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!

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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



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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:

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RECIPE: Oatmeal Thins

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

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Chicken curry

Cooking is like therapy for me and gives me a good excuse to take a break from studying, of which I have been doing very little a lot!

Tonight I made a Chicken Curry - which has become something of a signature dish for me.

Here is the finished masterpiece!

The recipe is below with some photos to boot.

No-Fuss Chicken Curry

Cooking time: 45 minutes

Serves: 2

300g (about!) mini chicken fillets

1/2 tsp garam masala

1/2 tsp ground tumeric

sea salt

1 tbsp lemon juice

oil, for frying

1 onion, peeled and finely chopped

2cm fresh ginger, peeled and grated

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 tsp ground coriander

1/4 tsp chilli powder

10 cherry tomatoes

1/2 pint chicken stock

10 curry leaves - optional

1. Cut the chicken fillets into 1 inch x 1 inch cubes (or there abouts!!). Mix together the garam masala, half of the ground tumeric, sea salt and lemon juice to make a paste. Rub the paste over chicken and leave in a bowl to marinate for at least 20 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, heat some oil in a frying pan and fry the onion, ginger and garlic until softened. Add the coriander, chilli powder and the remaining tumeric and continue frying for a minute or so. Add the tomatoes, chicken stock and - if using - curry leaves and gently simmer for 15 minutes.

3. In a hot frying pan, heat some oil. Put the chicken, along with any marinate, in the pan. Seal the chicken "cubes", making sure they have a lovely golden colour - this doesn't take long. Then add the chicken to the pan of stock and gently simmer for around 20 minutes until the chicken is well cooked through.

4. Serve with the lemon rice.

Lemon Rice with Cashews and Chilli

Cooking time: 20 minutes

Serves 2

1/4 tsp ground tumeric

100g basmati rice

1/2 red chilli

25g cashew nuts

juice of 1.2 lemon

1/2 tbsp coriander leaves, finely chopped

1. Bring the water for the rice to the boil. Add the tumeric, then the rice, and cook as per instructions. When ready, drain and return to the pan.

2. Meanwhile, gently fry the chilli and cashew nuts in a small frying pan, then add to the rice and mix through. Stir in the lemon juice.

3. Mix in the coriander and serve.

Now, Celebrity Big Brother - gotta love crappy TV!

Risotto ai funghi

This is my own recipe which I make from memory, so hopefully it is ok to follow!

Serves 3

Prep and cooking time, about an hour

500g mushrooms, sliced

1 onion, finely chopped

1 vegetable stock cube, in about 1 litre of boiling water

250g arborio rice

Salt and pepper, to taste

Parsley, fresh or dried

1. Fry onions for a couple of minutes in large frying pan, until they are starting to go brown.

2. Add mushrooms and continue to fry until they are soft.

3. Add rice and allow to fry for a minute.

4. Add enough stock to cover the ingredients.

5. As stock simmers and reduces add more. Continue to add stock, a bit at a time. Until all stock is gone and rice is soft and creamy. This can take 20-30 minutes.

6. Season to taste. Add a little parsley before serving.

Monday Morning Pic-Me-Up

This is a pic-me-up in more ways than one!

This is a photo of one of the Pimms Jellies I made for the dinner on Saturday night. Soooo good! And so easy to make. The recipe is below:

Serves 4

Ready in 3 hours

Ingredients:

300g strawberries, trimmed and sliced

4 leaves gelatine

100ml Pimm's No.1

425ml Asda Lemonade

Method:

1. Divide the strawberries between 4 glasses.

2. Cut the gelatine into small pieces using kitchen scissors and put in a small bowl with 4tbsp cold water. Leave to soak for 10 minutes. Heat a small pan containing a little water and stand the bowl of gelatine in it until it has completely dissolved, making sure the water doesn't splash into the bowl.

3. In a large jug, mix the gelatine with the Pimm's and lemonade, pour into the strawberry-filled glasses and chill in the fridge for 2 hours.

No one has food poisoning... yet!!

Well... we - me, the boyf and a few unsuspecting friends - have now sampled the delights of the cupcakes and we're all still here to tell the story! Phew!

For anyone who was wondering, the recipe is below.

Tia Maria cupcakes

14-16 cupcakes

Ingredients:
110g castor sugar
110g butter or margarine
110g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp organic cocoa powder
2 eggs
1 tsp Tia Maria
1 tbsp milk

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas mark 5. Line a cupcake baking tray with paper lines.
2. Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time and beat well, then add the Tia Maria.
3. Sieve in the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder and mix well. Add the milk and mix.
4. Spoon the mixture into the cupcake tray, up to about 1/2 full. Place in the centre of the oven for 10-12 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5-10 minutes. Remove the cupcakes from the baking tray and place on a wire rack to cool.