All That I'm Eating

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

Oat and Raisin Cookies

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Oat and Raisin Cookies close up

I had such a craving for some proper oat and raisin cookies. Ones which are crispy on the outside and gooey in the middle and about the same size as my face. I’ve tried several recipes in the past and they’ve tended to be not quite what I’m after in my perfect cookie. Until now. If you’re after a healthy cookie I wouldn’t read on any further.

ingredients

You will need (for 10 cookies):

  • 225g unsalted butter, softened
  • 200g light brown sugar
  • 50g caster sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 190g plain flour
  • 1 tbsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 240g rolled oats
  • 140g raisins

Method

I made these in a food mixer but you can make them with an electric hand whisk, or by hand if you prefer. read more

Honeyed Apricots with Rosemary Crème Fraîche

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Honeyed Apricots with Rosemary Creme Fraiche

Apricots make me think of my Mum. She’s the biggest apricot fan I know and until last year I didn’t really get what all the fuss was about. Then I had a proper one. Not a dry, fuzzy one with an inside like loft insulation but a sweet, juice running down the chin, superbly ripe one. And everything changed. Honeyed Apricots with Rosemary Crème Fraîche might sound like an unusual combination but herbs and fruit work so well together and this is truly a winner. Ripe apricots would be fantastic for this dish, but if they’re a bit ropy then sizzling them in honey will only improve them.

Ingredients

You will need (for two):

  • 6 apricots
  • 1 tbsp honey
  • 4 tbsp crème fraîche
  • 1 sprig fresh rosemary, leaves finely chopped
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Method

Halve the apricots and remove the stones. This was much easier than I thought it would be, the stones just fell out.

Warm up a small frying pan (a griddle pan would be good if you have one) then add the apricots, flesh side down and let them sizzle gently for a minute or two. Flip the apricots over so they are skin side down and fry for another minute. Finally, flip the apricots once more and add the honey to the pan. Move the apricots round in the honey so they are nicely covered and faintly caramelised.

Mix together the crème fraîche, rosemary and vanilla.

Serve up the apricots and dollop the crème fraîche mixture over the top.

This dessert is so summery it’s asking to be eaten outside with a lovely glass of dessert wine. The apricots are unctuously soft; they fall apart as soon as you dig your spoon in. Apricots and honey work so well together to bring some sweetness and coupled with the sharp crème fraîche it cuts through everything beautifully. The rosemary is distinctive but the faint whiff you get from it with the vanilla at the same time is just the best. I love herbs and fruit together and this combination of honey, apricots and rosemary is honestly one of my favourite puddings I have ever made. From slicing the apricots to sitting down to eat this for pudding takes less than 10 minutes and I can’t think of anything I’d rather eat under the shade of the tree in my garden.

Three Ingredient Date and Coconut Bites

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Date and Coconut Bites

There are an awful lot of new ‘healthy’ or ‘superfoods’ around at the moment and they are everywhere you look. Avocados, coconut oil, seeds and berries, cacao nibs; the list goes on. Now, I’ll try anything once and I have had a flirtation with all of the aforementioned foods but what happens when the Vogue moment is over, everyone’s moved on to something new and you’re left with a cupboard of half opened ingredients. Well if you’re me and throwing it away is not an option (although the compost bin might actually be the best place for the cacao nibs) you get creative. Welcome to my Three Ingredient Date and Coconut Bites; ready in a flash, use up some ingredients and made with all the good stuff.

You will need (for 16 bites):

  • 12 medjool dates (these are the extra sticky ones)
  • 2 tbsp coconut oil
  • 1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Pit the dates if they have stones and roughly dice them up. Put them in a food processor and blend to a rough paste.

Add the coconut oil and vanilla then blend again until smooth.

Roll into balls then pop in the fridge for when you fancy one.

The eagle eyed among you will have noticed that my date and coconut bites are coated in desiccated coconut. You can coat them if you like but they are fine naked too. I have tried desiccated coconut, cocoa powder and sesame seeds all with much success.

There’s not a lot to these little bites in the quantity of ingredients or difficulty in making but they certainly pack a punch when it comes to flavour. I didn’t expect these to be quite as nice as they are; a great hit of sweetness but from all natural sugar. When you’re having your afternoon coffee, pop a couple of these on the side. You can thank me later. The dates are sticky and sweet, the coconut oil improves the texture and the overall flavour is faintly vanilla with a good dose of coconut. I’m really rather pleased with these.

A little comment on ‘superfoods’ if I may. I think it’s interesting that all these new ingredients (or old in some cases, amaranth I’m looking at you) have their 15 minutes of fame but when the fad is over, we all move onto something else and it’s a never ending process. It’s great that we can all get hold of these ingredients to try for ourselves and the range of ingredients available now, even in a petrol station, is quite staggering. What I’m not so keen on is that some of these ingredients are sold as hugely superior to other foods to justify the price. There is not one food that does everything, and if there was, I certainly wouldn’t be interested in eating just one thing for the rest of my life no matter how ‘good’ it was for me. Certainly some of these ‘superfoods’ have benefits but you’re not going to get away with eating a generally bad diet just as long as you chuck a few chia seeds in on the way. It’s an old saying, but it’s the best one: everything in moderation, including moderation. Have a bit of cake, order extra cheese on your burger, try new ingredients, give salad a go. As far as I’m concerned if you’re cooking food up at home from ingredients that you like, what’s not super about that?

Green Clementine Fruit Salad with Mint and Vanilla Syrup

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Green Clementine Fruit Salad

You know when the nights start to get dark earlier, it’s a bit colder than it was before and people start sneezing (not due to hayfever) that you just want to be on holiday? I have a significant desire to be on a beach from November to February; unfortunately it’s not a practical option. So, to make the best of it I surround myself with fruit. The more tropical and bright the better but there’s only so many pineapples one person can eat. I was delivered some beautiful green clementines with my recent veg box and they deserved to have a bit of a fuss made of them: a lovely bright green clementine fruit salad with a mint and vanilla syrup.

Ingredients

You will need (for one):

  • 1 green clementine (orange clementines would do just fine)
  • A good handful of diced pineapple
  • A scattering of pomegranate seeds
  • 2 sprigs of mint
  • ½ tsp vanilla extract
  • 75g sugar
  • 150ml water
  • A few mint leaves to decorate

Method

Put the sugar and water together in a small pan with the vanilla extract. Heat gently and stir until the sugar has dissolved.

Bring the heat up on the pan so it bubbles lightly and the syrup can reduce. Add the mint leaves to the syrup when hot to infuse.

When syrupy, remove from the heat and leave to cool down. Once cool, remove the mint leaves.

Arrange the clementine, pineapple, pomegranate seeds and mint in a bowl and spoon over the syrup.

This does make slightly more syrup than you need for a little bowl of fruit salad but save it to use on your porridge in the morning; it’s delicious. When you’re feeling blue or have the sniffles something this bright, citrusy and vibrant can’t fail to cheer you up. Even just a little bit. I was amazed how just a little drizzle of syrup transformed this from a normal bowl of mixed fruit into something completely different. The mint and vanilla were most welcome with the clementine, pineapple and pomegranate and I know this will become a staple for my lunches over winter.

Review: What to Bake and How to Bake It. Buttermilk Pound Cake

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What to Bake and How to Bake it book

I was sent What to Bake and How to Bake It to review and I was really looking forward to having a flick through the pages to see what to bake. I knew it would be a fab book from the quick look I initially had but I wasn’t quite expecting it to be such the joy that it was. The quirky cover makes it stand out amongst the other books on my shelves and I liked the colours and illustrations. There are two key things I noticed about the book which I love: firstly, Jane provides pictures right at the start showing you exactly what butter and sugar look like when perfectly creamed (and if they’re over beaten) amongst other techniques, secondly, she doesn’t assume you have a microwave. I don’t have a microwave and it’s amazing how many cookery books assume you have one (I think I’m in the minority but still!). The book is published by Phaidon and they kindly said I could publish one of the recipes so I tried my hand at the Buttermilk Pound Cake.

Ingredients

You will need (for one pound cake):

  • 175g butter, softened and extra for greasing
  • 175g caster sugar (I used golden as I prefer the flavour)
  • 3 eggs (I used large)
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 225g plain flour
  • 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 120g buttermilk

Method

Grease a 23 x 12 loaf tin and line with baking paper. Preheat an oven to 180C. Beat the sugar and butter together until very creamy and pale. (I’m always surprised how long it takes to do this but I think it’s because my butter is never warm enough!).

Mix the eggs together well then beat into the butter mix a little at a time. Beat in the vanilla.

Stir together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt then fold half of it into the egg and butter mixture. Fold in the buttermilk then fold in the remaining flour to make a smooth, thick batter.

Scrape the batter into the tin then bake for 30 minutes then turn the oven down to 160C and bake for a further 20-25 minutes. Check the cake is cooked by inserting a skewer into the middle, it should come out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool before removing from the tin and leaving to cool completely on a wire rack.

I was pretty pleased with how my cake came out, it even cracked along the top like it’s supposed to! Every recipe is accompanied by step by step photos and instructions which make the book easy to use and follow. There’s a huge mix of recipes; fudgy cheesecake brownies, celebration cakes and breads and they all seem achievable next to Jane’s words of wisdom! The Buttermilk Pound Cake I made had a fantastic vanilla flavour with a very slight sourness and the texture was great too. I know I’ll be baking again from the book after this success!

What To Bake and How To Bake It is written by Jane Hornby and is published by Phaidon. Available in Hardback for £19.95.

Thank you to Phaidon for the book and for allowing me to publish the recipe. All opinions and words expressed are my own.

Victoria Sponge with Rhubarb and Vanilla Compote

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It’s always nice to see some bright pink rhubarb poking its head out at the market but as it’s the first of the season it can be quite pricey. So when you have only £1.80, what can you do with two rhubarb sticks? Make a lovely, vibrant rhubarb compote/jam to sandwich in the middle of two fat slices of cake of course. Other things that you can do with two sticks of rhubarb include: jousting, a spot of relay running or making a parasol (if you have the leaves left on) but none of those would be anywhere near as good as this cake. read more

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