Raw courgetti spaghetti

This quick thrown together supper just saved us from ordering a Chinese takeaway!  That may not sound like a good thing, but it is.  A Chinese really would do me no favours right now.

It was another case of fridge gazing to see what happened. And what did happen was really rather wonderful!

I grabbed:
1 courgette
1 carrot
about 1 cup of pre-cooked quinoa left over from the weekend
1 large lemon wedge
1 small pot humus
handful fresh parsley
pinch seasalt
very small handful blanched almonds
small handful parmesan shavings
A hand blender
A spiraliser

Then I spiralised the courgette and the carrot on the narrowest spaghetti sized blade and threw it in a big bowl with the leftover quinoa (it only takes 15 mins or so to make fresh quinoa or you can actually buy it ready cooked too).

Then I finely chopped the parsley in the hand blender and added that in, along with nearly a full little tub of humus, the juice from the lemon wedge and the sea salt.

Finally I crunched up the almonds a little bit in the blender and stirred them in too with the parmesan.

It served two of us with some left over for lunch and was totes delish.  Very satisfying but light, tasty thanks to the humus and parmesan, full of wholesome goodness and tangy thanks to the lemon and carrot. We had it with a wholemeal pitta but would have done without to be honest!

I'm really happy with this recipe and will definitely be making it and version of it again. Yum,

Home-made Almond Milk

So, I finally got around to making my own almond milk.  I followed this recipe which was super simple and just involved soaking a cup of almonds for up to 2 days (but at least over night), then blitzing in a blender with 2 cups of water before straining and squeezing all the milk out.
Just using 2 cups of water keeps it a nice consistency and I didn't add any sweetener, no need.

I'm not sure if it tastes nicer than shop bought - it tastes different put it that way, and more wholesome.  But I just love the fact that I made it myself!  I don't think I'll be able to make enough to supply my entire need so I'll keep the shop stuff for when I run out of home made stuff.

I'm going to look into recipes for the left over almond pulp but in the meantime have added some to smoothies and porridge to add a little nuttiness and bulk them up a bit.

All in all was much easier and quicker than I thought it would be and immensely satisfying so if you haven't yet given it a go, do!

Brilliant Broccoli soup

I was drawn to the cover of this month's Waitrose Kitchen magazine by a picture of delicious green soup.  On closer inspection it was a broccoli soup involving mint.  Sounded interesting.

I decided to make it tonight.  On even closer inspection turns out one should really read the recipe  before deciding what's for dinner since I was missing quite a few of the ingredients, so what follows is my adapted version!

For example, the recipe says to roast 1kg broccoli chopped into florets and the stem chopped into 1cm pieces.  I didn't weigh mine, I just chopped up what I had.  

Next the recipe calls for several cloves of garlic.  Oops, I've forgotten to stock up. So I dig a half  mouldy red onion out of the cupboard and chop up the decent bits of that instead.

The broccoli and garlic/red onion (!) is put into a parchment paper lined baking tray, drizzled with olive oil and scattered with almonds.

Aah, I don't have any almonds - they're on the shopping list but I haven't yet ventured out into the world to do actual proper food shopping.  Never mind, I chuck over a handful of shredded sprouts left over from earlier instead!

a bit of salt and into the oven it goes...recipe says 200C so I do 180C on fan.

I forget to time it while cooking - the recipe says about 18 minutes until the broccoli is cooked but still green in parts so I aim for that.

Meanwhile I boil up 750ml chicken stock (the recipe says 500ml veg stock but I seem to have a lot of green stuff in the oven and don't want it too thick).

When it's all cooked it gets chucked in a blender with the zest of a lemon and the juice of 1/2 a lemon plus a handful of mint leaves - this bit I do properly!  At this point I also add about a handful of ground almonds as I do have those, instead of the blanched almonds soaked overnight, which I clearly don't have.

I blend it on full power until the broccoli has stopped being bitty  - the recipe recommends a consistency similar to double cream so that's what I go for.

I am dubious about the addition of mint and lemon and not sure how the almonds will turn out.

Answer - AMAZING!

Wow, this is my new favourite soup.  The almonds make it beautifully creamy and add an almost cheese like undertone.  The lemon and mint lift it so it's not at all farty or heavy like broccoli soup can sometimes be.  It is really really satisfying, rich and yummy.

You're supposed to serve it with a few of the roasted almonds, a charred broccoli floret, a mint sprig and a drizzle of olive oil on the top...I just ate mine :)

I think the main point here, is not to be scared to fiddle about with recipes.  There's an old adage 'don't let the perfect get in the way of the good' or something similar.  I didn't have all the ingredients for this so I couldn't have followed the recipe perfectly.  But rather than not make it at all, I just adapted here and there.  The absolute worse that can happen is that it doesn't taste as nice as the original, but since I've never tried the original, I'm none the wiser. Just get stuck in and have fun and enjoy the end result I say.

Chocolate biscuit crumb

WO WA WEE WA! I have just made something very very nice indeed!

So, as usual I was watching MasterChef and there was chocolate chocolate everywhere and I needed to get me some. 

So I decided to make something up and it went like this:

1 heaped tspoon almond butter (any nut butter will work)

Small handful whole almonds 

1 tablespoon pure maple syrup

5 pitted dates 

1 tablespoon raw cacao powder

(You may need to tweak amounts according to taste and also because I'm not very exact with my measurements!)

Whizz it all up in a blender and it'll make a consistency like that chocolate soil posh chefs make, but if you squidge it up  its goey enough to hold its form. 

Then I tasted it and nearly went straight to heaven! It is outrageously delicious and tastes exactly like a posh biscuit base. 

I decided to leave it as 'soil' or a crumb rather than make it into a solid mass but I may make the leftovers into little balls of yumminess. 

Anyway, I served it sprinkled over Greek yogurt with some raspberries and enjoyed every mouthful. 

As I'm writing alex is now also appreciating his bowlful. A lot :)

It's amazing what you can do once you've learnt a few tricks with the old date/nut butter/blender combo. 

This is definitely a favourite so far and totally satisfied my MasterChef chocolate envy. 

Quick nutty pud

I've just watched Master chef and really fancied a pudding. 

So I made one. It took about 3 minutes and was delicious. 

All I did was put 2 heaped teaspoons almond butter (you cld use peanut butter), about 5 pitted dates, a handful of almonds, a glug of pure maple syrup and a generous sprinkle of oatbran (you could use oats) in my mini blender and whizzed it all up until it mushed together and held its shape but there were still nice chunks of fruit and nut in it. 

It was so delicious, kind of like a nut brittle come florentine biscuit, that I nearly ate the whole lot out of the pot instead of dishing it up...and sharing it with Alec although his portion was severely diminished by said pot chomping. 

Anyway, once it had made it's way safely into a bowl it was accompanied by some trusty Greek yogurt and was duly wolfed down. 

Yum. Quick, simple, whole food nutty yumminess. 

I don't have a photo because a it looked like brown nutty stuff, not very attractive. Oh, and the real reason is because I just wanted to eat it not photograph it!

Blackberry cake of extreme yumminess

We've gone all a bit hedgerow happy recently. Alex has been busy making sloe gin and today we added a modest but plump and juicy blackberry harvest to our supplies.

I decided, in part inspired by the great British bake off no doubt, I'd like to make these blackberries into a cake of some description. A sugarless, eggless, flourless cake to be precise. A sugarless, eggless, flourless cake that tasted of coconut and almonds to be even more precise.

No pressure then! Piece of cake - well, hopefully. 

So I searched on the interweb for AGES and found nothing I liked. So, I gave up and decided to make it up myself. 

Anybody who knows baking knows this is not a wise plan. Baking is a very precise, scientific thing requiring just the right ratios of this that and the other. 

Anybody who knows gluten free, vegan, sugar free baking knows the above applies, and some. 

Anybody who knows me and my style of cooking will be expecting the worst here - I don't like measuring and fiddling about. I like chucking things in and seeing what happens. 

So I had found a recipe after all - a recipe for disaster!

HOWEVER what I managed to create was one of the most delishscrumpdyplumptious things ever EVER.

I'd love to tell you the recipe or how I did it, but I didn't write it down!

It went a bit like this:

Combine 1 cup spelt flour, 2tbs flaxseed, 1tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt, cinnamon. Then I chucked 'some' ground almonds, coconut flour and dessicated coconut at it too. 

In another bowl mush up a banana, add 1 cup coconut milk, 1 cup ( ish ) apple purée and some pure maple syrup. Melt some coconut oil and add that in along with some vanilla extract and almond essence. Bung in the blackberries. 

Stir the whole lot together and chuck more wet stuff at it if it looks like it needs it. 

Told you my version was very scientific!

I baked it in a loaf tin at 180 for 35mins but it was still a bit wobblesome so I ended up cooking it for another 15 mins odd. Then left it to cool for 10mins before taking it out and stuffing it in mouth as it was SO nice. 

 Gooey, moist, sweet and fruity. Delicious on its own or with Greek yogurt. Yum yum yum and no sugar or lardy nasties in sight. 

I am really rather proud of this but expect I shall never be able to recreate it again! If anyone else manages it do let me know. :).