Recipe: Homemade Swiss Style Museli (via River Cottage)

Recently, on a Sunday evening I have found myself watching re-runs of River Cottage Every Day. A few weeks ago Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall presented some interesting options for breakfast including his own homemade Swiss Style Museli. I'm always looking for new breakfast ideas as it is the meal that I fail to get very excited about (unless it's a fry up at a greasy spoon after a night out!), so I decided to give the museli recipe a go. It's all I've been having every morning and when I realised I was almost out and needed to make up some more, I thought I'd share it with you:

Ingredients:

200g porridge oats

150g mixed dried fruit of your choice, such as raisins, sultanas, dried apricots, dates, prunes

100g nuts of your choice, lightly toasted if you have time

100g wheat flakes (optional)

3-4 tbsp seeds, such as pumpkin, sunflower, sesame or flax (optional)

To serve (for 1)

1 crisp eating apple

Juice of 1-2 oranges (or a little milk, if you prefer)

Sugar or honey

Plain yoghurt

How to make swiss style muesli:

1. To make the muesli, put the oats in a bowl. Roughly chop larger dried fruits, such as apricots, dates and prunes. Leave the nuts whole, or chop them roughly if you prefer. Add the fruit and nuts to the oats, together with the wheat flakes and seeds if using, and stir to combine. Tip into an airtight container, seal and store in a cool, dark place until required.

2. For a serving of muesli, put about 50g of the muesli mix into a bowl. Coarsely grate or finely chop the apple (including the skin) and add this to the muesli. Squeeze the orange(s) and add the juice to the bowl (or use milk, if you like). Stir to blend everything evenly and leave to soak for about 10 minutes. Finally, sprinkle over just a little sugar or trickle over some honey, add a good dollop of yoghurt and serve.

I prefer to serve mine with a large dollop of Greek yoghurt, fresh raspberries and a large drizzle of honey, how do you like yours? Next week I plan to try out the River Cottage answer to the Pot Noodle: Chorizo and Tomato Instant Noodles in a Pot. I'll let you know how that goes, naturally.

RECIPE: Oatmeal Thins

Made these earlier in the week and not only are they very very yummy, they are also very easy:

 

Thank you to Leia for this recipe.

Banana loaf

For the boyf's birthday - today - I decided to do some baking. I usually make a chocolate cake but this year thought I'd try a couple of different recipes from the famed Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. I went for this banana cake as alternative birthday cake and some oat and raisin cookies (recipe to come).


It didn't exactly look like a birthday cake, until I added the candles, of course:

Ingredients:

270g soft light brown sugar

2 eggs

200g peeled bananas, mashed

280g plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

140g unsalted butter, melted

a 23 x 13-cm loaf tin, greased and dusted with flour

Makes 8-10 slices

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170C (325F) Gas Mark 3.

2. Put the sugar and eggs in a free-standing electric mixer with a paddle attachment (or use a hand-held electric whisk) and beat until well incorporated.

3. Beat in the mashed bananas.

4. Add the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and ginger to the sugar mixture. Mix it thoroughly until all the dry ingredients have been incorporated into the egg mixture.

5. Pour in the melted butter and beat until all the ingredients are well mixed.

6. Pour the mixture into the prepared loaf tin and smooth over with a palette knife.

7. Bake in the preheated over for about 1 hour, or until firm to the touch and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

8. Leave the cake to cool slightly in the tin before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

Eat and enjoy!

Sweet Treat: Strawberry pastries

I made these for dessert for the boyf and I tonight. Very yummy. And very easy.

Ingredients:

Custard (the boyf and I love Marks and Spencer's Thick and Creamy Custard with Vanilla), Strawberries, Sweet Tartlet cases and Apricot Glaze (if you would prefer to make this yourself, there is a recipe here - also has a recipe for a whole tart of this kind).

Method:

1. Fill the pastry cases with a thin layer of custard.

2. Halve enough strawberries to fill as many cases as you have.

3. Arrange the strawberries in the cases, on top of the custard.

4. Top with the apricot glaze, using a pastry brush to spread it out.

5. Chill.

6. Enjoy as a dessert or a sweet treat with a café au lait!

Easy Peasy Paella

Spent the weekend with my family and my mum and I made this paella one night. It is not perhaps a very traditional recipe of this panish classic but it is easy peasy.

Spicy prawn paella 

Serves 4

Preparation time 10 minutes

Cooking time 20 minutes

Ingredients

225g Asda chorizo, diced

1 onion, chopped

1 green pepper, deseeded and diced

2 cloves garlic, crushed

200g basmati rice

500ml chicken or fish stock

12 cherry tomatoes, halved

200g pack Asda cooked whole prawns in shells (or peeled prawns)

Flat leaf parsley, to serve


Method 

1. Dry-fry the chorizo for 2 minutes in a deep frying pan. Add the onion and pepper and cook for 5 minutes until softened. Stir in the garlic and rice, followed by the stock and tomatoes. Bring to the boil and cover. Lower the heat and cook for 15 minutes, without lifting the lid.

2. Stir prawns into the rice, replace lid and heat for 3 to 4 minutes. Scatter with parsley to serve.

It was delicious! As you can see:

TV dinner gone posh!

Stuffed peppers and Philadelphia salmon

This is a just little something I rustled together tonight for my mum and me that I thought you might like to partake in!

1. Lightly oil a baking tray. Cut the tops off the peppers and rub a little oil into the skins. Place  the salmon fillets and peppers on the tray. Spread a layer of Philadelphia over the fillets.

2. Melt some butter in a pan.

3. Halve or quarter a handful of tomatoes and finely chop a clove of garlic. Add to a bowl.

4. Add finely chopped spring onions to the melted butter.

5. Crumble feta cheese into the bowl of tomatoes and garlic.

6. Add bread crumbs to the butter and spring onions and stir so that they are all coated.

7. Add a splash of balsamic vinegar and olive oil to the tomatoes, garlic and feta cheese and stir.

8. Stuff the tomato-garlic-feta-balsamic-vinegar-olive-oil mixture into the peppers.

10. Top the salmon fillets and stuffed peppers with the bread crumb mixture. And place in the oven.

11. For 25 minutes.

12. At 190C.

13. Serve with steamed new potatoes. And enjoy!!

I realise that this recipe is a little haphazard but this is how I tend to cook: a little all over the place!!

Hungry? How About Gingerbread Men?

I made some rather yummy gingerbread men last week. Dad bought me a lovely pink cutter from John Lewis when he came to visit so I thought I'd put it to good use with the recipe I found on the side of the demerara sugar packet (below).

Crunchy Gingerbread Men

Ingredients:

350g plain flour

1 tsp (5 ml) bicorbonate of soda

2 tsp ground ginger

100g butter, softened

175g demerara sugar

4 tsp (60 ml) golden syrup

1 egg

 

Method:

1. Sift flour, bicarbonate of soda and ginger into a bowl

2. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs

3. Stir in sugar, then beat in the syrup and the egg

4. Kneed until smooth

5. Halve the mixture and roll out each half on a lightly floured surface to 5 mm thickness

6. Stamp out the figures or shapes; re-rolling the trimmings as necessary

7. Place well apart on greased baking sheets

8. Bake in the oven on 190C (Gas Mark 5) for about 12 minutes, cool slightly

9. Then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely

10. Enjoy!!