Category Archives: Baking

Chicken and feta sausage rolls

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This recipe is my go-to saviour for when I need to make something to take a dish along to a party or gather. I am not a baker in the traditional sense (I could happily live a cake-free existence if required) so I always like to take something savoury. I also have a load of friends who are way better at making cakes than I’ll ever be!

A friend of mine suggested it to me, and after making it once I was hooked. These will convert people who will proclaim “but I don’t like sausage rolls!”. Well, if they like chicken, they will love these. I did start wondering whether a “sausage roll” is still a sausage roll if it’s made from chicken. Hmm, tough philosophical question … I’ll come back to that another day (or you can comment below and let me know what you think!)

Top view of the sausage rolls

500g minced chicken meat
1 small eshallot, finely chopped
grated zest ½ lemon
4 tablespoons chopped rocket
4 tablespoons fresh breadcrumbs
½ teaspoon chilli flakes
100g feta cheese crumbled
2 sheets ready rolled puff pastry
1 egg, beaten

Combine all ingredients except pastry and egg and mix well with your hands. Season well with salt and pepper. Halve each sheet of pastry. Divide meat into 4 sausages the length of the pastry, and place one slightly off-centre on each strip. Brush one edge of pastry strip with beaten egg and then fold over the other to enclose sausage meat. Press down to seal with the back of a fork. Brush with beaten egg. Cut each roll into 2 or 3 smaller sausage rolls, and prick each with a fork. Repeat with the rest of the pastry and meat. Chill for at least 30 minutes. Bake in preheated 220°C oven for 25 minutes, or until golden. Serve warm. Makes 8-12.

Side view of the sausage rolls

The recipe is originally from The Australian.

In the UK it can be hard to find chicken breast minced, so I just buy breasts and put them in the magic bullet to mince them up. Works perfectly! I then do the same with the rocket and crumble the feta by hand. If you make these, be sure to comment and let me know if you loved them. These always go down a treat at a party!

Eating the Cupboards

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I think I invented this, or at least gave something that already exists a new name. Before we left for Melbourne, we were furiously penny pinching and had heaps of food in the cupboards. So about two weeks before we left, we stopped buying food in an effort to run down our supplies, as well as save money.

To do this needed a little bit of planning.

1. I wrote a list of everything we had in the cupboard (pantry), fridge and freezer. 

What's in the cupboard?

What’s in the cupboard?

2. I started thinking about what would go together. If you think about food as proteins and carbs, this makes it a bit easier to work out a meal. With the help of google, I would put a couple of ingredients in and see what it came up with. As you can see at the bottom of the list, I did need to buy a few things – tomatoes, ricotta and potatoes. But overall, I used what we had.

Recipes for the week

Recipes for the week

3. I then wrote down all the days of the week I had to cook for, and started slotting meals in. If you are cooking for two people, but the meal serves 4, make sure to put down the leftovers for your lunch the next day.

This was incredibly successful! It is best if you have an idea of how much of an ingredient you will use (for example, a 400g bag of spinach will probably be enough for a dinner sized meal for four).

Some of the meals we made were hideously awful, I’ll be honest. Mushroom and cabbage lasagne was probably the worst thing I’ve ever made. It doesn’t even sound nice! Others were a big hit – lobster risotto was surprisingly luxurious for a risotto made from soup and tinned lobster.

Overall though, it was a great experience and made me bit more inventive. I can be a bit lazy and resort to going to the shops, when I could think of something delicious for dinner from what we have. I had friends over a couple of days before we left, and they were impressed with the dips I served up from what we had in the cupboard, as well as home made breads.

Book review – I Quit Sugar Cookbook

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I got lots of lovely nice feedback on Twitter about my I Quit Sugar post! Thanks to everyone who tweeted – your feedback was really nice and uplifting.

I thought I’d do a follow up post about what you actually eat on the I Quit Sugar programme. As I’ve been doing it for a while now, I am getting more inventive so will do a few of my own recipe posts in the upcoming months.

So here are a few things I’ve made, so you can get an idea of what you’d be eating if you gave it a try.

Coco-nutty Granola

Coco-nutty granola on pancakes (made from eggs, cottage cheese & oats)

Sarah has posted on her website the recipe for her granola – she says this is her most popular recipe from the Cookbook. I think this is because it is so easy, very delicious and easy to adapt to whatever you have in the cupboard. I have made this a couple of times, and I really enjoy it as well. It is great with yoghurt and berries for breakfast or a snack.

Straight out of the oven: coco-nutty granola

Fennel soup

Fennel soup with chicken, yoghurt and Parmesan

I was browsing the Cookbook as I had some fennel, but wasn’t sure how I could use it. To make this recipe I just needed leeks so I went ahead and made it. I am slowly becoming a soup addict – I used to find soup always left me hungry, but that was because I was eating the tinned variety. When you make your own soup and control what goes in, I find it is more satisfying.  I made this soup and then added in some extras at the ended – shredded chicken, Parmesan and yoghurt. But the soup on its own was delicious and I can’t wait to make this again. I ended up with about 5 servings from this recipe as well and it freezes really well, which makes it great for when you forget to make lunch.

Hash

Sweet potato, pumpkin seed crush

The best way to describe the hash recipes is that it’s just a mix of a variety of vegetables and nuts in whatever combinations you like. The first hash I made pretty much followed Sarah’s recipe and had sweet potato and pumpkin seeds in it and topped with yoghurt. It looked more like a dessert than a dinner! I put it in a bowl and struggled to finish it – it was really filling. It is also great to use up whatever you have in your fridge like herbs with a nice refreshing lemon dressing. This also makes a great, quick lunch to take to work if you have cooked the vegetables in advance. You could also add in bacon bits, shredded chicken, cheese or tuna to add in more protein.

Crushes/pesto

Pea and almond crush

I am addicted to crushes and pestos now. These are such a great way of eating more raw vegetables while still having a snack or meal that fees like a treat. I have it on toast, mixed into a hash, used as a pasta sauce, as a dip or as a pizza base. They are versatile and could really be used for anything! My husband isn’t a huge fan of the pea crush but I really like it – it has a tangy zing from the lemon and Parmesan.

Sweet stuff

The Cookbook also has a section of sweet treats – sugar free desserts to enjoy without feeling guilty. I made the cheesecake which we took to a friend’s house a while back. The judges were split – two of us liked it, and two didn’t. It was very savoury! It was the first time I’d used stevia and I don’t think I put enough in. I also can’t get used to the taste of stevia and will try xylitol when I finish our carton of stevia (we are currently using it up to make mojitos!).

The Cookbook warns about going overboard with the sweet stuff – so these are sometimes treats, not daily ones! Thankfully I don’t have too much of a sweet tooth so just make do with a small piece of 70-85% chocolate when needed.

Hopefully that is a useful insight into the recipes in the eBook. There are loads more! Generally, the recipes contain lots of nuts, coconut, vegetables and avocado. Some ingredients I haven’t been able to find in shops (such as almond flour) so some recipes I haven’t been able to try. But overall, I like the recipes and they are generally really quick and easy to make. I preferred reading the eBook and then the Cookbook to see all the things I could eat. I think they are much better when read in conjunction as they help you stay on track and remember why you’re trying to quit sugar.

If you’re interested in I Quit Sugar, you can check out the bundle using this link, which as I mentioned in my last post is an affiliate link, meaning I get some money because you buy the book via me. The eBook and Cookbook are both 50% to celebrate Australia Day until Tuesday 29 January – so get in while it’s super cheap!

I’ve got lots more posts for you this week – including my long overdue review of Nachos Southside and a couple of cookbook reviews! Let me know if you have any questions on IQS below, or via twitter.

(All the images here are photos I have uploaded to instragram, in case you were wondering about the filters!)

The Big Cheesemaking Kit

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We spotted this kit a while back at the Clarkston Farmers Market, being sold by Creeside Charcuterie. The kit is made in Edinburgh and is available online or through Creeside.

I was pretty interested in the kit, and thankfully Santa remembered and got me the goats cheese kit for Christmas! I’ve had a go of making it this afternoon. All I needed to buy that wasn’t in the kit was goats milk. The kit comes with everything else – salt, citric acid, butter muslin and a thermometer.

The first step is to heat the milk (with citric acid) to 180F in a saucepan, stirring. This took me about 10-15 minutes all up and was quite relaxing as I sipped my Pimms.

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Next, it was time to strain. This is where things didn’t quite go to plan. I strained it through the butter muslin, but nearly all of it drained through. At this point I was a bit frustrated and confused as I didn’t know what to do, being a total novice! Thankfully Ailsa was on twitter (@bigcheesemaking) and suggested I reheat the milk, add a little more citric acid and strain through doubled-over muslin. This seemed to do the trick!

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I left it to strain for 30 minutes, and then had my very own goats cheese! I was absolutely over the moon when I tasted it as it really is unlike shop-bought goats cheese. This is a lot creamier and silkier and is delicious on bread or crackers. It has quite a mild taste which I’ve found tastes great with chilli and spicy flavours, like mango chutney.

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The next day I made bread with the leftover whey as I like to try not to waste anything! I cannot wait to make more cheese with this kit.

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Hope everyone has had a lovely Christmas break, and is looking forward to celebrating New Year’s Eve/Hogmanay! Thanks all for your tips, comments and chats over the past year – I promise we will be writing up more blog posts in 2013!

Guest post for Eat Balanced: Pumpkin Salad

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Please visit Eat Balanced to check out my guest post!

For this I did a pumpkin salad recipe, inspired by Sarah Wilson. I’ve been cooking a lot with coconut oil recently so roasted the pumpkin with that, and served it as a salad with spinach and yoghurt.

Pumpkin salad

Pumpkin salad

The result was amazing – I was really surprised at how delicious it was. Pumpkin definitely does not taste like I remember as a kid. It was a really tasty dish and the pumpkin tasted great with the spices and yoghurt. This made enough for 4 servings.

The Handmade Cheesecake Company – and competition

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Cheesecakes are always pretty high up on our list of desserts when we are eating out.  Done well, they can be a great way to finish off a meal, and the chances of you feeling fit to burst are lower than if you get stuck into a big bit of chocolate cake.  In spite of this, we very rarely make them in the house, and never really bother with any of the supermarket pre-made options.  While they are great fun to make, we always struggle to eat all of a standard size cake in time, and either throw some of it out or cave in and eat it all in one guilt laden go.

The Handmade Cheesecake Company – van arrives!

We were therefore absolutely delighted to accept a sample of 4 mini individual cheesecakes from the Handmade Cheesecake Company, who are based in Ayr, and provide a wide array of cakes and desserts for cafes, restaurants, and for events.  Included in the range are Wee Yins, small cheesecakes around 4 inches in diameter which can be purchased in boxes of 9.  We were given 4 different flavours to sample:  Butterscotch Pavlova, Limoncello, Strawberry Shortcake, and Caramel Shortcake.

The Handmade Cheesecake Company – clockwise from back – butterscotch pavlova; strawberry shortcake; caramel shortcake; limoncello

Of the toppings, strawberry was the real standout, which is unexpected coming from someone who normally doesn’t like strawberry desserts.  Sometimes strawberry flavours can feel really false and artificial to me, but this tasted like real fruit recently picked, and didn’t overpower everything.  The Limoncello was also good, subtly flavoured and again avoiding the artificial flavouring that you sometimes get with shop bought cheesecakes.  Both the other cakes were good too, although there did seem to be something overly sweet in the caramel shortcake topping that overpowered.  The base cheesecakes themselves were well made, and let the toppings shine without taking over the flavours.  Briony would have preferred a little bit less biscuit base, but I wasn’t bothered by that.  Texture and consistency was good, not feeling too heavy, but still having some substance to it.  Size-wise, they were perfect.  We had half of 2 cheesecakes each for 2 days, and this gave us enough to feel like we had been naughty and had a fair bit, but not feel like we were going to explode.

If you have a big event coming up, a Handmade Cheesecake Company dessert would be a great time saver, as well as a delicious dessert!

The Handmade Cheesecake Company

The Handmade Cheesecake Company have generously given me a £25 voucher to give to one lucky reader! All you have to do is comment on this post with what flavour you’d like to try! The competition will run until Sunday 4 November 2012. You can only enter once. I will do a post on Monday 5 November announcing the winner – you will need to get in touch with me with your details so I can give you the voucher. If I don’t hear from you by Monday 12 November I’ll re-draw the prize. While I’m not restricting entry … be logical … can you get the cheesecakes delivered if you live in Australia? That’s not really practical now, is it?!

Good luck!

Two short cookbook reviews – Clean and Lean by James Duigan & Gwyneth Paltrow’s Notes from My Kitchen Table

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One thing I really love is our local library, East Renfrewshire. My husband and I both love reading, and I have a habit of adding books to my Amazon wishlist, then transferring them into library reservations. I particularly love doing this for cookbooks as it is such a good way to preview it before committing to buy. We already have so many cookbooks that I really try to stop from buying them on impulse (there isn’t room in the cupboard for any more either!).

Recently I borrowed two books: Clean & Lean by James Duigan (after seeing it in Waitrose) and Gwyneth’s Notes from My Kitchen Table.

So, what is Clean & Lean? I have omitted the reference in the title to it being a “diet” as I think that is an awful and negative word – I instead think of it as a way of eating. Not dissimilar to previous posts we’ve done (see October Unprocessed and New ways of eating in 2012), it is basically cutting out C.R.A.P. (caffine, refined sugar, alcohol, processed foods). It’s really easy to learn the “rules” or guidelines and pretty easy to work out what you should and shouldn’t eat. If you can avoid the supermarket aisles when you do your shopping and just stick to fresh meat, seafood, vegetables and fruit, that’s pretty much eat.  My biggest problem is breakfast – and this book has introduced my to my saviour, Clean & Lean Oat Pancakes.

Clean and Lean Oat Pancakes with berries

Clean & Lean Oat Pancakes

Serves 2-4

Ingredients:

100g rolled oats
200g fat-free cottage cheese
4 eggs
1 tsp cinnamon

Simply put all the above in a blender, whizz, then cook as you would normal pancakes.

Now I have read a lot about fat-free, low fat food over the last few months so I happily substitute full fat cottage cheese in the recipe. They are so easy to make and I have never had a failure either. I have them with berries (I buy a large bag of frozen mixed berries and simply microwave a large handful for 1 minute while I’m cooking). This to me is the perfect breakfast as it’s filling, easy and super tasty. I sometimes squeeze over some honey – maybe less than a tsp though.

Now, onto Gwyneth. I was so surprised by her book – it is actually really brilliant! Because of her well-publicised dietary habits, I expected it to be a bit odd and left-field. Instead it is filled with delicious recipes and ideas. She doesn’t eat red meat so that isn’t catered for, but there are really good breakfast and dinner ideas. I would never have purchased this book but for the fact I borrowed it on a whim, so thanks to my local library for having such an amazing supply of books!

Do you borrow cookbooks from the library? If so, which ones have you discovered?

Raw fudge

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So we’ve stuck to our “new” way of eating (if you’re not sure what I’m talking about, back in January I resolved to cut down on processed food and aim to eat a lot more fresh fruit, vegetables and meat) and I’ve been looking for interesting desserts to make.

Whole Foods recipes online are my saviour, they are all generally quite easy and I can’t think of one I’ve tried so far that hasn’t been delicious. I thought I’d make some raw fudge for my ever-suffering husband who has really cut back on his chocolate intake.

I was really surprised at the results – this was a lot tastier than I thought it was going to be!

Raw Fudge - served with Swedish Glace ice cream

It was also pretty easy – my only challenge was wrestling our magic bullet blender to get it to blitz the walnuts and dates without cutting out every 10 seconds.

Raw Fudge

1 cup walnuts, soaked in water for 4-6 hours
1 cup pitted dates
5 tbs unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tbs vanilla extract
pinch of salt

If you have a good blender, you can probably just throw everything in and blitz. If you have a blender like mine, you’ll need to do it in batches. To be honest, it doesn’t matter if it’s not properly blended – our batch isn’t, and I quite like the chunks of nut/date through it. To set, just scoop the mix into a dish, cover and put in the freezer. It doesn’t set and is easy to scoop out (it’s a very soft mix).

This is best served with ice cream but you can also eat it on it’s own, or with fruit.

What other “virtuous” desserts do you treat yourself to?

 

New ways of eating in 2012

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I’m a bit late with a “woo, 2012″ post and I already feel like it should be July, but I thought I’d update you with our home cooking adventures recently, as well as some heavenly ways to treat and indulge yourself without resorting to the fridge/pantry.

I’ve been wanting to eat healthier for a while but I wasn’t particularly good at sticking to it. While we rate ourselves highly in terms of percentage of home-cooked meals to takeaway (somewhere around 95%/5% I’m guessing), the things we cooked at home would be laden with butter, cream and cheese. Now I love all these foods but they weren’t doing us any good. And our portion sizes were way too big.

We’re now eating along the style of October Unprocessed (which I failed because I was unorganised and lured in by McDonalds) – eating foods that are as close to their natural state as possible, and minimal processed foods. This means a lot of vegetables – and I mean a lot – we literally cannot fit a weeks’ worth of vegetables in our crisper. We also have a freezer full of meats, and those are the building blocks for planning out our week of meals.

My sources of inspiration ranges from Whole Foods recipes – particularly their Heath Starts Here recipes, Waitrose Love Life recipes, Ottolenghi (as always!), Amanda from Mevsthebulge and Natalie Carter from Natalie Carter Talks Fitness, as well as various other blogs.

Some things we’ve been eating:

Swiss chard and lemon soup, courtesy of Milk & Mode
A very light, refreshing soup that fills you up thanks to the pasta (we used whole grain). Even the husband ate it, and he isn’t a soup fan at all.  

 
Ottolenghi’s roast chicken with sumac, za’atar and lemon (from Ottolenghi: the cookbook but you can see the recipe here)
A nice way of feeding 4 with a whole chicken in an unusual way rather than just a normal roast. We had this with a marinated pepper salad. 

Plain grilled chicken, sweet potato mash and beetroot
This looks like a very bare meal – it was meant to be, I was fuelling up before exercising for 3 hours on Tuesday so like to have something that will keep me going. I really love plain grilled chicken cooked on the George Foreman as it always seems to come out really succulent and juicy. I am also lamenting the lost years of thinking I hated sweet potato… what a waste. 
Simple beef noodle stir fry
A great Friday night dish that you can make with all your leftover vegetables in the fridge in about 20 minutes – I grilled the steak separately on the GF rather than wok cooking it and stirred it all together in the wok for about a minute (with the noodles). I made a simple Japanese dressing and poured over. I’ve also learnt that sesame oil is wasted as a cooking oil and now just use a dash of it as a sauce once it’s all cooked – healthier, and you get more of the flavour. 
So I bet you’re wondering about all this “treat” business. Well, I think that healthy eating gets a whole lot easier once you stop treating yourself with food. Keep your food for fuel, and use a whole range of other things for treats – whether it’s a hot bath, a good book, new workout gear – just start replacing these with food for when you need a pick me up and you won’t have to deal with the emotional let-down of eating a tub of icecream or bag of chips/crisps. 
One thing that I was treated to recently was this amazing hamper from Whole Foods. Now I’ve talked about Whole Foods enough that if you don’t know they have opened in Giffnock recently, I’m going to assume you must be a new reader. In the hamper was a great arrange of vitamins and supplements (which I have been taking religiously) as well as some beautiful face/body products. Some of the beauty products are exclusive to Whole Foods and are all natural. I am saving these to “treat” myself when I need a boost, but I am currently using the Neal’s Yard Frankincense Hydrating Cream and I love it to bits. If you’re looking for a pick-me-up, or need some TLC after the New Year, why don’t you pop into Whole Body (the beauty section) the next time you’re in Whole Foods?  

I’d love to hear some of your healthy recipe ideas – please share them with me!

(Edited to add: thanks to the lovely Jac at Tinned Tomatoes I’ve been able to add a recipes index which should make it really easy to browse through and find something that takes your fancy – with more recipes to come!)

An Australian Christmas

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So what exactly is an Australian Christmas? It’s not really too different from a UK Christmas – just less focus on hot food and more cold meats. And obviously, like every Christmas, it varies from house to house. This is the Christmas lunch I’ve been having since a child and, having missed two already, I really needed one this year. We decided to celebrate our Australian Christmas on Sunday so we had lots of time to eat all the leftovers without infringing on our eating ability on the traditional Christmas Day.

We ate:

Prawn cocktail
Sadly, these prawns aren’t up to scratch size-wise, but this was still tasty! Prawns with a 50:50 mix of crab meat (white and brown meat), avocado and home-made seafood sauce, all served on little gem lettuce. This has always been my favourite part of Christmas lunch (well, apart from dessert) and it was lovely with crab meat – although this serving was a bit too big for a starter. 
Home-made seeded loaf
A delicious home-made loaf made by the baker of the house (husband, not me) which was perfectly baked. We will definitely be having this bread again. 
The star of the show – a 2.7kg honey roast ham. 
Sides of pigs in blankets, prunes in bacon and roast potatoes 

Side of crispy kale with lemon
There was no way that two of us were going to eat all that ham, but I love having leftover ham to eat for days after Christmas. Part of it we froze (probably 1.5kgs) and we gave away another part of it, and then we stuffed ourselves silly on the rest. One night I made a super quick pasta with some of the ham thanks to Nigella’s recipe of pasta with ham, peas and cream. 
Pavlova with berries and cream
The other best part of Christmas lunch. I pride myself on being quite the pavlova expert now as I have yet to have one fail (and I’ve probably made around 10 now). The only problem I still have is that the pavlova sticks to the baking paper, no matter how much cornflour I put down first. I also discovered that it really doesn’t matter about leaving the pavlova to cool in the oven – it will crack if you take it out, but seeing as you’re going to cover it with cream and berries anyway, why does that matter? 
How do you celebrate Christmas and what are some of your favourite foods?