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Apple and almond muffins and lawnmower paths
My husband has decided that the heat is too intense to navigate our land on foot and has starting going everywhere by lawnmower, as you do. He explained the logic at some length, although I don’t remember much; my mind must have slipped into neutral. I believe it was something to do with ‘efficiency’ and the fact that if I’m looking for him, I just have to follow the path of most freshly-cut grass. Or something. Our bank manager sounded more than a little bit nonplussed on the ‘phone this morning when I told him that he could indeed speak to ‘Monsieur’ just as soon as I had identified the most recently-cut grass strip…
These muffins are deliciously light and tasty whether you’re certifiable or not. They are adapted from one of my favourite cookbooks of the moment: ‘Love, Bake, Nourish’ by Amber Rose.
Ingredients (makes 12)
2 apples, peeled, cored and cut into pieces
1 teaspoon cinnamon
60g salted butter, softened
60g coconut oil, softened
150g spelt flour
2 organic eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
160g agave syrup
60g ground almonds
50ml milk
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Sprinkle the apples with cinnamon and poach until soft in a small amount of water. Set aside. Cream the butter and coconut oil for about 4 minutes. Add a spoonful of flour, beat again, then add the eggs, beating further until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add a little more flour to prevent curdling. Gently fold in the rest of the flour, baking powder, agave syrup, ground almonds and milk. Lastly, fold the poached apples into the mix. Spoon the mixture into muffin trays and bake for 25 minutes.
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Baby rabbits
As promised in my previous post, and especially for Suzanne and Azita here are the baby bunnies 🙂
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Roasted summer vegetable soup and fried brains
We’ve been seeing some pretty strange behaviour here over the past few days – perhaps the effect of the sudden inferno-style heat? First I caught my husband chatting to one of the hens: ‘hello gorgeous, how are you today?’. I thought initially, rather immodestly, that he was talking to me, but quickly deduced he wasn’t when he went on to ask: ‘have you laid an egg today sweetheart?’. Since this blatant come-on, she’s hardly left his side (does this mean he has a chick on the side ;-)); I found her perched on a chair in the kitchen this morning while he ate breakfast.
An unknown rabbit gave birth to five babies in the horses’ hay a few days ago – luckily we realised before they got pitch-forked. Don’t rabbits have tunnels or dens or something to use as maternity units? Or is this the equivalent of giving birth on the hard shoulder of the motorway? Maybe she was caught short. Now of course I have to keep rushing over every half hour to check they haven’t been terrorised by our psychotic mare (she has rabbit issues).
And then last night, just to tip me over the edge and despite lengthy negotiation, Hugo steadfastly refused to go to bed, preferring to sleep on the electric cables under my desk. I obviously haven’t escaped the brain-melt either though because I made this piping hot soup for dinner the other evening when the temperature hadn’t dipped below 35°C all day.
Ingredients (serves 8)
1 sweet potato, peeled
1 red pepper
2 onions
2 courgettes
4 tomatoes
3 cloves of garlic
4 tablespoons of olive oil
1 teaspoon paprika (or piment d’Espelette)
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 sprigs of rosemary
1.5 litres organic vegetable stock
5 fresh basil leaves
Chop the vegetables into chunks (leaving the cloves of garlic whole), toss in the olive oil and arrange on a roasting tray. Add the seasoning and rosemary sprigs and roast in an oven preheated to 180°C for about 30 minutes. Once roasted, transfer to a large saucepan/casserole dish, add the stock and bring to the boil. Cook for a further five minutes, add the basil and purée. -
Sweet potato crab cakes and lettuce pilfering
Not only is this recipe extremely appetising, it also has the advantage of being very nutritious: sweet potatoes are bursting with vitamin C and are also high in calcium, folate, potassium and beta-carotene. They have a low glycemic index, far lower than that of regular potatoes. Crab meat is high in protein and Omega 3, as well as being a potent source of vitamins and minerals.
Young delinquent horses, on the other hand, are less beneficial from a nutritional standpoint, particularly if they break into your vegetable garden and steal all your salad while you’re out to lunch. In an ideal world (a world in which horses do not kick down fences), a crisp green salad makes a delicious accompaniment, but they may also be served alone with a spicy chilli sauce.
Ingredients (serves 4)
350g sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
¼ red pepper, diced
2 cloves of garlic, peeled
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
olive oil
350g crabmeat (I used tinned)
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
2 spring onions, chopped
Flour for coating the ‘cakes’ (I used quinoa flour)
2 tablespoons peanut oil for frying
Place the sweet potatoes, red pepper and garlic cloves on a roasting tray and douse with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast in an oven preheated to 180°C for about 25 minutes. Mash the vegetables with a potato masher until you obtain a rough purée. Add the crabmeat, parsley and chopped onions, mixing well. Shape into individual cakes (roughly 8 cakes 5cm in diameter) and coat with flour. Fry in peanut oil (you could use another oil but I find peanut oil gives a lovely crisp result) until golden brown on both sides (roughly 4 minutes on each side). Serve with or without salad, depending on your animals’ disposition. 😉 -
Curried prawns in agar agar and how to pluck a hen
by Hugo, Canine Correspondent
I’ve had quite a relaxing week because The Noisy One has been away on a sailing trip. I expect he’ll be quite hoarse by the time he gets home from barking orders at adjacent boats (did you like my animal imagery there?). Anyway, it’s nice to have some time off from being shot at and tackled to the ground. There has been one thing that’s been bothering me a bit though: two of the hens are nesting (and very unpleasant they’re being about it too), which leaves one hen wandering around alone looking a bit pathetic; even more so than usual ;-). I’ve been trying to keep her spirits up by grabbing her for a cuddle and an affectionate chew of her wings, but I just get yelled at by old Bossy Boots. Life can be very complicated sometimes *doggie sigh*.
Ingredients (makes 6 mini terrines)
250g frozen prawns
juice of half a lemon
25g butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
150ml fish stock
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 shallot, chopped
1 bay leaf
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons curry powder
1 tablespoon mango chutney
4 fresh basil leaves
4g Agar-Agar powder
Place the prawns steeped in lemon juice in a frying pan and add the olive oil and butter. Fry gently, gradually adding all the other ingredients with the exception of the Agar-Agar and basil leaves. Simmer for about 10 minutes, until the prawns are cooked through and the liquid partly evaporated. Once cooked, add the basil, blend briefly in a food processor and set aside. Dissolve the Agar-Agar in a small amount of water and bring to the boil (according to the instructions on the packet). Once boiled, add to the prawn mixture and distribute into moulds (I used silicon muffin moulds). Compact the mixture well. Refrigerate for at least a couple of hours and serve chilled.
Health benefits of agar agar
Agar is a good source of calcium and iron, and is very high in fiber. It is an excellent aid in digestion and weight loss and also carries toxic waste out of the body. Other benefits include its ability to reduce inflammation, calm the liver, and benefit the lungs. -
Cheesy G8 muffins
The G8’s recent mufti extravaganza prompted me to create these American-style savoury muffins as a tribute to Obama, the only leader able to carry off the ‘my tie’s being laundered following a messy run-in with tomato ketchup’ look with any panache. I’m not altogether certain that the main objective of the summit was to evoke a Monty Python sketch, but that, to my considerable amusement, was the result.
Allison Pearson, writing in the Daily Telegraph, summed it up perfectly:‘Let’s be clear. You can wear a suit without a tie, on two conditions. One, the suit needs to be of the highest grade, woven from the chest-hairs of privately educated sheep. And two, you need to be Barack Obama. Otherwise, you end up with the deeply uncomfortable gallery of statesmen who were photographed at Enniskillen, as in a police line-up. David Cameron looked as if he had left his tie in the car; Vladimir Putin looked as if he had left his tightly knotted around the throat of a political opponent; the Japanese prime minister, unhindered by any tie, had had a rush of blood and opted for deck shoes as well, and may have to be dissuaded from wearing a ripped T-shirt and winklepickers next time. François Hollande, as usual, looked like a misplaced maître d’, who needed not just a tie but an apron and a white napkin over his arm to complete the look.’
These are adapted from a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe.
Ingredients (makes 12 muffins)
250g German spelt flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of sea salt
1 teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon Italian olive oil
2 organic eggs, beaten
80g butter, melted
200ml Russian kefir (or yoghurt)
75g strong English Cheddar, grated
75g French Comté, grated
75g courgettes, peeled and grated
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 small onion, peeled and chopped into small pieces
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Fry the onions in olive oil over a gentle heat until golden. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt and paprika. In another bowl combine the eggs, butter, kefir and Worcestershire Sauce and stir into the flour mixture until just combined. Last, fold in the onions, courgettes and cheese. Spoon the mixture into a muffin tin (greased if you’re not using a silicon mould) and bake for 18 minutes. -
Spelt kuglof and strange dog diets
My husband ceremoniously whipped up and presented Hugo with an an egg-white omelette yesterday. What was that all about do you think? I mean, just how bizarre is it to make an egg-white omelette for a big black labrador? As if the poor mutt doesn’t have enough issues to last a lifetime. Anyway, in a fit of rebellion I poured cream over his kibbles last night (Hugo’s, not my husband’s); he needs to learn to live a bit.
Kuglof (kouglof, kougelhof, kugelhof, kugelopf, kugelhopf or kouglouf) is typically found in Alsace, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Traditionally it is baked in an earthenware mould with a central funnel, although there are now silicon or aluminium moulds available.
Ingredients
75g raisins
4 tablespoons rum or kirsch
15g bakers yeast
200ml lukewarm milk
500g spelt flour (or plain if you prefer)
1 teaspoon sea salt
75g cane sugar
2 eggs, beaten
75g butter, softened
75g coconut oil, softened (or just use 150g butter)
20g almond flakes
1 tablespoon icing sugar to decorate
Place the raisins in a small bowl and cover with kirsch or rum. Set aside to soak. Mix the yeast with 100ml milk and a tiny bit of flour and leave to double in volume. Mix the remaining flour, salt, sugar, eggs and milk. Beat or knead for about 15 minutes. Add the butter and coconut oil, mixing well. Next add the yeast and knead or beat until the dough becomes detached from the bowl. Cover with a damp tea towel and leave the rise for an hour in warm place (between 25-30°C). Reduce the dough to original volume by gently tapping. Add the soaked raisins and mix. Butter the mould and evenly distribute the flaked almonds in the bottom. Add the dough and leave to rise until it reaches the edge of the mould. Cook for 45 minutes in an oven preheated to 200°C. Once cooked, remove from the mould and decorate with icing sugar. -
Healthy chocolate chip cookies and mutant mosquitos
Monumental rainfall followed by stifling heat means mosquitos. Of course here, it doesn’t just mean common or garden mosquitos, it means huge, mutant reprobates with an agenda: namely to make me look as if I’m suffering from a very nasty infectious disease. And as if a nasty infectious disease isn’t punishment enough, I’m also covered in bruises from walking around the house in the dark because I’m too scared to put the lights on.
Léo is injured too and has his arm in a sling (something to do with walls, daredevilry and being a ten-year-old boy). Since his skateboarding tricks are somewhat impeded, he decided we should make chocolate chip cookies; I decided that they should be reasonably healthy and this is what we came up with.
Ingredients (makes 25-30 cookies)
125g spelt flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
65g virgin coconut oil
75g cane sugar
40g organic chocolate chips
15g chopped hazelnuts
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg, beaten
Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl and rub in the coconut oil until the mixture is the consistency of breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar, chocolate chips and nuts. Add the vanilla and egg and mix until the mixture becomes a stiff dough. Knead the mixture on a floured surface and roll into a sausage shape, roughly 5cm thick. Refrigerate for several hours or even overnight.
Preheat the oven to 190°C. Cut the dough into slices of just under a centimetre and arrange, spaced out (the cookies, not you ;-)) on a greased baking sheet. Cook for 12 minutes and leave to cool. -
Spelt brioche and a water-locked house
We had almost as much rainfall overnight as we usually have during May and June combined. Here it doesn’t rain, but it pours; the house was surrounded by an impressive moat this morning that I don’t recall being there when we signed on the dotted line. We now also boast a second river, which sounds fine in theory, but is not so practical in reality as we’re not very well-equipped boat-wise. Hugo took one look outside this morning and went back to bed, sighing heavily, the hens are developing webbed feet and learning to swim and I was out early drying off the horses with my hairdryer. All-in-all an appropriate morning for brioche.
Ingredients
300g spelt flour (or plain flour if you prefer)
100g butter, melted
100g coconut oil, melted (you can substitute this for a further 100g of butter)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1½ teaspoons dry bakers’ yeast
2 tablespoons cold water
4 eggs, beaten
40g cane sugar
Dilute the dry yeast in 2 tablespoons’ luke-warm water and set aside for 10 minutes. Mix the flour, yeast, salt, sugar, beaten eggs, melted butter and oil. Either knead by hand or beat in a mixer (better if you’re lazy). The dough must stay elastic in consistency so add a drop more water, if necessary. Leave the dough to rise in the mixing bowl for about an hour at a temperature of between 25-30°C (it should double in volume). Beat and knead the dough and leave to rise for a further hour. Beat and knead again and put the dough in the loaf tin. Leave to rise one last time. Preheat the oven to 200°C and cook for 25 minutes. -
Chickpea flour cauliflower cheese (gf) and the case for the defence
by Hugo, Canine Correspondent
I’ve decided that I’m a dab paw at blogging, so off I go again. I’d like a chance to set the record straight; I felt the last post was rather slanderous (I found that word in the dictionary I got for my birthday). First of all, I do not dribble. And second of all, I only toot the car horn when I feel that The Bossy One has talked to whoever it is she’s talking to for quite long enough and it’s time to get home. She seems to forget that I have things to do: keep the hens in order, bark at the horses if they’re in the wrong field (or for no good reason whatsoever ;-)), check the boundaries for stray deer, wild pigs and badgers, empty the rubbish bin in the kitchen… I could go on – a dog’s work is never done. Especially if he sits in the car all day *sigh*.
Anyway, I think she must have felt a bit guilty for bad-mouthing me because this was produced last night and she let me ‘clean’ the dish. 🙂
Ingredients (serves 4-6)
1 cauliflower
25g butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
60g chickpea flour
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
½ teaspoon of paprika
1 teaspoon mustard
200ml milk
100ml chicken or vegetable stock
50g comté (or other hard cheese), grated
50g parmesan, grated
Begin by cooking the cauliflower florets in salted boiling water for about 15 minutes. Drain and set aside. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
For the sauce, place the flour, butter, olive oil, seasoning and milk into a saucepan and place over a gentle heat. Whisk until it reaches a gentle simmer. Continue whisking, adding the mustard and then the stock little by little, for just under five minutes. Add half of the cheese and whisk again until it melts. Pour over the cauliflower florets which you will have arranged in a baking dish. Sprinkle the rest of the grated cheese over the top and add a little more paprika. Cook for about 45 minutes.
