Author: Maria Runs

Sweet potato and spinach soup (recipe), and a disaster!

Although it is getting warmer, it is still winter so soup for lunch is always good.

The other day I roasted some veggies to have with pasta for dinner, so roasted some sweet potato too.

Aubergine and peppers for pasta, and sweet potato sprinkled with chilli flakes and paprika for soup-making.

The soup needs:

2 or 3 small sweet potatoes

Large handful of spinach

Spices- chilli flakes, ginger

Water and vegetable stock (I used vecon as I think it is much nicer than regular stock cubes)

The recipe made 3 big portions of quite thick soup, but if you like it thinner and add more water then it would make more portions. Anyway, this was 3 fairly small sweet potatoes. I softened them in a pan for a few minutes.

Then I added the water- maybe 1 litre. And a tsp of stock and simmer for about ten mins (as the potatoes were already cooked they did not need too long). Add in any spices too- I added a few more chilli flakes, and a little ginger.

Add in the spinach and let it wilt- only for about a minute. Then blitz it up (I have a stick blender so it can be done in the pan) and serve.

My Mum gave me a few sundried tomato mini loaves that she made when I went for lunch the other day, so myself and Andy each had a bowl of soup and a roll for lunch. Delish. It went an interesting green colour, but it tasted lovely!

And now, to the disaster.

This morning, as I do most mornings now, I put the kettle on, put a mint teabag in my favourite massive mug, poured out the water and distracted myself on the internet for about 20 mins (I leave it this long so that when I take the teabag out I can drink it right away).

I went back into the kitchen, only to see mint tea all over the worktop, all down the dishwasher, all over the floor, and the teabag in the bottom of my mug.

As you can see, there is a massive crack up the whole side of the mug. (I did clean it up before I took the photo!).

How I didn’t notice it when I poured it out I have no idea! At least mint tea smells nice even when you have to mop it off the floor!

Better plan a trip to Disney to get a replacement 😉

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

I love making Millie’s Cookies (recipe)

Ages ago, on Lucy’s blog, I saw that she had made some cookies, using a Millie’s Cookies recipe that she found here, online. I love Millie’s Cookies (although have probably only bought them a handful of times as we don’t have one near us, and when we see one we are not usually in the mood for cookies) and have made this recipe several times since seeing it. Their cookies are lovely- soft on the inside with a slight crisp on the outside, plus they do so many flavours- they even did mince pie flavour cookies one year, which I did attempt to recreate.  Anyway, this week I had a friend visiting, so I decided to adapt the recipe and make a few different flavours. White chocolate coconut, and dark chocolate cherry.

So- ingredients:

125g butter (I use pure spread which works just fine- anything suitable for use in baking would be OK)

100g light soft brown sugar

125 caster sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

225g self raising flour

1/2 tsp salt

200g chocolate chips. I used 100g white chocolate, 100g dark chocolate, 50g dried cherries and 25g coconut as my add-ins.

Preheat oven to 180C, and line two large baking trays.

Cream the butter and sugars. Cream them a lot so they go almost fluffy.

Add in the egg and vanilla. Cream / beat some more.

Sift in the flour and salt.

I then took out half the dough for later.

To the first half, I added the dark chocolate chips and the dried cherries (which I had soaked in boiling water for a bit to plump them up). Mix well to incorporate the add-ins as evenly as possible. Then scoop out with a teaspoon walnut sized balls, and space them evenly on the baking tray.

Then I put the other half of the dough back in the bowl, added 1/2 tsp coconut extract, the white chocolate and some coconut. Repeat with the dough until it is all on the baking tray.

The recipe says bake for 7 mins, but in my oven that is not quite long enough. I need to rotate the baking trays (as I have some hot-spots) and these ones took about 9 mins. They don’t look quite ready, but they will be. Leave to cool on the tray for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

I put some in a bag for my friend to take home, and some on my cake stand for us to eat while we caught up with each other.

Yum- the white chocolate and coconut is a lovely combination, and they were both a hit.

Also, I tried the chocolate pretzels (and some multigrain thins with DCD)- they are nice, but only half coated in chocolate, and pretzel flipz were fully coated, so not as good as those ones.

And finally, I tried the hazelnut milk.

It is a brown colour.

I wasn’t expecting that. It does have a faint hazelnut flavour, but not too strong. It went well with the nutty muesli anyway. It made a nice change, and for £1 it was pretty good value I think, as the carton will last a good few days.

What is your favourite cookie flavour? And what about the most unusual cookie flavour you have seen/ tried? I fancy some inspiration.

Belated pancakes!

Hello!

I normally make the little scotch style pancakes, but this year Andy requested the proper crepe style ones. Because normally I would be at aerobics on Tuesday I get out of it, but this year, no excuses!

I used the basic recipe from the WLR home-page, and it turned out pretty well. The batter was 112g plain flour (random- I think originally in ounces), 2 eggs, 210ml milk and 90ml water. I whisked it all up and let the batter rest for a bit. Then I got to cooking. I flipped with a spatula though!

Anyway, I was very excited because they looked like real pancakes!

They are best rolled up I think- I had a banana sliced, 2 with coconut + chocolate spread, and one with some caramel sauce.

Yes, they looked a total mess but they were amazing.

I had the pancakes for dinner.  I had been to my parents for the day- my Mum had made the most enormous portions of carrot soup, sundried tomato bread and some apple pastry things, so I had a pre-pancake meal of plums, persimmon and grapes (and rooibos tea). Not the most balanced of meals, but hey, pancake day is only once a year.

The only trouble is that now Andy thinks I can make him pancakes for breakfast at the weekend. Ah well. I still prefer the little fluffy ones- they are easier to make for one too, plus unless I visit my Mum I don’t have eggs in- although I could try it with egg replacer I suppose.

What is your all time favourite pancake/ crepe filling? Mine was always nutella with banana, although anything chocolate + banana based is great in my book (eg the chocolate coconut spread was good, and I bet dark choc dreams would be good too). Although when I was little we had them savoury with cream cheese and cucumber, then for dessert sweet with orange juice (or lemon, but I preferred orange) and sugar.

WIAW- Come on you veg

On Monday I remembered to take photos this week. I did not get up to much – I had to go to the shops in the morning to pick up a few bits, and I painted my nails in the afternoon. Busy times!

Breakfast:

Mint tea, porridge with peaches, dried strawberries and a little honey peanut butter. Today I had this again and this time I put the pb in the bottom of the bowl- I saw it somewhere (sorry can’t remember which fab blog)- I always worried about the pb burning in the microwave, but it was fine and a lovely surprise at the bottom of the bowl!

Snack (post shopping- I needed an energy boost asap):

Yummy hazelnut carob stick.

Lunch:

Toasted sourdough ( that I made on Friday- it worked really well) with pb and apple and mango jam, apple and a persimmon.

Afternoon nibble:

I made some cocoa mint bites- with soaked almonds, dates, cocoa and mint extract all whizzed up. I had painted my nails by this point but it did not really come out in the photo. Ah well.

Dinner:

Lentil chilli from the freezer, with added spinach, alongside some roasted broccoli and toasted pine nuts. Here is my vegetable intake for the day anyway- in the chilli there is red onion, red pepper, courgette, carrot, celery, sweet potato, tinned tomatoes and lentils, (7 types of veg, or 8 because I am sure pulses count) then I added in spinach and served with broccoli. Obviously (as one serving = 80g) I did not eat 10 servings of veg, but I think it is good to have smaller amounts of more variety- packing those vitamins in.

Dessert:

Some Montezuma’s mint chocolate. A delicious end to the day.

At the shops I was excited to see…

Alpro hazelnut milk! I have enjoyed their almond milk, but not seen this version before. It was only £1 so I thought I would give it a go, although I have not opened it yet. And chocolate pretzels! I love pretzel flipz but you never get them over here any more- I am hoping these are just as good although again I have not tried them yet. Any other chocolate pretzel fans? I don’t like salted chocolate (bought some Lindt stuff a while back without realising- it was almond (and then with tiny writing “a sprinkle of salt” which I didn’t see until I had tried some and thought “urgh”) but I love the salty prezel with chocolate combo. Weird.

Thanks Jenn for organising this and getting everyone to love their veggies. How are you loving your veggies right now? Do you paint your nails? (I hardly ever get around to it).

 

Brighton Half- rambles

Hey peeps

I am sure everyone had a lovely weekend. We had a relaxing time on the Saturday- wandering around the lanes (laines?) in Brighton. We found a lovely coffee and tea shop (hooray, it had a tea menu) called naked.

In the end I went for peppermint tea, and some carrot cake which was made on the premises that morning- delish. But the choice of teas meant it was hard to choose. It was all loose-leaf tea, and when it had brewed in the jug for a bit, you slotted the jug on top of the cup, and it filtered down into the cup. Very clever. They also did gluten free cakes, and sold their tea, so I bought a pack of the peppermint as it was the nicest peppermint tea I have ever had. It was such a nice place too- upstairs it was filled with comfy chairs, sofas etc, and had all the papers out to read, so we spent a while relaxing there.

We also found Infinity Foods (I realised after that the health food shop in Welwyn stocks some of the Infinity Food products like special flours) so I bought a few things from there, and of course from Montezuma’s.

Lots of tea (loose leaf chai and chocolate chai, plus apple and ginger), almond milk (as it was on offer), pesto (as it is so hard to find even vegetarian pesto usually so I went crazy and got the vegan version), peanut butter truffles, dark chocolate with marzipan and cherries, and some of their pudding bars. I also bought some Carley’s Sunflower seed butter but it didn’t make the photo for some reason.

Although I am OK, moving around for a long time makes me get sore and tired, so we had a stop in Starbucks too, and a rest in the hotel in the afternoon. Poor Andy was carrying all my shopping bags as well.

Anyway, the next morning we were up bright and early. I wrapped up warm as although it was lovely and sunny, it was also cold. I was originally thinking I would wander around the shops, but then realised that it was a Sunday morning and nothing would be open- plus I was tired from all the wandering on Saturday.

I love layers! And thermal tops. And hats, gloves and scarves. And taking this photo was very hard because of the flash! This was take 3!

The race started at 9am which I much prefer to later starts. Plus we stayed in the town centre, so we got to walk to the start line- what a treat- no panicking about car parks or finding the right bus etc. Andy left me to find a space while he went to find where to start- I was worried (ridiculously) that I would somehow end up in the starter pen with all the runners. Duh!

I found a good place to watch (leaning on the fence) and did see Andy go past, but I was not quick enough with the camera- I think he is totally hidden by high-viz guy!

The runners took about 15 mins to go past- there was an awful lot of them. They kept announcing that late starters would not be allowed, but there were still a lot of stragglers.

I had a little wander by the beach- it all looked very pretty. That is the pier in the distance.

The wheel was going around very fast!

Now, my plan was to go to the naked tea shop, get some tea and have a read for a bit. I was prepared:

(That is my Kindle with it’s new Paperchase cover- it does fit in my bag if I pack it all carefully because my new purse (well, new from Christmas) is also quite big).

But, when I found it (and if you know anything about my sense of direction that should be impressive)I realised it didn’t open til 10.30am. So in the end I went to get a drink from Starbucks, and took it back to the hotel for a bit. Andy was hoping to finish in under 2 hours so I wanted to head down there a bit before and do some cheering.

It was fun- there were some soldiers carrying heavy packs (not sure of the proper term), people dressed up as taps and toilets for Water Aid- I love seeing the fancy dress costumes and was giving them all a cheer.

Andy finished in just under 2 hours, so he was pleased as he has not done as much training as he would have liked. We then headed back to the hotel for him to have a quick shower before we had to check out- another luxury- normally we have to sit in our sweaty clothes for the journey home.

From what I saw, the half marathon was well organised. It started pretty much bang on time, and for a spectator there were places to cross the route and so on. The medal is rather nice (I may have a bit of medal envy right now), although the goody bag was not so good (literally a £5 off Sweatshop voucher/ 10% off online and a few pages of Men’s Running mag). Andy did get a banana when he finished and that is always my fave post race food item. The route seemed lovely and scenic (no offence to Portsmouth but The Great South Run just does not compare on the running-by-the-water scenery), and fairly flat after the first bit. We have been to Brighton a few times and really like it there anyway, so perhaps next year we will both manage to run it?

Oh, and guess what turned up on the doormat today- yup- the race pack for the Silverstone Half. Grrr. Yet another one I cannot do. Their website is terrible, I cannot work out if I can transfer the number or anything (I expect not) so not sure what to do with it really. Any takers?