All That I'm Eating

Recipe ideas for budget meals, everyday cooking and a little indulgence. Travel inspiration and restaurant reviews too.

Spelt and Dark Chocolate Pancakes with Yoghurt and Honey

By 21 Comments

spelt chocolate pancakes
When the weather gets like this there is only one way to improve the situation; to fill your belly with buttery things. More specifically spelt and chocolate pancakes. It seems to have been raining forever recently! Each time I glance out of the window there is never even a peep of blue sky and hardly any bright daffodils to remind me it is in fact Spring. But no matter, I have honey at the ready.  Perhaps not the healthiest advice to give, a more svelte person might suggest a nice jog in the park but it wouldn’t quite cut the mustard for me. No, when my fingers are still blue in March I need chocolate and sticky sweet things. That’s where these Spelt and Dark Chocolate Pancakes fit in nicely. Rachel’s Organic sent me some Greek Yoghurt with Honey to try and I thought it would work nicely with these pancakes.

Ingredients

You will need (for around 16 pancakes):

  • 200g spelt flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 40g caster sugar
  • 20g melted butter, plus extra for cooking
  • 1 egg
  • 275ml milk
  • 40g dark chocolate chips
  • Yoghurt with honey to serve

Method

Start by sieving the flour, baking powder and sugar into a large bowl.

In a separate bowl mix together the melted butter, egg and milk until well combined. Stir the egg mixture into the flour mixture and add the chocolate chips. Give everything a good stir to make sure it is well incorporated.

Heat a little knob of butter in a frying pan until it just starts to foam and then drop the pancake mixture in using around 2 tbsp of the batter for each pancake.

Fry the pancakes until they are golden brown before flipping them over and cooking the other side. Don’t be tempted to flip too early as you could end up with miserable looking pancake. read more

Coconut Yoghurt Panna Cotta with Passion Fruit

By 29 Comments

I find I get a craving for tropical flavours this time of year; pineapple, mango, dragon fruit and such but it’s a bit of a bore to just eat it raw.

I have been enjoying a coconut yoghurt with banana for breakfast but I wanted to make something creative with it. I do like yoghurt on its own but I think it gives a great flavour to icings, ice creams and other desserts. I like the tang and interest it brings and so it was high time I got my Hawaiian shirt on to start making a delectable panna cotta. read more

Double Sausage, Cheese and Egg Muffin

By 20 Comments

sausage cheese and egg muffin
What’s your guilty pleasure? I have to confess I very much enjoy a particular sausage, cheese and egg muffin from a well known fast food restaurant. I know, shameful. However I am admitting it now as part of trying to cleanse my system. I liked the idea behind the aforementioned muffin; a sausage and egg sandwich really. In order to still enjoy this behemoth breakfast (without the guilt) I needed to try and make my own version. Not only was I going to attempt to fill my guilty pleasure gap I was going to improve on the original.

Ingredients

You will need (for two):

  • 4 cumberland burgers
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 thick slices of mild cheddar cheese
  • 2 muffins

Method

I was lucky to be able to get these cumberland burgers from the farmers’ market and without them it wouldn’t have been the same. I reckon you could make cumberland burgers if you can’t get them by squeezing the sausage meat out of some nice sausages and making burger shapes.

Start by frying the burgers until brown on the outside and cooked through. Meanwhile get another pan on the heat to fry the egg in. I fried my egg inside an upside down pastry cutter so it was the same size as the muffin. Maybe a bit unnecessary but I didn’t want odd shaped egg white hanging out of my muffin; it would have ruined the effect! When the egg is almost ready and the yolk still gooey get the muffins toasting. read more

Wet Garlic, Bacon and Broccoli Pappardelle

By 21 Comments

wet garlic
You know that saying about life giving you lemons? I was given some wet garlic (also called green garlic) in my vegetable box. Lemons can be made into lemonade but I certainly wasn’t about to start making garlic juice. I took some time to ponder its use. It looked like a skinny leek, but much longer, with the very pungent and distinct aroma of garlic. Firstly I thought it best to try it raw to see what I was up against. I think even now I have a faint whiff of garlic on my breath. Raw wet garlic would, I’m sure, be acceptable to the ultimate garlic aficionado but not for me. Cooking was to be the way forward but I wondered whether to treat it like a leek which needs longer cooking or treat it like garlic which burns in the blink of an eye.  You will need: 6-8 rashers smoked bacon, diced 1 small onion, diced 1 wet garlic stalk/bulb, finely sliced 100ml chicken or vegetable stock 1 small head of broccoli, cut into florets Pappardelle (however much it takes for you to be full) Oil for frying Salt and Pepper

Start by frying the onion in a little oil for a few minutes to soften. Add the bacon and fry for about five minutes until the bacon is cooked and the onions turning translucent. Add the garlic and reduce the heat. Fry for a few more minutes before pouring in the stock. Simmer this on a medium heat stirring occasionally. I used some of the chicken stock I had made from the leftover chicken.

While this cooks, add the pappardelle to boiling water. Four or five minutes before the pasta is ready, add the broccoli to the same water. The sauce should be reducing but turn the heat up or add a little more stock if it’s happening too fast or too slow. When the pasta and broccoli are done, add the broccoli and a little of the pasta water to the bacon sauce. Serve the broccoli, bacon, garlic mixture on top of the pappardelle. 

I was really surprised how the garlic mellowed with cooking. There was a definite garlic undertone to the dish but it was not as overpowering as I thought it might be. The salty bacon, sweet onion, pungent garlic and juicy broccoli were all married together beautifully with the chicken stock. If you’re lucky enough to get hold of wet garlic this is certainly worth a try (I also added it to frying Chorizo and it worked a treat), if you’re brave then you could try slicing it in to a salad. read more

Chicken and Chorizo Tartlets

By 28 Comments

Chicken and Chorizo Tartlets baked and ready to eat
I’m not very good at anything that requires precision; cutting, gluing, drawing, sewing and the like just aren’t made for me no matter how much I might like them to be. I thought it was time I challenged this, determined to be as perfect as possible I set about making some mini chicken and chorizo tartlets. This of course was not only an excuse to try and achieve the impossible; namely a pastry tart case that didn’t shrink, but also to use up some more of my leftover chicken. To make four mini tarts you will need: 4oz flour, 2oz butter and cold water for the pastry 125g cooked chicken 125g cooking chorizo 1 small onion Small handful parsley 25g butter 1 tbsp flour 1/2 pint milk

First and foremost make the pastry. Rub the butter into the flour until you have breadcrumbs and then add drops of water until it comes together. Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes or so. Roll the pastry out and divide into four pieces. Line each tart tin with the pastry and prick the base with a fork. I thought I’d make a right mess of lining the tins but it was really quick and simple; no holes and no patching up required.

I tried that trick of pushing the rolling pin over the pastry when it’s in the case to remove the excess pastry from the edges and it worked brilliantly. Line the tarts with some baking paper and fill the tart cases with baking beans. Bake in a preheated oven at 200C for 15 minutes then remove the baking beans. I don’t think I was quite firm enough pushing my beans down as I did get a few air bubbles so I’ll be sure to be more forceful next time.

The fiddliest part was the unfortunate but necessary step of removing the skins from the chorizo. They may be natural skins and fine to eat but I’d had them before and ended up having to pull the skins off after cooking and out of my teeth. I wasn’t prepared to spend the evening flossing so skin removal was essential. Once the skins are removed, chop the chorizo and fry on a medium heat so the oil runs out of the chorizo and it gets nice and crispy. Remove the chorizo from the pan leaving some of the oil and put the onion in. Fry the onion until soft and going brown at the edges; the smell was divine. read more

Coronation Chicken: using up leftover chicken

By 14 Comments

Eggs for making mayonnaise
Removing all the meat from a cooked chicken has to be one of the most rewarding things to do; ending up with a plate full of bones and a bowl full of meat opens up a world of possibilities. As I mentioned in the previous post the bones were used to make stock; half of this was used in a bright broccoli, celery and stilton soup. I think the other half will end up in a risotto in the near future. 

First and most importantly it was essential to make some form of chicken sandwich from the leftovers. As Jubilee fever is gripping the nation at the moment I thought the most appropriate sandwich would be Coronation chicken. Possibly my favourite sandwich filler but one I’ve never made myself and I wanted to do it properly, do it justice and so I set about making some mayonnaise.

  You will need: 2 egg yolks 250ml oil (I used half groundnut, half rapeseed) Cooked chicken Curry Powder Mango Chutney Bread, salad, other sandwich bits

My mixer would be the perfect thing to make glorious, fresh, silky mayonnaise, at least that’s what I thought. As far as I was aware 1 egg yolk can emulsify 100ml of oil but none of the recipes I found followed this rule so I trusted both my instincts (which are apparently useless) and a few recipes and went for 2 egg yolks and 250ml oil.  read more

Lemon and Thyme Roast Chicken and the leftovers

By 19 Comments

chicken with lemon, thyme, onions and garlic
A beautifully roasted chicken is hard to beat; with crispy skin and succulent meat there’s nothing quite like it. Having a whole roast chicken is a rare thing for me, indeed this is the first chicken I have roasted in a very long time and I wasn’t about to waste a scrap of it. The chicken that was to fulfil my roast chicken dreams was a local, free range, corn fed bird. This post is about my perfect Sunday lunch and making the most of the leftovers.  

Lemon and thyme roasted chicken is a classic, simple recipe. Shove it all together, chuck it in the oven and reap the rewards later.
You will need:
A chicken (I used a 1.4kg bird for two)
1 lemon
Fresh thyme
1 onion
Butter
Salt and pepper

Start by cutting the string off the legs and stuffing the cavity with a few sprigs of thyme and half a lemon. Cut the onion up into chunks and put them into a roasting tin with the other half of the lemon and a few more sprigs of thyme. Put the butter into a bowl and mix in some salt and pepper. Now comes the slightly tricky and disgustingly satisfying part; separate the breast meat from the skin. I use a spoon to do this to minimise ripping the skin. When skin and meat are sufficiently separated, stuff some of the butter under the skin. Rub the rest of the butter onto the outside, put in to the roasting tray and roast in the oven at 160C for an hour or so or until cooked through. read more

Honey and Cinnamon Spelt Biscuits

By 18 Comments

honey, cinnamon and spelt flour
I like books. I can rarely walk past a charity or second hand book shop without having a little nose around. My affection for literature is not just for old books, I love the smell of new ones.  As a result of my fondness, and subsequent collection of books, it was about time I sorted a few out in order to prevent some sort of hardback avalanche occurring. So that I didn’t get bored I thought it was a good idea to intersperse the organising with some biscuit making. I had bought some spelt flour a while ago to make some soda bread and there was a recipe on the back for these biscuits. They sounded ridiculously quick and simple and I thought it would be rude not to give them a try. 

You can find a very similar recipe on the Doves Farm site here.
You will need:
200g Wholegrain Spelt Flour
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
125g Honey
75g Sunflower Oil

These are some of the easiest biscuits I have ever made; mix everything together, put on a baking tray and bake for only 8-12 minutes.

In amongst all the book sorting, biscuit mixing and desperation in trying to remember to remove all dough from my hands before it ended up on my books I have a few tips to pass on.

Firstly, if you weigh the oil out first and then weigh the honey on top of the oil it will all slide out together and you won’t be stuck scraping honey out of your measuring bowl. Secondly these biscuits grow quite like no other; at least doubling in size so leave plenty of room. Lastly they need at least 12 minutes baking, mine took about 15 minutes in total but that may have been because they were large. read more

Carrot and Orange Gazpacho

By 33 Comments

carrots for gazpacho
Apart from the occasional carrot cake or carrot salad I rarely have opportunity to make the carrot the star of the show. Carrots tend to make an appearance in the vegetable box but this time, instead of stored carrots from last year I had the first spring carrots. Thin and still slightly muddy with great green fronds, these carrots couldn’t simply be added to a stew. I had never made a cold soup before; I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it. Was it going to feel like a soup that had been left in the bowl too long or was it going to be more like a vegetable smoothie? What if there were all sorts of unwanted lumpy bits and it looked like wallpaper paste? There was much ooh-ing and aah-ing as I tried to work out how best to juice a carrot. It turns out all the deliberation was worth it, carrot gazpacho is in a soup league of its own. You will need (for two):

  • 500g carrots, peeled and chopped
  • 1/4 red pepper, chopped
  • 2 spring onions, chopped
  • 1 garlic clove
  • 1/4 cucumber, peeled and chopped
  • Few sprigs coriander, chopped
  • 2-3 tbsp orange juice
  • extra virgin olive oil
  • white wine vinegar
  • salt and pepper
    • read more

    Three ways with Asparagus 3 of 3: Raw Asparagus Salad

    By 13 Comments

    Asparagus
    The third and final part of my demo is raw asparagus salad. This is a brilliant way of enjoying asparagus. It almost tastes of fresh peas or beans. Eating asparagus raw means you can enjoy its crunch and subtle flavours. Don’t worry though, it’s far more elegant than shovelling whole spears in your face, it’s delicately peeled into thin strips with a very simple dressing.

    You will need (for two):

    A bunch of asparagus Rapeseed Oil Old Winchester (or Parmesan) Juice of ½ lemon Black pepper Peeling the asparagus with a hand peeler is actually quite easy; you can attack it full force, bits of asparagus flying everywhere, and it seems to work pretty well. You could try it with a mandoline but I have too much affection for my fingers to try it. 

    Remove the woody ends of the asparagus but leave enough to hold on to. Peel the asparagus from stem to tip, keep the stems (non woody) for making into a soup, or if you’re really adventurous a soufflé or sorbet. Pile all your peelings into a bowl, drizzle over some rapeseed oil, lemon juice, pepper and a healthy shaving of Old Winchester. Old Winchester is our answer to Parmesan and if you’ve not tried it before it has a similar texture but a bit more bite and acidity. read more


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