Category: Easy

For the times when you want something super simple to make.
French Toast with Maple Syrup and Summer Berry Compote

French Toast with Maple Syrup and Summer Berry Compote

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With term over now I’m getting into full holiday mode, and a big part of that requires making breakfast at midday in m’ PJs, dancing crazily round the kitchen to Panic at the Disco. Pancakes would probably be my go-to brunch dish, but I’ve made a lot of them recently so I thought I’d branch out. There’s a tonne of different names for this, but whether you call it egg bread, gypsy toast or French toast, it all tastes insane. For those of you who’re as unfamiliar with French toast as I was about a week ago I’ll explain what it is. Basically you take some bread, or brioche in my case because the concept of dieting has flown from my mind, then you soak it in a gently spiced egg/milk mixture, before frying it in a pan with some butter to get a beautifully crispy, spongy piece of bread. You can then serve it with a good drizzle of maple syrup and some stewed red fruits to make an irresistible, comforting brunch dish.

The egg/milk mixture you soak the bread in isn’t sweetened, so you could easily make this into a savoury breakfast if that’s more your thing. To do this use some thick white bread instead of the brioche and don’t add the spices to the milk mix. Then top it all off with bacon and maple syrup, cheese and tomatoes, or scrambled egg!

Recipe

Serves 4

Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 Large eggs
  • 120ml Milk
  • 1 tsp Vanilla extract
  • ½ tsp Ground cinnamon
  • ½ tsp Ground ginger
  • 4 Thick slices of brioche
  • 1 tbsp Vegetable oil
  • 1 tbsp Butter
  • 2 tbsp Maple syrup
  • Fresh berries to serve

For the compote

  • 100g Mixed frozen berries (e.g strawberries, blackberries and raspberries)
  • 1 tbsp Lemon juice
  • 2 tbsp Caster sugar

Method

  1. Whisk together the eggs, milk, vanilla, cinnamon and ginger.
  2. Cut the brioche slices in half to make triangles, then lay them out in a single layer in a shallow dish. Then pour the milk mixture over them and leave to soak for 5 minutes, turning the slices over half way through.
  3. Heat 1 tbsp of the oil and butter in a non-stick frying pan until melted and bubbling.
  4. Carefully pick up two of the bread slices and fry in the pan for 3 minutes on each side till golden and crisp. Repeat with the rest of the bread.
  5. Serve with the berry compote, a drizzle of maple syrup and some fresh berries!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x
Chicken Noodle Soup

Chicken Noodle Soup

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Here’s a nice quick one for soup Sunday! Every Sunday in my house we don’t have the traditional British roast, instead we have soup. It’s kind of a ritual where every leftover vegetable left in the fridge from the week is boiled up and blitzed into a bowl of vegetable soup surprise. This one is a bit more conventional than the ones we have on a normal Sunday lunch, but it’s just as warming and comforting. 

Although I said earlier that we don’t have roasts every Sunday, when we do we have roast it’s normally chicken, and it always results in a box of shredded chicken meat sitting in the fridge. This soup is great for leftover roast chicken, and pretty much any left over meat. Just finely slice or shred it and then add it to the soup. By adding some noodles to this relatively light, protein studded soup the whole thing is made into a full, hearty meal, and brings a nice oriental element to the whole thing.

Recipe

Serves 4

Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 Chicken breasts (or chopped chicken thigh)
  • 1 White onion
  • 2 Medium sized carrots
  • 2 Spring onions
  • 1 tbsp Root ginger
  • 1/2 Small red chilli, deseeded
  • 1 Small leek
  • 50g Unsalted butter
  • 1 tbsp Olive oil
  • 1L Chicken stock (or 1L boiling water with 2 chicken stock cubes)
  • 2 balls of Uncooked egg noodles
  • Salt and pepper to season

Method

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C. Wrap the chicken in foil and then leave to cook in the oven for 10-15 minutes until just cooked through. Leave to one side for later.
  2. Next prep the veg. Peel and then finely slice the onion and carrots. Then top and tail the spring onions and the leek and finely chop. Take the chilli and chop it finely. Then peel the ginger and then finely grate it.
  3. Put the butter and oil into a pan and leave to melt. Then add the prepped vegetables and fry gently until they begin to brown and soften. Then add the stock and leave to simmer for 5 minutes.
  4. Slice the chicken into strips and then add it to the soup. Leave it all to boil for another 5 minutes and then add the noodles. Leave to boil for a further 8-10 minutes until the noodles are just cooked before seasoning to taste and serving!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x

 
Stuffed Potato Skins

Stuffed Potato Skins

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For those of you who don’t know I’ve spent the last year on an art foundation course and somehow I now find myself in the run up to my final exhibition. Installing everything is an equal balance of fun and stress, but essentially it’s also taking up all of my time. So, as a result, my food for the next two weeks is going to be orientated towards the purely quick and tasty. The other day I made some gnocci and had some potato skins leftover, so I started thinking about quick and easy stuffed potato skins recipes. These ones are made with whole, normal potatoes, but you could also make them with sweet potatoes and/or without the potato flesh if you’re using leftovers from gnocchi.

These are the perfect pick-up comfort food and I’ve found that when it comes to comfort food it’s best to go all out. You can try to make these healthy if you want, but in my opinion just stuff them full of cheese, bacon and anything else tasty you can think of and they’ll be great.

Recipe

Serves 2

Time 30 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 Large baking potatoes
  • 3 Rashers streaky Bacon
  • 50g Frozen peas
  • 25g Butter
  • Salt and pepper to season
  • 75g Cheddar cheese, grated
  • A handful of Parsley or Basil to garnish (optional)

Method

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C. Put the potatoes onto a plate and microwave for 10 minutes to soften them. Then put them on a baking tray and leave in the oven until cooked all the way through (about 45 minutes).
  2. Meanwhile prep the other elements. Put the bacon onto a grill pan and cook under the grill until crispy, turning over half way through cooking so they cook evenly.
  3. Now boil a pan of water on a high heat. Add the peas and leave to boil for 5 minutes until just cooked. Then drain and leave to one side.
  4. When the potatoes are ready take them out of the oven and halve them. Scoop out the insides and mash it with the back of the fork. Add the butter and continue to mash until smooth. Cut the bacon into pieces and mix it into the mash with the peas.
  5. Season the mix to taste and then spoon it back into the potato skins. Sprinkle with the grated cheese and then put back into the oven to bake until the cheese just melts.
  6. Sprinkle with parsley and serve!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x
Mixed Berry Clafoutis

Mixed Berry Clafoutis

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When I was in Canada over the summer we were lucky enough to spend a day with a couple of my Mum’s friends at their lake-side house in depths of British Columbia. It was a stunning place – really hot, gorgeously sunny and beautifully peaceful.

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For dinner that evening we had a really good blueberry clafoutis for dessert. The end result was a really interesting texture, kinda unlike anything I’ve eaten before. It’s a cross between a set custard and a light sponge cake, so it’s creamy, sweet and fluffy all at the same time – but it somehow really works! I’d heard of clafoutis as a thing but I’d never eaten one, which is really odd as they’re so easy and quick to make! As the ingredients are very basic and are also really easy to substitute for, even in the depths of Canada, a boat ride away from the nearest town, something as tasty as this could be rustled up.

Here I’ve used fresh summer fruit as it’s that time of year when it tastes really good and is readily available, but you can use pretty much any fruit for this. It’s an especially good thing to whip up if you have any soft fruit that needs eating up (e.g plums, peaches, berries and so on). Just bung them in the dish, pour over the all-in-one batter mix and voila!

Recipe

Serves 6

Time: 10 minutes prep, 25-30 minutes cooking

Ingredients

  • 80g Plain flour
  • ½ tsp Baking powder
  • 100g Golden caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
  • 2 Large eggs
  • 2 Large egg yolks
  • 260ml Double cream
  • 1 tbsp Vanilla bean paste
  • Butter for greasing
  • A handful each of strawberries, blueberries and raspberries (or any other soft fruit you like)

Method

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C.
  2. Put the flour, baking powder, sugar, eggs, egg yolks, cream and vanilla into a bowl and whisk until fully combined.
  3. Take a medium sized oven-proof dish and grease it with a little butter. Then sprinkle over some sugar to line the dish.
  4. Hull and quarter the strawberries. Then scatter these strawberries, along with the blueberries and raspberries into the greased dish.
  5. Pour over the batter mix and then bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown and slightly puffed up.
  6. Serve slightly warm with icecream!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x
Anzac Biscuits

Anzac Biscuits

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Back in the time when I was small, cute, and at primary school I came across this incredible recipe for Anzac biscuits. There was this lovely Australian teacher there who taught me in year three, and at a school fete one year she sold bags of them which were so delicious I had to ask for the recipe. A couple of days later she gave me an A4 hand-typed recipe which I still have to this day in a recipe folder on the shelf. I loved making them when I was little as they were so simple and quick to put together, and of course tasted delicious!

That said, for some reason I  haven’t made these in a  really long while. So, as it’s Anzac day today, I thought it’d be a good time to re-discover the recipe. Sure enough, they’re just as delicious as I remember them – sweet, chewy and with a slight nutty, caramelised flavour.

Recipe

Makes 16

Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

  • 135g Plain flour
  • 200g Sugar
  • 100g Rolled oats
  • 100g Desiccated coconut
  • 150g Butter
  • 40g Golden syrup
  • 2 tbsp Boiling water
  • 1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda

Method

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C. Then line two baking trays with greaseproof paper.
  2. Put the flour, sugar, oats and coconut into a bowl and mix together.
  3. Next take a pan and melt together the butter and syrup. When fully melted add the water and bicarb and mix together.
  4. Mix the wet into the dry ingredients until completely combined.
  5. Take a table spoon and drop blobs of the mixture onto your lined tray. Make sure to leave space between the biscuits as they will spread a little.
  6. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes until golden brown and just starting to colour.
  7. Take the biscuits out of the oven and leave to cool for a few minutes so they harden, before transferring them to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Thanks for reading!

Emma x