Category: Recipes

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.

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.

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.

At the moment I am loving the book, Sweet Vegan . I have made a few recipes from it, and they generally turn out well, although I have tended to adapt them a bit as the ratios sometimes seem a bit off. I made these bars before, and think I have improved on them even more when I made them this week.

They are the front cover recipe, and this time look more like it (last time I used white chocolate to top them). Some went in this tub, some went in bags for various friends. Some went in the fridge for me too 🙂 It is super easy- you need a pan (I use a brownie pan which I think is 15 x 20cm) lined with baking paper.

I have adapted it a bit below- you could use your own brownie recipe but I think the base needs to be a bit firmer than usual to hold the topping on:

(Preheat the oven to 180C)

For the base, mix 260g plain flour (I used half wholemeal and half white) with 290g caster sugar (this was reduced from 340g, and I think I could reduce it further quite easily), 75g cocoa/carob powder, 1 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp salt. Then add in 200ml water, 90ml rapeseed oil (the recipe had 240ml but I though that would make the batter far too wet) and a tsp vanilla.

Pour this into the pan and bake for about 25 mins. Leave to cool.

For the mint filling, beat 90g spread (or butter) until smooth. Gradually add 190g icing sugar and gently mix together. Then add a few drops of mint extract- I think I added about 2 lid-fulls which is probably around a teaspoon. Once the base has cooled, spread it over the cooled brownie base.

Then melt some chocolate of your choice- around 150g, and pour this over the top, swirl/ make pretty patterns/ top with little stars. I cut them before the chocolate had properly set, otherwise it cracks. The recipe has more of a ganache style topping- melted chocolate and butter substitute, but I preferred the idea of plain chocolate.

I find these keep better in the fridge. The base is still quite squidgy, and of course the mint filling is very soft too.

I also made some more sourdough- I added the last of my Munchy Seeds to it- I am hoping that it still turns out well. I oiled the pan this time so fingers crossed! 🙂

Good luck to anyone running the Brighton half this weekend! And anyone else racing anywhere else too.

Any exciting plans for the weekend?

Hey all

I don’t celebrate Valentines Day, so this is not about that. This morning I was listening to Radio 4 and they were discussing organ donation, and the fact that they still need more people to sign up to the register.

I know that some people have personal reasons against it, so I am not saying everyone should, but my personal opinion is that I would like to think that death is not in vain and if you can help someone then do it. There are so many people waiting for transplants and of course no-one wants to die, but it does happen. It reminded me of a few weeks ago when marathon talk had an interview with a man who was about to run his 11th London Marathon since having a heart transplant. I found it so inspiring- I love hearing about how famous and speedy runners train, but hearing how the average person overcame such a huge barrier is amazing. You can download it here.

Anyway, I won’t go on, but if you want to sign up to the donor list then you can do it online, here. You must tell your family your wishes, because it seems they still need to give permission even if you are on the register. So, if you believe in it, maybe spend a few minutes today filling out the form and telling your family about giving that special gift.

Onto normal ramblings:

I am currently enjoying a cup of Bengal Spice tea. I loved the Gingerbread tea I got from the blogger secret santa, but alas used all the teabags and it seems to be a seasonal flavour. I had seen this tea on i-herb, but had not got around to ordering any. Anyway, today I met Andy for a Starbucks in the afternoon (2 for 1 using the loyalty card) and there is a little health food shop right next to it. We popped in and they had a pack of 10 (for 99p which is a bargain), so at least I get to try instead of ordering it  from the USA. Anyway, it tastes, in all seriousness, like I am drinking a Starbucks cinnamon roll. No joke. This tea is spicy and sweet. I don’t ever add sugar or sweetener to tea, but it does taste like it has some syrup or something. Anyway, next time I am going to make it into a latte as I think it would be perfect for that.

I have been baking:

I had some friends over and one of them gets migraines from chocolate. I mentioned carob to her, and she had never heard of it, so I took it upon myself to make her some carob chip cookies (half also with dried cherries- the bag is separating them!)- she loved them! 🙂 I used the millies cookie recipe that I got from Lucy’s blog before- perfect.

I also made some fudge:

Peanut butter and some beyond dark chocolate drops (found these again in Sainsbury’s- hooray). (We did also have pittas, veggie crudités, grapes and strawberries- we are not all bad!).

I made something healthy for dinner, don’t worry!

Tofu/ pesto quinoa and broccoli. It needs perfecting, but basically I cooked some quinoa (30g dry), whizzed up some silken tofu (about a third of the pack) with a few tsp meridian pesto, then mixed in the quinoa. I put some broccoli in a baking dish and topped it with the tofu/pesto/quinoa mix, and baked for 20 mins. Then I topped it with pine nuts. It was tasty, but I think it needed some more pesto in there.

And after seeing Lucy make some yummy sounding peanut dip, that is what I did for lunch today.

I mixed up peanut flour with cinnamon and almond milk, and had it with apple and wholemeal pitta to dip. Very tasty indeed.

Finally- a few of you have asked about my op. Well, it’s not great news- I don’t have a date but have been told the deadline (their waiting list limit) would be mid-April. I have been put down on the cancellation list, so I am hoping for that. I did see my lovely GP last week and she was not impressed to say the least when I told her about my latest hospital appointment, so she has encouraged me to complain to the hospital. I do feel bad about complaining, because coming from another strand of the public sector I know about how there is never enough money in the budget and everyone does work really hard. And I know that I am lucky because what I have is easily solved and not life-threatening. But at the same time it is my health and my GP did point out to me that the last doctor I saw was not very professional. Anyway, I don’t want to get into it here. It is weird because if we have a problem with our internet/ gas/ shopping then I would complain (in a nice way- I am not swearing at people down the phone or anything- a few years ago we had an awful saga with British Gas where our boiler kept breaking and they kept saying they had fixed it but it only worked for a day and then went, and of course no-one could come out for 3 days, and it was for about 3 months over winter- I won’t ramble on) but for some reason I don’t feel altogether comfortable complaining to the hospital. Also I would not send food back in a restaurant for the fear of spit even though I am sure that actually never happens in real life, only on TV!

How are you with complaining? What is your style?

How do you feel about organ donation?