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Summer Corn Salad

Most days I shop with a list & a plan but sometimes it all goes out the window. Some days I walk into the “bio laden” planning to pick up the basics & I leave with a kilo of blueberries and a heap of corn on the cob.Those are the days when I get to play in the kitchen & when lunch is extra fun.

Corn on the cob makes me think of summer. Of barbecues and long, hot car journeys through the French countryside. Growing up we spent every summer in France, for the first years packed into a caravan with a pop up top, and then later in a 150 year old farm house that my parents fell in love with.

The house is in the middle of the countryside, surrounded by working farms. Corn is a huge crop and yet strangely it is grown there as animal feed. During the summer you see huge piles of corn on the cob, drying in the heat of the midday sun, ready to be fed to cattle.We were always the “crazy English” that were willing to pay for fresh corn and my parents were the “crazy English” willing to feed their children animal food.

This salad turned is delicious. The corn is fresh & lightly grilled. The avocado gives it a creaminess & teamed with the coriander and lime makes me think of LA Mexican inspired salads. The chickpeas are optional but I like the bite that they give and also the extra density that they add.

It’s the perfect satiating summer salad. I hope you like it as much as I do.

Ingredients (serves 2)
2 corn on the cob

2 tbsp rapeseed oil

1 avocado

10 cherry tomatoes

1/4 red onion finely chopped

1/2 tin chickpeas (129g cooked chickpeas)

2 tbsp olive oil

Small handful fresh coriander

Salt & pepper

Juice 1 lime

Method
Preheat your grill or griddle plan

Chop the avocado & place into a bowl with the quartered cherry tomatoes & finely chopped onion

Rub the corn with rapeseed oil & place under the grill or on the griddle

Watch closely & turn every 3 minutes or as the kernels start to colour

Once fully grilled remove & set aside for 5 minutes

Holding one end run a knife down the corn to remove the kernels into the bowl with the other vegetables

Mix everything together

Whisk together the lime juice, olive oil, salt & pepper

Finely chop the herbs & mix in with the dressing

Toss the salad with the dressing & eat immediately

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Roasted tomato and hummus tartine

Moving to Munich has been great and scary and fun and lonely and exciting. On the one hand nothing could be greater than experiencing a new city with our new baby girl. On the other we said goodbye to our roots. Years of friends and relationships stayed in London. I no longer know the hidden spots or the shortcuts. I don’t know the easiest tube exits. I don’t know where to go to get the best coffee (actually I do, it’s Emilio’s on Buttermelcher str) and I haven’t mastered any Bavarian.

Having a baby in your home city is new enough & changes your perspective entirely on life. This move at 8 months pregnant has thrown me for a loop at times.

What’s more, I gave up my job…again. And now, from the trenches of teething & sleepless nights in trying hard to launch a brand. The second the baby shuts her eyes, I dash to the kitchen to cook and to photograph. Then I have to navigate the madness that is social media. Press releases, German magazine contacts, product placements….so much to think about & not enough caffeine to fuel it.

It’s hard, because it’s new. Because my support system is mainly available via what’s app. But I’m getting there, maybe, I think? A friend I value above most things made one of my recipes this week, that’s the greatest thing ever!

So todays lunch needed to be delicious. It needed to lift my mood and taste great. As always it needed to be healthy and hearty. Monday’s soda bread became today’s lunch. Toasted well and then topped with speedy hummus and delicious roasted tomatoes. The perfect lunch. Everything I needed it to be & able to be eaten single handedly. Make this if you can, whilst the summer is still here & tomatoes are at their peak.

Hummus & roasted tomato tartine

Ingredients
4 tbsp hummus

2 slices soda bread (or other bread) well toasted

4 ripe roma tomatoes (I like to roast a whole tray of tomatoes as they keep for 4 days in the fridge)

1 tbsp olive oil

Salt & pepper

Method
Preheat your oven to 180C

Slice the tomatoes into quarter wedges

Place into a baking dish

Coat with olive oil and season liberally

Roast for 25minutes

Remove & leave to cool for 10 mins

Spread the bread with hummus

Top with roasted tomatoes

Enjoy

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No churn chocolate and almond icecream

Today I came to the conclusion that I do like almond butter, as long as it is mixed with dates, chocolate & coconut milk and then frozen. Basically I like it if it is turned into icecream!
I’ve never been able to get on the almond butter train till now, or the peanut butter train…and whilst I’m confessing I also don’t like avocados or plain coconut water or bullet proof coffee. I know they are all “superfoods” but in my mind, if they aren’t super for me, then they aren’t a super food.
Almond butter has, despite my aversion, often found its way into recipes. It works wonders in a dressing for Asian inspired salads or noodle dishes and it’s great in cookie dough as it yields a chewy consistency. I thought about trying it as an icecream ingredient because it’s high natural fat content makes it ideal for freezing as it will set but not rock solid.
This simple 7 ingredient ice cream is vegan, refined sugar free & also no churn, (because who needs another piece of kitchen equipment). I used almond butter and cacao but you could use peanut butter or maybe even seed butter if you are a nut free kitchen, you can even leave the nut butter out totally & sub in another milk. Instead of cocoa you could add in espresso and you can add in things too like cacao nibs or chocolate chips or freeze dried berries and chopped nuts.

We just put decking down in the garden and it’s been blissful to sit outside in the evening sun & eat icecream. It’s also surprising what a huge difference it makes to have icecream cones!!! Seriously an icecream at home game changer.

Next on the list is definitely homemade icecream cones….maybe with buckwheat flour? But I’m also currently obsessed with baked donuts so who knows what will be next out the kitchen

Ingredients
2 cans coconut milk chilled in the fridge overnight
16 dates pitted
80g raw/unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
40ml unsweetened almond milk
4 tbsp almond butter
1 tbsp cinnamon

Method
Place the dates into hot water & leave to soak for 10mins until soft
Drain & then place into a food processor
Process until you have finely chopped dates then add in warm water until a thick paste forms
Open the coconut milk & with a spoon remove the solid top “cream” and place into a mixing bowl
Add in the rest of the ingredients including the date paste
Blend or mix well until all ingredients are well combined (easier with an electric blender)
Pour into a shallow dish & place into the freezer
Freeze overnight
Remove 15 mins before serving

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Healthy magnums

There are times when I just want to be in the kitchen experimenting & last week was one of them. It felt like the cover of every food magazine was plastered with beautiful images of gelato & ice creams and all I wanted to do was try my hand at making my own.

I ordered various moulds online & as they arrived I got to work. These moulds were obviously designed for nothing less that home made magnums, in fact it would have been rude not to make homemade magnums in them.

Do you like magnums? They are certainly the husbands ice cream of choice but he eats them in the most specific/anti social way. He eats all the chocolate off the outside & then the ice cream centre. There is no way of sharing that…which is probably his intention!

Do you have certain ways of eating things? I prefer eating apples if they are sliced & also prefer peeling them & eating the “flesh” and peel separately. I don’t like cold milk in coffee, I drink tea black & really weak. My dad doesn’t eat sauces, not even ketchup or gravy and always says “good food doesn’t need sauce”. My mum only likes cold toast & never drinks the last dregs of her coffee but my favourite is that our neighbour carries a mini pepper grinder on his key ring to garnish anything he eats.

These magnums are light & creamy & delicious. They are rich & decadent but they are also refined sugar free, high in protein & packed with antioxidants. You can make these with greek yoghurt or coconut yoghurt as both work well. They are a treat as they taste great but they are also great for your body, surely what a treat should be. There are lots more ice creams coming your way so I hope you enjoy these & are ready for more! Happy summer!

Ingredients (makes 4)
1 tub Greek or coconut yoghurt (170g)
1 tbsp maple syrup
Seeds from 1 vanilla pod (optional)
100g raw or 80% chocolate

Method
Mix the yoghurt, vanilla & maple syrup together & spoon into your ice Molly molds
Allow to freeze (6 hours or overnight)
Melt the chocolate
Remove the ice lollies from the moulds & cover in chocolate using a spoon (hold the ice lolly over the pan of chocolate & spoon chocolate over it)
You can also sprinkle on nuts or toppings but you have to act really quickly as the chocolate freezes almost instantly
Place the lollies onto a piece of baking paper & place back into the freezer for 1 hour
Remove 5 mins before enjoying

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A juice buying guide

I love the fact that healthy options are becoming more widespread. It is so easy now to get a gluten free sandwich, a great salad or a vegan desert. Vegan pop ups are flourishing and more and more chains are making sure that they offer a wider variety of natural, wholefood based options. Alongside that it is now really easy to get smoothies and juices on every corner. The health benefits of juicing have become more and more apparent. A great way to deliver huge amounts of vitamins to your body in an easy to digest way. The problem is, not all juices are created equal and you need to be savvy to see which ones will boost your health and which ones will boost merely your blood sugar. So here is my guide to ‘Which juice should I buy?’

My juice buying tips:

Read the label – just because it is a great colour doesn’t mean that it contains great things

Look at the ingredients – what comes first? Ideally you want it to be vegetables

Check the quantities – out of 100% how much of the juice is made up of vegetables? If the juice is 90% apple, 10% kale.  You are drinking green flavoured apple juice not green juice.

Is it cold pressed? – Cold pressing is the most nutritious way to obtain juice..more on this later

HPP – this is the next best thing to cold pressing (and is often used in conjunction) and is high pressure processing. It retains freshness but increases shelf life. It is a much better alternative to pasturising.

Is it local? – the produce that goes into the juice matters and how many miles it has traveled matters too. The more local the produce, the higher the vitamin content

Is it seasonal? – this is similar to the local train of thought. If you are making a fresh juice or having one made for you, making sure that you pick seasonal produce will guarantee a better vitamin content. Kale is only in season during the frosty months…

I have taken a long time researching the market and trying to find great brands that i can support and love. My absolute favourite juice brand is B-Fresh. They are relative new comers on the market but they are amazing! They are doing it slightly differently to most others as they grow the produce and then juice it. They understand provenance. They understand seasonality. They understand the value of picking and bottling quickly. They are run by a passionate team, headed up by a third generation farmer. A man that understands how to grow high quality produce.
B-Fresh cold press their juice on site in a custom build juicery. They use HPP to ensure that it stays fresher for longer and also to keep it safe and bacteria free. You can order them online and they will be delivered in a chilled box ready for your fridge. Our favourites are #leanandgreen, #greenwarrior and #rockthebeets. Let me know if you try them and which one is your favourite…
Happy juicing x

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