Recent recipe round-up

Tags

dairy-free, egg-free, gluten-free, healthy, recipes, sugar-free

If this Easter weekend has taught me anything, it’s that I need to stop bookmarking recipes ‘to make later’ and start actually cooking – ‘later’ has a habit of never arriving. Faced with a metaphorically bulging digital recipe binder, and an Instagram feed full of inspiring photography, I decided it was time to take action. Oh and I’ve been on a bit of a health kick recently, too, so have been trying to find some way to balance that out with my raging sweet tooth… Here’s a quick round-up of what I’ve made over the last couple of weeks (from some of my favourite blogs). Most are fairly healthy (free from gluten, dairy, eggs and refined sugar) – but no less delicious! Click through for the recipes.

Sweet potato brownies (Deliciously Ella)

Gluten-, dairy-, egg-  and refined-sugar free – and just seven ingredients. I’ve kept them in the freezer and get one out whenever I need a chocolate hit! They’re not quite on a par with ooey-gooey butter-sugar-egg alternative but they’re pretty close.

Chocolate chip cookie dough bites (The Kitchn)

These are amazing. Seriously. And addictive. Probably not the thing you want to eat three of in one fell swoop (ahem) but a darn sight better for you than eating raw cookie dough! Best accompanied with a large glass of…

… Cashew milk (Well and Good NYC)

Thick, creamy, and ready in five. What more could you want? Apart from maybe a slice of this…

Cinnamon swirl cheesecake (Chocolate covered Katie)

(Note the work-in-progress shot above… My finished cheesecake did not look quite as pretty as Katie’s!)

Mm cheesecake… It’s up there in my top-three puds (along with sticky toffee pudding and crumble). But I’ve wondered if it’d be possible to get all the creaminess without all the cream cheese… The answer is yes! The wonder of cashews… This has been living in the freezer too, which I think actually improves it – the filling was a bit soft when I made it, so I’d recommend just taking it out of the freezer 10 minutes before serving, ideally with a mountain of fresh berries.

Gluten-free banana bread (Everygirl)

I debated whether or not to post this… It was my least successful bake from my day in the kitchen – it’s probably quite high in protein, but the 4 eggs were just a bit excessive for me, and it needed a bit more sugar for my liking (athough that said, I did swap the chocolate chips for coconut flakes, in homage to my favourite loaf bake ever, Bill Granger’s coconut bread). Best eaten warm, with dollops of quark and a big drizzle of honey or maple syrup.

Carrot cake bites (Sakara Life)

These look very pretty. And keep well in the freezer. And are certainly healthy. But they definitely veer more towards the carrot, less towards the cake side of the equation. Not bad, they just taste a bit healthy to me! So to combat these little balls of goodness, I broke out the grilled cheese.

(Not-so-healthy) ‘Salted caramel’ halloumi and apple (I Quit Sugar)

Well, a girl has to eat.

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On Doughnuts

Tags

Cooking, deep fried, Doughnuts, fat, sugar

The Perfect Doughnuts – Felicity Cloake

The inspiration for this post – or, I should say, series of posts – came partly from cycling past a sign for ‘Polish doughnuts’ outside Polsmak on my way to work. Seeing that sign got me thinking – Polish doughnuts? How are Polish doughnuts different from any other? And if Poles have their own variety of doughnuts, then how many other incarnations of the sugary, fat and carb-laden joy are there on offer in this fair city? I made a decision, there and then, to try a handful, at least. I must confess this wasn’t entirely just in the name of research… I also have an eternal, undying love of such deep fried dough balls.

There’s nothing glamorous about them – in fact, they’re the antithesis of the beautifully-crafted, styled-within-an-inch-of-their-life pâtisseries you see in shop windows. (Indeed, if this year’s ‘back to basics’ restaurant openings are anything to go by – Dirty Burger, Tramshed, Bubbledogs, Chicken Shop, I’m looking at you – surely somebody somewhere has to open a decent doughnut shop soon?) And there’s absolutely no way to eat them politely. No nibbling on a corner, no pulling apart into little bite-sized pieces – no, you have to go all in, with the same reckless abandonment as attacking an oversized burger. Except this one is often covered in sugar, which will inevitably end up everywhere. In fact, the perils of eating a doughnut are so pronounced, that Wikihow have deemed it necessary to write a How-to guide. I particularly like their warning: ‘Eating too many, will put weight on you easily.’ It is, after all, a well-known fact that the humble doughnut was Renée Zellweger’s weapon of choice when she had to put on 2 stone in 6 weeks to play Bridget Jones. Anyway, I digress.

First, I had to set a couple of ground rules. It seems like while the method of deep-frying dough is fairly ubiquitous, the actual style, shape or size varies wildly around the world. I decided to include doughnuts of all shape, size and filling. They should be, at their essence, dough – deep fried. For the means of research, I might try to track down a ‘healthy’ (gluten-free, baked) doughnut but it’s questionable as to whether it would really qualify (or, indeed, whether such a thing exists). Vitally, for my health, sanity and wallet, all the doughnuts must be available ‘to go’. I’m sure the Bomboloni di Ricotta (Italian ricotta doughnuts) at the authentic Ponti’s Kitchen, Oxford Circus are excellent, but I might get a few odd looks if I just walked in and demanded a doughnut.

Nor will I be attempting to cook them at home – I have a mild aversion to deep fat frying… I tell myself it’s because it’s unhealthy, but given the fact that I’ll quite happily eat duck confit, baklava and sticky toffee pudding sauce by the jugful, the truth is I’m probably just scared I’d set fire to the kitchen. Besides, Felicity Cloake has already gone to all the trouble of finding The Perfect Doughnut recipe, so I don’t have to.

No, all I have to do is eat.

The Versatile Blogger Award

Tags

blogging award, coffee shop, food blogs, London, london blogs, Versatile Blogger Award

It turns out this blogging business it harder to keep up than I thought. I’ve a long list of coffee shops, cookery schools and products I want to tell you about, but finding the time recently to write about them has been a problem. Besides, nobody really reads this, right?

Well, it turns out I was wrong! The lovely author of The Delgrosso Food Blog has not only been reading (really? people I don’t know? all over the world?) but has also nominated me for the Versatile Blogger Award. OK it’s kind of like those chain letters that as a teenager you had to copy out and send to 7 other people, but it’s actually a great way to find out about some new blogs and connect with others who are on the same wavelength.

So here’s how it works:

1. Thank the person who nominated you and link back to them in your post
2. Share 7 things about yourself
3. Pass the award onto 15 other blogs you enjoy reading
4. Contact the bloggers to let them know they’ve been nominated.

7 things you didn’t know about me
I’ll try and keep this short and sweet. This blog isn’t really meant to be about me, so I’ll let you in on my favourite things… all potential posts for the future! My favourite…

1. Food: Pie & mash- preferably Steak & Ale, with cheesy mash and always with a mound of peas, gravy optional
2. Coffee shop: St Ali’s, Clerkenwell
3. Salted caramel (and trust me, I’ve tried a lot): Fran’s Chocolates– sadly only available in Seattle
4. London market: Broadway, with Columbia Road a close second
5. Guilty pleasure: Glee/Desperate Housewives and a Boost bar
6. Restaurant: Corner Room, Bethnal Green
7. Cookery school: Waitrose, Finchley Road

And the nominees are…
I’m going to break the mould a bit, so here are my top ten blogs that I love. Some recipe-based, some story-based, some funny, some serious, most beautifully-photographed, and all worth a good read. There’s a world of talented food writers out there!

• All things Allwright
• appledrane
• Diary of an Unknown Actress (not strictly foodie, but hilarious stories!)
• DIY Gourmet
• Gastrogeek
• Jimmy’s Iced Coffee
• Lost in the Larder
• Rocket & Squash
• The Little Loaf
• Young & Foodish