Happy New Year – and apologies for my absence (again)

On January 7, 2015 by battenburgbelle

I will endeavour to do much better in 2015 in reporting on my exploits in the kitchen. There may be a bit of a focus on the 5:2, after the excesses of the festive season…

For now, however, I am sad to say that I have been suffering from The Cold and have not managed much more than sitting on the sofa, leafing through various lovely cook books I received for Christmas and my birthday (yes, I have one of those rather annoyingly timed birthdays), fantasising about which dishes I will attempt first once I have stopped coughing constantly.

Granola

Hearty healthy granola for breakfast

So at the moment, the best I can do is tell you about a couple of healthy things I have managed to stand up for long enough to make. The Battenburgs came back from deepest Essex after Christmas with our worst ever haul from the post-festive Family Tombola, having mostly won a fearsome quantity of Variety Pack cereals and quarter pots of cream. I got away with the cereals for a couple of days, but I started to feel the need to at least offer the family something wholesome to start the day with. Mr B actively likes this hearty granola, Missy B will eat it but is not so thrilled. She’d rather have hummus for breakfast. Actually, I do like it too, but really, it has to be an egg for breakfast if there’s time. The granola is a minor faff, but you can make a large quantity and it seems to keep for a couple of months in a sealed container. The quantities are all approximate (as are some of the ingredients) and it doesn’t really seem to matter, apart from making sure you use about 3 parts oil to 4 parts honey/maple syrup:

500g porridge oats
3 tablespoons each of linseeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds (or other seeds that take your fancy)
100g desiccated coconut
100g each brazil nuts, almonds (or other nuts – I use brazils plus whatever is in the cupboard), roughly chopped
a pinch of salt
6 tbsp runny honey or maple syrup
4.5 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp cinnamon
a little grated nutmeg
100g sultanas
100g dried cranberries (or apricots or sour cherries)

Pre-heat the oven to 140°C/gas mark 2 and line two baking trays with baking parchment.
Mix the porridge oats, seeds, coconut, nuts and salt.
Over a low heat, warm the olive oil, honey or maple syrup, cinnamon and nutmeg.
Stir the liquids into the dried ingredients.
Spread the mix over the two baking trays.
Bake for around 20 minutes, until crispy and lightly browned.
When the granola has cooled down, add the sultanas and cranberries.

Serve with milk or yoghurt and some fruit.

Feel slightly smug till lunchtime.

Carrot and lentil soup

Carrot and lentil soup

We had a bit of a do after Christmas, having failed to have one before. In time honoured fashion, I bought a large bag of ready peeled baby carrots that no-one ate, in spite of the fine array of things to dip them in. So I made a large batch of carrot and lentil soup, also making use of the turkey stock we won in the aforementioned tombola. Very tasty, for a cobbled together recipe, using only ingredients that didn’t involve me leaving the house.

3 Responses to “Happy New Year – and apologies for my absence (again)”

  • One of my new year’s resolutions is to make some of the things featured on my favourite food blogs. You have made this one easy for me today, I’m gonna make some granola! I’ve got a lot of these ingredients knocking around the place so I just need to find a suitable bit of tupperware to bung them all in!

    Your party was lovely, and I think I did eat a couple of the carrots…

  • Nick

    I have just tried to say “Welcome back!”, but apparently those two simple words were not acceptable to the blog police, who sent me this message:

    ERROR: Your comment was too short. Please try to say something useful.

    I hope this is now long enough, and possibly even useful, although I have no idea what for….

  • battenburgbelle

    Ha ha – that’s hilarious!!

Leave a Reply to Nick Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *