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No bake breakfast bars

I got an apology today. From a German Doctor. Mays birth was wrapped with so many emotions. Joy, relief, love but unfortunately there was also fear, abandonment, hurt and worry. The short version is that we were let down by a host of medical staff, from the doctor that admitted me, to the nurses on duty that day. The thing is that everyone is human, we all have bad days, we all have days when we are rushed and tired and stressed, and I can only imagine that in the medical profession all of those things are a million times harder and more serious. But two things happened last week. Firstly I was reading about birth and the author wrote that in birth, despite what traumas may happen, most of us think ‘at least I have a healthy baby’ but, she wrote, you matter too. Secondly I realised that I wasn’t ok with it. This seems so obvious to say but often we are not ok with something and yet we settle for it, or we quash it beneath a flurry of other feelings. Last week I realised that I wasn’t ok with what happened and that I wanted my chance to talk about it and my chance to get an apology that I feel I deserve. That day was supposed to be a magical one. I had no expectations going into it, I was willing and ready to listen and learn from the experienced medical team. I deserved to enjoy it, to feel cared for and accepted, loved and respected. I deserved to feel special because I had just given birth to an amazing baby girl. I had become a mum and I needed a little love for it.

So today, I got on the bike and cycled through the snow. I had a range of tests and then I sat opposite the Dr that delivered May and told her exactly how those 48hrs were for me. She sat, she listened and then she held my arm and apologised. She offered me support, she wrote complaints but most of all she validated that what happened wasn’t ok. And now of course it all feels a lot better.

So I am sitting here, writing this and drinking coffee. The baby is sleeping after a morning at nursery, the husband is running errands. There is an apple cake baking in the oven and a cauldron of ratatouille on the stove to drop round at a friends house. My eyes are burning with tiredness, emotional rather than physical, and i am eating the last of these breakfast bars. These bars have lasted 2 weeks in the freezer and they are amazing. They are the best grab and go bar I have ever made and I love that you keep them frozen but that they are ready to eat within 5 minutes. You dont need to add any chocolate to them but you can if you like – just melt a few pieces of 80% and then spread in a paper thin layer over the finished bars before chilling. These bars are ideal with a coffee in the morning, you can eat them with one hand as you nurse/type/push the pram and i promise they dont lead to any sugar spikes…Im off to lie down for 10minutes and to pat myself on the back briefly.

ps – i took some beautiful photos of these bars but nothing with upload properly so bare with me and I promise more shots will appear soon x

Ingredients
200g dates destoned
60g almond (or peanut or sunflower) butter
80g honey (or maple syrup)
110g chopped nuts and/or dried fruit
140g oats

Method
Line an 8x8inch baking dish or tray
Place the almond butter and the honey into a pan
Place the dates into a food processor with a splash of warm water and process for 5-7 minutes until they broken down and dough like
Place the dates and oats and chopped nuts/fruit into a large bowl and stir well to combine
Warm the honey and nut butter till they are a smooth sauce
Pour over the oat mixture and stir well
Press into the baking dish and then place into the freezer to set
These will keep sealed in the freezer for at least three months
Remove 5-10 mins before you want to enjoy

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I like…breakfast donuts

This morning I text two of my favourite ladies. I needed advice, on the important matters of jeans and makeup. I don’t have a beauty regime, unless you count washing your face with water in the shower and the months of no sleep are starting to show. Also, now that the baby is less sticky/sicky I fancy looking a little more polished and brighter. One of my girlfriends wrote back ‘with your cheekbones and bod I would wander round naked with no make up at all’. What a phenomenally uplifting thing to say. Seriously, that compliment was greater than any makeup I could buy. I feel so good and it made me realise that we are so quick to critisize ourselves and to highlight our faults and flaws. I don’t ever stop to think ‘wow look at my cheekbones’ but I could tell you all the quirks that I would like to airbrush out. Wouldn’t it be nice to just state what we love about ourselves.

So I thought I would kick it off. I love that I am punctual. If you need me to be somewhere at a certain time, I will be there. In reality I will be there early and be awkwardly standing around trying to not look too early and keen. I am good at feeding people. I know this might sound silly, but I love to make big platters and bowls of food and watch everyone tuck in. I love that food opens up conversation and makes everyone feel a little warmer and rosier. I don’t find it stressful to make tons of food or bake cakes and can happily host a spontaneous dinner party. Finally I am hardy. If you need IKEA furniture building, your house packing up, a shop opening, cement pouring, or a harvest of apples picked..count me in. I can happily toil away for days on end as long as I am caffeinated and occasionally fed.

It turns out that I am also pretty good at baking donuts. These little beauties are breakfast donuts because they are packed with apples and carrots, chia and oats. They are topped with honey and bee pollen. They are shaped perfectly for on the go with a coffee in hand as you cycle to work (this may be illegal so maybe don’t do this!). I promise you, you will like yourself a little more if you make them and if you share them then others will like you more too!

Ingredients (makes 9)
125g instant oats
125g flour
1 tsp baking powder
4 tbsp stewed apple
1 grated carrot
1 tbsp chia seeds
1 tbsp chopped dried fruit
3 tbsp rapeseed oil
1 egg (or 1 flax egg)

2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp bee pollen

Method
Preheat your oven to 160C
Place the egg, oil, carrot, apple and chia into a large bowl and whisk together
Sift in the dry ingredients and the oats and fold together
Spoon into a well greased donut pan
Bake until golden brown (approx 12-15mins)
Turn out immediately onto a cooling rack
Whilst still warm brush with honey, wait 1 minute and brush again
Sprinkle with bee pollen and leave to cool

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Verbena Harissa and roasted vegetable swiss roll

As much as I love a little bite of something sweet, at this time of year all I want is spice and warmth. I really really feel the cold. I never used to. As I kid I could happily play for hours outside at minus 15C. Now I need multiple layers. Im not sure what changed, maybe it was being so ill for so long, but I relish cosiness more than ever. As autumn arrives we start to change things at home, just as we did growing up.

The summer clothes are packed away, the winter coats brought up from the basement. The bowls on the dining table are replaced with tea light holders and the cushions on the sofa get bigger and fluffier. Sheep skins appear suddenly on the footstools in which to nestle your toes and we put out a basket of slippers for guests to wear. The ends of the beds become weighed down with thick blankets too and you can find me curled up somewhere, wrapped in an oversize man repeller cardigan drinking oversized mugs of ginger tea.

In the kitchen things change too and I find myself adding more warming flavours to dishes. Ginger, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon spice up cakes and bread and vegetables are dressed with chilli. This swiss roll is inspired by last nights Great British Bake Off. Their ‘roulades’ were sweet and you could certainly use the sponge here and roll it with pumpkin spiced cream and apple, or you could do as I did and spread it with a thick layer of verbena harissa and roasted vegetables.

The verbena harissa is delicious and is simply made by blending a handful of spinach with some harissa, and a few shoots of lemon verbena and coriander. It packs a little heat that pairs well with any seasonal vegetable. If you don’t feel like making it you can buy this super tasty version. You could also mix harissa with some hummus or use tapenade instead. I rolled it with roasted carrots, courgettes, peppers and some shallots but you could do pumpkin, butternut squash, leeks and any other veggies that you fancy, you could also add in spinach or watercress too. This is an autumn lunch, warm, roasted and spicy. Enjoy

Ingredients
5 eggs or 6 tbsp of aquafaba if vegan
5 tbsp plain flour
3 carrots peeled and finely sliced
1 courgette finely sliced
1 shallot quartered
1 yellow pepper finely sliced
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
3 tbsp verbena harissa

Method
Preheat the oven to 18OC
Place the vegetables into a large baking dish and rub with the oil
Place into the oven for 35mins or until soft
Place the eggs or the aqua faba into a large clean bowl and whisk until white and fluffy (will take approx 15 mins)
Slowly fold in the sieved flour a little at a time
Tip the mixture onto a baking paper lined baking tray and gentle spread out
Place into the oven and bake for 15mins or until golden brown
Remove and set aside to cool
Once cool spread with the harissa and layer with the vegetables
Using the baking paper for grip, rolls the dough up into a spiral
Keep it wrapped tightly in the paper and leave for 15mins to ‘set’
Slice and enjoy

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Banana eggy bread

French toast to some this will always be eggy bread to me.

I used to go on Brownie camp every year, and every year we would get eggy bread one morning for breakfast. Depending on your duty that morning you sometimes got to be the lucky one dipping slice after slice of bread ready to feed a troop of hungry mouths. The only bad fate was if you were left till last with the heel of the loaf. Nothing is a bigger let down that heel of the loaf eggy bread. Back then I hadn’t even heard of maple syrup and the only choice of topping was ketchup. I grew up firmly in the eggy bread as a savory breakfast camp and despite the husband and LA’s best efforts maple syrup does not get plate space with my ‘french toast’. With the little one loving finger food, eggy bread is a great breakfast. Its easy and quick to make and is a total family pleaser. This recipe adds in banana but you can leave it out, or add in other flavors like grated carrot, grated apple or just keep it plain and simple.

This banana eggy bread is the baby’s favorite variety. The banana caramelizes and sweetens the bread meaning that you don’t need any extra sweetener or syrup. I like to serve hers on lollipop sticks, interspersed with slices of soft or cooked fruit. She loves pulling the food off and I love that there is less food flung around the kitchen.

Can we just go back to maple syrup for one second. Did it exist in Europe in the 90’s? What about hummus? Chia seeds? There are so many foods now that are a regular part of my diet. Foods that don’t seem exotic to me at all in many ways and yet if I think about them, I think I only tasted them in my twenties for the first time. Along with hummus and maple syrup I could also add sushi, dimsum, thai green curry, tofu, and so many more. What about you?

Thankfully this eggy bread is as good now as it was 25 years ago. This is a recipe that I loved growing up and that my daughter loves now. I hope you enjoy it too.

Ingredients (serves 4)
4 large slices of bread
2 eggs whisked
3 tbsp milk
2 tsp cinnamon
1 ripe banana

Method
Whisk together the eggs and the banana
Stir in the cinnamon
Whisk in the milk
Soak the bread slices in the eggy mixture
Once they are well soaked place into a hot oiled pan and cook on either side until golden brown

For little ones, cut into cubes and serve with soft fruit

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YNBO- Tigernut buttermilk pancakes with coconut butter

We just got back from the most beautiful weekend in Cambridge. We have come back reinvigorated, filled with friendship & our kitchen has a few new ingredients to boot.

We got back just in time for this weeks adventures in the tent too, and last night was all about the batter. Was it the first time ever that the ovens were only used in one out of the three challenges? And also is it a bake if it’s not in an oven? Anyway, Great British Batter Off saw the bakers (batterers sounds oh so very wrong) tackle identical Yorkshire puddings, lace pancakes and finally churros. There were some great flavor combinations but personally I have to admit that I missed the baking bit last night. Still, it was fate that pancakes were a challenge & I can home from Cambridge with a bag of unusual flour that I have been itching to use!

I decided for my YNBO batter challenge to make plant based buttermilk pancakes using an ingredient that is totally new to me: tigernuts. Tiger nuts are not actually nuts, they are in fact a tuber & they used to be sold in sweet shops in the 1940s & 50s. They are rich in iron and have a nutrient profile that mirrors…well, breast milk. They are also a pre-biotic too.

They taste creamy, rich & slightly nutty, similar to a cashew. Thanks to a wonderful friend, I am the proud owner of 2kg of tigernut flour & with batter week upon us it seemed like the perfect time to test it out. Tiger nut flour looks not dissimilar to spelt flour. It is nut brown and very finely milled. These pancakes are somehow fluffy & thick and yet dense at the same time. They remind me of buckwheat pancakes. The tiger nuts provide a rich taste and the baking powder gives them lift. The homemade buttermilk helps keep them light & moist (sorry there is no other word!). I added lemon zest to the mix but you don’t have to and these could easily be a savoury base, topped with pesto & roasted vegetables or even made into single bite canapes hosting any toppings you fancy.

The coconut maple butter is inspired by LA and a delicious breakfast at The Butchers Daughter. With the baby asleep in the ergo, I perched on a stool & devoured buckwheat pancakes with berries & melting coconut butter. I practically inhaled them, pausing only to lick stray crumbs off the little ones head. I’ve never had such great pancakes since but these tigernut ones have arrived and are bringing a little bite of Abbot Kinney into our kitchen.Inspired by LA, created in Munich, prompted by Welford Park and facilitated by Cambridge. These are seriously international pancakes.

Ingredients (makes 8 pancakes)
1 cup (250g) tigernut flour

1 cup (250g) spelt flour (or gf flour)

Juice 1 lemon

1 tsp baking powder

1.5 cup (180ml) oat or other milk

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

Method
Place the lemon juice into the milk & set aside for 10 mins

Place the flour & baking powder into a large dish

Add the lemony milk & apple cider vinegar and stir well

Leave to sit for 10mins

Ladle the mixture into a hot greased pan letting the pancakes bubble on the upside before flipping over

Ingredients (Coconut maple butter)
8 tbsp desiccated coconut

1 tsp maple syrup

Method
Place the coconut into a food processor or spice grinder

On a medium setting allow to process

Scrape down the sides every minute to keep incorporating

Keep processing till you have a creamy butter

Stir in the maple syrup & serve

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