Recipes - Maria Runs

Savoury foods and some exciting news

Hello peeps

I hope you are all well.

I feel like I have gone a bit overboard with all the baking on here recently, so I thought it was time for a savoury post. When the weather starts getting colder, I really look forward to something warm for dinner (much less salads) and something that is cooked for a long time, like chilli, makes me feel even warmer.

The other weekend I had an afternoon of batch cooking, so my freezer has been well stocked for evening meals.

On of my favourite meals for this time of year is mexican casserole. I based it on Angela’s fantastic recipe, but mine is quicker. Sometimes I have it with spinach, sometimes topped with cheese, but my favourite way at the moment is with an avocado (and squirt that with a little lime juice). I make 3 or 4 portions at a time, and freeze the rest in little foil tubs so they can be defrosted in the week.

Bean wraps are so easy to make (and as a bonus, Andy loves them so it is a meal we can both eat together). They are also so quick, as the filling takes about ten minutes, then once you put them in the wraps they only need to warm through in the oven. Serve with a salad, and it is a speedy midweek meal. These ones had goats cheese in them, but often we use a little cheddar in there- it melts when they heat through- delicious.

I love cooking with quinoa- it seems very filling, and is easier than rice, plus it has a bit of flavour. But I like the idea of a risotto too, so I combined the too to make a quin-sotto. Last weekend I roasted a little pumpkin, chopped some sundried tomatoes and added these in to some cooked quinoa- I stirred a little pumpkin puree through the quinoa, and some rosemary too, as that goes so well with pumpkin/ squash. Topped with goats cheese- I promise it was nicer than it looks! This made 2 portions, so I froze one.

I also love chickpea stew. Anything like this is perfect to adapt because you use whatever veggies you like/ have on hand. I had some butternut squash left, so I roasted that with some red and yellow peppers and courgettes, then put it in a pan with tinned tomatoes, drained chickpeas, a little chilli and a tbs ground almonds. I would usually have it with some crackers or oat cakes or something- but I had to use pumpkin seed ryvita as that was all I had. It made about 4 portions I think, and the rest I froze in plastic “cups” (the ones with the screw on lids)- because I heat it in a pan once defrosted.

One of our favourite meals to have together is sausage and bean bake– we cook it together in a pan, then divide it in to two dishes to bake- I used to have veggie sausages, but they stopped doing the ones I liked (they were red pepper and courgette ones- I don’t like the pretend meat ones) so now I just have it with the beans. But it is an easy meal for both of us to have, as it starts off the same, so we often go for that.

Well, that should be enough savoury foods for now.

I have just realised that I have used a purple plate in each picture- we have 3 colours, green, blue and purple. The green is my favourite, but I try not to use them all the time as I think the colours fade. I will have green or purple, but never blue. I think that makes me sound a bit strange. I have certain cups for certain drinks too, and most of my cups are slightly smaller, and Andy’s cups are mostly huge. Is that just me?

On to the exciting news! I got an email today saying that my blog is featured (on a big list, but still, featured) on the Sainsbury’s corporate website- here. I managed to distract myself for quite a while today looking at some of the other blogs listed, and it is always nice to hear that someone likes reading my rambles! Plus the picture they used (I think) are of my stollen whirls- I will be looking forward to making them again soon.

I gave aerobics a miss on Tuesday (due to feeling dizzy) and missed my Sweatshop run on Wednesday, as I felt a little off that day, and there are loads of germs going around work, so I thought I had better be sensible. Tonight I was hoping to go to body pump, but I have a massive headache now, so I am not going to book on until that has gone. Honestly this week has not gone how I pictured it. Ah well, hopefully tomorrow (or tonight) I can get back to my normal routine.

Any exciting news to share? Do you have a favourite plate/ cup? Or use certain bowls etc for certain meals?

Orange and almond cake (recipe)

Hello all

After spending a while making the crystallised orange peel on Sunday, I of course had to make a cake for them to top, right away. Luckily Andy’s parents were coming over on Monday evening. I could not find the recipe I wanted, so I created a new one, based on 3 recipes from my National Trust teatime book.

Not much left after we all had a slice, and I sent some home with them too for another day.

Orange and Almond cake

Ingredients:

225g butter (pure spread)

225g caster sugar

3 eggs

Juice of 2 oranges

100g ground almonds

125g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp almond extract

Icing and glaze (optional)

Juice of one orange, divided in two lots

50g icing sugar

Preheat oven to 160C, and line a 20cm round cake tin.

Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the eggs and orange juice, and mix well.

Add flour, ground almonds, baking powder and almond extract, and stir gently to combine.

Pour into pan, and bake for 1 hour, until a skewer comes out clean.

To make it extra moist, mix together juice of half an orange and a tablespoon of icing sugar, and pour this over the cake while it is still warm- leave it in the tin to cool.

Then, turn it out and top with orange icing (juice of the other half of the orange, mixed with about 50g icing sugar), and then of course make it pretty with the crystallised orange peel.

It was delicious, even if I say so myself! The ground almonds and the orange glaze make it so sticky and moist, and the orange peel on top is zingy. I also feel like it is the sort of cake I would expect to have in a tea-room, which always pleases me greatly.

Right, well on to the project from the weekend- making crystalised orange peel. I watched Rachel Allen on the TV make it for a chocolate orange cake, and as I had a bag of oranges (for the Christmas cakes I needed zest) I thought it was the perfect time to try.

I followed the recipe from here, and it went very well (except for the losing half my thumb nail part).

First you peel the oranges (I used 3)- and slice the peel into matchstick sized pieces. After peeling a few slices, I managed to peel my thumb nail- at first I thought it was just my nail varnish, but no it has split the nail too. So Andy finished it for me!

You place them in a pan, cover with cold water, bring to the boil and simmer for 5 mins. Then you drain the water, and repeat. This removes any bitterness from the peel. Then prepare a baking tray by lining with baking paper.

Next up, set the peel aside, and in the same pan mix 150ml water and 150g caster sugar- stir to dissolve the sugar, and then simmer for 2 mins without stirring. Then add the peel in, and simmer for 6-8 mins, until the strips look glossy and translucent.

(This was the bit I found trickiest, well, apart from the peeling)- remove using a sieve or slotted spoon (a spoon worked better, because the syrup was very sticky)- place on to the baking tray and leave to cool.

Then coat in more caster sugar (once cool)- move it around to each strand is coated.

It will keep in an airtight container for one month, but be warned, it is tasty on its own! I have seen recipes where it is then dipped in melted dark chocolate, which sounds to me like a lovely addition to a Christmas hamper. But I also think they look so pretty, and really added a little something to make the cake look more special than just using regular icing.

I had a run after work yesterday, and that was fine although I felt quite tired. Anyway, all of today I have been feeling a bit dizzy, and no idea why (any ideas? Someone at work suggested an ear infection but I feel fine other than that- actually I feel like how I felt when I was coming off the anaesthetic and I have not had any more of that I am sure!). So I decided to give aerobics a miss tonight as I thought that all the jumping and spinning would be a recipe for me falling over (or worse).

Instead I made myself a cardamom chai latte, with one of the Tea India teabags, and some warm almond milk. Yum.

What cake would you choose in my virtual tea room?

An orange day

Brrrr is it cold out there now! I have had a lovely, but busy weekend.

On Saturday I did another cupcake decorating class. The theme was vintage cupcakes, and I just loved them!

When I got home I had to put them on my cake stand as the colours went so well!

I got my hair cut on Friday, which was waaaaay overdue- it had got so long. Feels so much better now!

As well as walking up to the shops, I also did some baking. This was fridge cake (from Hummingbird)- to take to work. It is very easy- crushed digestives, butter, golden syrup and cocoa powder all melted and mixed up, plus cranberries (the recipe said raisins)- and then to make it pretty I added melted white chocolate on the top, and sprinkles.

Oh my word it made loads!

Still half left when I took the photo in the box!

We often go to a fireworks show, but this year decided to stay in the warm and watch a film instead.

This morning I started off with pancakes:

Pumpkin pancakes, and they turned out loads better than last time as I added less pumpkin (flour, baking powder, spices, almond milk, pumpkin purée and chocolate chips)- served with a chopped cooked apple.

Alongside some tea, because it was so cold! This cardamom chai was delicious.

I also wanted to make some crystallised orange peel- I will save it for another post. Anyway, stupid me, when I was peeling the orange I was not holding the peeler correctly, and managed to slice my thumb nail in half. Gross. At first I thought I had just peeled off the nail varnish, but no, the nail has come away from the thumb too. Andy was on the phone and had to come to the bathroom as he could hear my “I am about to faint this is so disgusting” noises as I was looking for a plaster. The typing is taking me much longer because I can’t use my thumb!

Anyway, we popped to see my parents who are back from a holiday in India (they even brought us back some tea 🙂 ), and then went to the shops (new cushions for the sofa, as two cushions were more like flat bits of fabric!), and of course we had to go to Starbucks as they were doing buy one get one free for the seasonal drinks. They were all coffee ones, but I asked the guy if I could have a gingerbread latte without the coffee, and he said yes! It was lovely- much nicer than the pumpkin one I think- possibly even nicer than a chai latte. Yum.

By then the rain had stopped, so I decided to have a run, even though it was dark. Although, on the plus side, I can’t see my feet so I can pretend that I am flying. I did 4 miles, and again at around 10 min miles, so it felt pretty good. I think gingerbread latte is my new favourite running fuel!

Home to some yoghurt as I was rather hungry- I was sent these total yoghurts, and they are quite nice, but I was not so keen on the fruit bit, so I left that and mixed in some orange curd- fits my orange theme of the day.

OK, the photo does not make it look that nice! But I had an orange dinner too- I roasted up the little pumpkin with some rosemary, cooked some quinoa, and then when it was cooked, stirred in a big spoonful of pumpkin puree. I mixed in the cooked pumpkin, some chopped sundried tomatoes, and sprinkled on some goats cheese. It was lovely (and enough to freeze some too). More orange food. The only thing missing is chocolate orange, but I am not sure I have any!

And now I am cooking the other Christmas cakes- smells amazing. They have orange zest in them, so they fit with the theme too.

Right, back to the grind tomorrow 😉

Did you watch some fireworks this weekend? Or, did anyone go to a bonfire party? I used to love those when I was younger, but never see them any more.

Half term fun

Hello! I hope everyone is well. I have been having a lovely half term so far. Our trip to Italy had a little hitch at the start, when we arrived at Heathrow bright and early (and in the snow!) to be told that our flight to Bologna was cancelled. We joined a massive queue (and it is a bad sign when people are sat in chairs in the queue)- luckily Andy rang up and changed us to a different flight, to Pisa, later that afternoon. So we had a long boring wait in the airport, as we could not even put our bag through until lunch time! Anyway, it did mean we got to go to Giraffe for lunch (once through security)- I had a yummy snack plate with toasted sourdough, avocado, hummus, salad, cherry tomatoes, and of course some sweet potato fries.

We got to our hotel in Florence at about 9pm on Saturday, so we didn’t go out and explore then. But we had a lovely few days- it rained all of Sunday, but we had a lovely time wandering around Florence. On Monday we caught the train to Siena, which was just wonderful. The weather was beautiful which of course helped, but it was so pretty. We treated ourselves to a slice of panforte (+ tea for me, coffee for Andy) for lunch (a cake made with dried fruit, nuts and spices- I have already found a recipe which I want to try).

On Tuesday we spent the day in Florence again- we walked across the river and up a hill to a lovely overlook, as well as walking around and seeing a few more sights (including the pizza place they worked at in the Jersey Shore show. Ahem). Then Wednesday we had to catch the train to Bologna for our flight home.

Anyway, Andy took a few photos, but they are still on his camera, so I might put some on later on.

Right, on to the rest of half term! One of my favourite projects is making Christmas cakes. I make one for us, and one for each of our parents, and although making the cake is not time consuming, they need ages to bake (a few hours) so half term is the ideal time for this as I am at home. Before we packed on Friday night, I soaked all the dried fruit in the brandy (or whisky, or whatever it is). I was inspired by The Pink Whisk (she also had some useful timing guides) and so decided to use my usual recipe, but bake it for longer at a lower temperature. The fruit I used this year was mixed dried fruits, crystallised ginger, cranberries, cherries, and a little more mixed peel, but any combination is fab.

I made one big cake, and had some spare, so of course I made some little ones as a surprise for Andy 🙂

The little ones took an hour (at 110C) and the big one is still baking at the moment, and filling the house with a wonderful spicy aroma.

When I got home on Wednesday, I went for a short run (in the dark- boo)- I felt like I was going slow because it was so windy, but in fact I was about 3 minutes quicker than when I did the same route last week- not bad.

Last night was pump, and then this morning I went on a run. I decided to just push myself and see how fast I could actually go. There is a 10K route which I quite like doing, and each time I glanced at my Garmin I could see I was close to 10 min miles, and at some points I was doing 9.45 miles- fast for me, especially on a longer route. In the end I did 6.09 miles in 62 mins- my fastest 10K race time is 61 mins, and I had to stop several times to cross roads, so I was so pleased with how fast I went.

I have not used the Garmin website that much- I mainly look at each run individually, but I noticed a “compare” button, and it searched for similar runs. I feel like I have built up my distance quite well, and really want to concentrate a bit more on speeding back up. I was interested to see that in September I did a 5.88 mile route in 1.09. I have not done that same route for ages, so it did not show up, but I have done several ones around the 5.9-6.2 mile mark, and every one of them was slower.

I had started to feel that I was never going to speed up, but looking at the overall trend today was really encouraging. Of course today I am rested, and it is hard to compare to a run done after work (which were the other runs on there looking at the times they were done) but I also think that the faster running with the Sweatshop group on Wednesdays must be really helping me too. And although my poor legs are feeling quite sore now, I am just going to give myself a pat on the back.

When I got home I had some Kara coconut chocolate milk. I have had it in the fridge for ages, but not got around to trying it. When I poured it out, it had a very thin consistency, but it was really lovely and creamy. I am not sure I would buy it again, because now I have to use it up quite quickly, and it is pretty sweet- I prefer to add some nesquick to milk as then I can use the rest of the milk as normal. But anyway, pretty nice.

After a shower I was still pretty cold, so I had the black cherry tea that was included in my i-herb order. This tea was delicious! But at the moment my tea cupboard is full to bursting, so I am holding off ordering any for now!

Right, I am off to have my hair cut in a bit (about time!)- give yourself a pat on the back for something, and tell me what it is please! Well done in advance.

No more get ups!

Hey peeps, half term is here! I am so relieved! And apologies in advance if my ramblings make even less sense than usual. This week has been even more flat out than usual, with parents evenings going on as well as the usual end of half term business.

But anyway, back to the weekend:

On Sunday I treated myself to pancakes for breakfast- chocolate chip pumpkin ones served with a chopped cooked apple (from my garden), and a little DCD.

I made a Swedish Apple cake for Sunday tea, and it was lovely. I caught a few of a new Rachel Allen series, called Cake Diaries. I love her baking recipes anyway, and I copied it down from the TV show and it worked so well. One to make again for sure.

As I had opened a tin of pumpkin puree, I decided to make some of Angela’s wonderful spiced pumpkin gingerbread. I used molasses whereas I am sure I usually use treacle, anyway it was not as dark as usual, but still delicious. I have frozen it in slices as it makes a big loaf. I didn’t make any of the buttercream, as I wanted to freeze it, but I have made it in the past and it is amazing.

Anyway, I have no idea what I have been doing this week! I know I went on 2 short runs on Monday and Tuesday, a 3.5 mile route. It is so dark in the evenings now. Anyway, that was all I managed to squeeze in around work, work in the evenings, extra meetings, parents evenings etc.

Andy surprised me with a little treat to help with parents evenings:

Some chocolate covered pretzels! I love the pretzel flipz (although not the z in their name), but you can’t get them any more. These were a welcome sugar boost, although I could not eat them while talking to the parents- not very professional!

I was very excited when I got home on Wednesday night to find my i-herb order had finally arrived! Gingerbread tea here I come! I also ordered some coconut tea, coconut lip balm, and maple pb, and they included a little black cherry teabag which sounds lovely.

Today was a staff training day, so I came home as soon as I could- I was not quite sure how much longer I could keep going for. I was planning on going on a run this afternoon, but I feel totally shattered, so I am staying at home instead.

Tomorrow we are off to Italy for a couple of days, so I need to pack, plus I think we will be doing plenty of walking. I don’t want to be so tired that I don’t enjoy the holiday.

What are your plans for the weekend/ half term if you have it? I am going to be making our Christmas cake when I get back, and I have another cake decorating course booked which I am really looking forward to 🙂