Banana and sultana drop scones

My inlaws went out for a cream tea this afternoon and I had sudden scone-envy. It was also 20mins before tea-time (we had a Sunday roast at lunch), so I had to act fast. With some "past their best" bananas in the fridge I settled on banana drop scones. 

Ingredients:

175g self raising flour

1tsp baking powder

25g caster sugar

50g sultanas

2 over ripe bananas

1 egg

150ml milk

Butter for frying

1. Weigh out dry ingredients. Mix in a bowl and stand to one side. 

2. Mash banana, add egg and milk.

3. Heat a heavy based frying pan or griddle on a medium heat. Add a knob of butter.

4. Slowly stir wet ingredients into dry ones until they are well mixed into a thick "dropping" consistency. 

5. Drop spoonfuls of the mix onto hot pan and they will flatten and rise to become stodgy little discs of banan-y scone/pancake goodness.

6. Serve hot or cold with butter. Don't expect to have any for tomorrow.

Stir fry veg with rice

Beef and veg stir fry!

A quick and easy tea after a busy work day:

Just the veg I had, some leftover braised beef that crumbled delightfully into it and a winning combo of condiments made this tea a BLW win!

This served 2 of us and our 14month old with nice big portions. 

Everything was cut into strips (julienne):

First in the pan:

1tbsp Olive oil

Then: 

2 Red onions

1/4 Butternut squash (raw)

1 Aubergine 

After these began to soften I added:

1/3 Green cabbage

1/2 red pepper

1 yellow pepper

Then finally:

2tbsp coconut oil 

Crushed clove garlic 

Finely sliced ginger root (1/2")

5ml soy sauce (contains 0.8g salt)

2tsp honey

I stirred it through until the garlic and ginger had nicely caramelised. Served with jasmine rice (140g dry rice).

Accidental Granola

I usually make lovely sugar free flapjacks for the baby using dates and bananas. I had no dates or bananas so thought I would try peanut butter and maple syrup with sultanas (and butter and oats). My main error (I think) was that the mix wasn't wet enough and oats didn't "soak up" enough liquid before cooking.. I was rushing.

End result - over dry flapjacks which fell apart = YUMMY peanut butter and maple granola! 

The second batch of flapjacks (with apple juice introduced) is in the oven... However I can't blog about them as I didn't measure quantities.  I suppose there's a little bit of me hoping they'll fail too...

Quick pizza sauce

Quick to make while your pizza dough is rising...

Sliced red onion. 

Fry gently in olive oil until onions slightly browned and softened. 

Add 1tsp balsamic vinegar, 1tsp sugar and 1tbsp water - stir and heat until bubbling and sugar is dissolved (about 30-60s). 

Add one tin of tomatoes, leave on hob to simmer on a medium heat stirring occasionally until ready to use. Can be blended to make a smoother sauce. 

Dairy free peanut butter fudge

I finally made this! It is yummy and quick and has just 5 ingredients:

1/2 cup PB

1/3 cup coconut oil

1/4 cup honey

Few drops vanilla essence

Pinch of salt

1. Put all ingredients in one heatproof bowl. Microwave gently until the coconut oil melts (it's solid at room temp)

2. Mix thoroughly.  

3. Pour into silicon tray and freeze (I used large ice cube tray

4. Ready in about 45mins

5. Eat from frozen like you would normal fudge. 

Original recipe here: https://wholefoodsimply.com/peanut-butter-fudge/

Breadstick ideas

IMy one year old LOVES bread. It's probably not the best food she could be eating, but I can at least try to make it as healthy as I can. I tend to use a mix of white and wholemeal flour (babies aren't supposed to have too much fibre) and I don't add salt. For her birthday recently I made three "different" things with one lot of bread dough. The start mix was dairy free (olive oil instead of butter in this http://clearlyfood.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/breadsticks.html?m=1 recipe).

I made "dairy-free bread stars" (rolled dough out and used star cutter), they rose beautifully like mini pointy dough balls, no photo though - oops!

I made "cheesy bread men", adding cheese to the mix and rolling out then using a man cutter and sticking the feet and hands together like a paper chain. 

Then used the cheesy bread dough and some homemade pasta/pizza sauce to make mini pizzas.. 

These all froze and defrosted really well! 

Enjoy!

Cookie butter (should come with health warning)!

A friend shared this with me on Facebook yesterday, I thought I would try and make it for her as a present/surprise. Then in one of my favourite shops today they had these gorgeous jars and so I hatched a plan, and that was my afternoon gone. All plans to tidy and reorganise my bedroom gone in a flash of ultimate planned procrastination! 

What is "cookie butter"? It's liquified cookies with butter and condensed milk! Yep! Calorie overload!

This was the link my friend shared... so if you want to know how to make it you can find recipe here http://www.bustle.com/articles/83042-a-cookie-butter-recipe-thats-even-better-than-what-youll-find-at-trader-joes-video

I made three flavours... 

Choc chip cookies (fox's choc chip cookies, butter, condensed milk, evaporated milk, choc chips - added at the end). 

Custard creams (17 biscuits), butter, condensed milk, small amount evaporated milk.

Oreos (15 biscuits), butter, condensed milk and small amount evaporated milk.

The three packets of biscuits used most of a 250g pack of butter and a whole tin of condensed milk, I used v little evaporated milk as it was making mix too "wet". There was little left over once I'd filled the three jars. 

You can spread it on bread like chocolate spread or have it with rich-tea style plain biscuits or dip fruit into it. It's very very naughty and quite sickly.. but as a special treat....

Peanut butter and banana cookies (cakies)

My Mum has always made lovely peanut butter cookies. I've grown up with a love of peanut butter and want my daughter to do so too!

Another Mum currently doing Baby Led Weaning asked for low sugar biscuit recipes so it wasn't the end of the world if her son swiped her biscuit. I decided to see if I could reduce the sugar in the PB recipe, I also had some very ripe bananas to use. I also had a moment of madness and put too much egg in the recipe, but it worked anyway! They fall somewhere on the cake-cookie spectrum, hence the name cakie, you can dollop the mix free form, use mini muffin tin or pipe onto tray. These are yum (in my opinion) and recipe made 40 (I'll do half recipe in brackets in case you only want to make 20), so each cookie has 2.5g sugar in.

Preheat oven to 180°C and grease baking tray/ mini muffin pan etc.

Ingredients for 40 (20) 

2 very ripe bananas mashed (1 banana)

100g soft butter (50g)

100g sugar (50g)

120g PB (60g)

2 large or 3 small eggs beaten (1 large egg)

1 tsp baking powder (0.5tsp)

250-300g SR flour (130g)

0.5 tsp Vanilla essence (few drops)

1. Mix the soft butter and sugar into the mashed banana and mix to form a smooth paste.

2. Add peanut butter gradually... don't worry too much if it doesn't mix well at this stage 

3. Gradually stir in the beaten eggs and vanilla essence 

4. Weigh out full amount of flour (300g for full recipe), add the baking powder and then sift it in to the mix in approx 50g amounts... the consistency you're looking for is a thick cakey sort of consistency. I used three eggs and needed all the flour.

5. Grease baking tray or mini muffin pan. Either dollop heaped teaspoons full onto baking tray or put into piping bag* and pipe 3/4" wide strips onto tray. You can also use a mini muffin tray if you want more cake shaped portions.

6. You can top with a light dusting of sugar if you'd like. I push "dolloped" ones down with a fork to flatten slightly.

7. Bake at 180°C for 15-25 minutes (depends on size) remove when golden and ridges/edges are just starting to brown 

*I find zip lock bags work well. Spoon mix into a small ziplock/press and seal type bag, seal the top then snip a corner off and use as a piping bag... Nothing comes out the top as its closed!

The finished article, from left to right:

Piped, muffin, free form with forked top.

Green Thai curry paste (chilli optional)

I love making curry paste from scratch. The smells and flavours you get as you grind and blend are awesome. Now that I've got a little one, and a husband who's not a massive fan of spicy food I actually made it completely without chilli, and do you know what? It was still tasty!!

This is based on Jamie Oliver's The Naked Chef recipe but I've changed it a little over the years and now exclude salt and chilli!

You do need a food processor AND a pestle and mortar for this ideally.

4-6 spring onions OR 1 medium size white onion (chopped)

2 cloves of garlic (crushed)

1 inch fresh root ginger (grated or finely chopped)

1 tbsp coriander seeds (crushed in pestle and mortar)

1/2 tsp black pepper

2 lemon grass stalks (finely chopped) - I can't always get these and it's fine if you omit them

2 big handful of fresh basil on the stalk

2-3 big handfuls of coriander leaves on the stalk

3 tbsp olive oil

Zest and juice of 2 limes

Optional (less baby friendly) ingredients:

2-3 green chillies (deseeded and finely chopped)

1/4-1/2 tsp salt

Method:

Whack it all into the food processor and pulse.

Uses: 

Use in my Thai veggie burger recipe http://clearlyfood.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/thai-sweet-potato-and-chickpea-burgers.html?m=1

Or as the base for a Thai curry

Thai sweet potato and chickpea burgers

I had some friends coming for dinner, and fancied making Jamie's Thai Green curry, but one person was veggie, so I was trying to think of something relatively quick and easy I could try to make so she had some protein too!

I found this recipe for Thai Sweet Potato burgers online: http://ohsheglows.com/2013/10/28/thai-sweet-potato-veggie-burgers-with-spicy-peanut-sauce/ but wanted something simpler so I used my Thai paste I'd made for my curry (see curry paste blog entry).

My ten month old baby loved these (if you're giving them to babies bear in mind when you add chilli to your Thai paste/ and sweet chilli sauce). 

We think these would be good for a BBQ but bake in the oven first and reheat them on the BBQ later, as they'll fall apart and potato won't cook!

Ingredients:

2 sweet potatoes 

1 400g can chick peas

2-3tbsp green Thai curry paste (I used my own but you could easily use some from a jar)

2-3 tsp sweet chilli sauce (to taste)

1 egg

Preheat oven at 180°C

Method

1. Finely grate the sweet potatoes. If you have a food processor with a grater function, definitely use it. 

2. Roughly mash the chick peas - I actually whacked these through the F.P. grater too.

3. Beat the egg and combine it with the grated potato, mushed chickpeas, Thai paste and chilli sauce. Mix really well, the combination of the egg and chickpeas should be making it hold together fairly well.

4. Form into patties, I made six burgers with this recipe. I used my crumpet rings placed on a greased baking tray to form them, and cooked them in the rings (remember to grease rings too) but equally I think you could use floured hands to form them into patties. 

5. Place in oven and bake until golden brown - this took about 35mins. 

6. Serve alone or in a bun.

Lazy Dauphinoise

I love Dauphinoise potatoes. Love them. So do my husband and ten month old. However they can take ages painstakingly finely chopping and arranging potatoes then cooking them slowly. 

I wondered tonight if it was possible to speed the process up... I also wondered if it was possible to include parsnips (we have many). This was the result.

I used:

700g white potatoes (peeled)

175g parsnips (peeled) optional

60g butter

150ml double cream

Some milk (no more than 50ml, probably less)

Cast iron roasting tin (Le Creuset)

Prep 10-15 min

Cook 50-60 min

Preheat oven to 190°C fan

1. Pop the cast iron dish on the hob. Add half the butter and heat gently until butter is melted.

2. Finely slice the potatoes, do this however you like. Your food processor might have a mandolin setting, or the side of your grater, or a cheese slice, or a knife. They don't have to be neat, just do them quickly. Potatoes can blacken if left sliced too long. I couldn't mandolin the parsnips so I used a knife for them. 

3. Whack the potato (and parsnip) slices  into the buttery dish and stir with a flat spatula (I used a wooden one) to try and get as much coated as you can. Pour over the cream and stir again. Add a little milk if it doesn't mix well enough or you feel you need more liquid to get better distribution of butter and cream. Pat down the potato (and parsnip) slices so the top appears flat.

4. Melt the remaining 30g butter in microwave or over a bowl of hot water. Use a pastry brush to coat the top slices with butter.

5. Bake in oven for 50min to 1hr. Potatoes should be soft and golden brown with the thin edges of potato slices just catching.

6. Eat immediately. We had it with chicken wrapped in bacon and fresh veg!

Earl Grey & Orange Hot Cross buns (Waitrose Kitchen recipe)

I've never made hot cross buns, so when I saw these Earl Grey and Orange ones on the cover of Waitrose magazine I really wanted to give them a try.

The ingredients list was extensive, but didn't contain anything I didn't have (except Apricot Jam which I got from my Mother-in-law's jam store https://www.facebook.com/pages/Highgate-Farm-Rosemarys-Preserves-Beef-Apple-Juice/129697147075023).

So I got all the ingredients together...

...and made a start. I made the tea in a teapot, and when I'd poured out the 160ml for the recipe I drank the rest, bonus! 

The tea, sugar, flour mix developed well (the baby woke earlier than anticipated from her nap), so it did stand a bit longer!

This recipe says "40 mins prep +proving time"; well I should've heeded that warning... You leave the liquor 15 mins, the dough one hour, and the finished rolls another half an hour. That's 1hr 45 proving with the 40 minutes prep interspersed. Basically you can't hurry this! Luckily I had a rainy afternoon at home with a baby to feed and entertain in the gaps! Including cooking I've been making these buns all afternoon (about 3hrs)! 

It was hard work but I'm pretty pleased with the end result, though I was hurrying my crosses (which is silly as that's the presentation bit) as I needed to start thinking about our dinner. 

They were looking good before going in the oven:

They looked even better when they came out and had been glazed....

They tasted really good! Yummmmmy probably not AS orangey as they could but then I used satsumas rather than full size oranges. 

Were they worth the effort? Yes, though I can't imagine having the time to spend 3hrs baking hot cross buns very often! Good to know I can do it though!

One hour bread rolls (UK measurements)

We were out of bread and it was going to be about an hour until my husband came in for breakfast (he's a farmer) so I googled "one hour bread recipe" and came across these dinner rolls from Jaclyn at "Cooking Classy" http://www.cookingclassy.com/2014/10/big-soft-fluffy-one-hour-dinner-rolls/. It's worth having a look at her blog, method and pictures but I have tried to replicate my version here to be stand alone too.

The recipe is in US cups, I have a full set but I thought I'd convert as I went (weighing out) so that if successful (it was!) I could blog the metric measurements. This is one of my excuses for it taking a little longer than 1hr to make these! I think if you had dry ingredients weighed out already and you didn't have to search the kitchen for the right baking dish then they'd be pretty much done in an hour!

Prep 20mins + 20 mins proving 

Cooking time 15 mins

Makes 16 rolls

Ingredients

• 450g plain flour + 50g or so more for adding to dough/flouring surface 
• 40g sugar
• 7g sachet (1tbsp) fast acting yeast
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 180ml cold water
• 160ml milk
• 40g butter, diced (plus more for tops)
• 1 1/2 tsp lemon juice

Method

• 1. Preheat oven to 75°C (not a typo this is proving temp).
• 2. In a large bowl mix together 450g flour, sugar, yeast and salt.
• 3. In a microwaveable bowl or jug put the water, milk and butter and heat in microwave on full power (800+W) for 1 min15. Stir to melt butter.
• 4. Add wet mixture into dry mixture and add lemon juice. Either do this in a mixer with dough hook if you have one (I don't) or mix with a spoon/fingers whatever it takes. 
• 5. Knead in the bowl for about 4min until smooth and elastic, you may need to add more flour (use the reserved 50g if necessary). The dough should be slightly wet/sticky but manageable.
• 6. Cover bowl and rest 5 minutes. 

• 7. Meanwhile butter a baking tray or dish. I used two 15x30cm (ish) cast iron Le Creusets. Jaclyn at Classy cook used a 13x 9inch baking dish.
• 8. Lightly flour work surface and shape dough into an evenly level square, about 9 by 9-inches. I had to use a rolling pin and tape measure! 
  

  
  
• 
  
  
• Cut into 16 equal portions (don't have to be exact). 
• 
  
  
• Shape dough into balls, and place shaped dough portions into prepared baking dish. 
• 9. Dampen hands with water and brush tops of dough with the water (just so they don't dry while rising in oven). Transfer to very low oven, shut door and turn oven off. Allow rolls to rise 20 minutes (don't open oven door). 

Before and after proving.

• 10. Remove from oven and fast preheat oven to 190°C (fan). This took my oven 6 minutes. I just had rolls resting on the side while I waited.

• 11. Bake in preheated oven 14 - 16 minutes until nicely risen and tops are golden brown. 
• 
  Remove from oven and run a knob of butter on a knife over the tops of the rolls just to coat. Serve warm with butter.

• Recipe source: Cooking Classy
• Metric conversion: Clearly Food

Sweet potato and bacon muffins DAIRY FREE

These savoury muffins have a slight sweetness to them which sets off the bacon nicely. We had them for lunch but I reckon they'd be a good weekend breakfast or brunch... I may even be tempted to pour maple syrup on them! Great for baby led weaning my 9 month old loves them!

Ingredients

1. Pre-bake the sweet potatoes and grill the bacon. Preheat the oven to 180°C (165°C fan).

2. Mash the sweet potatoes in a large bowl.

3. Beat the 3 eggs together with oil, juice and seasoning.

4. Fold in flour and baking powder. 

5. Spoon into 12 muffin tin holes. 

6. Bake for 18-25 minutes* until risen, firm and nicely golden on top. 

7. Serve warm or cold with salad or o. Their own as a snack. 

*I used a Pampered Chef stoneware muffin tray for these so they took 25mins

Butternut squash muffins

Makes 12 muffins (I use 12 cup cake tray)

Preparation 15mins

Cooking 20 mins (Preheat oven to 175°C)

300g butternut squash peeled and grated

1 onion chopped finely

1/2 red pepper chopped finely

110g cheddar cheese grated

3 large eggs beaten

2 tbsp olive oil

120g SR. flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1. I use a food processor to grate the squash and cheese (and actually whack onion in as well). 

2. Mix together vegetables and cheese reserving about 20-30g cheese for topping muffins later. Add flour and baking powder and then stir the egg and oil mix in. Mix really well. 

3. Grease your tin (I use a well loved silicon cake tray which doesn't need greasing). The muffins are quite soft so need to be well greased so they don't fall apart when you're getting them out. You could use paper or silicon cases to help with this.

4. Spoon the mix equally between the 12 holes in the tin. Top with the reserved grated cheese.

5. Pop in the oven until risen and tops golden. 

6. Allow to cool in tin for a few minutes then move onto a cooling rack.

7. Enjoy as a snack or have a few with salad as a meal.  

Parsnip farls (experimental)

EXPERIMENT

I love love love potato farls! Any excuse to make them with leftover mashed potato whenever I can. 

I wondered if it was possible to make parsnip farls.. we have lots of home grown delicious parsnips this year...! 

I took 2 medium / large parsnips boiled and mashed with butter then added plain flour until the dough was stiff enough to roll out.. 

I perhaps misguidedly decided (since it was February when I did this) to use my heart shaped cutter but the dough was not strong so they all got a bit misshapen! 

I fried them both sides. The difference between parsnip and potato it seems is the sweetness. The parsnip caramelised slightly as it cooked, so "caught" but it was super tasty!! We all loved them for lunch and Baby B gobbled them up! 

REFLECTION 

I'll definitely do them again but I'll add more flour, probably use self raising flour (so that they rise slightly) and I won't use my heart shaped cutter! 

Peanut butter and choc chip cake

It was a lazy Saturday, a good friend was coming over for homemade soup and crumpets and cuddles with the baby. I realised I didn't have any "pudding", I'd thought about trifle but didn't have cream or time for that matter. So I thought I'd rustle up a quick sponge cake, and I had some chocolate chips, so I quickly consulted Nigella (DG) and Nigel Slater (Real Fast Puddings), but I didn't have enough time or ingredients. Then I thought "peanut butter goes well with chocolate chips"... 

Ingredients (makes two tier 8" cake) 

Serves 8-12 dependent on gluttony.

Cake mix 

6oz butter softened

6oz caster sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 heaped tbsp peanut butter (any)

6oz SR Flour

1heaped tsp baking powder

Milk approx 2-3 tbsps

3-4oz chocolate chips (dark)

Icing 

2 heaped tablespoons peanut butter

30g butter

Approx 250g icing sugar

Boiling water

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (Fan 165°C), grease and line two 8" cake tins*

2. Cream butter and sugar in a large mixing bowls with spoon or electric beaters. Add beaten eggs and vanilla essence and peanut butter. Mix well. 

3. Sift flour and baking powder together into mixing bowl of wet ingredients folding with a metal spoon, add milk if you feel the mixture is too stiff, it should be a slightly dropping (rather than pouring) consistency, stir choc chips through mix reserving some for decoration. 

4. Spoon mix into ready prepared tins and bake for 20-25 mins until top is firm but springy and a knife or skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool. 

5. When cake is cold make icing by mixing butter and peanut butter with icing sugar and gradually adding the boiling water to the icing until it's a spreadable consistency. 

6. I'm sure you could spend ages decorating this cake, but I quickly sandwiched them together with it and slapped the icing on the cake whilst my husband, baby and friend were eating crumpets in the other room... there's something attractive about a "just thrown together" freshly baked sponge! 

Enjoy!!

This was served before the chocolate chips had cooled!

Sausage risotto

For us this is a very flexible recipe dependent on what we have vegetable wise. I love adding grated apple to risotto - it pretty much disintegrates but adds a sweet and slightly caramelised flavour. This is what I did today:

Ingredients (serves 4-5)

6 sausages (I used 3 pork & apple, 3 chorizo)

2 small onions (sliced) 

3 small leeks (chopped roughly)

Olive oil (1-2tbsp)

250g risotto rice 

2 carrots (grated)

2 eating apples (grated)

1 kallo low salt stock cube (chicken) made up with about 1 litre of water 

I part-cooked the sausages in the oven then chopped them into rounds. Then heated up a large skillet pan, added olive oil, sausage rounds, leek and onion and fried gently until onion had softened and sausage browned attractively. I added the rice and stirred for a few minutes.

Then I added about half the stock and let it simmer until the liquid was absorbed. Then added the grated carrot & apple into the pan. Stirred well then kept adding liquid until the rice was cooked through and apples starting to caramelise. 

This took about 25 mins. I served it straight away but we will have half of it microwaved tomorrow. 

My crumpet recipe!

In the last 10 days I've made 5 batches of crumpets! I'm not sure I'm 100% there but I've worked my way through the process. I blogged about my first and second attempts already http://clearlyfood.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/homemade-crumpets.html?m=1 but now I feel I have found a recipe I'm really happy with! If you're new to crumpets it is worth reading the comprehensive critique of a lot of recipes in the guardian as it helps you understand the process. This recipe is based in quantities on Mary Berry's but with the proving process altered and some bicarb chucked in for good measure!

Ingredients

225g strong bread flour

150g plain flour

1tsp fast acting yeast (half a 7g sachet), I use Allinson's tinned. 

1tsp sugar

NO SALT (but you can add 1tsp if you prefer)

250ml milk

300ml warm water

1tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method

1. Add dry ingredients together (flours, yeast, sugar).

2. Mix warm water with milk in jug to form tepid liquid. Pour this into the dry ingredients, beat with electric mixer until smooth batter is formed.

3. Leave covered in a warm place for at least 1hr but today I left them 3hrs.

4. I then added 1tsp bicarb stirred into 20ml water and beat with electric mixer for two 2mins.

5. Pour batter into a jug (or two).

6. Leave to rest again for 10 mins

7. Grease the crumpet rings. Heat griddle (or heavy based pan) on high hob, add butter. 

As soon as griddle is hot add rings, turn down to medium heat and start to carefully pour in batter into the rings. 15mm (1/2 inch) deep. 

8. Let cook slowly. I have actually found it better if I don't place a ring in the middle of the griddle as it gets too hot and that crumpet will cook to quickly.

9. Bubbles should rise and as the dough thickens and dries out. It's rather captivating to watch! You can gently burst bubbles as they appear (Paul Hollywood says so), this helps to get them to the surface, but I've learned they are definitely there anyway!!

10. Wait patiently until the whole top of the crumpet has dried out (this might take up to 10mins!) then remove the ring and flip over. Cook the top side for 1-2 minutes until golden then move onto a wire rack. Hopefully the bottoms won't burn - this is the first time I've managed not to burn the bottoms! I think the difference was turning it down to medium heat before I added the batter!

11. Serve immediately (with butter and marmite/jam) or leave to cool and reheat in toaster. I think they should freeze ok too.