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.

Sprouty Salad

I don't know why people don't like sprouts, other than they've only ever eaten them cooked by somebody else who doesn't like them and therefore doesn't know how to cook (or not cook) them properly.

One of the best dishes I ever made for a dinner party was a sprout salad. It was delicious.

Today, on my whole-but-still-Christmassy-food mission I decided to make another sprout salad for lunch.

Ingredients:
120g shredded raw sprouts - do not cook them!
2 handfuls chopped walnuts
abt 2 matchbox sized pieces low fat feta
1 apple cored and chopped up
1 stick celery halved length wise and chopped
handful parmesan shavings to chuck on top

and for the dressing:
1 heaped tspn dijon mustard
juice from one wedge lemon
abt 2 capfulls of white wine vinegar
tblsp ish of olive oil
tiny drizzle honey
Sea salt & black pepper
1 egg yolk - optional but makes it more creamy and increases protein content.

Normally cheese wouldn't really be considered whole food as its original ingredients have been fiddled with somewhat but both feta and parmesan are made with unpasteurised milk so I let it slip.  You could use any other cheese with a good 'bite' such as stilton too. In fact stilton is super yummy in this salad.  If you wanted some meat it goes nicely with grilled chicken or crispy bacon bits as well.

Make sure the sprouts are good and shredded...maybe give them a quick blitz in a blender to make sure.  If you have big lumps it doesn't work as well and the dressing can't coat all the little bits of spout.

Anyway, basically mix all the ingredients of the dressing, throw all the salad bits in a bowl except the nuts and parmesan.  Pour dressing over and mix up...it should just be enough to coat but no more.  Sprinkle over a pinch more sea salt and then leave for the sprouts to mellow into the dressing a bit. They can be a bit bitter otherwise.

When you're ready to serve add in the nuts and finally scatter a few parmesan shavings and some black pepper over the top.

There you have it!

The salty cheese and the tangy mustard and lemon balance the sproutiness really well and the apple, nuts and celery add different flavour combos - a bit like a waldorf really, but yummier :).

Warming winter butternut soup

The other day I roasted some butternut - one of my favourite ways to enjoy butternut.  You can either cut it in half, scoop  out the seed area, drizzle with sea salt and olive oil and just roast for 30-40 mins, or chop into wedges and do the same.  I used to peel it but I don't bother anymore as the skin actually goes quite nice and crispy in the oven.  On this particular occasion I also drizzled over a spot of runny honey and added some black pepper before roasting. Think I did it on about 200C Fan.

Anyway, we only needed about half the butternut for that meal so the next day I decided to make a soup out of what was left.

This recipe is SO easy it's ridiculous.

Just roast up some butternut as above...you can play around with flavour combinations by maybe sprinkling over some cinnamon, cumin adding garlic, using honey or not, chilli flakes etc. But always use salt (sea salt if poss), olive oil and black pepper.

When the squash is nice and sticky and starting to brown around the edges, add it to a pan with some chicken stock...use enough to cook the squash in to begin with then you can add more depending on the consistency you like later.  Add a tspoon dried sage, tsp cumin, and some cinnamon - again vary to taste according to your own preferences.

I was going to add onion and all sorts but decided not to bother in the end and I'm glad I didn't as the resulting really rich, deep taste of butternut was delicious as it was.  Don't worry about the skin, having been roasted and then simmered away in the stock for a while it mushes up nicely and adds to the flavour and consistency.

I left it to simmer for about 20-30 minutes and then used a hand blender to whizz it up into a nice creamy consistency.  At this point you can add more water to get just the right consistency for you.

Finally, and this is totally optional but really adds to the flavour, once it was in bowls I drizzled over some truffle oil and added a few parmesan shavings as well as some more cracked black pepper.  You can get teeny little bottles of truffle oil in M&S which is what I use...sparingly!

There you have it, lovely, easy, healthy arming winter soup...and not a turkey in sight!

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. :). 

Leftovers lunch

Today saw me, my brother and my grandma set off on an impromptu trip to the beach - well, a beach by a lake in the middle of Surrey but a beach nonetheless!  I had about 20 minutes to spare before they came to pick me up and I decided we needed a picnic.  I didn't fancy picking up some grotty garage sandwiches along the way but didn't really have the time or ingredients to rustle anything up.

Until I spotted the leftover quinoa from last night (see, always make too much!).

I quickly chopped up and bunged in some avocado, cherry tomatoes, parley, feta and lemon juice (all also left overs from other meals), sprinkled on some seasalt and  black pepper, chucked it in a tupperware and was all done.

Grandma and I enjoyed our lovely light summery salad lunch later on. I couldn't, however, convince my brother to partake of any 'gravel', he had a pork baguette instead :).

                

Kale convert

There are very few foods that I do not like.  But when I don't like a food, I really, properly do not like it. At all.

I can count on one hand the foods that fall into this category (that I know of so far):

- Parsley
- Anchovies
- Kale
- Crab
- Whitebait
- Sardines
(there's a small evil fishy theme here)
- and weirdly, cream cakes (not strictly 'food' as such in the cleanest terms but can be eaten nonethless!) or anything involving starchy white things alongside sweet red things, ergo jam sandwiches.  I know, I did say it was weird but I can handle not liking this manky stuff. It just gives me an instant headache and makes me go all woozy and whatnot.

I've also just noticed that either I can't count or I have a deformed hand with rather more fingers than it should have.

The point is, I like most things apart from the above.

Or so I thought.

Turns out my taste buds, my attitude, my sense of adventure or my willingness to challenge convention and the stories I've made about myself based on previous experience, has changed.

I now regularly use parsley in dishes, in fact it's now my herb of choice for freshening things up.  I've eaten crab twice in the last week...I just fancied it, and it didn't kill me (although the smell nearly knocked Alex out, he's not budging on his absolute distaste for any form of seafood).

And I now absolutely love, adore and worship the ground kale, um, grows in.  For something that looks just so green and vegetabley, it's so so tasty. It has its own natural saltiness somehow. And it is unbelievably and ridiculously good for you in so many reasons it's almost impossible to list them. It's basically a very super, superfood.

I think the thing with kale, and parsley actually, and broccoli before them, is that my opinion of them had been formed by 1970s and 1980s style cooking of them - ie boil them to within an inch of their life (and beyond).

I remember a particularly harrowing kale experience where a giant, curly, spiky lump of the stuff got stuck in my throat and threatened to kill me. Ish.  It wasn't nice anyway and I've never forgiven it. Until now, armed with the proper knowledge and skills as to how to actually cook and use it properly.

Tonight's dinner was a case in point.

I'd saved a recipe for warm quinoa and kale salad to my pinterest board a while ago from MindBodyGreen that I wanted to try and having been out all day and eaten a fairly large lunch quite late on, I realised I had all the ingredients so decided to give it a go.

The full recipe is here and to avoid any kind of copyright I won't re-post.

I fully intended to stick to the recipe religiously for once but alas, my tahini had seen better days (mostly prehistoric days judging by the use by date and the state of it) so I adapted a little and used some houmous I had in the fridge in the dressing instead.  Not ideal as it was shop bought rather than home made but life is too short sometimes...anyway I couldn't make my own due to aforementioned tahini sitch.

Another thing that appealed about this salad was the quinoa, of which I am a huge fan.  For any quinoa virgins, it's keen-wa, not kwinowa, and is a sort of peruvian protein packed grain thing that is super easy to cook, yummy to eat and general all round fab and versatile meal base.  It's also gluten free and doesn't seem to bloat me out like couscous etc.

If you're interested, check out my Quinoa Queen post for some tips on cooking the perfect quinoa.

So, the verdict.  It was delicious.  It really packed a punch on the flavour side of things. The houmous and tamari (a kind of wheat free soy sauce) dressing was really rich, musky and tangy, it reminded me a little of miso. The kale had a lovely nutty flavour from the coconut oil and the avocado on top added a light freshness to it all.  I was careful to only cook the kale until it was wilted to retain the crispness and bright green-ness of it which also helped.  The recipe said to season with salt and pepper but I didn't bother as I didn't think it needed it at all.

So, we've decided to add this to our staples and might experiment with a few different varieties or toppings.

Alex's inspiration

Every now and then Alex goes all culinary creative.  He'll suddenly get a craving for a food or mixture of foods and will talk me through the sort of dish he envisages them forming together.  My challenge is to take his musings and turn them into an actual dish.  Sometimes what he invents in his own head sounds amazing, other times I adapt here and there.

Tonight's effort was courtesy of one of said moments.  The other day Alex said:

" Tomorrow night love, is it alright if we have some butter beans, maybe warmed through with some garlic and olive oil, and some herbs of some description, with some roasted tomatoes and asparagus with maybe some avocado on the side or something?"  He gets all Italian chef with his hands when he talks this through as well.

I thought that sounded really rather nice, minus the avocado on the side thing, and so that is what I created tonight.

Firstly I chose baby tomatoes on the vine for the super sweet tastiness and I roasted them on a bed of chopped up fennel (because it is ridiculously good for you and it was £1 for a giant bag full at the market), crushed garlic and torn basil, drizzled with olive oil, black pepper and Maldon salt (obvs). 

While all that was doing I lightly steamed some baby asparagus.

For the butter beans I used coconut oil (SO nice and excellently healthy alternative to other fats) and very lightly fried a load more garlic in that before adding the beans to just heat through - I wanted the garlic to retain it's tang and the beans to retain their bite rather than go mushy.



Then I added the juice of half a lemon and a load of chopped up fresh parsley (having determined that as the best herb to use here, I think because it's very fresh and peppery so would counteract the soft buttery beans) and seasoned it too.

Then I just lobbed it all on a plate really.

This time, Alex done good. Very good.  We both made lots of "mmmm" type noises during consumption.

Food like this just makes me SO happy.  A. because nutritionally these sorts of natural whole foods just do, fact. B. because we invented this all by ourselves and worked together C. because it tasted super yum and D. it's all just so darn satisfying...from an appetite and an accomplishment sort of point of view.

It's this making stuff up using lovely ingredients type of cooking (and eating!) I really love.

Peaches and cheese

Today sees a new twist on the whole fruit and cheese combo.  This time I do know where I got the inspiration and that's my new cookbook, which like every new cookbook I buy (um, lots), is now my most favourite cookbook in the world ever.  It's Hemsley and Hemsley - the art of eating well and I love it. Well, I love looking through it, have yet to make anything from it!

Anyway, today whilst flicking through I spotted a salad with peach and goats cheese. I didn't stop to read the recipe but whilst out shopping I decided all I wanted to eat for lunch was indeed a peach and goats cheese salad.  So I made it up. 

My version went like this:

Rip up some butterhead leaves and chuck on some chopped up nectarine ( I remembered I don't like the furriness of peaches!), chuck on some soft goats cheese, drizzle on some of the yummy honey, mustard dressing mentioned in an earlier post, dry fry a few pine nuts til nice and brown and chuck them on too. Just for good measure I also drizzled on some basil flavoured olive oil and some walnut flavoured olive oil and served with some heavenly focaccia from Waitrose. 

O. M. G. I don't like to blow my own trumpet but it was delish. The dressing was so lovely and unctuous and hints of the basil and walnut flavours added a lovely fresh, grassy, earthy dimension to what could have been quite sweet and flat otherwise. 

Can't believe I used to run a mile at the thought of fruit in savoury dishes before! (I still draw the line at duck a l'orange and sultanas in curries tho. Bleurgh.)

Having eaten it I checked the Hemsley and Hemsley recipe to find it really quite different to mine and involving peas, red onion, courgettes and mint - one to try another day!

Watermelon and Feta

The other day I just decided I fancied a watermelon and feta salad.

I've no idea where the notion to combine these two flavours came from, but boy did it work.  The crisp, watery sweetness of the melon really contrasted beautifully with the soft, creamy, tangy saltiness of the feta cheese.  Feta is one of my favourite ingredients, especially in salads and this was defo a favourite combo.

For a bit of added crunch and earthy depth I toasted some pine nuts and used a mixture of nice soft butterhead lettuce and peppery rocket.  Then to balance the whole thing with a bit of acidity I made a lovely dressing with mustard, olive oil, honey and white wine vinegar...as well as the beloved Maldon salt.

And I must say the result was rather pleasing and super yummy. I love making up new recipes (new to me anyway ) so I allowed myself a little moment of pride as I munched my way through it.

You could be forgiven for dismissing the humble watermelon as just a load of watery nothingness, but you'd be wrong. It is in fact a super healthful fruit full of lycopene (normally associated with tomatoes), excellent inflammation basher and muscle relaxant (handy for the old sciatica and whiplash) and full of vitamins and minerals.  Check out everything the lovely pink juicy one has to offer here.

You might also be thinking, yes, but feta, olive oil, pine nuts...that's a lot of fat! So what?  Fat is good, natural, healthy fats in moderation that is.  Try telling the Greeks and Italians (two of the healthiest nations around) to stop eating oil and cheese and see what happens.  We actually need fats in our diet  (not the kind in a double bacon cheeseburger)  for loads of different reasons so boo to the fat bashers.

So, all in all, very happy with this result, and to feed the happy a bit more, it even looked pretty.

Lovely lollies

The other week, whilst off work with whiplash, feeling sorry for myself and in danger of feeding my sad with entirely the wrong type of food, I took inspiration from a blog post I saw and instead of nipping out to buy an icecream, I nipped out to buy the ingredients to make the strawberry creamsicles I'd spotted on superhealthykids.com

This fed my happy for several reasons:

1 - I'd caught myself stumbling towards a common hole in my road to wellness but instead of falling down it (again), I diverted myself around it
2 - Taking action and busying myself being creative and making something took away the craving to eat anyway
3 - Instead of being full of sugar, fat and all manner of random nasties, there's nothing in these but greek yoghurt and mushed up strawberries
4 - They were really rather jolly looking and nice when they were done!  Now I want to try different combos...maybe nectarine and honey? yum.