Food Friday: Granola

Now that Friend Friday posts are fortnightly, I have decided to feature some of my favourite recipes on alternate Fridays. In order to keep the fashion element of the blog on a Friday too, I will also endeavour to post an outfit post later in the day. Hope you like the changes.

A couple of week's ago I mentioned that my weekend breakfast was my homemade granola, the recipe for which I discovered via A Girl, A Style.

It is an reasonably easy recipe to follow that I would highly recommend it for your breakfast as you can make a large batch at the beginning of the week and it will last a week or two, depending on your appetite!

Ingredients:


3 cups of plain rolled oats (not instant or quick cooking)
1 cup roughly chopped nuts (any combination, such as almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts or pistachios)
A good handful of mixed seeds (such as pumpkin, sunflower, linseed)
1 cup roughly chopped dried fruit (such as apricots, peach, cranberries, dried cherries, sultanas, raisins)
1/2 cup apple juice
2 tbsp honey + 2 tbsp maple or golden syrup (or 4 tbsp honey)
2 tbsp vegetable oil or melted butter
Small handful of dried coconut (shredded or flaked - optional)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 pinch salt
A large handful of rice bubbles, wheat flakes, chocolate chips or any other preferred additives (optional)


Method:


1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Lightly grease 2 large baking trays/sheets.


2. Combine the oats and cinnamon in a bowl.

3. In a separate small bowl, combine the juice, vanilla extract, honey, syrup, salt and oil/butter. 

4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and stir well.

5. Spoon evenly into two large baking trays, and bake for approximately 20 minutes – or until almost dry and golden.

6. Add the nuts, seeds, dried fruit and coconut (stirring in to combine and break up the baked mix slightly – you want a mix of small pieces and chunks). Bake for another 10-20 minutes, or until the nuts and dried fruit look slightly baked and the whole mix is a nicely crisp and golden.

7. Allow the mixture to cool completely. And store in an airtight container.

I like to serve a couple of spoons of the granola mix with a good few spoons of Greek-style yoghurt and a handful of berries.

What is your favourite breakfast recipe?

I have added a little poll in the top of the right hand column, if you have a spare second - please choose your response. Thank you.

RECIPE: Homemade Granola

What better for breakfast than a bowl of homemade granola with yoghurt and berries? After seeing this easy peasy recipe for granola on A Style, A Girl, I knew I had to give it a go:

What do you like for your breakfast?

Friend Friday #44: Food

This week's Last week's Friend Friday topic was food, glorious food! Katy asked us to, share the recipe to your favorite seasonal dish... the one you love to make and love to eat this time of the year. Before I headed off for my long weekend away, I didn't have time to post my recipe, so when I made it this evening I figured now would be as good a time as any to post it.

This really is a terribly easy and absolutely delicious meal to make. (Please note, it does seem to create an enormous amount of mess and washing up in a very small amount of time!! But then maybe that's just me.)

Chicken with lemon butter sauce


Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
50g plain flour
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
60g butter
4 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
4 tablespoons chicken stock
20g flat leaf parsley

Method:

1. Place the chicken breasts on a chopping board and use a sharp knife to cut each one horizontally into two thin slices.

2. Put the flour onto a large plate, season with salt and pepper and mix. Coat each side of the chicken breasts with flour.

3. Heat the olive oil and half the butter in a large frying pan. Place the chicken in the pan and fry for 5 minutes on each side until it starts to brown and is cooked through (work in batches if necessary).

4. Remove the chicken with a slotted spoon and keep it warm while you make the sauce.

5. Pour the lemon juice and the stock into the frying pan, scraping all the brown bits from the edges and bottom into the liquid. Bring to the boil, stirring for about 1 minute.

6. Add the chopped parsley and remaining butter and give it all a good stir to create a creamy texture.

7. Place two slices of chicken in the middle of each serving plate and drizzle over the lemon sauce.

I like to serve the chicken with salad and caramelised onions.

What is your favourite thing to make and eat at this time of year?


Remember to check out the other summer recipes over on ModlyChic - and for more information on Friend Friday.

PS:

Have you entered my giveaway to win a fabulous pair of Oasis New Vintage earrings? If not, make sure you do so right away!! You can’t win, if you don’t enter! 

AND, if you have already voted for me in the Filofax Facebook Blogger Style Off, thank you. If you haven’t voted for me yet, please do go and vote for me and will be forever grateful.

Recipe: Homemade Swiss Style Museli (via River Cottage)

Recently, on a Sunday evening I have found myself watching re-runs of River Cottage Every Day. A few weeks ago Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall presented some interesting options for breakfast including his own homemade Swiss Style Museli. I'm always looking for new breakfast ideas as it is the meal that I fail to get very excited about (unless it's a fry up at a greasy spoon after a night out!), so I decided to give the museli recipe a go. It's all I've been having every morning and when I realised I was almost out and needed to make up some more, I thought I'd share it with you:

Ingredients:

200g porridge oats

150g mixed dried fruit of your choice, such as raisins, sultanas, dried apricots, dates, prunes

100g nuts of your choice, lightly toasted if you have time

100g wheat flakes (optional)

3-4 tbsp seeds, such as pumpkin, sunflower, sesame or flax (optional)

To serve (for 1)

1 crisp eating apple

Juice of 1-2 oranges (or a little milk, if you prefer)

Sugar or honey

Plain yoghurt

How to make swiss style muesli:

1. To make the muesli, put the oats in a bowl. Roughly chop larger dried fruits, such as apricots, dates and prunes. Leave the nuts whole, or chop them roughly if you prefer. Add the fruit and nuts to the oats, together with the wheat flakes and seeds if using, and stir to combine. Tip into an airtight container, seal and store in a cool, dark place until required.

2. For a serving of muesli, put about 50g of the muesli mix into a bowl. Coarsely grate or finely chop the apple (including the skin) and add this to the muesli. Squeeze the orange(s) and add the juice to the bowl (or use milk, if you like). Stir to blend everything evenly and leave to soak for about 10 minutes. Finally, sprinkle over just a little sugar or trickle over some honey, add a good dollop of yoghurt and serve.

I prefer to serve mine with a large dollop of Greek yoghurt, fresh raspberries and a large drizzle of honey, how do you like yours? Next week I plan to try out the River Cottage answer to the Pot Noodle: Chorizo and Tomato Instant Noodles in a Pot. I'll let you know how that goes, naturally.

RECIPE: Oatmeal Thins

Made these earlier in the week and not only are they very very yummy, they are also very easy:

Thank you to Leia for this recipe.

Banana loaf

For the boyf's birthday - today - I decided to do some baking. I usually make a chocolate cake but this year thought I'd try a couple of different recipes from the famed Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. I went for this banana cake as alternative birthday cake and some oat and raisin cookies (recipe to come).


It didn't exactly look like a birthday cake, until I added the candles, of course:

Ingredients:

270g soft light brown sugar

2 eggs

200g peeled bananas, mashed

280g plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

140g unsalted butter, melted

a 23 x 13-cm loaf tin, greased and dusted with flour

Makes 8-10 slices

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170C (325F) Gas Mark 3.

2. Put the sugar and eggs in a free-standing electric mixer with a paddle attachment (or use a hand-held electric whisk) and beat until well incorporated.

3. Beat in the mashed bananas.

4. Add the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and ginger to the sugar mixture. Mix it thoroughly until all the dry ingredients have been incorporated into the egg mixture.

5. Pour in the melted butter and beat until all the ingredients are well mixed.

6. Pour the mixture into the prepared loaf tin and smooth over with a palette knife.

7. Bake in the preheated over for about 1 hour, or until firm to the touch and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

8. Leave the cake to cool slightly in the tin before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

Eat and enjoy!

Sweet Treat: Strawberry pastries

I made these for dessert for the boyf and I tonight. Very yummy. And very easy.

Ingredients:

Custard (the boyf and I love Marks and Spencer's Thick and Creamy Custard with Vanilla), Strawberries, Sweet Tartlet cases and Apricot Glaze (if you would prefer to make this yourself, there is a recipe here - also has a recipe for a whole tart of this kind).

Method:

1. Fill the pastry cases with a thin layer of custard.

2. Halve enough strawberries to fill as many cases as you have.

3. Arrange the strawberries in the cases, on top of the custard.

4. Top with the apricot glaze, using a pastry brush to spread it out.

5. Chill.

6. Enjoy as a dessert or a sweet treat with a café au lait!

Easy Peasy Paella

Spent the weekend with my family and my mum and I made this paella one night. It is not perhaps a very traditional recipe of this panish classic but it is easy peasy.

Spicy prawn paella 

Serves 4

Preparation time 10 minutes

Cooking time 20 minutes

Ingredients

225g Asda chorizo, diced

1 onion, chopped

1 green pepper, deseeded and diced

2 cloves garlic, crushed

200g basmati rice

500ml chicken or fish stock

12 cherry tomatoes, halved

200g pack Asda cooked whole prawns in shells (or peeled prawns)

Flat leaf parsley, to serve


Method 

1. Dry-fry the chorizo for 2 minutes in a deep frying pan. Add the onion and pepper and cook for 5 minutes until softened. Stir in the garlic and rice, followed by the stock and tomatoes. Bring to the boil and cover. Lower the heat and cook for 15 minutes, without lifting the lid.

2. Stir prawns into the rice, replace lid and heat for 3 to 4 minutes. Scatter with parsley to serve.

It was delicious! As you can see:

TV dinner gone posh!

Stuffed peppers and Philadelphia salmon

This is a just little something I rustled together tonight for my mum and me that I thought you might like to partake in!

1. Lightly oil a baking tray. Cut the tops off the peppers and rub a little oil into the skins. Place  the salmon fillets and peppers on the tray. Spread a layer of Philadelphia over the fillets.

2. Melt some butter in a pan.

3. Halve or quarter a handful of tomatoes and finely chop a clove of garlic. Add to a bowl.

4. Add finely chopped spring onions to the melted butter.

5. Crumble feta cheese into the bowl of tomatoes and garlic.

6. Add bread crumbs to the butter and spring onions and stir so that they are all coated.

7. Add a splash of balsamic vinegar and olive oil to the tomatoes, garlic and feta cheese and stir.

8. Stuff the tomato-garlic-feta-balsamic-vinegar-olive-oil mixture into the peppers.

10. Top the salmon fillets and stuffed peppers with the bread crumb mixture. And place in the oven.

11. For 25 minutes.

12. At 190C.

13. Serve with steamed new potatoes. And enjoy!!

I realise that this recipe is a little haphazard but this is how I tend to cook: a little all over the place!!