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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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Butternut mac and ‘cheese’ with a buttery sage and oat crust

I did a little poll on Facebook the other day into what peoples comfort foods were.Mac and cheese kept getting mentioned and so I decided to see what all the fuss was about. Ill fess up now, that I have never eaten mac and cheese and that is for one simple reason. I really really don’t like melted cheese. I dont even like the smell of melted cheese and this is a real problem come lunch time in Central London. Most lunch places are rammed with folks ordering sandwiches and many of these sandwiches contain cheese (it is England after all) and lots of said sandwiches need toasting. This means that the entire place smells of slightly charred cheese. Even my beloved Fernandez and Wells isnt immune to it and whilst I am sure that they are carefully toasting a homemade sourdough with locally churned white cheddar and a cheeky pickle…I still cannot enter the smokey premises during the noon hours. It is only once the afternoon settles in and the tea pots are put to use, and the world starts thinking of cake that I can go and get my lunch.

That said I wanted to make mac and cheese but I wanted to try the ever popular butternut squash version.The logic is that you can either half the cheese in your normal recipe by adding butternut squash or you can swap it out totally. In normal mac and cheese there is a whole heap of cheese as well as butter, flour and milk or cream forming the basis of the white sauce. When you use butternut puree you do away with the need for a white sauce as it is naturally thick and clings lusciously to the pasta. I used nutritional yeast as we had some in the cupboard and I had always been a little apprehensive about trying it.

Even though it looks (and smells) a little like goldfish food, it is in fact a total powerhouse of nutrients. For anyone on a plant based diet it contains the magic Vitamin B12. It also, when used in cooking tastes remarkably like parmesan. If you want to add cheese, go ahead, try ricotta, feta or a tangy cheddar.

The topping here is toasted buttery oats flavoured with sage. They add texture, bite and a salty richness to the dish. This version is perfect comfort food. Creamy, rich and comforting but with a little hit of autumn vegetables. It is a great family friendly recipe too – the baby loves it!

Ingredients
1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed
2 cloves garlic
2 tbsp rapeseed oil

4 tablespoons nutritional yeast (or 6 tbsp grated cheese)
0.5 tsp paprika
0.5 tsp ground nutmeg
200ml oat or other milk
300g dried macaroni

50g oats
2 tbsp chopped sage leaves
1 tbsp butter or butter alternative

Method
Preheat your oven to 180C
Rub the butternut squash with oil, salt and pepper
Place into a baking dish with the garlic and roast until tender
Whilst the squash is roasting, cook the pasta according to the packet until it has a firm bite
Once cooked, drain and set aside
Place the roasted butternut squash, milk, nutmeg, nutritional yeast, and paprika into a blender and process until totally smooth
Combine with the pasta
Pour the mixture into a baking dish
In a frying pan place the oats,  butter and sage and allow to ‘fry’ until golden and crispy
Top the pasta with the oats and bake for a further 15mins

 

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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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Baked celeriac

I love the audacity of a single ingredient meal. The fact that one product can, with a little love, provide total nourishment.

Ive thrown my back out again, I think it’s emotional. The baby turned one, the husband turned a corner, the family returned home after a blissful weekend. I haven’t had the energy or desire to cook properly but I also know that my soul needed something good even if my belly wasn’t sure. I needed something that didn’t need me. Nothing that required measuring or stirring. No weighing. No checking.

This baked celeriac simply needed a clean, then a good glug of olive oil and then to be parceled up with some rosemary & a couple of garlic cloves, salt & pepper.I put the oven on, I forgot about it. As with most root roasts, the longer & slower the better. I gave this one a good 90minutes.

This is as comforting as a jacket potato. The outside is slightly taught & crispy, the inside perfectly fluffy. You simply dive in, mix in a little of the roasted garlic & a knob of butter. If you have any good bread to hand then spread some of the fluffy celeriac on, add a sprinkle of tangy sheep cheese & a extra grind of pepper.

This is comfort food. This is food that says it doesn’t matter that your back hurts, that the baby’s teeth are annoying or that the husband let the summer pass him by. This is food that warms your belly & gives you a little hug from the inside.

One ingredient, pure comfort.

Ingredients
1 cleaned & trimmed celeriac

2 – 4 cloves garlic

2 tbsp olive/rapeseed oil

Salt & pepper

2 sprigs rosemary

Method
Preheat your oven to 160C

Place the cleaned celeriac onto a piece of tinfoil

Rub with olive oil & season

Add the garlic & rosemary to the foil and then wrap up into a parcel

Place into the oven & bake for approx 90mins

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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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