Recipe: Crumpets

Crumpets have got the be the most quintessential British afternoon tea time treat. I, however, think that they definitely deserve a spot at a breakfast or brunch table. They're typically much smaller than their American pancake cousins but they share lots of the same ingredients and make for an equally, if not tastier, breakfast-time treat.

In recent years the traditional crumpet has undergone a bit of a makeover. Nowadays, the crumpets that you come across in supermarkets tend to have a spongey, chewy consistency with lots of holes on the surface. These crumpets come from the Victorian era and use extra yeast in the recipe (which explains their holey appearance).

The recipe I'm using makes the traditional crumpet, often known as flat griddle cakes or Scottish crumpets, and is the type of crumpet that you'll typically come across if you're ever lucky enough to visit a Scottish tea room.

This recipe definitely beats the Victorian one in terms of taste and ease of making. The fact that there's no yeast in this recipe means that you can pop the batter straight onto the pan as soon as you've mixed it up.  

These amazingly tasty creations are usually served warm, straight off the griddle pan, and are typically eaten with a little spread of butter and sprinkle of sugar. Absolutely delicious.

Here's all you need:

•  4 oz flour
•  1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
•  1 teaspoon cream of tartar
•  1 tablespoon sugar
•  2 teaspoons cooking oil
•  1 egg, beaten
•  approx. 1/4 pint milk

Method:

1. Sift the flour with the bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar into a mixing bowl.

2. Stir in the sugar, oil and the beaten eggs. Gradually add the milk and beat until everything is combined. You should be left with a fairly thick batter.

3. Heat the griddle or frying pan until hot. Grease it with some sunflower oil. 

4. Drop the batter onto the pan, a spoonful at a time, leaving space for the batter to expand. Cook until bubbles appear on the surface and the underside is golden. Then flip them over and cook the other side.


Serve with butter, sugar, maple syrup, yoghurt.. or whatever takes your fancy!

Photos all my own.

Recipe: 4 ingredient cookies

4 ingredients. 15 minutes baking time. Soft, chewy, deliciously healthy-ish cookies that are incredibly easy to make.

....did I mention you only need 4 ingredients?

I came across these beauties on The Sweet Life and thought they looked too easy and tasty to pass up. 

Here's all you need:

• 1 and half cups of oats (approx 130g)
• 1/3 cup of peanut butter (85g)
• 2 bananas (mashed)
• 1/4 cup of chocolate chips (45g) (I used chopped up Cadburys - trumps chocolate chips every time)

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 350f/180c/gas mark 4

2. Mix your mashed bananas, peanut butter and oats in a bowl. Make sure they're all combined and mixed well.

3. Fold in your chocolate chips.

4. Drop spoonfuls onto a parchment-lined baking tray and bake for about 15 mins, just until they begin to turn slightly golden.

 These little bites can be stored in an airtight container for a few days but they're definitely best eaten warm out of the oven.

Tuck in and enjoy!

Photos all my own.

Recipe: Superfood Summer Salad

I am a massive salad fan. In fact, I'm generally a fan of any dish that involves mixing together lots of different flavours and ingredients. This particular salad does just that and makes for the perfect summery salad. It's so delicious. It's also packed to the brim full of superfoods, making it a gold-star healthy dish on top of all of its tasty accolades. Winning all around.

Full credit for this wonderful concoction goes to Allegra McEvedy, who is the foodie mastermind behind the Leon restaurant's cookbook.

Here's what you'll need (serves two):

• 2 tablespoons quinoa
• 1/2 head of broccoli
• 2 salmon fillets (or chicken, or anything else you fancy)
• 2 handfuls of rocket
• 2 handfuls of baby spinach
• tomatoes
• 120g frozen peas
• lemon
• 2 tbs extra virgin olive oil
• a sprinkling of alfalfa sprouts
• a drizzle of aioli (recipe at end of blog post)
• 2 tbs of toasted seeds (I used sesame)
• a sprinkling of parsley and/or mint
• I also added some feta and would highly recommend

Method

1. To begin: marinate your meat

If you are prepared enough in advance, I'd recommend marinating your salmon or chicken. Place the meat into a mix of olive oil, lemon juice and garlic cloves, and sit it into the fridge for a few hours.

2. Cook the quinoa

Put 80ml of water into a pan and bring to boil. Cook the quinoa for approx 10 mins. Turn off heat and fluff with a fork. Then leave to cool.

3. Cook the broccoli

Cut the broccoli into small florets (a.k.a. little mini trees) and drop them into a pan of boiling water to cook for 3 minutes. Drain and run under a tap of cold water to cool.

3. Cook the salmon

Now it's time to cook the meat - be it salmon, chicken or whatever other protein you decided to add to the mix. I BBQ'd my salmon. The Leon recipe suggests grilling it.

4. Build your salad

If you're good at multi-tasking you can be doing this while everything else is cooking. 

It's time to build your salad: toss the leaves, tomatoes, feta, broccoli and peas in the juice of half a lemon and the olive oil.

Lift the mix onto whatever dish you're going to serve it all on - be it one big bowl or individual plates. 

Next, add the quinoa and alfalfa.

Finally, add the salmon, and top it off with a drizzle of your homemade aioli (recipe below) and a sprinkling of the toasted seeds and herbs.

.......Bon appétit!

  

To make the aioli

What you'll need:

• 1 egg + 1 egg white
• 4-5 cloves of garlic (minced)
• 120ml sunflower oil
• 200ml thick Greek yoghurt
• Juice of 1/4 - 1/2 lemon
• dash of salt to taste

1. Using an electric mixer, whizz up the eggs and garlic for a few minutes until pale and fluffy.

2. With the machine still going, slowly drizzle in the oil.

3. Turn off the machine.

4. Gently stir in the yoghurt and finish with lemon and salt.

(FYI - this should last in the fridge for up to a week and is great with lots of other dishes - think as a side to roast potatoes hot out of the oven)

Photos all my own.

Granola Recipe: The Ultimate Easy Mix

I know what you're thinking - making breakfast cereal is set aside for people who have far too much time on their hands... but I promise you that this recipe is seriously easy. It's minimal effort. The oven does most of the work and most of the ingredients you'll probably already have. 

Making your own granola will also save you a small fortune. I always find that decent shop-bought granola is way too expensive. Not too mention the fact that it's usually packed to the brim with sugar also.

On top of that, this also happens to be the best granola you'll ever taste in your life. I promise. I eat it for breakfast practically every day over some natural yoghurt, chopped fruit and a little drizzle of honey. It is the ultimate in tasty, easy, healthy breakfasts.

The recipe I use is based on Leon's Granola by Allegra McEvedy (page 142 of the first Leon cookbook) but I've adapted parts of it (e.g. the Leon's version uses bran, which I always leave out). However the method and quantities for the core ingredients always stays the same. 

The base of the recipe is groundnut oil, honey and oats. Once you've got that down you can add whatever you like into the mix. I usually add sunflower seeds, brazil nuts and figs. Dried cranberries, goji berries, raisins and pumpkin seeds are delicious additions also. 

Core ingredients (makes about 1kg = about 2 weeks worth of breakfasts):

• 150g (5 oz) honey
• 60 ml groundnut oil (sunflower oil works perfectly too)
• 250g (9oz) large rolled oats (the large flat type - not the usual small porridge oats)

Extra (all approx):

• 150g (5oz) seeds
• 100g (4oz) nuts
• 150g (5 oz) soft dates
• 150g (5oz) dried fruit

Step 1

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees centigrade/350 fahrenheit/gas mark 4.

Step 2: Honey and Oil

Put your honey and oil into a saucepan and heat gently until the honey has melted into a liquid. 

Step 3: Oats and Seeds

Pour your oats and seeds into the same saucepan and stir everything together - making sure the oats and seeds are fully coated in the honey/oil mix.

Step 4: Roast and Toast

Now place your mix onto a large roasting dish and pop it into the oven for about 25 minutes. You need to give the mix a good toss about four or five times during this time to make sure it all cooks evenly (the tops layer toasts quickest). If you're adding any nuts to your mix, this is a good time to place them in a separate cooking tray and pop them into the oven to roast too. About 10 minutes should be enough for them.

Step 5: Chop, Cool and Combine

When your oats have all turned golden and your nuts are nicely toasted, take them out of the oven and put them aside them to cool down. By now, your kitchen will be filled with the most incredible smell.

In the meantime, chop up your dates and prepare whatever dried fruit or extras that you've decided to add to your mix.

When everything has cooled down, mix it all together and pop it into a sealed container so it stays nice and crunchy.

Happy breakfasting! 

Photos all my own.

Recipe: Lemon Drizzle Fairy Cakes

How gorgeous is the weather in Ireland at the moment!? The sun has been shining pretty much non-stop for the past week and there is currently a lot of red-tinted pale skin being exposed everywhere.

Yesterday I spent a very lazy sunny Sunday afternoon in the garden, along with some friends, bucket loads of tea and some freshly baked Fairy Cakes.

Now these fairy cakes are hardly elaborate but sometimes it's good to keep things simple. They were super easy to throw together and ended up being surprisingly tasty so I thought I might as well share the recipe with you all. 

They were made using a standard madeira recipe, but I added a light lemony twist to give them a summery feel.

To begin I used the standard 4, 4, 6, 2 mix n' mix until you're blue recipe. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, that's:

• 4 oz butter
• 4 oz sugar
• 6 oz self-raising flour, and
• 2 eggs

Throw all your ingredients into a bowl and mix them all together, either with an electric mixer if you have one, or with a trusty wooden spoon if you don't (or, if like me you're lazy about washing up).

Now for the lemony goodness part; depending on your lemon preferences you can either add the lemon to the icing alone or you can add some extra zest into the recipe mix above. 

For the icing simply use icing sugar, lemon juice and some lemon zest. It's that easy.

Now pop on the kettle, grab your teapot... and bon appetit!

Photos all my own.

Recipe: Pink Lemonade

Last weekend I had some friends over for dinner and whipped up this extremely easy, and more importantly, very tasty Pink Lemonade. The total prep and cooking time was under 15 minutes and it lasts for up to a week in the fridge, meaning you can make it in advance if you're short for time.

After looking up lots of recipes online, I mixed a few of them together and came up with something that went a bit like this...

Ingredients:

• 4 lemons
• 2 oranges
• 350g caster sugar
• 400g of summer berries
• Ice, fresh mint, frozen berries, and lemon to serve (optional)

Method:

To begin, slice your oranges and lemons in half, and then squeeze the juice along with their remains into a large saucepan. Add in your summer berries (I used frozen), your caster sugar, and pour over 350ml of cold water.

Bring to the boil and allow to simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring often.

When it's cooled down pour the mixture through a sieve, pressing it through with a spoon to get all the remaining juices out. You'll be left with a fairly concentrated pinky syrup.

To Serve:

Here's the fun part. When it comes to serving I'd recommend using a roughly 50:50 ratio of syrup to drink of your choice - still or sparkling water, or if you want to throw some alcohol into the mix, Prosecco goes down well.

Pour a little syrup into a glass and top it up with the drink of your choice, ice, lemon, frozen berries and some fresh mint... et voilà!

Who's thirsty?

Photos all my own.