Category: Easy

For the times when you want something super simple to make.
Black Wild Rice, Cherry, and Rocket Salad

Black Wild Rice, Cherry, and Rocket Salad

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Recently I’ve decided to try going on a detox again and this time I’m really going to try to get into the habit of healthy eating. I’ve said this before, however at the moment I’m not going away in the near future, I’m not being catered for and I’m free to really focus on what I’m eating, so I’m determined to make this work. They say it takes 30 days to make a habit and 90 days to make a lifestyle, so that’s what I’m aiming for! As of yet it’s going really well: I’ve started thinking out of the box and I’m now getting into the habit of making things that will nourish my body but also taste great. I am craving cake and would like nothing more than to make some danish pastries right now, but I’m standing strong and I’m hopeful that this time I won’t crack.  Something I experimented with the other day was this wild rice and cherry salad and I was chuffed with how well it worked. Delicious, filling and super quick to throw together!

Recipe

Serves 2

Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

  • 100g Black wild rice
  • Roughly 8 Fresh cherries
  • 4 tbsp Puy lentils
  • 50g Feta cheese
  • A handful of Rocket

Method

  1. Fill a medium sized pan half way full with water and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to medium and add the rice. Stir once and then leave on a gentle simmer until soft to preference.
  2. Meanwhile, halve and de-stone the cherries and leave to one side for now.
  3. Then put the puy lentils into a medium sized bowl and microwave for 20 seconds to gently warm through.
  4. Drain the rice and then add it to the bowl with the lentils. Stir gently to combine.
  5. Portion the rice out between your two plates. Arrange the halved cherries on top and then scatter over chunks of the feta cheese. Finish with a sprinkling of rocket leaves.

Thanks for reading!

Emma x
Easy Spaghetti Bolognese

Easy Spaghetti Bolognese

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Hello I’m back! It’s been a little while since I last posted anything as I’ve just been through exam season – but now I’m on the other side and ready to start bringing back the recipes. I thought I’d start this new season not with something particularly summer-y (have you seen the weather this past week!) but rather with a full-proof comfort food staple that everyone should know how to make.  A bolognese is such a versatile warming sauce – you can have it with baked potatoes, rice, or pasta, spicy or not spicy, and with any extra veg you want. It’s also easy to make in batches and freeze so it’s the perfect student food for busy times like exam season.

Another reason why I wanted to bring out pasta in this post is because at the end of the month I’ll be off to Italy for several weeks with some friends (yey!) and so I’m gearing myself up for mountains of pasta, pizza, tiramisu and gelato! When over there I’ll be soaking up the culture and art, but first and foremost I’ll be trying to sample as much of the local cuisines as possible so if you have any recommendations for places to go in Rome, Florence and Venice please drop it in the comment box at the end of this post!

Recipe

Serves 4

Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

For the Bolognese

  • 1 White onion
  • 1 tbsp Olive oil
  • 1 Clove of garlic
  • 2 Carrots
  • 8 Chestnut mushrooms (optional)
  • 400g Minced beef
  • 500g Passata
  • 500ml Beef stock (1 stock cube dissolved in 500ml boiling water)
  • 1 tsp Mixed herbs

To serve

  • Pasta for 4 ( I went for fresh tagliatelle)
  • 100g Cheddar cheese
  • A few leaves of fresh Basil

Method

  1. Chop the top and bottom off the onion. Then peel off the skin and finely chop. Put the oil into a large pan and place it over a medium heat. Add the chopped onion and gently fry for 4-5 minutes until just starting to caramelise.
  2. Meanwhile prep the rest of the veg. Chop the ends off the garlic clove and the carrots. Then peel both. Crush the garlic and set to one side. Then quarter the carrots length-ways and chop into small chunks.
  3. Add the garlic and the carrots to the onions once they’re just starting to colour and fry for 2-3 minutes.
  4. Halve and then roughly chop the mushrooms and then add them to the pan. Fry for another minute and then tip everything into a bowl.
  5. Add the mince into the same pan as what you cooked the veg in. Fry over a medium heat until the meat is browned all over. Add the vegetables back into the pan and then add the passata, beef stock and mixed herbs. Reduce the heat and leave to gently simmer until reduced and rich in flavour (around 25 minutes).
  6. Meanwhile boil the pasta in a pan of boiling the water according to the packet’s instructions.
  7. Season the bolognese with salt and pepper to taste. Drain the pasta and distribute it between your serving dishes. Top with spoonfuls of the bolognese, some grated cheese and fresh basil!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x
Salted Caramel Brownies

Salted Caramel Brownies

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Oki so I have my first exam on Thursday (*insert panicked stress noise*). I’m sure it’ll be fine but I’m still  in a roller coaster state of ‘oh it’ll all work out’ and ‘oh man I have so much work to do!!!’. I guess this isn’t helped by the fact that my levels of motivation have hit rock bottom and I’m currently in a state of perpetual procrastination. So I’m going to leave this post short (again) and try to do some work – little and often right?

(Just as a heads up though – these are great revision snacks! They also work really well with jam or fresh berries in the middle instead of the caramel if you’d rather!)

Recipe

Makes 16 squares

Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

  • 210ml Vegetable oil
  • 320g Light brown sugar
  • 1 tsp Vanilla extract
  • 4 Medium eggs
  • 80g Cocoa powder (not drinking chocolate, as it has added sugar and less cocoa, and so has much less flavour)
  • 130g Plain flour
  • 50g Milk chocolate, roughly chopped
  • 170g Caramel
  • ½ tsp Salt

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 170˚C. Line a small, square tin (mine was 20×20 cm) with butter and baking paper.
  2. In a large bowl whisk together the oil, sugar and vanilla. Add the eggs and whisk until fully combined. Add the cocoa and whisk again (go slowly here as the cocoa will go everywhere if whisked too fast). Then add the flour and the chopped chocolate and whisk until fully mixed
  3. Pour half the mixture into the lined tin and smooth out with a spatula.
  4. Mix together the caramel and the salt in a bowl and then blob it over the brownies. Top with blobs of the remaining brownie mixture and then use a knife to swirl the two a little.
  5. Bake the brownies in the oven for 25-35 minutes. Be careful not to over bake here, as you want brownies to be slightly gooey in the middle. If you’re used to baking cakes I’d say take them out 5 minutes before you’d think it’d be ready if you were making a cake.
  6. Cut into 16 squares and serve! (They’re especially good with fresh berries and cream!)

Thanks for reading!

Emma x
Apple Pancakes

Apple Pancakes

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Stress. Yup, stress is officially the key work of the week. Everything’s blowing up a bit atm but we’re getting through it with the help of some amazing friends and (as always) lots of food. This recipe takes me back to the chilled few days when I was down in Devon walking the south west coastal path last month. We didn’t have access to big shops with lots of ingredients so instead I made simple dishes like these sweet apple pancakes with Greek yogurt.

My opinion of healthy pancakes fluctuates regularly. Some days I think they’re the key to all healthy eating and God’s gift to sweet toothed brunchers, and on other days I really can’t see the point as they essentially just take the best bits out of the pancake and replace them with ingredients more closely resembling gravel. That said these do have the element of feeling a little healthy due to the apple floating through the batter and make a great semi-low-sugar brunch to get your day started.

Recipes

Serves 2

Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

  • 40g Self raising flour
  • 1 Egg
  • 20ml Milk
  • 1 tsp Brown sugar
  • ½ tsp Ground cinnamon
  • 1 Green apple
  • 1 Red apple
  • 1 Cal oil spray (or 1/2 tsp Sunflower oil)
  • 2 tbsp Greek yogurt to serve
  • 2 tbsp Maple syrup to serve (optional)

Method

  1.  Put the self raising flour into a bowl and make a well in the middle. Break in the egg and mix together. Then pour in the milk a litttle at a time to get a runny batter.
  2. Add the sugar and cinnamon to the mixture and stir these in. Then grate the apples into the batter and stir to combine (you can leave the skin on the apples to grate them if you want).
  3. Put a little oil into a large pan and use it to grease it. Then place it over a medium heat and leave for about a minute to warm up.
  4. Spoon blobs of the batter onto the pan (I got about 3 at once in mine) and fry until you can see the underside starting to cook through. Flip the pancakes over with a fish slice and fry again until golden brown.
  5. Put the cooked pancakes on a plate to one side and repeat with the rest of the batter. Serve warm with Greek yogurt and a little maple syrup.

Thanks for reading!

Emma x
Blueberry and Pistachio Scones

Blueberry and Pistachio Scones

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Happy Mother’s Day! Today’s the day to look to our mothers and take a moment to realise how lucky we are to have them in our lives. It can be a very hard day for some – those who have lost their mums, have a difficult relationship with their mums, or may even be struggling to have children themselves.  But if that’s the case maybe take the time today to remember those who are there for you. Think of the motherly figure in your life and take a second to thank them for all they’ve done for you!

As the photo shows above, before I took to the whisk my Mum was the one cooking in the wooden-tabled-kitchen you see in all my photos. One of the many things my Mum’s done for me is introduce me to the world of cooking and set me off on the path I’m on now. As long as I can remember I’ve been sat in the kitchen at my Mother’s side, cracking eggs, sifting flour and cutting out biscuits, and I’m so grateful for it! Something that I’m still working towards is to make scones as light and scrumptious as the ones she makes. They’re always beautifully risen, golden brown and seem to come out the oven just when you need them.

For me nothing beats a good scone with lots of jam and cream and nothing makes me feel more at home than the smell of freshly baked scones just out of the oven, but I think adding some delish blueberries and pistachios into the mix makes them a little bit special for a day like today. You could also try adding strawberries, blackberries or even try playing around with different nuts if you want to work with what’s in season!

Recipe

Makes 14

Time: 1 hour

Ingredients

  • 370g Self Raising flour
  • 1 tsp Baking powder
  • 40g Caster sugar
  • Zest of 1 Lemon
  • 80g Butter
  • 150g Blueberries
  • 60g Pistachios, shelled
  • 100ml Full fat milk
  • 2 Large eggs, plus 1 for glazing

Method

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C and line a couple of baking trays with baking paper.
  2. Put the flour, baking powder, sugar and lemon zest into a bowl and mix together to combine.
  3. Add the butter to the dry ingredients and rub the butter into the flour until fully combined (the mixture should look a little like breadcrumbs).
  4. Coarsely chop the pistachios on a board and then add it to the scone mixture. Then add the blueberries and stir them into the mixture.
  5. In another bowl mix the milk and eggs and then pour this mixture into the main bowl. Mix everything together with a round-bladed knife to make a soft dough.
  6. Lightly flour your work top and turn the dough out onto it. Gently roll the dough out to about 2.5cm thick and then cut out scones using a 4cm wide cookie cutter.
  7. Break the egg into a small bowl and beat it with a fork. Then brush the beaten egg over the top of the scones to glaze.
  8. Bake the scones in the oven for 15-20 minutes until golden and with a firm top. Serve with jam and clotted cream!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x