"I don't have time to cook anything"

Cooking is as complicated as you want to make it.

Good, fast food can be easy, delicious and thoroughly rewarding.  You just have to know what to cook.
These swift, delicious Sweet Potato, chilli & fennel falafel are perfect fast food.  Nothing technical and fancy here, just good, honest, fast food.

I make a batch of these and they form the basis of my lunches for a few days.  Just bake what you need and leave the batter in the fridge for another day.  They are good on their own, dunked greedily into sweet chilli sauce.  They are good in wraps & pitta's or scattered over a salad too.
Cafe' coleslaw is a fond salute to the huge batches of coleslaw I used to make at my parents Cafe' back in the UK.  We made so much of this stuff that we used to buy huge buckets of Hellman's mayonnaise and to look at them you would think they would last forever- in reality, they never lasted long!  Cafe' coleslaw is simple, plain and my favourite version of coleslaw now I am a grown up.  When I was little I rebelled against the homemade goodies my Mum made for cafe' and preferred bought versions of everything (crazy phase of my life!!), including that lurid, plastic tasting coleslaw you buy from the store.  I can't even stand the smell of that now!

SWEET POTATO, CHILLI & FENNEL FALAFEL

WHAT YOU NEED

• 1 large sweet potato
• 1 tsp ground cumin 
• 1 tsp ground coriander 
• 1 tsp chilli flakes 
• 1 tsp fennel seeds 
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 garlic cloves, minced 
• juice ½ lemon 
• 100 g gram flour (chickpea flour)

PROPER CAFÉ COLESLAW

WHAT YOU NEED

• 1 small white onion, peeled & finely sliced 
• 1 medium carrot, peeled & grated (i use a julienne cutter) 
• 1/2 each white, shredded thinly 
• Hellman’s Mayonnaise (I like the one made with Olive Oil and it must be full fat!) 

WHAT YOU DO

1. Heat oven to 200C/ 390F. 
2. Microwave the sweet potato whole for 8-10 mins until tender. You can roast them in the oven till golden and soft if you like but obviously that takes a lot longer. Leave to cool a little, then peel. 
3. Put the sweet potato, cumin, coriander, chilli, fennel, paprika, garlic, lemon juice and flour into a large bowl. Season, then mash everything together until smooth. 
4. Using a small ice cream scoop, make 20 balls and squash them down a little (I use a wet fork as I like lots of surface area to go crunchy) 
5. Place the falafel on an oiled or silicone lined baking sheet, bake for around 10- 15 mins until the bases are golden brown, then flip over and bake for 10-15 mins more until brown all over.
6. To make the Café Coleslaw simply mix the veggies together in a large bowl and add enough mayo to coast everything thickly.  Don't be stingy with the mayo!

What do you call a hot cross bun when it goes cold?

In England, hot cross buns are traditionally eaten on Good Friday; they are marked on top with a cross. The mark is of ancient origin, connected with religious offerings of bread, which replaced earlier, less civilised offerings of blood.

HOT CROSS BUN LOAF

WHAT YOU NEED

• 425g all-purpose flour
• 50g butter, cut into small pieces
• 8g fast-action yeast
• 1 ½ tsp mixed spice/pumpkin pie spice
• 50g soft brown sugar
• 100g raisins
• 100g sultanas
• 25g mixed candied peel
• 125ml milk
• 50ml Brandy

Hope you have a fabulous Easter.

Red Fife Wheat is thought to have originated in Turkey, after which it moved across the Black Sea to Ukraine where Mennonite farmers grew it. Red Fife seeds were later shipped to Glasgow, where a friend of David Fife sent a sample to Canada. Fife then grew the variety in Ontario and shared it with other farmers, calling the wheat Red Fife after its distinctive colour. The Red Fife seed adapted to a great diversity of growing conditions across Canada and became the baking and milling industry standard for forty years, from the 1860s to the turn of the twentieth century.

GOLD FORREST GRAINS

The grains we grow, and then mill, are steeped in heritage and tradition. The wheat is antique; Red Fife, Park, Spelt and Einkorn. They taste different, feel different and nurture your body differently. Baking with our flour products takes you back in time to the age of whole, healthful foods. Your baking will have the wonderful, indescribable taste that only your grandparents would recognise.

 I have been asked to make this online tutorial many times during butcher demonstrations.  It's second nature to me and I do this process pretty fast in real life so it looks a bit scary to anyone hoping to recreate it at home.  When I am teaching I also find it hard to get the information to stick with someone.  Whilst they can do the knot with me stood there giving them a few prompts they soon loose the steps.

  1. With the piece of meat parallel to you bring the butcher string under the meat.  I would advise that the ball of string is in a plastic container on the floor- keeping it away from the meat keeps the ball clean and dry.
 2. Bring the end of the string back towards you over the top and keep it on the left hand side of the bottom string.
 3. Bring the end of the string under the bottom string.
 4. Take the end of the string up towards the top left.
 5. The end of the string now goes underneath the top string which forms a loop- make sure the loop is big enough to bring the string through in the next step.
 6.  Bring the end of the string through the loop.
 7. Gentle bring the knot together by pulling on the end of the string.  Do not tighten it too much as it needs to slip along the bottom string to tighten on the meat in the next step.
 8. To tighten the knot hold the bottom string and pull towards yourself.  I find it easier to take the knot away from me over the top of the meat and then pull it towards me.  This allows me to keep my knots in a perfect line along the top of the meat- you really don't need to worry about this until you have done so many of these knots that straight lines matter!
The tightness of the string all depends on what you are rolling.  If you are stuffing the meat with something you can apply less pressure and tighten the string less so you don't push out the stuffing.  Just aim to keep the meat at an even thickness.
 9. We now have to secure the knot.  Take the bottom string and make a loop around your finger and thumb.  Grab the top string (the loose end sticking up from the knot), and drop the loop over the top.
 10. Hold the bottom string and the top and tighten the securing knot.
 11. Trim the top and bottom strings to leave two neat ends.

 There has, as always been lots happening in my kitchen but it has been a bit healthier lately.  I am always experimenting, playing and learning with my food.  You only have to look at the cookery book shelves lately to see that "healthy" is the buzz word.  It's nice to see that healthy nowadays also means tasty instead of simply looking calorie reduced and screaming of hunger.  So whilst I still bake brownies every week there are more seeds, nuts, fruits and vegetables in my kitchen too.  So expect a few trimmed down recipes with less bang for your calorie buck but with all the taste to tingle your taste buds!

Everything in moderation, including moderation.
So expect to see some delicious things coming soon here on the blog but have a little patience as I work on this new design and sort out those pesky tags I keep putting on the job list.  I promise when its all done this little site will be singing and way more organised to find delicious things like this Supersonic Gin & Tonic, because getting healthy and tipsy all at the same time is a thing, right?