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Building a tribe with feta and spinach bread

They say that it takes a village to raise a child and as this year ticks on, I am beginning to believe them. I guess that it wasn’t that long ago that families lived closer together, that you knew your neighbour, that you had childhood friends down the road. As most of you know we moved to Munich when I was nearing the end of my pregnancy. I ended up two weeks overdue, was induced and after 30hours (with zero progress at all) had an emergency section (the umbilical cord was wrapped multiple times round Mays neck). From the minute May arrived, we needed a tribe and we haven’t stopped needing one since. We needed our freezer filling, our dog walking, our baby to be cooed over. We needed to be taken care of. The few friends that we had here made us feel loved and special but we had only met them weeks before and we weren’t at the stage of being able to let them into a crazy house, in three day old clothes stained with milk leakage. We needed people that knew us. People that knew our normal and could read between the lines. We needed friends that knew our history, that knew how to ask the difficult questions and who would ship us off to bed when we needed it. This year has been the very very best of years. We have watched in wonder as our little daughter grows and learns. But it has also been the hardest of years. Doing something so life changing as becoming parents meant that we needed the support of loved ones around us and on top of that, the husband has struggled this year with depression. He has found moving here harder than me in many ways. He has struggled with the culture shock of the land and of becoming a dad. I have spent the last 13months trying to keep his head above water whilst being the best mum I can be and when there is just the two of you, everything is felt more intensely. I think that why this year more than ever, cooking has mattered. It has been my respite, my solace. It is the little bit of me that I can cling on to. On days where words haven’t hit the spot the action of putting down a bowlful of something delicious has been my way of showing love. Serving homemade cakes to friends has bought us closer. Taking freshly made goodies to playgroup allowed me to open up and chat round the language barrier.

Today I dropped May off at nursery and then met a old friend for coffee. We greeted the owner by name, we sipped espresso and we laughed. It felt homely. I realised that somewhere along the way, we have been building a tribe here. That despite the hard days, the days where I was sure I was failing everyone, it turns out we were doing something right. I came home wanting to cook. I was wet and cold from the weather and I needed the oven to on and to break bread. So as Cold Feet played in the background I measured out this loaf. It is silky rich when baked and souffle light. It is salty from the feta and earthy from the spinach and it needs that tiny hint of chilli warmth. It would be delicious toasted along side a bowl of ratatouille, dipped in roasted tomato soup or topped with a crunchy carrot and seed salad.

Happy Tuesday x

Ingredients
Large handful of fresh spinach chopped
2 eggs
200g – 250g flour
1 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp dried chilli flakes
1.5 tbsp ricotta
40g feta crumbled
1.5 tbsp rapeseed oil

Method
Preheat your oven to 170C
Grease a loaf tin
Whisk the eggs in a large bowl
Stir in the ricotta, crumbled feta, chilli, oil and spinach
Fold in the flour and baking powder – use as much flour as you need to reach a thick batter
Pour into the loaf tin and bake for 50-60mins or until a skewer comes out clean and it is golden brown

 

 

I like…breakfast donuts

This morning I text two of my favourite ladies. I needed advice, on the important matters of jeans and makeup. I don’t have a beauty regime, unless you count washing your face with water in the shower and the months of no sleep are starting to show. Also, now that the baby is less sticky/sicky I fancy looking a little more polished and brighter. One of my girlfriends wrote back ‘with your cheekbones and bod I would wander round naked with no make up at all’. What a phenomenally uplifting thing to say. Seriously, that compliment was greater than any makeup I could buy. I feel so good and it made me realise that we are so quick to critisize ourselves and to highlight our faults and flaws. I don’t ever stop to think ‘wow look at my cheekbones’ but I could tell you all the quirks that I would like to airbrush out. Wouldn’t it be nice to just state what we love about ourselves.

So I thought I would kick it off. I love that I am punctual. If you need me to be somewhere at a certain time, I will be there. In reality I will be there early and be awkwardly standing around trying to not look too early and keen. I am good at feeding people. I know this might sound silly, but I love to make big platters and bowls of food and watch everyone tuck in. I love that food opens up conversation and makes everyone feel a little warmer and rosier. I don’t find it stressful to make tons of food or bake cakes and can happily host a spontaneous dinner party. Finally I am hardy. If you need IKEA furniture building, your house packing up, a shop opening, cement pouring, or a harvest of apples picked..count me in. I can happily toil away for days on end as long as I am caffeinated and occasionally fed.

It turns out that I am also pretty good at baking donuts. These little beauties are breakfast donuts because they are packed with apples and carrots, chia and oats. They are topped with honey and bee pollen. They are shaped perfectly for on the go with a coffee in hand as you cycle to work (this may be illegal so maybe don’t do this!). I promise you, you will like yourself a little more if you make them and if you share them then others will like you more too!

Ingredients (makes 9)
125g instant oats
125g flour
1 tsp baking powder
4 tbsp stewed apple
1 grated carrot
1 tbsp chia seeds
1 tbsp chopped dried fruit
3 tbsp rapeseed oil
1 egg (or 1 flax egg)

2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp bee pollen

Method
Preheat your oven to 160C
Place the egg, oil, carrot, apple and chia into a large bowl and whisk together
Sift in the dry ingredients and the oats and fold together
Spoon into a well greased donut pan
Bake until golden brown (approx 12-15mins)
Turn out immediately onto a cooling rack
Whilst still warm brush with honey, wait 1 minute and brush again
Sprinkle with bee pollen and leave to cool

Cinnamon breakfast buns

I really dont have much of a sweet tooth. I like my chocolate as dark and bitter as possible and my favourite way to end a meal is with an espresso. But sometimes there are those days when only a cinnamon bun will do which is how I found myself kneading dough yesterday evening as the little one had bath time with her papa.

It was so crisp and sunny yesterday here and it felt like possibly the last of the summer heat in the sun. All we wanted to do was drink coffee and be outside. So thats what we did. We cycled our bikes, we played in the grass, we hung out with friends. But then, as the day was winding down, I felt a little lost somehow. Sometimes its like that on a Sunday night when you say goodbye to one week and you perch on the brink of the next. There are all the lists to be made and things to be done. You realise how much of last weeks ‘to dos’ will simply roll right in to this weeks. You wonder if you achieved enough or if you could have done more. Last night I was missing things. What exactly I’m not entirely sure. I was just missing the easy familiarity of life. I wanted the TV to be in my mother tongue and my family to be nearby. I wanted to be eating different food and to be hanging out in streets that I know like the back of my hand. In those moments it is so easy to compare everything and to wish the evening away, and believe me, we have done that many many times. So instead, I baked cinnamon buns. We lit some candles, snuggled up and watched a Nordic show (Lillehammer.. have you seen it?) and suddenly this flat felt more like home and we were a little team, things were cosy and the week ahead just had to wait a few hours.

To me there is something so cosy and comforting about baking and especially baking something so familiar plus the heady smell of sugar cinnamon didn’t hurt either. These buns are not your classic uber sweet syrupy version. They are more wholesome, more bready, more Nordic, more breakfasty but I promise they still come with the same amount of belly warming hygge.

Ingredients (makes 12)
Use the same recipe as here for the dough
In addition you also need:
4 tbsp coconut oil or butter
2 tbsp cinnmaon
2 tbsp pureed apple
6 tbsp unrefined sugar
1 banana (or an additional 2 tbsp butter)

Method
Once the dough has proved roll it out until you have a large rectangle
Preheat your oven to 170C
Blend the coconut oil (or butter), apple, banana, cinnamon and sugar together
Spread over the dough
Roll the dough up into a log (starting with a longer edge)
Once fully rolled, place seam down and slice into 12 slices
Place the rolls into a well greased baking dish
Bake for 30mins

Verbena Harissa and roasted vegetable swiss roll

As much as I love a little bite of something sweet, at this time of year all I want is spice and warmth. I really really feel the cold. I never used to. As I kid I could happily play for hours outside at minus 15C. Now I need multiple layers. Im not sure what changed, maybe it was being so ill for so long, but I relish cosiness more than ever. As autumn arrives we start to change things at home, just as we did growing up.

The summer clothes are packed away, the winter coats brought up from the basement. The bowls on the dining table are replaced with tea light holders and the cushions on the sofa get bigger and fluffier. Sheep skins appear suddenly on the footstools in which to nestle your toes and we put out a basket of slippers for guests to wear. The ends of the beds become weighed down with thick blankets too and you can find me curled up somewhere, wrapped in an oversize man repeller cardigan drinking oversized mugs of ginger tea.

In the kitchen things change too and I find myself adding more warming flavours to dishes. Ginger, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon spice up cakes and bread and vegetables are dressed with chilli. This swiss roll is inspired by last nights Great British Bake Off. Their ‘roulades’ were sweet and you could certainly use the sponge here and roll it with pumpkin spiced cream and apple, or you could do as I did and spread it with a thick layer of verbena harissa and roasted vegetables.

The verbena harissa is delicious and is simply made by blending a handful of spinach with some harissa, and a few shoots of lemon verbena and coriander. It packs a little heat that pairs well with any seasonal vegetable. If you don’t feel like making it you can buy this super tasty version. You could also mix harissa with some hummus or use tapenade instead. I rolled it with roasted carrots, courgettes, peppers and some shallots but you could do pumpkin, butternut squash, leeks and any other veggies that you fancy, you could also add in spinach or watercress too. This is an autumn lunch, warm, roasted and spicy. Enjoy

Ingredients
5 eggs or 6 tbsp of aquafaba if vegan
5 tbsp plain flour
3 carrots peeled and finely sliced
1 courgette finely sliced
1 shallot quartered
1 yellow pepper finely sliced
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
3 tbsp verbena harissa

Method
Preheat the oven to 18OC
Place the vegetables into a large baking dish and rub with the oil
Place into the oven for 35mins or until soft
Place the eggs or the aqua faba into a large clean bowl and whisk until white and fluffy (will take approx 15 mins)
Slowly fold in the sieved flour a little at a time
Tip the mixture onto a baking paper lined baking tray and gentle spread out
Place into the oven and bake for 15mins or until golden brown
Remove and set aside to cool
Once cool spread with the harissa and layer with the vegetables
Using the baking paper for grip, rolls the dough up into a spiral
Keep it wrapped tightly in the paper and leave for 15mins to ‘set’
Slice and enjoy

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YNBO- barely baked bakewell tart

Val has exited the tent. I realize that she was probably never going to win, but I did have a soft spot for her. I love that fact that baked from memory and challenged Paul “we like our Danishes a little soft in the middle in our house”. It also turns out that she makes a Bakewell tart weekly. Who makes any tart weekly? Let alone a Bakewell? To be perfectly honest I don’t think I have ever tried bakewell tart, but I do love the combination of fruity jam, marzipan and a biscuity base.

I thought about tackling danish pastries or filo pastry this week, but filo seemed like a crazy crazy idea and most filo that you can buy ready made is plant based anyway, and danish pastries just don’t excite me. Lets not lie, if there was only one option for a Scandinavian treat it would OBVIOUSLY be the cinnamon bun!

So this morning I set about making the YNBO version of the bakewell tart. Knowing that the case would be holding marzipan and a sweet jam layer I didn’t want to make the dough too sweet. I used oats, ground down into a flour, added ground almonds and then used a ripe banana to bind it all together. A teaspoon of coconut oil and one date for added stickiness and I had the perfect consistency. If you can’t tolerate nuts you could easily not add them. This dough tastes amazingly good, not too sweet but somewhat decadent. It would be great rolled into balls or made into bars as a post or pre workout snack….

I pressed the dough into mini muffin tins and baked for 15 minutes until they were golden and crunchy. Then all I had to do was fill them with a spoonful of homemade marzipan and top then with a spoon of extra thick cherry and damson chia jam. So simply, so delicious. These barely baked bakewell tarts are the perfect afternoon treat, paired with a rich espresso and shared with friends.

 

Barely Baked Bakewell Tart – makes 24 mini tarts

Ingredients (base)
200g oats
3 tbsp ground almonds
1tsp coconut oil
1 ripe banana
1 date

Method
Preheat your oven to 160C
Place the oats into a food processor with the almonds and grind down into a flour
Add in the banana and the oil and process until a dough begins to form
Add in the date and pulse until combined
Press the dough into mini muffin tins and bake for 15mins
Remove and allow to cool

Ingredients (Marzipan)
150g blanched almonds
1.25 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp rosewater

Method
Place the almonds into a food processor & pulse until you have a fine flour like powder
Add in the syrup & rosewater
Pulse until you have a dough
Roll into balls or any shape you like
Store in the fridge for up to a week

For the chia jam I used this recipe but substituted the blueberries for half cherries and half damsons. I also added an extra tbsp of chia to make it extra thick.