberries
2 handfuls grapes
1 tbs ground linseeds
1 small glass orange juice

Place all the ingredients into your blender and whizz.   Add water if needed to thin.

Pour into a glass and serve immediately.

Nutty Granola Muffins

It is a fair bet that when I am sent new products to review, I will, if at all possible, attempt to make muffins using said product.     The Jordans  Super Nutty Granola was no exception.

The granola is good stuff, crunchy, not too clumpy, and absolutely packed with enough nuts to delight several families of squirrels.  I like Jordans as a brand, they use British oats which are “conservation grade” where the farmers are paid a premium to keep 10% of their land as nature friendly habitats.

Nutty Granola Muffins

Recipe: Nutty Granola Muffins

Makes 6

“Dry” Ingredients
4 ½ oz plain flour
1 ½ oz  sugar
4oz Nutty Granola – I used Jordans
1tsp baking powder
pinch salt

“Wet” Ingredients
4oz milk (soy or dairy)
2oz  sunflower oil
1 tsp honey
Dash vanilla essence

Some more granola

Method
Whisk the oil, milk and honey mixture with a fork.   Mix the dry ingredients.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry and fold together (the batter should be lumpy and mixing should take no more than 15 folds).  Dollop the mixture into your usual muffin pan, sprinkle each muffin with a little more granola.   Bake at GM5/190C/375F  for 20 – 25 mins until risen.

Click for a printable recipe Nutty Granola Muffins

Jordan’s Super Nutty Granola is available from Waitrose, Tesco and Asda stores nationwide at an RRP of £3.99

Thank you to Jordans for my review sample.

I have not made bread for a few weeks and Bob, my sourdough starter, has sat neglected in the fridge.     I am hosting Breakfast Club this month, where the theme is cereal, so I simply added half a cup of muesli to my dough to make a multi flake, seeded and fruited loaf.    Delicious warm from the oven, or toasted dripping with butter and jam!

I make my sourdough by feel, and rarely measure so I am afraid that the recipe is very approximate.    Use whatever flour that you like, I used a half and half mixture of whole grain spelt, from Sharpham Park, and strong white bread flour.

Although making sourdough is a lengthy process the actual hands on time is minimal.   When making sourdough for breakfast I start my sponge mid afternoon and then make the dough last thing at night.

Muesli Sourdough Loaf

Makes 1 small loaf

Ingredients

Sourdough starter
9oz / 250g / 2 cups strong flour – I used a mix of ½ wholemeal spelt and ½ white
Pinch salt
1 tbs light olive oil
2oz / 50g / ½ cup muesli
Extra flour for dusting

Method

Make your sponge by adding 2 heaped tbs of your starter to about ¼ of the flour and mix, adding enough water so it is the consistency of a thick yogurt. Cover and leave for around 8 hours. Refresh your starter if needed.

When the sponge is bubbly add it to the remainder of the flour and the salt, and stir in enough water to make a dough. Add a glug of oil and knead for 5 min until smooth. Place in an oiled bowl and leave to rise and double in size, at room temperature for about 8 hours.

When risen turn out onto a floured worktop, fold in the muesli (reserving a little to sprinkle the loaf with) then place in to an oiled 1lb loaf tin, sprinkle with the reserved muesli. Leave to rise again for an hour.

Bake at GM6 / 200C / 400F for about 40 mins, until starting to brown. When cooked the loaf will sound hollow when tapped. Turn out and cool on a wire rack.

Click here for a printable recipe.

I have a confession to make that I actually made this for supper last night, but it would make a lovely weekend breakfast that is not too sinful.

At the moment people seem to be throwing yogurt at me, not literally, but in the last few weeks 3 cool bags of the stuff have arrived.  I have already written about Total and The Collective.  Both Onken and Twekkelo are in the review queue.

Making toffee yogurt by sprinkling dark brown soft sugar over natural or Greek yogurt and leaving it to dissolve is an old, but useful trick.   The resultant mixture is delicious, sticky and toffee like, but still not too sweet and with none of the nasties of many commercially produced flavoured yogurts.   Being allowed a sprinkle of dark brown soft sugar on cereal was a weekend childhood treat.

I combined my toffee yogurt, with sliced bananas, Dorset Cereals new pecan and toffee good honest crunch cereal and a few raspberries.   Dorset Crunch’s slogan of  “life is too short for boring breakfasts” reminded me that we are nearing the end of the month and I have not yet made anything for Breakfast Club, which this month is hosted by Nayna with the theme of berries.

Breakfast Club: Because breakfast should be more interesting
than tea & toast or coffee & cereal!

Recipe: Indulgent Breakfast Banoffeeish Pots

(Serves 1)

1 small banana
about 4 oz / 1/2 cup natural or Greek yogurt
2 tsp dark brown soft sugar
2 tbs crunchy cereal
handful raspberries

Slice the banana and place in a glass, cover with the yogurt, then sprinkle the sugar over and leave in the fridge overnight.

Just before serving sprinkle over the cereal and the fresh berries.

 

I see no reason why this would not work with non dairy or soy yogurt.

This is hardly a recipe, more of a twist on whichever way you usually make bread. 

I made my usual sourdough, made with my starter, Bob (or Kate), using a mix of 1/3 white bread, 1/3 wholegrain and 1/3 malted grain flours.    After a 12 hour overnight rise I shaped and pressed the dough into a roughly rectangular shape, then sprinkled it with small chunks of brie and defrosted (and squeezed) frozen spinach and rolled it up just like a Swiss roll.    I left it to rise again for about an hour and then cooked as usual.

My brie was getting past its best, having been at the back of the fridge rather too long, so it was a great way to use it up.

Delicious!  I will be trying some other versions of this one.

The crispy bits on the outside where the melted cheese leaked out whilst cooking were excellent.

I am sending this to Michelle at Utterly Scrummy Food for Families who is the host for this month’s Fresh From the Oven and has challenged us to make a savoury bread.

And to Johanna at Green Gourmet Giraffe the host of this month’s Breakfast Club where the theme is savoury vegetarian.

Sorry for such a brief post – I am desperately trying to catch the deadline for the events, and have missed them both several times this year!

Ever since my Cuisinart Blender arrived last month, I have become green smoothie obsessed.    At first I was just chucking in everything, but now have become a little more methodical with my breakfast green smoothies, and am focussing on flavours a little more.

Just before Easter I was lucky enough to be asked to a Total Greek Yogurt Master Class, held at the fabulous L’atelier des Chefs, tucked behind John Lewis on Oxford Street.     During the day we cooked a wide variety of dishes with Total, and were treated to a talk and Q&A from a celebrity nutritionist.

I feel that I have little need for a dietitian, nutritionist or nutritional therapist (all are quite different roles), but I am always interested to hear what people have to say. My nutritional philosophy is simple, eat what makes your body feel good and is sustainable. I aim to eat more raw food and less animal products than the average person, as this makes me feel fantastic and is also good for the environment.

If you need some pointers I highly recommend this article on how to make healthy eating incredibly simple on nutritionist Sophie’s wonderful blog (please do hop over there and encourage her to post more often!)  I am also an avid reader of Limes  & Lycopene by Australian nutritionist Kathryn which is packed with wonderful advice and recipes.    To learn more about increasing your intake of raw food visit Amber’s site and read about her training as a raw chef.  All three of them tackle nutrition by encouraging people to make their own healthy meals.

However I digress.    Although I aim to eat less than average, I do enjoy my meat & fish, eggs & diary, and Total Yoghurt is one of my favourites.

After the talk we moved on to the class held in the demonstration kitchen, where we were shown how to cook six very different dishes all using Total yoghurt.    Total is a highly versatile ingredient which works well as a cream or crème fraiche substitute, it contains far fewer calories and all the flavour, as well as being live and thus full of good bacteria.   The higher fat varieties are also heat stable, making cooking with them a breeze as they should not spilt when heated.  (I have successfully cooked with the 0% but you need to be very gentle with heating it.)   It is also delicious on its own!

I especially liked the Mackerel Tartare with Minted Cucumber Soup and the Chestnut Tiramisu recipes.

Yoghurt Tartare of Mackerel with Minted Cucumber Soup (serves 6)For the Tartare

• 12 Fillets of mackerel
• 1 Banana shallot (Echalion)
• 25g Pickled gherkins
• ½ bunch Flat leaf parsley
• 50g 0% TOTAL Greek Yoghurt
• 10g Ketchup
• 3ml Tabasco
• 10ml Worcestershire sauce
• 25g Capers in vinegar

For the Soup

• 1 Cucumber
• 1 Garlic clove
• ¼ bunch Fresh mint
• 3 pinches Fine salt
• 10ml White wine vinegar
• 50g 0% TOTAL Greek Yoghurt

Start by preparing the mackerel: fillet the fish if necessary and remove the pin bones. Remove the skin from the fish and then cut the flesh into dice. Keep refrigerated while you prepare the rest of the recipe.

Peel and finely dice the shallot. Chop the gherkins into small pieces. Pick the leaves from the parsley and roughly chop. Mix these chopped ingredients

with the mackerel and add the capers and Greek yoghurt.

Mix well and then add the ketchup, Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce. Taste the tartare mix and adjust the seasoning if necessary.

To make the soup: peel the cucumber and the garlic and pick the mint leaves. Place these ingredients in a blender with the salt and the white wine vinegar. Blitz for a minute to make the soup.

Add the Greek yoghurt and pulse the mixture for 5 seconds. Check the seasoning.

To serve: place a large quenelle of the tartare mix in the middle of a small bowl and pour the soup around. Serve immediately.

Recipe reproduced with permission of Total

Greek Yoghurt Chestnut Tiramisu Rapide (serves 6)

• 1 Egg yolk
• 50g Caster sugar
• 300g Sponge fingers
• 80g Sweetened ‘crème de marron’
• 125ml Double cream
• 250g 10% TOTAL Greek Yoghurt
• 20g Unsweetened cocoa powder
• 100ml Espresso Coffee
• 30g Caster sugar
• 25ml Cognac

For the cream: whisk together the egg yolk and the sugar until the mixture turns white and fluffy. Add the chestnut cream and mix well.

In a separate bowl, whip the double cream until thick and then gently fold in the Greek yoghurt.

Add the chestnut mixture to the Greek yoghurt and the cream mixture and gently fold together.

To assemble the dessert: mix the coffee with 30g sugar and the cognac.

Dip the biscuits into the coffee and then place in the bottom of your glasses. Top with a layer of the cream and then a sprinkle of cocoa powder.

Repeat this until you glasses are full. Finish with a layer of cream and a dusting of cocoa powder.

Recipe reproduced with permission of Total

Lots more recipes can be found here, including one of mine!

Many thanks to Total for a lovely day and the lovely cocktails afterwards – the perfect start to the first long weekend!

Totally Green Breakfast Smoothie (serves 2)

1 glass orange or apple juice
1 large handful of spinach
2 small bananas
2 kiwi fruit
1 handful green grapes (mine were frozen)
6 mint leaves
2 heaped tbs Total 0% Greek Yogurt

2 sprigs of mint to garnish

Simple throw everything into your blender and blitz (I run the smoothie cycle on mine several times) until smooth.    Thin with water if desired.

For a thicker and creamier smoothie use frozen bananas.

I am sending my smoothie to Only Cooolers & Mocktails which is hosted by Nayna at Simply Food this month.

What is nicer than homemade bread topped with homemade jam for breakfast?  This is a jam with an Asian twist, with hint of chilli and ginger.  Certainly different, but not too startling for first thing in the morning.

This jam is based on a recipe from Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen, which I visited a few months ago, when we had the most amazing bright pink rhubarb and  ginger jam.   Becca asked for the recipe, and made some more jam which she blogged.

I based my jam on recipe Becca used, but played with the flavours, using Thai ginger, or galangal, and adding some chilli.    My jam is sadly not as pink as the original, my rhubarb was long past the first flush of youth, but is still delicious.

Taste the syrup before cooking to test the chilli levels.   This recipe is very easy to scale up or down, with equal weights of rhubarb and sugar, 1 chilli per 150g fruit.   After the jam is cooked allow to cool for a few minutes and always pour into hot jars.   Boiling hot jam being poured into cold jars may cause the inside of the jar to expand faster than the outside, which can make the jar crack or shatter.

Rhubarb, Ginger & Chilli Jam (makes 3 250g jars)

450 g rhubarb
450g sugar
3 dried red chillies
2cm finely grated Thai ginger or galangal
Juice of half a lemon

Cut the rhubarb into 2cm chunks and place in a bowl, pour the sugar over and give the bowl a shake.  Add the chillies and leave for 24 hours. (I left mine in the fridge for about 5 days)

After a day the sugar will draw the juice out of the rhubarb making a lovely pink tinged syrup.   Taste to check the level of chilli, if hot enough, remove them, if not leave them in for the cooking.

Place the rhubarb, syrup, ginger & lemon in a saucepan and gently simmer until setting point is reached.

Taste the jam whilst cooking and add more ginger, or remove the chillies, if desired.

Remove the chillies (if you have not already done so), pour into clean warm sterilised jars and seal.

Setting Point – Place a blob of the jam onto a saucer and allow to cook for a minute, if a skin forms and the jam wrinkles with a gentle poke the jam is ready.   If  still runny carry on cooking.

To Sterilise Jam Jars – Remove the lids and place in a low oven for 20 minutes,  pour boiling water over the lids, or run through the dishwasher.

Green smoothies?  Trust me here, they are delicious and fantastically good for you.  After a few days of one of these for breakfast you will feel the benefits, getting all 5 of your five a day for in one glass for breakfast can only be a good thing right?

I am the first to admit that my diet is not the most, shall I say, mainstream?  I try to blog about what most people would consider the more normal things that I eat, resisting the tendency to be too green and raw and vegan.       I have absolutely no objection to animal products.  However I prefer mine to be both organic and free range, which is expensive and thus makes them a treat rather than an everyday staple.

I was delighted when Cuisinart recently contacted me and asked if I wanted to trial one of their products.   As soon as I looked at their website I knew that one of their blenders would be just the ticket for making green smoothies.

A green smoothie is simply a smoothie made with the addition of greens.      The sweetness of the fruit takes away any bitterness from the raw greens and the end drink is  delicious, refreshing and engergising.

The blender powers through the seeds, kale leaves and frozen fruit.  I used a glass of orange & apple juice, frozen plum & nectarine pieces, half a carrot, mixed seeds, kale and a banana and some water to thin it out a little.

The resulting green goodness in a glass!

A full review of the blender is to be posted soon.

Thanks to Cuisinart for my blender.

I am sure that everyone has heard the phrase “bring home the bacon”, and until now I had always assumed that it  had a similar meaning to “earning a crust” or “being a bread winner”.  Apparently not according to one of my favourite books; Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.

Brewer’s is a must have for anyone interested in language, or anyone for whom English is a second language, and thus mystified by phrases such as “Raining Cats and Dogs”*.   I am sure that most of the content can be found with a quick internet search, but I think that reference books are so nice to have and spend many an hour leafing through.

But back to the bacon, and according to Brewer’s bringing home the bacon is nothing to do with earning a wage, but in fact, refers to the Dunmow Flitch.  A flitch is an old word for a side of bacon, and in Dunmow in Essex, there was a custom started by Lady Juga Baynard in 1104, whereby any person who knelt at the side of the church door and truthfully claimed that they had never had a household argument, or wished themselves unmarried, during the previous 12 months and a day, could claim a side of bacon.

The Dunmow Flitch trials still take place every four years, and will award a side of bacon to couples from anywhere in the world that, in ‘twelvemonth and a day’, they have ‘not wisht themselves unmarried again’. (The next trial is on 14 July 2012 should you wish to apply!)

Frankly I would happily bite my bottom lip, no matter what, for a side of traditional British bacon if the samples that I was sent last week were anything to go by.

Real British bacon is dry cured with a 175 year old traditional process that can take up to 21 days.  The bacon is hand rubbed with a curing mixture of sugar and salt.  After a week the meat is then hung in air drying chambers which removes the water and concentrates the flavour giving bacon its distinctive, and delicious flavour.

Non dry cured bacon, often the imported stuff, is usually injected with a mixture of brine or water, that increases the weight, and causes that horrible white liquid to ooze out when the bacon is cooked.  A traditional wet cure is something altogether different, usually used for hams, the meat is immersed in brine for a number of days and then it is hung to dry.   Although dry cure bacon is more expensive, by the time you factor in the weight of the injected water I would wager that gram for gram the price is about the same, and as is usually the case with better products you need less of them.  For example a rasher per person is more than enough when used in a pasta sauce .

*Very heavy rain  – In Northern Mythology cats have great influence on the weather, witches that ride on storms take the form of a cat, and dogs are a signal of wind.  Thus when it is raining cats and dogs the cat is a symbol of the rain and the dog of the strong gusts of wind.

Thank you to I Love Real  Bacon for my bacon.   If you like good bacon become a fan of their facebook page.