Carrot and Cumin Soup

Well the summer has officially gone and the thick winter socks are on, and we all know what that means. Soup! I love me a bit of soup, perfect when you need warming up on a chilly autumn eve.

My mum used to always make the best carrot and lentil soup growing up, so for me it's the ultimate comfort food. I've put a little spicy twist to this family favourite though to give it a warming kick.

This like the majority of my recipes (bar my GBBO bakes) is super simple. The hardest graft is probably chopping up the veggies. It's also really flexible, the measurements are all pretty rough. I'll be honest I pretty much went with what was sitting in the fridge. If you're looking for a 5:2 version of this then just remove the honey and use less oil to cut down on the calories.

So let's get to it!

Ingredients

2 Tbsp of Olive Oil
1 Large Onion
2 Garlic Cloves (crushed)
2 Tsp Cumin Seeds
2 Tsp Ground Coriander
1 Tsp Chilli Powder
1 Tbsp Honey (optional)
500g Carrots
2 Celery Sticks
1 Litre of Veg or Chicken Stock

1) Start by roughly chopping up all the veg. Make sure the carrot is cut into fairly small chunks to make the cooking process a bit quicker.  

2) Cook the onions in the olive oil until soft. Add the cumin, coriander and chilli powder and cook for a couple more minutes.

3) Add the honey then the carrots and celery. Cook for around 5 minutes to soften the veggies.

4) Pour over your stock and leave to simmer for around 15 minutes or until the carrots and celery are fully cooked.

5 Blitz the mixture together until smooth. Serve with a big dollop of greek yoghurt and a few more cumin seeds sprinkled on top. Oh and not forgetting a big crusty wholemeal role (you gotta get that carb fix somehow!)

GBBO Cardamom Mango Eclairs

Well it's that time of the week again, goodbye fasting, hello cake and The Great British Bake Off. So as per usual, I've been in the kitchen baking away my own little showstopper.

Cardamom has to be one of my favourite flavours, it's found in a lot of Nordic Bakes so reminds me of summers in Finland and my Mummu's (grandmother's) homemade cinnamon buns wafting from the oven.

Of course, cardamom is also traditional in Indian cooking, and I've always wanted to try the combination of this pungent spice with mango.

So for my eclairs I've done that by adding cardamom to my choux pastry mixture and then made a mango creme patisserie filling.

I'm so happy with the final product and can't wait to share it with you!

So here goes!

Well the first attempt didn't go so well... then I used good old Delia's recipe for Choux pastry and it went a LOT better!

I think the difference was that I beat it for longer on the pan, and also used a bigger pan, meaning that the flour could cook off better. I also beat the mixture before adding the eggs to let out some of the steam.

I also followed this recipe from bbc food for the creme patisserie, adding a heaped teaspoon of cardamom to the milk when I was heating it up. Once the creme patisserie had cooled I put it in a piping bag and piped it on the inside of the eclair adding some mango slices on top.

Then for the icing I melted 50g of dark chocolate with two tablespoons of warm water and melted it in the microwave. I then added some icing sugar to thicken the mixture and piped onto the eclairs placing the sliced mango on top.  

Overall I was pleased with how they came out. Though if I were to do it again, I would pipe the creme patisserie into the eclair without cutting it open, as I think it would have looked and held together better.

So that's it for another week. SO looking forward to GBBO again tonight, can't believe it's almost over so going to savour these final precious weeks with P-Hoz and M-Bez. Sigh. 

5:2 Fresh Tomato Scrambled Eggs

Yup Yup it's a fast day again and to help you get off to a good week, here's another fast day recipe. This is one I had last week as fancied something super simple to make and also warm and comforting.

As usual this recipe is really flexible, for example you could remove or replace the pitta with a lower calorie bread or remove or add an egg depending on your calorie allowance for the rest of the day.

Ingredients

3 Medium Eggs - 213 Kcal
3 Cherry Tomatoes - 9 Kcal
1 Spring Onion - 6 Kcal
Sprig of Fresh Thyme - n/a
1 Tbsp Cyder Vinegar - 3 Kcal
1 Food Doctor Cereal Pitta - 130 Kcal

Total - 316 Calories

1. Cut the cherry tomatoes in half and fry in a shallow pan with the thyme and vinegar.

2. Once tender add the eggs and scramble, season generously.

3. Finish by serving in the toasted pitta with a sprinkling of the sliced spring onions.

Dairy Free Banana Coconut Muffins

I thought I'd bake something nice and cosy now the days are getting that bit shorter and the tights are making their way out of the back of the wardrobe. These coconut banana muffins are perfect for breakfast on the go, or to have with a large cup of tea on a Sunday afternoon.

The great thing is that although these muffins contain refined sugar in the form of dark muscavado sugar, they are dairy free (one step at a time people, one step).

Makes 6 large muffins.

Ingredients

2 Bananas
4 Tablespoons of Coconut Oil (or Vegetable Oil)
120ml of Almond Milk (or any kind of milk you prefer)
1 Egg
80g Muscavado Sugar
200g Plain Flour
2 Tsp Baking Powder
50g Desiccated Coconut
Pinch of Salt

1. Preheat the oven to 180c (fan). Then mash the bananas then add the oil, milk and the egg. Mix together.

2. Then add the sugar, flour, baking powder, coconut and salt. Mix until combined.

3. Divide the mixture between 6 muffin cases and place a slice of banana on each muffin. Then sprinkle some coconut on top.

4. Bake for 20-30 minutes.

5. Allow to cool and enjoy!

Finnish Tosca Cake

Now this cake really is a taste of my childhood. My mum used to make this on a lazy Sunday, served with a big mug of hot chocolate after a long walk through the countryside.

I was inspired to make this after last week's European bakes on The Great British Bake Off, and indeed to commemorate GBBO Wednesdays. Woo!

Tosca cake is a light vanillery sponge topped with a crispy buttery almondy crust and it truly delicious and incredibly comforting.

You'll need an 8 inch cake tin that's been lightly greased for this recipe.

Ingredients

170g Caster Sugar
100g Butter
4 Eggs
200 ml Double Cream
3 Tsp Vanilla Essence
250g Plain Flour
2 Tsp Baking Powder

For the Topping;

150g Butter
150g Caster Sugar
100 ml Double Cream
50g Plain Flour
150g Almond Flakes

1. Start by beating the sugar and the sugar together until pale and fluffy.

2. Add the eggs one at a time, beating fully in between.

3. Add the double cream and vanilla essence and beat again.

4. Finally add the flour and baking powder and mix until smooth. Bake in the oven for around 35 minutes (depending on your oven). You want to make sure that it's still slightly undercooked when you take it out. This prevents it drying out when you add the topping.

5. Whilst the cake is in the oven, you'll want to make the topping. Start by melting the butter, cream and caster sugar together in a pan over a medium heat.

6. Once the butter is melted in add the flour, a it at a time, whisking in between. Once the mixture has thickened fold in the almond flakes. Set aside until needed.

7. Once you've removed it from the oven, immediately cut off the top dome to create a flat surface for the topping. Then pour on the mixture spreading it out evenly, then place back in the oven for around 15 minutes or until the top is nicely browned.

8. Leave to cool completely before cutting into the bad boy and enjoying with a huge vat of hawt choccy, or if you want to do it the traditional way, with a large cup of VERY strong coffee.

Hope you enjoy, and see you on twitter tonight for more GBBO dramas. Tweet tweet!

5:2 Avocado Cucumber Soup

Another day another fast, another avocado recipe for you.

I've been trying to cut down on my meat intake after watching BBC Horizon's 'Should We Eat Meat' series so Avocado has been a bit of a fast day saviour for me as it's filling and full of good fats.

I found this idea for a chilled cucumber and avocado soup (370 Calories) in the fantastic Flavour Thesaurus. Topped with a protein rich egg, this soup is both filling and refreshing. 

The idea of egg and a green soup came from a creamy spinach soup I used to eat as a kid in Finland (Pinaattikeitto) it also adds much needed protein.

Ingredients

1 Medium Avocado - 286 Kcal (approx dependant on weight)
Half a Peeled and Deseeded Cucumber - 13 Kcal
Juice of Half a Lime
Pinch of Salt
1 Medium Egg - 71 kcal

Total - 370 Calories

1. Poach the egg. Meanwhile blend together the flesh of the avocado, the cucumber and the lime.

2. Pour content into a bowl and season to taste. Place your poach egg on top.

N.b. Because I have some calories left I'm going to add some crunch to the dish by crumbling in some Finncrisp (20 Kcal per slice). 

 Enjoy!

Homemade Banana Chips

I'm starting a new series of posts will about what to do with your 'past it' bananas. I'm always having to chuck them away or if I'm feeing frugal I'd usually I'd just knock up a banana cake. However I like these recipes because they would all work as a nutritious breakfast of midday snack.

First up are homemade banana chips. These are lengthy to make, but very much worth it. Chewy and flavoursome, these little morsels are a great addition to your morning cereal or just to nibble on throughout the day.

I would suggest making a large batch (two trays worth) at one time as the yield isn't too big.   

Ingredients

2 (or more) Ripe Bananas
Juice of Quarter of a Lemon

1. Start by slicing the banana into fairly thin slices (means they'll crisp up better) and place in a bowl. Squeeze over a small amount of lemon to prevent blackening.

2. Then place on a parchment layered baking tray ensuring that the slices don't touch.

3. Bake in the oven at 80c for two hours. In this time you are free to do whatever you wish. Paint your nails, catch up on celebrity gossip, in fact two hours is more than enough time to watch at least two episodes of Suits on Netflix.

4. Once your two hours are up, carefully flip over the slices and bake on the other side for around 40 minutes. Just until you feel that they are crisp enough for you. 

5. Finally place them on a cooling rack to dry them out even further.

6. Store in an airtight container. 

5:2 Avocado on Rye

Ugh, how did that wonderful feast day go by so quickly? Once again I find myself struggling to function on my fast day. It's not all bad though as I have a great dinner idea that comes in at 367 Calories.

This recipe is great for a fast day dinner at the end of the day, but also as a feast day breakfast as it is full of nutritious carbs and good for you fats and it's also super easy to make.

If you're running low on calories remove the rye bread and poach an extra egg. I just love the flavour combination of German rye and avocado. I also leave all my 500 calories until the evening, so if you're like me then  have the whole avocado (weigh it first because they tend to vary on size).

So let's get to it y'all!

Ingredients

Half a Medium Avocado - 70g = 143 Kcal
Half a Lime - n/a
Half a Chilli - n/a
A Few Drops of Tabasco - n/a
1 Medium Egg - 71 Kcal
1 Slice of German Rye Bread - Schneider Brot = 153 Kcal

Total - 367 Calories

1. First off start by slicing the avocado into a bowl and squeeze half a lime over. Then slice a red chilli and add to the mixture. Finish my splashing a couple of drops of tabasco (depending on you spice tolerance) and seasoning with salt and pepper.

2. Then poach your egg, and whilst this is cooking toast your German rye and assemble the avo on top.

3. Once the egg is done pop on top of your avo on toast and TUCK IN!!!!

See! Super simple and super tasty. Once you're finished imagine how much you are going to consume tomorrow - I personally always dream of eating the worlds largest breakfast whilst getting irritated about the inconsiderate selfish people eating openly around me. How dare they!? But you know, each to their own.

GBBO Egg Custard Tart

Hurrah! It's Wednesday and we all know what that means... no I'm not talking about the depressing idea that it's ONLY halfway through the week (how does it go so slowly?) I am in fact talking about The Great British Bake Off! Duh!

So in honour of GBBO Wednesday I'm once again getting my bake off with a custard tart from last week.

I actually followed Edd Kimber's (off of winning Series One) recipe, choosing to make a simple egg custard tart. I watched his youtube video which was a great step by step recipe to ensure zero soggy-ness on the bottom, and thus a happy Mary and Paul.

I did however have to add more flour for the pastry base and I infused the milk beforehand to help ensure that the vanilla really ran through the custard filling.

So without further ado let's get to it.

Ingredients

You'll need a 9-inch loose bottomed tart tin for this recipe.

For the Pastry;

250g Flour
150g Softened Unsalted Butter
50g Caster Sugar
Pinch of Salt

For the Custard;

350ml Single Cream
100ml Whole Milk
1 Vanilla Pod
8 Egg Yolks
100g Caster Sugar
Cinnamon for dusting

1. Start by rubbing the butter and flour together into a bowl until it resembles breadcrumbs. Then mix in the caster sugar and salt until it's fully combined.

2. Then add the egg and mix together with a fork then bring together with your hands. At this point turn it onto a surface (if it's too sticky turn onto a floured surface but if not a cool non-floured surface will do) and bring it together fully. This should take seconds, you don't want to overwork the dough or it will become tough.

3. Wrap the dough in cling film and leave in the fridge for an hour or so. Meanwhile, place the cream and milk in a pan with the scraped out vanilla seeds and the de-seeded vanilla pod. Heat until tepid, then set aside and leave to infuse.

4. Once the dough is completely cold turn onto a lightly floured surface and roll out until it's big enough to fill the entire tart tin plus some to go over the sides. Roll the dough onto your rolling pin and carefully place into the lightly greased tart tin. (In Edd's recipe be puts the tin on a baking tray so the excess dough has somewhere to fall onto). Don't push the dough down though, but fold so it fits into the tin.

5. Place back in the oven for another half hour to cool down again, this would be a good time to preheat your oven to 180c.

6. After half an hour place a piece of baking parchment that has been scrunched up before hand over the pastry and fill with baking beans/ rice. Place into the oven for 20 minutes. This is the blind baking stage to ensure no bottoms are made soggy.

7. After this time remove the baking beans/ rice and place back in the oven for a further five minutes to brown.

8. In this five minutes separate the egg yolks and turn on the heat on your vanilla infused milk. 

9. Then Ed takes a further step which is to coat the pastry with egg yolk using a pastry brush. Place back into the oven for a further 5 minutes and turn it down to 130c.

10. Then in this time add the sugar to the egg yolk and whisk. Once combined sieve half your hot cream onto the mixture and whisk. Then sieve the other half on.

11. Pour the mixture carefully into the pastry base whilst still in oven (this prevents spilling) and sift the cinnamon on top (only a light dusting). Bake for 30-40 minutes. The custard should have a slight wobble before you remove it from the oven.

12. Once you're happy with the bake remove the tart from the oven you'll want to remove the excess pastry. Do this by cutting it away with a bread knife. When this is done set aside to cool completely.

13. When the tart is fully cooled down place oven a ramekin and remove from the tin.

14. Remove from the tin, serve and enjoy!

So that's it and Happy GBBO day to one and all!

For the full recipe follow the link here

5:2 Baked Salmon

Well it's Monday again, start of a new week and for any fellow 5:2 diet-ers out there it's probably a fast day.

To help motivate you (and myself) here's a simple and healthy idea for your evening fast day meal.

Coming in at 367 calories per portion it fits in well if you wanted to fit it in with a low calorie breakfast. It's also really fresh and delicious, so let's get on with it before I chew my hand off. SO. HUNGRY!!!!

Ingredients

For the Salmon;

130g Salmon Fillet - 277 Kcal
1 Spring Onion (thinly sliced) - 7 Kcal
1 Tbsp Light Soy Sauce - 16 Kcal
Ginger - n/a
Half a Lime cut into three fairly thick slices

For the Salad (this is 3 people, but the calories represent per portion - so 1/3);

1 Courgette sliced thinly either with a mandolin or a peeler - 14 Kcal
1/3 of a Cucumber (as above) - 5 kcal
1 Carrot cut into thin drumsticks - 5 Kcal
1 Tbsp Light Soy Sauce - 5 Kcal
1 Tsp Honey - 17 Kcal
One Packet of Skinny Noodles (available on Ocado) - 21 Kcal
Chilli Flakes - n/a
Garlic Clove - n/a
Juice of Half a Lime

1. Firstly, cut out a round piece of baking parchment so that you can seal the salmon in the parchment (it keeps the fillet nice and moist, and creates a steaming effect.) Then preheat the oven to 180c.

2. Next place your three slices of lime on some baking parchment and then your salmon fillet on top of this. Then place the spring onion, ginger and pour the soy sauce on top. 

3. Then you want to seal the fish in the parchment. Do this by crimping the sides to create a 'pasty' like effect. Leave a small bit unsealed and pour in a splash of water. Then crimp the final part and place on a baking tray, then into the oven for 10-12 minutes.

4. Once the salmon is in the oven, prepare the salad by placing all the veggies and noodles into a bowl. Then add the soy sauce, lime, honey, chilli flakes and garlic. Mix thoroughly and set aside.

5. When the salmon's done remove from it's pasty shell and serve with the noodle salad. 

Great British Bake Off Baked Alaska

Who's excited for The Great British Bake off tonight? I am certainly am, and in honour of the show I decided to make my own version of last week's show-stopper baked alaska challenge.

Well first things first. This is a pretty stressful thing to make, even without Paul Hollywood's piercing blue eyes burning through your ice-cream turning it into a pool of despair (yeah that's right, I know who's to blame for 'bin-gate' - I'm on to you Hollywood).

Conspiracy theories out of the way, my version of this ice cold treat is a 'Beehive Baked Alaska.' So a honey flavoured ice cream atop an almond sponge with a raspberry jam centre.

In order to fully recreate the pressure of the tent I put an image of Paul and Mary on my fridge door looking disapprovingly as I ran around the kitchen like a headless chicken.

Yes, that is a black and white print out of Mary and Paul (colour printing is really expensive - ok?), yes it has been cellotaped into the door, and YES I didn't even cut it straight. But you can't say I didn't put any effort into this joke.

So with Mary and Paul in place let's get on with the method (of my madness).

For the Ice-cream

500ml Double Cream
4 tbsp Honey
3 Egg Yolks

1. Place the cream and honey into a pan. Bring to the boil.

2. Whisk together the yolks in a different bowl.

3. Add the hot cream to the eggs (slowly - you don't want to curdle the mixture) and place the mixture in an ice cream maker, or otherwise in a freezable container. I put mine in a round bowl layered with cling film in order to place on the sponge and create the desired 'beehive effect.'

For the Jam

250g Raspberries
200g Sugar
Zest and juice of half a lemon

1. Mix together the raspberries and sugar, then add the lemon juice and zest.

2. Bring to the boil and leave on a rolling boil for 5-10 minutes. You don't want to produce a jelly like jam, but quite runny one.

3. Once the jam has cooled, set aside and get on with the sponge!

For the Sponge

250g Caster Sugar
250g Butter (softened)
175g Self Raising Flour
75g Ground Almonds
5 Eggs

1. Preheat the oven to 180c. Then whisk together the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy.

2. Add the eggs in one at a time, making sure they are fully incorporated each time.

3. Fold in the flour and almonds and place into two greased sandwich tins.

4. Place in the oven and remove once a thin sharp knife comes out clean.

For the Meringue

225g Caster Sugar
4 Egg Whites

1. Whisk the eggs whites together until they form stiff peaks.

2. Whilst the eggs are beating place the sugar and 6 tablespoons of water into a pan.

3. Mix together and place on the heat. (Don't forget to keep an eye out on your egg whites!) Let it come to a boil. Place your thermometer into the syrup. Once the temperature reaches 120c then take off the heat. The final mixture should be clear.

4. Slowly pour your sugar syrup into the eggs whites whilst constantly whisking. Make sure you pour slowly and steadily, once you have done so continue to whisk until the mixture becomes cool.

5. Leave the mixture to cool completely before piping.

The Assembly

The most important thing to remember with this is to keep a cool head. Also plan where you are going to assemble it, where you will store it etc etc. Trust me, planning is key (I learnt this the hard way).

So I started by cutting the top off of one of my ready sponges. This helps keep the cake even and also means that the jam can soak through into the sponge a little. I then placed the second sponge on top of this. Afterwards I cut a hole as big as the bowl to create a gap between the sponge and the ice cream, this way I could put more jam and fresh raspberries in between the layers.

Afterwards I got the bowl of ice cream out and placed on top of the sponge. This is where planning is key. I made space in my freezer so I could just place the sponge and the ice cream in there straight away. That way I had time to prepare my meringue for piping.

Once I was happy to start piping I removed the sponge and ice cream from the freezer and piped the whole thing. This was the stressful part. I managed to get meringue all down my top and all over the surfaces. It looked a bit like a meringue bomb had gone off.

Finally I got my new fancy chefs torch out and started blowtorching the bad boy.

And there we go - tah-dah. BAKED ALASKA!!!!

The only thing left to do is serve it! Or if you're me, frantically carry it outside to photograph in natural lighting, whilst the builders from the building site next door to your flat stare at you, and try to get as many good shots as you can before the whole thing disintegrates, stress eating big bits of cake ice cream/ meringue to try and clear up the scene as you go along.

So enjoy fellow bakers and see you on twitter tonight for more Great British Bake off Dramas.