Mmmm banana, honey, brown sugar and maybe a touch of cinnamon.  What’s yours?

Recently, the lovely chaps at Yeo Valley set me a little challenge: ‘fancy checking out a few of our products and then letting us know how you cook with them?’  ’No probs’, I said, ‘piece of cake’ (see what I did there?).  So yesterday I had a call from a courier.  Not your normal ‘yes, I’m just leaving Dublin – can I have directions?’ (you want an hour’s worth of directions? I hope you’ve got a big notepad), but a lovely friendly one ‘I’ve got some stuff for you from Yeo Valley – it’s refrigerated so I’m going to personally drop it to you now’.  How’s that for service.  When it arrived, my jaw did drop somewhat, though:

Er… wow.

After unpacking (and letting a delighted D next door take her pick), I moved it all into the garage and called Poppy’s Mum to take all the children’s yogurts and those cute little tube things (she looks after two little tinies).  After weighing her down with butter, compote, pots and creme fraiche and fifteen minutes of hysterical laughter when I took the packing peanuts out to the bin and was caught by a gust of wind (it was like a packing peanut snow storm), my fridges looked like this:

Unlike Laura, there will be absolutely no lemon curduments.  Anyone seen looking even remotely suspicious near the lemon curd ones will be prodded with a sharp implement until they back the hell off.  I might even bare my teeth and snarl a bit.  What? They’re my favourite.

So what will I be doing with all this lovely stuff?  Well, I’m going to try Laura’s Lovely Lemon Curd Cheesecake, but with the Mango and Vanilla flavour instead (nomnom) and I’ll be making my talented friend Like Mam Used To Bake‘s gorgeous healthy home-made granola to stir into the little fat free blueberry pots of probiotic yogurt for breakfast.  We’ll be spooning the rhubarb yogurt over a slice of home made lemon and almond cake, and freezing the strawberry one in an ice cube tray to add to smoothies with banana and milk.  Their fruit compote is a new one for me.  I’m going to be popping a spoonful in the middle of some vanilla breakfast muffins this weekend and eating them for breakfast.

I’ll be making Anjum Anand’s Bengali Yogurt Fish (from her I Love Curry book) with the Greek Yogurt (one of my favourite fish recipes) and of course my own easy peasy tandoori chicken with the fat free natural yogurt (yummy in the boy’s packed lunches with crusty ciabatta, a blob of mayo, some rocket leaves and a teaspoon or two of mango chutney).  Talking of Indian food – I’ll also be making my Indian spiced courgette fritters and serving them with a cooling yogurt and mint dressing.

I’ll be using the creme fraiche to make my friend Erica’s gorgeous wild mushroom tagliatelle and the lovely fresh butter for all manner of cakes, biscuits and, of course, for spreading thickly on hot toast.

What an amazing selection.  I’m very impressed.  Now back to guarding the lemon curd.  Go on, just try me.  I dare you.

So this week is the delightfully named Farmhouse Breakfast Week.  I am a huge fan of breakfast (who am I kidding, I’m a huge fan of breakfast, brunch, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, supper…).  I get up early with da brevren every day and make them a proper brekkie.  The Death Wish Child is a two fried eggs on toast addict, especially now Mrs Nutty is producing some beautiful, golden-yolked eggs, and can often be persuaded into a bowl of porridge (no fruit though – just golden syrup – I don’t mind too much as he has fruit in his packed lunch).  The Mad Professor, not being a morning person, needs cajoling to eat anything and sometimes it’s a battle.  To be honest – I’d rather he went to school with two cookies and a glass of milk inside him than nothing at all.

At the weekends we really enjoy our late breakfasts – I often make pancakes with maple syrup and bacon, but I honestly won’t buy horrible bacon, so sometimes it’s just the pancakes.  It’s so difficult to get good bacon (and pork) here – I mean, you can get standard supermarket bacon, but there is NO choice at all: no outdoor reared/free range piggies… I mean, aren’t there any ‘happy pigs’ in Ireland (at least where supermarkets are concerned)? I love bacon, but I can’t buy intensively reared bacon.  I just can’t.  Marks and Sparks seem to have well-labelled, decent bacon, so I stock up if I’m near one, which isn’t very often.

Happily, the lovely chaps at Denhay Bacon sent me a mahoosive big pack of their lovely bacon to try, and I have to say I was delighted.  Their Spoilt Pig range (www.spoiltpig.co.uk) is outdoor reared – the piggies having the opportunity to rootle and tootle and live happy lives.  I know some people don’t care what happens to their meat before it dies, but I want mine to be treated properly.  Not only that, but it grilled to perfection, without giving out all that horrible water that a lot of the brands on sale do, and wasn’t overly salty OR smoky.  Perfect.

For more info on National Farmhouse Breakfast Week, and some great breakfast recipes to try, check out shakeupyourwakeup.com

What about you – are you a breakfast bod? And do you care where that bacon in your sarnie came from?

One of my golden rules here at English Towers 2 (and there aren’t many, in fact, I think that’s the only one – oh no, hang on, there’s the no saying ‘eurgh’ at the table… oh and then there’s not referring to one’s wedding vegetables as ‘nads’ – I hate that…) is that everyone has to have breakfast.  I will never complain if I’m asked to cook poached eggs and toast first thing in the morning (which I often am) as I’d so much rather they ate something.   Sometimes it’s just a biscuit or a slice of toast and a quick mug of hot chocolate (oh, there’s another golden rule – there’s a 5 marshmallow limit to each mug).

But here’s the rub: if they’re going to eat biscuits, or worse, force down a cereal bar first thing in the morning, wouldn’t you rather that you had: a) some control over the contents and b) the chance to sneak in some healthy stuff, even if it’s covered up by the taste of chocolate?  Yes?  Here, then, are my ‘not very healthy but better than a Weetos bar’ breakfast (or anytime) cookies:

You’ll need:

125g butter

150g dark brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla paste (or extract, never essence)

150g flour (make it wholemeal if you like)

50g oats

50g chocolate, chopped

Handful dried apricots, chopped

So cream the butter and the sugar until it’s light and creamy.

Then add in the egg, beating well, and then the vanilla paste:

Chop the chocolate:

then gently stir in, along with the flour and the oats…

and the apricots (chop finely first):

Blob the hideous-looking mixture onto a non-stick baking tray (a dessertspoon per cookie is about right):

…and bake at 180 degrees/gas 4 for about 12 minutes.  They’re better when they’re still a bit soft in the middle.

Store in an airtight container.  They’ll last a couple of days (what am I saying?  they’ll last about ten minutes).  Serve as a last resort ‘oh Mum, I don’t want any breakfast’ kinda thing with a glass of milk or a hot chocolate.

So things aren’t going well  here at English Towers.  In fact, that’s a total understatement.  Things are going shite (recession, you b*stard, go take it out on somebody else for a change).  Anyhoo, instead of making you read a whole big chuntering moan all about how terrible my life is, I thought I’d tell you about my little trip to the  lovely little local school yesterday where I took great pleasure in watching as #2 turned puce with embarrassment as I manned a healthy eating cookery stall.  See, they had a fabulous bash for the launch of their new School Healthy Eating Policy, and they kindly invited me along, knowing that I’d be tempted out of my kitchen here at English Towers with the promise of an afternoon of showing off and the chance to embarrass my youngest child. 

Now as you probably know, in Ireland there’s no such thing as school lunches.  Nope, Sir Jamie of Oliver’s magic wooden spoon hasn’t touched these vibrant shores, and kids are still taking a peanut butter sandwich and a Mint Club to school (ooh, I love Mint Clubs…), furring up their little arteries and basically making themselves into little chubby sumo wrestlers.  So in an inspired bit of  forward thinking, they took it upon themselves to come up with a healthy eating policy, encouraging the children to bring healthy food in their lunchboxes and banning the undesirables like sweeties, crisps and fizzy drinks.

Yesterday, the school launched their new policy with the help of a fabulous committee of children, a few random Mums (of which I was one) and a very nice lady from the HSE (sorry about the butter thing, Mary, I just can’t bring myself to cook with anything that starts with ‘mono-unsomethingorother).  Mrs Galway C and a few other ladies spent hours peeling and chopping masses of fruit and vegetables to give the children the opportunity to taste everything from watermelon to spring onion, and yet more Mums brought in their fabulous home-grown vegetables and fruit (I kept quiet at that point, thinking that the comedy cauliflower from my garden would probably frighten the children).  The kids did all sorts of pictures and displays (one of which was a fascinating wall display showing the sugar content of several items represented in actual lumps of sugar – scary).

For my part, I printed up a few healthy recipes and brought along some blueberry muffins, flapjacks with dates and apricots, some easy hummus with lots of dippy vegetable sticks, and a broccoli and salmon quiche (okay, tarte, if you’re posh) for the children to try. Oh yeh, sorry, the recipes:

Fruity Date and Dried Apricot Flapjack

140g butter

2 tbsp peanut butter  (or omit and use 170g total butter)

4 tbsp golden syrup or honey

100g brown sugar

30g dates (or chopped nuts)

60g dried apricots, or cranberries work well here too (see pic)

400g oats

So melt the butter along with the peanut butter (if using), golden syrup/honey and brown sugar over a low heat in a large saucepan.  Chop the dates (or nuts) and apricots very finely and stir into the butter mixture. 

Finally, weigh out the oats and stir them into the mix.  Press into a very well buttered non-stick baking tin (I use bake-0-glide as these have the potential to stick, concrete-like to the bottom of the tin).  Now, I’ll let you in on a secret, if you let them sit for half an hour before baking, they’ll be even soften and more delicious when they come out.  Finally, bake for 15-20 minutes at gas 4/180 degrees until just golden.

Hummus (especially for Anouk):

1 tin chickpeas, drained

2 tbsp olive oil

1 clove garlic

Salt and pepper

Squeeze of lemon juice

Place all ingredients into a blender and whiz until puréed.  Serve with breadsticks, sliced pitta bread and fresh vegetable sticks for dipping.  Hardly a recipe, but very yummy all the same.

There was the odd ‘bleurgh, what’s THAT?’ to the hummus in particular, but plenty more of the kids tried things for the first time, and even vowed to have a go at the recipes at home.  And let’s face it, if that makes one less teeny sumo wrestler, you’ve got to chalk it up as a success.

Last word, though, must go to Little Miss Lovely, who, when asked whether she wanted a recipe sheet, waved it away saying ‘oh no, I’ve got the internet’.  Bless.  My biggest fan.

So happily, some semblance of peace has been restored this weekend in the garden here at English Towers.  I have to take most of the credit for this (well, me and several small children) as, finally, the coop has a run.  Oh yes, don’t say I’m not handy with a hammer… well, a couple of electric fence poles (not live, natch), some chicken wire and a few cable ties anyway (one upside of living in a rural farming community – the Co-Op has everything you can possibly imagine and incredibly cheap too – 10m of chicken wire for €8 for instance).  Laydees and gennlespoons, I give you… the run:

And yes, alright, before anyone’s sarcastic (Moon), I appreciate it’s not exactly chicken Central park, but it’s relatively sturdy, easily moveable (when they wreck that bit of lawn, it’s onwards and upwards) and fine for a little tootling, rootling, pecking and clucking before one retires to the coop to lay fabulous eggs (not Stig, natch) and bed down for the night, securely double-locked away from nosey foxes (or should that be  foxy noses).

Happily, now they’ve all got a bit of room, the girls have decided that they do quite like The Stig after all and have decided he can stay.  Now they’ve stopped pecking him, he’s stopped bleeding everywhere and everyone seems a lot calmer.  Bless him, we’ve worked out he’s actually about eleven weeks old – I can’t send him back, I haven’t the heart.  Plus, he makes lovely little chirrupy tweeting noises at me when I’m hanging out the washing, and picks all the peas and sweetcorn out of our leftover veggie rice in the most adorable manner.  Plus, as I was debating with my cousin Bugs over in Canada, when he grows up, he might turn out to be a very fun way to annoy D next door, should the mood take me.  Cockadoodledoo!

Minnie and Chilli, for their part, are making like veritable egg machines and churning out their golden-yolked wonders at a rate of one each a day, although Patrick, the nice man that we got them from, said that due to the trauma of being moved this could stop at any time for any number of weeks.  Dread the thought.  We’d stop being able to have lovely scrambled eggs with home-grown spring onions, little red spikes of chilli and a sprinkle of parsley out of the garden for breakfast:

Get me eh?  I’m practically a farmer.  Ooarr.

So I’ve gone a bit hot cross bun mental recently.  I was testing recipes for them ages ago for the magazine as I think I mentioned, and as people keep scoffing them, I’ve just kept making more and more.  I’ve made them with crosses cut in the top, with crosses piped on, with crosses dribbled on… with no crosses piped on…I’ve made them in round tins, or on baking trays… you name it.

Anyhoo, here the ressup.  Do with it what you will:

450g strong white bread flour

1 tbsp mixed spice

1 tsp salt

75g sugar

 1 x 7g sachet dried yeast

100g sultanas (or mixed peel if you must – bleurgh)

150ml milk

150ml water

Zest of 1 orange

50g butter

First, then, sieve the flour and ground mixed spice together into a large bowl.  Next, stir in the salt, sugar, dried yeast and sultanas.

In a small saucepan (or jug if you’re doing it in the microwave) warm the milk, water, orange zest and butter until the butter is just melted, then turn off the heat.  The liquid should be about blood temperature when it’s added to the dry ingredients.  If you’re using a mixer (mine finally exploded during my last batch, sending Hubby and #2 scurrying to the kitchen to see what I’d blown up, and if I’d survived the blast), set it on low and slowly pour in the milky mixture until the dough comes together (you might not need all of it so go steady), then plug in the dough hook and set it to knead for a good five minutes.

I’ve come to believe, though, that they come out nicer and lighter if you knead them by hand for at least ten minutes.  Yes, I know, sorry, but it’s true.  Knead away, then, getting a good kitchen workout into the bargain.  The sultanas keep trying to escape, but grab any trying to make a quick getaway and poke them back in.  Keep going until the dough is nice and springy and firm (apparently, good dough should be the texture of a woman’s breast). 

Erm anyway, moving swiftly on… when your dough is sufficiently boob-like, leave it covered in a warm place until it’s doubled in size.   Then, just knock it back with your fist (imagine it’s someone you can’t stand – nice bit of culinary therapy there), and cut it in half, then half again and half again.  Form each of your 8 pieces into a ball and place them on a baking tray.  Cover and rise again until they’re puffed up.

If you want to add the cross, then mix about 2 tbsp flour, a tsp of caster sugar and enough water to make into a paste and either just dribble it with a teaspoon, or pipe it onto your buns (ooer Missus).  Or, you can cut a cross in the top of the buns, like so:

 …and pipe the cross into the little lines like so:

But whatever you think.  Let’s not obsess here, they’re just buns. 

Ooh, one thing, though, you can spread them out inside a large, springform tin, which produces a little circle of buns that you have to tear off – good for novelty value:

Bake for about 15-20 minutes at 180/gas 6 until they sound hollow when patted on the bottom (sorry, I seem to have gone all Les Dawson in this recipe).  Finally, when they’re just out of the oven, glaze with a tbsp of sugar to which a drop or two of boiling water has been added, or warm up some apricot conserve and brush it on for extra glossy stickiness.

Now, to the important business of face stuffing: if you’re eating them straight out of the oven (a move I heartily recommend), slather them in butter and be done with it.  But if you’re eating them maybe the next day, split and toast them first.  If you’re going to freeze them, slice them in half first so they can go straight in the toaster.

Oh, and if you’re going to go all Jamie Oliver, you can slice them, spread them with marmalade, pour over some custard (although I would have thought that ready-made would be disgusting, I’m sure he knows more about it than me) and bake them in the oven.

Either way, have a wonderfully happy Easter break/secular celebration of the start of springtime/excuse to stuff yourself with chocolate /insert your own excuse here… with your loved ones.

Back soon!

I love my kitchen.  I’d love it more if it was painted pink, but that’s a bit contentious on the Hubby front and might take some serious marital bargaining, probably best not described on a family blog such as this.  Still, today I had a bit of a reorganisation (well, I suppose I should say ‘we’, seeing as it involved taking plugs off things and drilling holes) and moved the microwave and blender into the utility room, leaving me much more space and hopefully sorting out the ‘aaaaahhh shiiiiiiiiit!’ dilemma which occurs when picking up a very hot saucepan and not being able to find space anywhere to put it down, whilst simultaneously scorching away the skin on your fingers.

To test out my newly acquired workspace, I obviously needed a recipe with a suitable amount of fannying about involved (you can usually check this by watching my family’s reaction as they wander into the kitchen when I’m cooking – if it’s a bad one, Hubby will raise one eyebrow whilst cleverly performing a 360 and disappearing back from whence he came rather than get involved in holding up a muslin while something drains, or being enlisted to stir something).  This one, then, involving all sorts of kneading and poaching and glazing and stuff, was perfect.  The result, fresh out of the oven, is so densely chewy and delightful that I promise you won’t be disappointed.  Credit where credit’s due, this is adapted from the recipe in Rachel Allen’s must-have tome, ‘Bake’, but simplified for the terminally cack-handed amongst us, namely me:

450g white bread flour

1 x 7g sachet of yeast

2 tsp salt

250ml warm water

2 tbsp honey

1 tbsp oil

To poach:

Boiling water

Sieve the flour into a bowl and stir in the yeast and salt.  In a jug, mix the water (remember it must be nice and warm to activate the yeast) with the honey and oil.  Stir the liquid into the dry ingredients and bring together into a firm dough.  This needs kneading for about ten minutes and – be warned – it’s seriously tough, so if you have a dough hook on your food mixer I’d suggest you use it.  Otherwise, work those pecs, baby, and whilst cursing me, you can be all smug that I’m helping guard against bingo wings. 

When the dough is nice and smooth and elastic, and bounces back when you poke your finger into it, leave it somewhere warm to rise, covered with a clean tea towel, until it’s doubled in size. 

Once it’s ready, divide the dough into about 6 pieces and roll them into sausages, linking them into a ring by wetting the ends and squishing them together.  Once formed, put them back in the airing cupboard (or wherever) to puff up again slightly.

Preheat the oven to 220/gas 7, but  remember that first you have to poach them, so get a really big pan of boiling water going.  Plop the bagels in, two or three at a time and once they’ve come to the surface (watch they don’t stick to the bottom of the saucepan), give each bagel about 3 minutes bathtime, turning occasionally. 

Lift them out to drain on a wire rack, then brush them with a bit of beaten egg  (you can sprinkle them with stuff at this stage if you like: poppy seeds or whatever) and bake them for about 10 – 15 minutes, then turn them over and give them another 5 – 10 minutes to cook the bases.  Cool on a wire rack, then eat smothered with cream cheese, or butter and jam, or peanut butter…ooh, the possibilities are endless…

EDIT: Having made this a couple of times, I’d definitely recommend that you don’t put 3 tbsp treacle in with the poaching water as Rachel Allen  suggests.  Not only does it create the most revolting smell, but I don’t think it really adds much in the way of flavour either.

So it’s half term.  And Middle Lovely came for a sleepover with #2.  He’s a happy little chap; talks ten to the dozen like #1 and he loves to cook.  So last night I got talked into having chocolate pancakes for tea, and this morning we all made a cake.  He could never live with us full time as our arteries would probably explode.  Here goes with the pancakes, then:

For the basic breakfast pancakes:

2 eggs

1/2 pint milk

225g self raising flour

4 level tbsp caster sugar

Then for the cranberry and orange ones, you’ll need:

Handful dried cranberries

Zest and juice of one large orange

So sieve the flour and stir in the sugar.  If you’re making the grown-up version, it’s really nice to heat the cranberries in the orange juice and zest in a small saucepan to soften them up a bit.  Then just make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and whisk in the eggs and milk to make a thick batter.  Now, remove most of the cranberries from the orange with a slotted spoon and stir them into the batter.  Add a couple of teaspoons of sugar to the remaining orange liquid and bubble gently to reduce into a fruity syrup.

Next, heat a heavy-based frying pan and lightly brush the surface with oil.  Dollop a couple of tablespoons of the mixture into the pan, trying not to let them touch, then wait until you see bubbles on the surface before flipping them over.  The first one will be a disaster, it always is, but after that you’ll get light, fluffy pancakes studded with beautiful soft little fruity jewels  Serve with your orangey syrup.  These also make a lovely dessert with a slug of Cointreau added to the fruit juice, and served with mounds of whipped cream.

Or if you’re Middle Lovely, make the basic mixture, then stir in 50g chopped chocolate.  Make the pancakes in exactly the same way and serve them with more chocolate in the shape of chocolate spread, or gag-making amounts of golden syrup.  Nice one, Lovely.

So we woke up this morning to the wonderful smell of baking.  ‘Mmmm’, I thought, ‘I love baking in the morning’.  Then, ‘that’s strange, though’, I thought after that, ‘I’m baking and yet I’m still in bed’.  Of course, it was the smalls in the kitchen: Head Chef #1 was knocking up a batch of chocolate chip cookies, ably assisted by his slightly grumpy Sous Chef, #2.  And very nice cookies they were too, except… ‘they need a bit more butter’.  ‘What?’, says #1, ‘why?  They seem perfect to me’.  ‘Meh’, says I, ‘I just think they’d be nicer a bit more buttery.  Whose recipe did you use?’.  ‘Yours’, said the little sod, with just a small hint of triumph.

But that’s the thing about cooking, you see.  Nothing’s ever quite perfect is it?  Take my Bounty Cake.  I was so pleased with the result, I thought I’d try and make a chocolate version, but when I replaced the coconut with cocoa, the result was all horrible and powdery.  Back to the drawing board then.  So anyhoo, no, you’re not getting the cookie recipe just yet as it obviously needs a bit of tinkering.  Instead, I’ll let you into the secret of my chocolate chip muffins.  I make hundreds of these, often for breakfast.  My thinking being that I’d rather have my children eating something homemade in the morning, than some fat-soaked cereal bar, the ingredients of which I don’t even understand, let alone approve of.  The recipe for these, then, has been tinkered to death, and I’m pretty sure it’s foolproof:

200g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

75g granulated sugar

50g muscovado or dark brown sugar

2 eggs

100g butter, melted

125ml milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

100g dark chocolate, chopped

So get your oven on to about 190 degrees, gas 5, and put a dozen of those little paper muffin cups into a muffin tin.  Sieve the flour, baking powder and bicarb together, then stir in the sugars. 

In another bowl, whisk the eggs with a fork, then add the melted butter, milk and vanilla, whisk briefly to combine them, then pour this into the dry stuff.  Add the chocolate, then remember the golden muffin rule: mix as briefly as possible until everything is just combined.

Put a spoonful in each paper muffin thingy, then bake then for about 20 minutes or so, until they spring back to the touch and they’re a lovely golden brown.

Give them a try.  Oh, and feel free to burst my bubble if they’re a horrible failure for you, though.  Nobody’s perfect, eh?