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.

Despite the, as yet, unbashed out backlog, I am determined to start to plan ahead and to actually publish some seasonal recipes.   The general Fuss Free rule is to not even to start to think about Christmas until after my birthday (the exception to this is things seen in the sales).  Birthday is done so time to think ahead.

This dish is in part inspired by the amazing Christmas produce box I received yesterday from Knorr (the majority of which has been stashed in the freezer).

In general I am a huge sprout fan, providing they are cooked properly.  Institutional over boiled mushy soggy sprouts that squirt bitter water into your mouth are an abomination, and I can quite understand why one sprouty school dinner can put people off for life.   I either shred and stir fry or roast them, both are quite delicious.

Matched with some tart cranberries, soft sweet chestnuts and creamy Stilton they make the perfect festive quartet.     You could add some leftover bacon from your turkey, or if you do not eat diary, use some pine nuts in place of the Stilton and leave out the butter.   Perfect seasonal pasta using leftovers to cater for omnivores, vegetarians or vegans.   This was quite delicious, and possibly far too good to wait to be made from Christmas (or even Thanksgiving leftovers) leftovers!

Recipe:  Chestnut, Cranberry, Stilton & Sprout Pasta

Amounts are approximate, use what you have.   Do not go mad on quantities if you over indulged on Christmas day!

Per person

4 or 5 sprouts – sliced
A glug of oil
A pat of butter
Ready cooked chestnuts -  sliced – 3 or 4 per person
A small handful of cranberries (or a spoon of leftover cranberry sauce)

2-3oz / 50 – 75g pasta

A slither of Stilton – crumbled
Salt & Pepper to taste

Finely shred the sprouts, if they have not been cooked place in a sieve and pour a kettle of boiling water over to soften them.

Heat up the oil and butter and gently fry the sprouts, chestnuts and cranberries.  Meanwhile boil the pasta.

When the pasta is done, drain, stir into the sprout, chestnut and cranberry mix.    Serve immediately topped with the crumbled Stilton.

Sending this to Ren’s Simple and in Season and Presto Pasta Nights hosted this week by Tandy at Lavender and Lime.

I hope that Lucy Cufflin, the leftover queen will be proud of me for devising this dish.

A favourite weekend excursion is to hop onto the District Line for 20 minutes and head out to Richmond.    Once there we wander along the river, have tea at the Petersham Nurseries, or Ham House, catch Hammerton’s foot ferry over the river and walk back to Richmond past Marble Hill House.

When E was at university and for his first years in London he was a keen (and very good) rower so he always likes to watch the crews on the water, and for me a trip to Richmond means a trip to Kooks Unlimited and William Curley.   As I am a life member of the National Trust, an investment I wisely made in my early teens with money my grandparents left me, admission to Ham House is free, so I feel that I am allowed to spend the money I have “saved” in Kooks Unlimited or on chocolate.   I am aware that my logic is somewhat flawed, but this does not overly distress me, and after my last Richmond excursion I returned with a bundt tin and a rather dangerous looking “injection” piping nozzle for filling choux buns and doughnuts.

My lovely new tin is the perfect size for a 5 egg sponge, or for my Easy Peasy Ginger Cake (which is also the most popular recipe on my website).  I adapted the recipe very slightly adding finely chopped Thai Ginger and dried mango from Senses of Thailand at Selfridge’s earlier in the summer.  The darker patches on the cake are lump of sugar that had not mixed in properly.

Bundt perfection was enabled by Dr Oetker’s rather wonderful cake release spray, a quick spray into the tin and when done the cake literally falls out.   I was very impressed and will definitely buy more when my can runs out.

Recipe: Easy Peasey Thai Ginger Cake

350g Plain Flour
225g Sugar (I use soft dark brown for colour and flavour but any would work)
100g Cooking oil (Sunflower or rape/canola)
2 – 3 tsp ground ginger
1tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
Pinch salt
About 60g treacle *
225ml boiling water

2 tbs finely chopped dried mango
2 tbs finely chopped candied Thai ginger

Place all the ingredients into the food processor bowl and whizz until you have a smooth golden brown batter, or use an electric whisk.  Pour the batter into your bundt tin and cook at  GM4/180C for about 45 – 55 mins until risen and a cocktail stick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

* When weighing the treacle I put the spoon into a jug on the scales, then zero them, use the spoon to dollop the treacle into the jug without scraping the spoon I then rezero the scales and weigh 225g of boiling water into the jug which will dissolve all the treacle which saves any sticky scraping from spoon to food processor bowl. As the recipe is so forgiving accurate measuring is really not necessary.

The cake should keep for about a week.

Dr Oetker Cake Release Spray is available from Sainsbury’s and cook shops for about £1.40 for 125ml which should grease about 30 8″ tins.

With the advent of summer come the salad bags from the fruit and vegetable co-op.    As much as I love a traditional mayonnaise potato salad, they can get a little boring and they need a makeover to keep my interest.   One variation was to add cucumber, mint and yogurt but delicious as it is, it is still fairly similar to the mayonnaise based salad.

Several months ago I held a miso tasting, where a gaggle of food bloggers gathered in my flat and we tasted our way though Clearspring’s miso range, it was a fantastic and hilarious evening, as a result I am long on miso, with enough to keep me going for at least the next 12 months. Whisking up some miso with other Japanese ingredients made a deliciously different dressing for my potatoes,  salty, tangy and packing a massive umami punch, a dish that certainly will be repeated the next time the sun comes out.

Recipe: Miso Potato Salad

This is more of an idea than a recipe, adapt according to what vegetables you have in the fridge.

Ingredients

Salad Potatoes – cooked and sliced
Handful French Beans – optional

For the Dressing

Equal quantities of

Brown miso (I used barley)
Tamari or soy sauce
Lemon Juice
Sesame Oil
Mirim
Tahini – optional to thicken

Method

Whisk the dressing ingredients together. I know tahini is not Japanese, but it thickens the dressing nicely.

Steam the beans for 2 minutes and then plunge into cold water

Pour the dressing over the potatoes and beans and mix well

I topped with some furikake (a mix of sesame seeds and ground seaweed – it can contain fish – so read the label if you are vegetarian)

Keeps in the fridge for a few days and is delicious for a packed lunch.

Click here for a printable version

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.

As I am sure that I have mentioned before, I am a dip fanatic.     I especially like hummus (hommus, houmus), which ever way you  choose to spell it, is delicious.   If you make your own it can also be a healthy choice as chick peas count towards one of your five-a-day, olive oil is rich in unsaturated fats, and by thinning the hummus with water it can be far less calorific than shop bought versions.  An added handful of spinach adds colour and extra goodness.   I have discovered that spinach once blitzed has a very mild flavour that can easily be masked by other flavours. 

When I was a child I would be encouraged to eat my spinach with tales of Popeye (the sailor man) who would pop open a can of spinach, gulp it down, and gain superhuman strengths.   I suspect that these days Popeye is as dated as my 1970′s placemat that I used as a prop, and modern children would prefer Shrek hummus.  (Dipsy hummus sounds wrong, and I cannot think of any more green characters apart from Fungus the Bogeyman).

Like all these things, this is a very forgiving recipe so play with the quantities to suit you.  I cook my chickpeas from dried, then free freeze them.  I think that the amount used here is about a 400g tin.    The amount will be a good dip or toast topping for 4.

Spinach (Popeye or Shrek) Hummus (Dip for 4)

230g / 8oz / 1 cup cooked chickpeas (drained and rinsed)
Large handful spinach
Juice 1/2 lemon
1 dsp olive oil
1 dsp tahini / seed or nut butter
Small clove garlic (optional)
Water to thin as needed
Salt and pepper to taste

Simply place everything in the food processor and blitz until  smooth.  Add water to achieve your desired consistency. Season to taste.

If you prefer some texture to your hummus, reserve some of the chickpeas and add to the smooth dip and pulse the food processor a few times.

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.

“April brings the sweet spring showers
On and on for hours and hours”

Michael Flanders – A Song of the Weather

I know it seems barmy to be blogging a salad recipe on a day like today; but the weather yesterday was totally different, bright warm and sunny, and perfect for this zingy spring salad, using winter vegetables.

Using crunchy cabbage and carrot, this spring ‘slaw stands up well to being dressed in advance, and thus is easily transportable.    Perfect with soup for a packed lunch, or as a side for a more substantial main meal.  I suggest using a smooth leaved cabbage rather than the stronger flavoured crinkly savoy.   Add more chilli if you like more heat.

Freeze any leftover coriander to use in Thai curries, or soups.  I bunch it into a plastic bag and then give it bash once frozen to break it up.   Half chillies last for ages in my vegetable drawer, and I freeze left over lemon juice in an ice cube tray.   Alternatively blitz coriander, lemon juice and chilli together for a base for a Thai green curry paste.

Zingy Spring ‘Slaw (Serves 2)

1/4 smooth cabbage – finely shredded
1 medium carrot – grated
1/2 green chilli – deseeded and finely chopped
juice from half a lemon
good glug olive oil
small handful of coriander finely chopped
One spring onion – finely chopped (optional)
Pepper & salt to taste

Bung all the coleslaw ingredients into a bowl and give a good stir.

This is another contribution to my series of easy, economical and healthy recipes of what to do with the contents of the co-op “boxes” for the Food Co-ops and Buying Groups project run by Sustain – also part of the Making Local Food Work programme funded by the Big Lottery.

Here are Flanders and Swann with the original song.

This noodle filled sushi is a delicious twist on the more traditional rice based sushi, and just as scrumptious, although not at all easy to roll.

I cannot claim any credit for these, the original idea was from Clearspring, and the recipe can be found here.   I substituted salty tangy umeboshi paste for the pungent sinus clearing wasabi; as well as the soba, my rolls contained sesame and tamari shiitake mushrooms.    I have also made these with avocado filling.

Dipped in tamari they were the perfect pre-tasting nibble for a group of food bloggers that gathered at my flat last week, to sample our way through the entirety of Clearspring’s Miso range.

Despite these being more of an idea than a recipe I am sending them to this week’s Presto Pasta Night #205, hosted by Debbie Does Dinner.   Last week’s host, Sarah, enjoyed these with us and I am sorry I did not manage to get them to her round up in time.   A trip to a sugar craft exhibition (which will be blogged soon) intervened.

I’ll also get the miso tasting notes up soon, and some recipes using them!

Thanks to Clearspring to sending me all the ingredients to make these.