Blissed out

Recipe - Healthy(ish) Banana Muffins

It's so nice to not be feeling nauseous constantly and to  be able to cook and bake again.  I have the loveliest husband in the world who cooked, cleaned, ferried and generally consoled during those long, sicky, exhausting months on pregnancy.  I swear there were weeks on end when I could barely enter the kitchen let alone think about cooking food.

But all that has now thankfully passed and I'm firmly back in cooking mode.  I whizzed up these muffins yesterday prompted by 2 things - I wanted to incorporate a bit more fibre into mine the the family's diets (Cole especially seems to have an aversion to almost anything vaguely wholesome looking) and we had some very over ripe bananas smelling out the kitchen. 

So these were my solution - healthy(ish) banana muffins - really easy to make and rather yummy too.

Ingredients:
1 & 1/4 cups wholemeal flour
3/4 cup plain white flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch salt
1/2 cup butter (about 150g)
1/3 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup like for like sugar substitute (I used splenda but you could use any that's the equal volume as sugar i.e. 1 tsp=1tsp sugar)  Or you could use plain old sugar if you prefer.
2 large eggs - whisked
2/3 ripe bananas mashed
1/3 cup semi skimmed/reduced fat milk
1/2 cup mixed raisins and sultanas (If you can get the super plump ones all the better
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Muesli for sprinkling on top of muffins before they go into the oven

Instructions:

1. Pre heat your oven at 190C or 375F.  Place 12 muffin cases in a muffin tray
2. Cream together the butter and sugars/splenda and mix until nicely fluffy. You can use a food processor for this but I personally like to do it by hand - it just doesn't feel like baking to me otherwise!
3. Gradually add the eggs until combined with the butter/sugar mixture, adding a spoonful of flour to the mix with the final egg batch (this stops the mixture for curdling)
4. Add the mashed up bananas and vanilla extract.  Mix well.
5. In a separate bowl, mix all the dry ingredients before adding to the egg/sugar/banana mixture.  When fully mixed, add the milk and stir well.  Finally, add the raisins/sultanas - you might want to add a bit more than 1/2 cup if you like them nice and juicy.
6. Dollop the mixture evenly between the 12 cases and sprinkle the tops with muesli. Bake for about 20-25 minutes or until they are nice and golden on top.
7. Leave to cool until they're at least not going to burn your mouth before eating!
8. Enjoy

I hope you're having a lovely time where ever you are. Cole and I are off to the local farmers market later so I'm hoping to come back with loads of lovely goodies for dinner.

Jo x

Lemon Cupcakes

I've been plotting and planning my wedding party in a month's time and whilst I'm still fuzzy about LOTS of the details, one thing I am sure about is that I'm having cupcakes - lots of cupcakes.  I'm going to do a tower of them so have been experimenting with flavors.  Today I tried lemon and they turned out really well.  I need to perfect the cream cheese frosting (it's a bit runny - but I used low fat cream cheese so maybe I need full fat instead) but otherwise they were most yummy.

The basic recipe is as follows and taken from the BBC good food magazine for basic cupcakes.  I then replaced the milk with plain non fat yogurt until it made a nice consistency and added some natural lemon essence, and some freshly grated lemon zest.  I'm an instinctive baker - a bit approximate with my measuring and they always seem to turn out ok so I'm sticking with it.  I tried the cakes out of John and 2 of my friends and the vote was a definite 'yes' so I just need to perfect the frosting.

Recipe:

125g butter

125g caster sugar

2 eggs

225 extra fine sponge flour

1tsp baking powder

50ml milk

50ml plain yogurt

Grated zest of 1 lemon

tsp natural lemon essence

Cream butter and sugar together and slowly add the egg.  When adding the final bit of egg, add a bit of the flour to prevent curdling.  Add the rest of the flour and baking powder and then the milk and yogurt (I find that I need to add the milk and yogurt towards the end of adding all of the flour - otherwise it goes a bit too stiff to mix well.) Then add the grated lemon zest and lemon essence - I've given amounts as a guide - you can add your own to taste.

Divide the mixture between 12 muffin cases in a muffin tin and bake at 180c/Gas 4 for 20-25 minutes.

Cream Cheese frosting:

When the cakes are cool, mix some cream cheese with a few tablespoons of icing sugar and a few drops of lemon essence.  Mix until smooth and then add food coloring if you wish.  them smooth onto cakes and leave to 'set' in the fridge.  Eat and go 'Hmmmmm' a lot!

A great side effect of this was that Cole realised he liked the taste of lemon after all.  I quite often make sweet/cakey stuff with fruits that he says he doesn't like (but is actually just too nervous to try) and then tell him afterwards what was in them.  It's worked with raspberries, peaches and plums so far.  Then we settled down and watched Dr Who from Saturday - Oh my goodness!  I love it when it's getting to the end of the season - they always have such good finales and it looks like this one's going to be very exciting.  I'm not sure who enjoys it more - me or Cole!  And Catherine Tate was fantastic this week.

But all of this baking is playing havoc with my weight wathering - I've not lost anything this week and it's been a bit of a struggle sticking to my plan.  It really didn't help that yesterday we went to a birthday party where they had about 6 different types of cake - and as I never met a cake I didn't like, I felt obliged to try and little taste of each one, which probably added up to quite a lot of cake!  Crisps, chips, cheese and peanuts I can usually leave no problem but put a piece of cake in front of me and I'm a lilly livered weak willed big girls blouse!  There's something just so comforting about baking (and eating) lovely cake - plus the house smells so divine when there's lovely things baking in the oven.

I suppose I'm like many women (and I hate to generalize - I just know so many more women who have strong emotional connections to food then men) that I use food for so much more than sustenance.  I eat when I'm hungry yes, but also when I'm sad, anxious, happy, celebrating, tired, cold - I love to cook and to bake and to nurture both myself and my loved ones.  I eat healthy most of the time and I exercise regularly.  So I guess I'm pretty balanced.  I'm just struggling to lose the 10lbs I've put on over the past couple of years and would just like to feel like my weight was under control.  Still, I'm getting there, albeit slower than I would like and going back to work this week has been a big thing for me.  I was really anxious about it - I mean, really anxious.  I was imagining all sorts of terrible things happening and fortunately it wasn't nearly as bad as all that (are the things we worry about ever quite as bad as we imagine them to be?) So a bit of cake won't do me too much harm. 

I have to say a big thank you to the divine miss Twiggy Peasticks for the gorgeous sparkly card she sent me.

Not only is it a lovely thought but it's a totally beautiful card - look at the little stitches.  I'm a very lucky Missus.  Not if you'll excuse me, the cakes are a calling ...

Jo x

Pancake Day!

Yesterday was Shrove Tuesday in the UK (I think it's also celebrated in Australia and possibly Canada?)- otherwise known as Pancake day.  I don't know the exact origins of the day but it's something to do with people eating a rich, stodgy meal on the day before Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent (traditionally a time of restriction and fasting)  As a very lapsed Catholic I can remember having to give something up for lent - usually chocolate!  Those days are way behind me now (I don't think I could manage 40 days without the stuff now!)

Cole loves pancakes and we have them fairly often (although I do tend to use wholemeal flour) so to make it a bit special he got to have his with ice cream this time.  he brought the plate back clean and his face covered in chocolate sprinkles - result!

I decided to make something different for John and I so I whipped up a sausage tortilla.  Here's the recipe, all of my own design (or cobbled together really!)

Ingredients:

• 6 good quality sausages (low fat and well seasoned work best)
• 4 free range organic eggs - ok, you can use ordinary ones but the organic free range are so much better in every way
• 1 onion diced
• 1 courgette (zucchini) diced
• 1 red pepper (bell pepper) diced
• 1 table spoon of low fat creme freche
• 1 teaspoon of English mustard powder (or more depending on how sassy you like it)
• handful of fresh mixed herbs
• Salt and pepper to taste

fry the vegetables in a dash on olive oil until softened.  Meanwhile grill the sausages until cooked thoroughly.  Cut the sausages into slices of around 1 inch and add them to the pan with the vegetables.  Whisk the egg, mustard powder, creme freche, herbs, salt and pepper and pour into the frying pan with the vegetables.  Slowly cook the egg mixture until it starts to solidify.  When it's 80% solid (with just some runny bits left on top) take the pan off the heat and put under a hot grill until the top is cooked and starting the brown.

The whole thing takes around 30 minutes from start to finish and is a really tasty and healthy light dinner.