Thanks to the awesome Sheri at Green and Crunchy I have a new favourite breakfast, it is quick to throw together and utterly delicious. This really is a non recipe as it is so easy, but an inspired idea and so quick as the tortillas defrost so fast you do not even need to remember to get them out of the freezer more than a few minutes before you need them.

I spread my tortilla with peanut butter, and added a good sprinkle of sunflower, pumpkin & hemp seeds then added a finely chopped apricot and topped with a ripe banana and rolled and ate.   Absolutely yummy and so easy.

Thanks Sheri!

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.

My primary breakfast need is something that will keep me full and satisfied until lunchtime, and porridge made entirely from rolled oats does not seem to work for me; Sophie gave an excellent explanation why porridge does not fill some people up which is well worth a read.    The benefits of oats (mainly soluble fibre which reduces chlorestrol) made me want to perserve with them for my breakfast so I started to experiment.   In the end I found that a mix of equal quantities of rolled, oat groats and steel cut oat meal produced the perfect porridge for me.

Oat groats are a whole grain and are mainly used for animal feed, happily Whole Foods sells both groats and pin head oatmeal (very cheaply) and I buy about 7lb of each every autumn to see me through the winter.   Because oat groats are such a large grain they need far more cooking; or soaking overnight.   Even after soaking and cooking they still retain a little bit of bite and give some texture to the porridge.    There is more about oat groats here.

Helen’s Perfect Porridge

Make a mix of 1/3 rolled oats, 1/3 steel cut oat meal and 1/3 oat groats by volume.

I find that an American half cup measure (3oz) with twice the volume of milk is just the right amount per person, so for 2 you need 6oz (1 cup) of mix and then 2 cups of milk* (this is just under a pint – leave enough for your coffee and there should be the right amount).    Put the oat mix in a saucepan, pour the milk over and soak overnight, in the morning cook over a gentle heat, stirring, until thickened.

Being diary milk adverse I use homemade soy & oat milk made in my Soyquick machine, using 2/3 soy beans, 1/3 oat groats.

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.

Spiced Apple Bran Muffins (Makes 6 medium muffins)

Dry Ingredients
4 ½oz flour (I used half plain and half wholemeal spelt)
1 ½oz soft dark brown sugar
1tsp baking powder
½tsp  ground all spice
½tsp ground cinnamon
pinch salt
1 grated apple

Wet Ingredients
4 ½oz milk (diary or non diary)
1 ½oz sunflower oil

Mix the dry ingredients well so each piece of apple is coated and not sticking ot the others, whisk the wet.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry and fold together (the batter should be lumpy and mixing should take no more than 15 folds).   Bake at GM5/190C/375F in your favourite muffin pan for 20 – 25 mins until risen and dark golden.

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.

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!

I have my basic muffin formula down to a fine art  – equal weights of wet and dry ingredients with an optional* egg if you a) are in the mood, b) have any or c) eat them.     I find that I can generally add about up to half as much again of any other ingredient can be added to the batter without tweaking the amounts of wet and dry ingredients as long as your extra ingredient has approximately the same consistency and wetness as plain muffin batter.

*I am generally a huge fan of baking (and mainly eating) vegan as it suits me, is better for the environment and what can be better than being able to bake with no notice without needing any fresh ingredients?

Spiced Sweet Potato Muffins (makes 6 small muffins)

Dry Ingredients
4 ½oz flour (I used half plain and half wholemeal spelt)
1 ½oz soft dark brown sugar
1tsp baking powder
½tsp  ground all spice
½tsp ground cinnamon
pinch salt

Wet Ingredients
4 ½oz milk (diary or non diary)
1 ½oz sunflower oil
3 oz mashed sweet potato

Fisrt make your mashed sweet potato – I peeled mine and put in a bowl with a little water and microwaved for 3 mins and then mashed with a fork.   Mix the dry ingredients, mix the wet (I blitzed with a stick blender).  Add the wet ingredients to the dry and fold together (the batter should be lumpy and mixing should take no more than 15 folds).   Bake at GM5/190C/375F in your favourite muffin pan for 20 – 25 mins until risen and dark golden.

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.

Last Salad of Summer – Horseradish and Mustard Coleslaw (serves 2)

2 Carrots – grated
1/6 Small Cabbage – shredded

1 tbs mayonnaise
1 tsb horseradish sauce
1 tsb grain mustard

Mix carrots and cabbage into a bowl, in another smaller bowl mix the mayonnaise, horseradish and mustard and dilute with approximately the same volume of just boiled water to the consistency of double cream, pour over the cabbage / carrot mix and mix well so the vegetables are coated wtih sauce.    Season with salt and pepper to taste.

I garnished this with Omega seed sprinkles, a mix of hemp, sumflower and pumpkin seeds roughly chopped in the spice grinder.

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?

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.

First up is Parita, from Parita’s Kitchen, who after a long stressful week at work made Sundried Tomato, Basil & Cashewnut Pesto to adorn her pasta.    It looks lovely, and I quite agree with her that the 4 day week followed by a 3 day weekend should be a regular thing for everyone co-incidently in the UK this weekend will be a long one as we have Monday as a bank holiday.

Daphne from More Than Words made Chicken Stir Fry Noodles in Peanut Sauce.   As someone that regards not having a spare jar of peanut butter as an emergency I am going to enjoy making and eating this dish.

Pam from Sidewalkshoes is a Donna Hay fan and made a lovely dish of tomato and basil orzo with ricotta.  It certainly looks fantastic Pam, and very well photographed.  I have not had orzo for ages, and had almost forgotton about it, like Pam I feel I may need to develop a Donna Hay habit!

Johanna writes Green Gourmet Giraffe which I used to follow before I deleted the entire contents of my feedreader – it is lovely to see her again with a gluten free dish of Rustic Buckwheat Pasta Bake with Fontina Cheese.  This looks delicious as well as being super healthy, I love the global nature of food blogging and seeing out of seasons food from the other side of the world, this will be added to my “To Cook Once it is Winter” list!

From a winter pasta dish to a summer pasta salad from Joanne (another peanut butter lover!) from Eats Well With Others who made a Greek Caprese Pasta Salad.  Pasta.  Tomato sauce.  Feta. Olives.   What is not to love – I imagine that this could become a packed lunch staple for lots of readers.  Good luck with the running Joanne, I can barely run 17 yards, let alone over 17 miles!

I feel honourerd to welcome Lidia who is Bianca’s & Jordan’s Mom to PPN with her first entry for the event – a beef and spinach lasagna – her idea of heaven!  It looks lovely Lidia, as we hope to see more PPN dishes from you!

Katie from One Little Corner of the World was last week’s host and made this week’s second Caprese (Sort Of) With Chicken.  It looks lovely Katie, and many thanks for hosting last week – I am rapidly realising how much hard work it is.

Kristin from Sogkonnite Living (sogkonnite is the Native American word for the land that is now where we live) made the second salad of the week, this time with chickens, raisins and almonds.  I love her local food box on the front page of her blog, I love local, but it can be hard living in a city.

Val from More Than Burnt Toast ate and wrote about tomatos this week, with her Spaghetti with Heirloom Tomatos, Feta & Basil.  It looks lovely Val and I quite agree that in season and local produce is the way forward.

My darling boyfriend, Ed, cooked this lovely fennel, sardine, lemon, raisin and pinenut pasta the other day – I have not had a chance to blog it, but it is basically this recipe without the fennel seeds.    I am a huge Waitrose fan as they consistently produce good food and have an awesome environmental and ethical record.

Many thanks to everyone that has taken part and especially to Ruth for allowing me to host, I will try to get to all your blogs in the next day or so.

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. 

Three tomato salad with tomato dressing

For the Salad
2 types of perfectly ripe fresh tomatos – sliced
A few sun dried tomatos – chopped
Fresh herbs – I use oregano
Salt & pepper

For the dressing
A couple of very ripe red tomatos
Glug of olive oil
Small clove of garlic
Salt & pepper to taste

Put all ingredients for the dressing into a jug and blitz with a stick blender, or whizz in the small bowl of the food processor.    Slice and arrange the tomatos on a plate, pour the dressing over and then sprinkle with the chopped sundried tomatos and herbs.    Season to taste with pepper and salt.  Enjoy with a slice of cursty bread.

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.

Pasta with Chicken Liver, Tomato & Mushroom Sauce (Serves 4)

2 small onions  – finely chopped
1 tbs olive oil
2 cloves garlic – finely chopped
8oz / 200g Chicken livers (please buy free range) – roughly chopped
4oz / 100g mushrooms (sliced)
1x 12oz  tin plum tomatos
1 Espresso cup white wine or white vermouth
1 tbs balsamic vinegar
1 tbs fresh oregano  – roughly chopped
1/2 oz butter
Salt & pepper to taste

Finely chop the onions and fry in the olive oil with a pinch of salt until translucent and turning golden.   Add the garlic, chicken livers (I cut them into 1 – 2 cm pieces using scissors) and mushrooms, fry for several minutes.   Add all the other ingredients, stir and allow to simmer with the lid ajar for at least 40 minutes.

Serve with the pasta of your choice.

Notes: The longer this cooks the better it will be, next time I make it I am going to use passata rather than the tinned tomatos and cook it for several hours in the slow cooker.