Posts Tagged ‘Food for thought’

Green & Black’s for world peace

Thursday, February 25th, 2010
Mummies don't get much yummier

Mummies don't get much yummier

Naturally, I was jealous as hell thrilled for Denise van Outen when she announced that she’d barely put on any weight during her pregnancy because she only craves fruit. Gnash, gnash, so, no biscuits, salt & vinegar crisps and my mother’s chocolate caramel squares? She looks fabulous, glowing and gorgeous (check her out in the Seraphine dress, right), and about the same size at seven months as me at four. I’m going to go and lie down and sulk very happy for her, and don’t at all resent the pregnancy nausea that I can only counteract by eating. And the foods that make me feel better for longer can be broadly categorised as stodge, stodge and more stodge.

So hurrah for Green & Black’s. Along with lots of other bloggers, I was sent a glorious, bulging parcel of different varieties of their chocolate bars, along with tasting notes. Sadly, I didn’t read the tasting notes before I’d wolfed down a bar of Milk Chocolate (made with more cocoa for a richer taste), and a chaser of a half bar of Cherry, because the instructions clearly said to eat chunk by chunk to ‘allow the chocolate to melt slowly on the tongue’. Sorry, I can only blame the bump.

After my exhaustive, scientific and reasoned tasting, I’ve made some shattering and life-changing discoveries. Green & Black’s offers a cure for all kinds of life’s woes. Broken hearts, fractious children, grumpy husband, nauseous pregnant mums – all can benefit from the cocoa-dense, anti-oxidant packed deliciousness that is Green & Black’s.

Morning sickness
You get morning sickness because of hormones, wonky blood sugar levels and a generally being dog-tired. And some women react to stress by feeling nauseous. Vitamin B6 can help you feel better, and guess what? There’s Vitamin B6 in chocolate, plus serotonin, the ‘feel good chemical’, which should help counteract the stress. As Green & Blacks has high concentrations of cocoa, it’s practically a morning sickness remedy in the form of a bar. You therefore owe it to yourself to eat little (or lots) of it, and often.

A broken heart
Eating chocolate is a tried and tested cure for heartache. But a brutally broken heart needs more than mere calories. Green & Black’s Cherry is a scarily grown-up mix of dark chocolate and bittersweet dried cherries. It’s a bit like eating a sour Jaw Breaker, giving moments of sweetness and light punctuated with wincing episodes when you have no choice but to suck your teeth and do a little dance. Just like a relationship, really.

Fractious children
Sugar highs and young children are not a combination made in heaven. Instead, wear them out by getting them baking. Our current favourite treats are chocolate chunk tiny cookies made in a 24-hole mini muffin pan. Make the dough, press into the pan, pop in half a square of Green & Black’s butterscotch, bake for 8 minutes. The second they come out the oven, pop a square of Green & Black’s milk chocolate on the top, and sigh happily as it melts woozily all over your creations. Wait as long as you can and eat. These go particularly well with vanilla ice cream.
250g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
170g unsalted butter, melted
200g soft brown sugar
100g caster sugar
1tbs vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
325g chocolate chips (I prefer plain)
1 bar Green & Black’s Butterscotch

Small, sweet and very moreish

Small, sweet and very moreish

Ingredients

1) Pre-heat oven to 170.
2) Sift together flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt.
3) Cream together melted butter and caster sugars.
4) Beat in vanilla, egg and egg yolk until light and creamy
5) Mix in sifted ingredients, then stir in chocolate chips with a wooden spoon.
6) Roll into balls, squish into muffin tin, make into bowl shapes and pop a square of Green & Black’s Butterscotch into each ‘bowl’
7) Bake for around 12 minutes, and pop a square of Green & Black’s chocolate on the top of each one when still hot.

World Peace
If everyone ate a bit more chocolate, we’d all be happier and less likely to do aggressive things like fall out over oil fields off the Falkland Islands. Which means eating chocolate is kind of a duty to harmony, peace, love and hugs. If you need more persuasion, Green & Black’s uses organically grown cocoa beans, ingredients that are ethically sourced and all the bars are Fair Trade. So hopefully no-one need suffer for your chocolate hit, and will, in fact actively benefit from your purchase. And there aren’t many addictions you can say that about.

Another hard day in the office...

Another hard day in the office...

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Pancake eating and cookery lessons

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

I do love Shrove Tuesday, as does Cafe Bebe who is hosting a Shrove Tuesday blogging carnival. Though explaining the concept of actually giving something up for Lent in a way my four and three-year-olds could understand proved beyond me, given that I didn’t want them to imagine that in future they might have some say over ‘special treats’. Far easier for them to think of biscuits and crisps as very occasional gifts from the gods, over which they will never have control. Wonder how long this illusion of being the boss will last? Anyway, pancake day was an organised affair from the moment we popped on the pinnies (I thoroughly recommend the Pirate one with bandana, £9.95 from TowelsRus). Older boy chopped tomatoes, younger one ferried grated cheese, lemons and Nutella to the table (nope, we didn’t plan to eat them all at the same time), and baby tried to pull everything off the table. Mary Berry’s pancake recipe from my failsafe, if slightly too no-nonsense, Complete Cookbook, came up trumps.

 

It didn't end up on the floor - unlike mummy's

It didn't end up on the floor - unlike mummy's

Squishing eggs, whisking up batter, slopping butter into a pan. It was all very soothing, and took me back through years and years of pancake making. My mother is a very traditional cook, and Shrove Tuesday is right up her culinary street. We’d only ever eat our pancakes with lemon and sugar (she’s a stickler for salt, and no sugar, on porridge too), unlike my spoilt tribe who had one plain (cheese, tomato, mushrooms) and then as many as they liked covered with their choice of peanut butter, honey, jam, Nutella or fruit and ice cream. And yes, sometimes all at once. Yuk.

Older boy discovered a taste for flipping pancakes, and was thrilled when mummy’s third effort slid to the floor. Younger boy decided that lemon and sugar was the way forward, thank you, while baby ate three pancakes, which made his tummy look eight months pregnant with triplets. It didn’t take any longer to make than a usual meal, and doing it together made it much more fun. They ate it all with gusto. So we’ll be cooking together lots more in the future, especially now I know that I’m the clumsiest one in the family and dinner will only end up on the floor because of me. So I think that’s what I’m going to give up for Lent – doing all the cooking by myself. Not sure it’s quite in the right spirit of abstinence, but if it makes the children appreciate the effort putting a meal  the table takes, hopefully it’s a good waste-not-want-not lesson.

I can't eat and open my eyes at the same time

I can't eat and open my eyes at the same time

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Christmas baking carnival

Sunday, December 20th, 2009

Mum’s the Blog’s Christmas Baking Carnival means a very festive 12 days of cakes. Which is a great idea at any time of the year, but particularly at Christmas, when it’s practically the law to fill the house with home-baked smells. The idea is for 12 bloggers to come up with a favourite yuletide cake recipe. I hope Mum’s the Blog won’t mind that my chosen baked treat isn’t a cake, but a muffin, because it involves a mixing bowl and an oven, not to mention sugar, spice and other things nice. To find out where on the blogosphere to find the other cakes, click here.

Christmas Spice Muffins. Taste nice than they look. Luckily.

Christmas Spice Muffins. Taste nicer than they look. Luckily.

I love these Christmas spice muffins because they make a great breakfast warm from the oven, and taste just as good later in the day when you need some fuel to get you through a frozen shopping trip or yet more present wrapping. The spices make the kitchen smell wonderful in the mixing and the baking, the citrus zest give an additional Christmas zing, and the nuts and seeds give crunch and the kind of essential oils that really are essential at this time of year of colds-a-plenty. If you look closely, you can see a little bit of edible glitter (’snow’!) that you can buy for £2.70 at the Mums who Bake which, as you’d probably expect, is packed with everything to do with the art of baking.

The recipe is for 12 large muffins, but you can stretch the mixture to 18 small ones, which would go down a treat as an alternative mince pie.

INGREDIENTS
100G light muscovado sugar (caster/granulated will also do)
175ml sunflower oil
2 large eggs
225g plain flour
¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 heaped tsp mixed spice
Pinch of salt
Zest of 1 orange
Zest of ½ lemon
150 g (roughly two large) carrots
100 g walnuts/pecans, chopped
50g raisins
Handful of pumpkin seeds
Heaped tbsp of poppy seeds, or anything else you’ve got in the kitchen (optional)

METHOD
1)Preheat oven to 200/gas mark 6
2) Mix sugar and oil together, then beat in eggs one at a time.
3) Add sifted flour, bircarbonate, mixed spice, salt and citrust zest, then fold in grated carrot, nuts and seeds. Don’t mix too hard, but make sure the flour is incorporated.
4) Spoon into 12 muffin cases or 18 small cupcases and bake for 20 minutes (15 minutes if making small ones).
5) Cool on a rack, and serve warm, cold or however you want!

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Mothers rely on nine recipes

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
Meet the 'smugger'

Meet the 'smugger'

So, the truth is out. The nation’s mothers rely on a mere nine recipes to feed their families. Gulp. But hang on, that isn’t so bad,  is it? We’re only talking 14 meals a week, once breakfast is taken out of the equation (and bet there are loads of variations on that one. We even stretch to banana pancakes at the weekend). On hearing the results of a survey into maternal cooking habits, conducted by Merchant Gourmet, I did what any self-respecting (er, paranoid) mother would do. I whipped out a notebook and jotted down what I tend to serve in a week. Well coat me in batter and call me a deep-fried smugger (my new name for those scary organised mothers), but my repertoire  runs to about 20 dishes. Not bad – something different every lunch and tea for a week and a half. What I probably won’t shout about is that many of these ‘recipes’ involve the slam dunk approach to cooking – sausages/fish fingers/oven chips slammed in the oven, frozen peas dunked on the hob. Actual ‘cooking’? Yes, spaghetti bolognaise (identified by the survey as the most frequently cooked dish) was up there. As was lasagne and cottage pie. I make a mean fish pie, even if I say so myself (good old Jamie Oliver), and my children love  mussels. Strange but true, and there’s  nothing easier than buying a pack ready cooked in garlic sauce, and add chopped mushrooms, peas and pasta.

Apparently the reason why we cook so ‘few’ recipes is a lack of time, plus an understandable desire to avoid turning mealtimes into battle zones when children refuse to try new things. But I’d personally love a few more old faithfuls, so how about a cookery tell-all? Give your best standby recipe in the comments section below, something simple that you can cook standing on your head while doing two lots of homework and sewing on a nametape.  We’ll collate them and pop them on our main website. One of my standbys is butternut squash risotto (mine love it, promise!), and the recipe is below. Hope they eat it…

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Family bunfight at Quo Vadis, Soho

Monday, September 21st, 2009

The crackle of bonfires is almost in the air, and we’re starting to dream of lazy Sunday lunches followed by walks in the park kicking up leaves. Even better if you can leave the cooking to someone else. ‘Sounds  good’, we hear you say, ‘But what about the children?’ Well, hurrah, we’ve found somewhere that promises to look after the entire family in style. Iconic Soho restaurant Quo Vadis will open for lunch and dinner on Sundays from October 4th. While mum and dad eat, children are entertained by one of angels & urchins’ favourite children’s party entertainers, Sharky & George (check out what we think about them in our party section). Their energetic games will keep children aged 3-14 engrossed in the Marx room, where activities might include movie making, picture frame decorating, pizza making and circus master classes – without mum as ringmaster, because she’ll be tucking into either the droolable a la carte or the three-course Sunday Lunch menu for £35, including a half bottle of wine, water, coffee and service.  It’s steak tartare and praline chocolate bar heaven, and the kids will be dragging you back before you’ve had time to say, ‘Nice fizzy apple juice, darling?’.

For more information and reservations, call: 020 7437 9585.

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Smile – nearly British cheese week

Friday, September 18th, 2009
Say cheese at Canteen

Say cheese at Canteen

Looking for somewhere sophisticated but child friendly for a family lunch? Look no further. Multi award-winning Canteen restaurants are about to launch their fourth branch in Canary Wharf (so go and wrestle banking daddy or mummy from their desk to do lunch). They celebrate all that’s best in British food, so expect handcut chips, homemade Scotch eggs and the most scrumptious pies in the business. Most of the dishes from the all-day menu can be halved for smaller appetites, and during British Cheese Week (from 26 September 2009) there’s Welsh rarebit and a pint of ale (or something more suitable for the juniors) for £5. Credit crunch meets cheese, and Neal’s Yard Mongomery cheddar at that.

Find out more about family friendly nosh in the angels & urchins food section.  And we’d love to hear your recommendations for fab family restaurants – post your comments below because we’re feeling hungry!

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10% Off at Mums Who Bake for National Cupcake Week

Friday, September 11th, 2009
Just in case they're not sweet enough...

Just in case they're not sweet enough...

To celebrate National Cupcake Week, the delicious team at Mums Who Bake has given readers of angels & urchins 10% off everything.  There are baking cases, edible  glitter, cake stands,  and cookie cutters in shapes from space rockets to beautiful butterflies. Just visit www.mumswhobake.co.uk and enter ANGELS at checkout.

To inspire you to pop on that pinny, we caught up with Vicki Hoskins, founder of Mums Who Bake – and our latest inspirational Mums We Love.

Vicki, have you always been a domestic diva?
No, not at all!! Prior to attending a cake decorating course in January 2007 I didn’t really bake much.  I used to make the occasional carrot cake for the children, but that was pretty much it.  The decorating course opened my eyes to what I was capable of, as I had always believed that I wasn’t very good at making and decorating cakes.

So what happened after the initial decorating class?
I started experimenting with recipes. Once I realised that there was a wealth of equipment that could make it possible for even me to decorate cakes, I set about perfecting my baking so that that I could wow people with what I had learnt!

What’s the easiest, speediest, most crowd pleasing recipe in your repertoire?
Vanilla cupcakes.  Here’s my basic recipe:
 125g plain flour
125g stork
125g caster sugar
1.5 tsp baking powder
1.5tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
Mix all ingredients in a mixer, spoon into prepared cake cases (only half full if you want a flat top to decorate) and place into a pre-heated oven at 160C (150 if you have a fan oven). 
Bake for 17/18 minutes until a cocktail stick comes out clean when inserted into the middle.
Leave in the tin for 2 minutes then take out and place on a cooling rack.
Decorate as desired!
I’d use buttercream icing. Simply use twice as much icing sugar as butter (unsalted) and a tablespoon or two of milk/water to give it a softer consistency.
FOR  UP TO 24 CUPCAKES
250g unsalted butter
500g icing sugar
1-2 tbs water/milk
Cream the butter first until it is pale and creamy.
Sift in the icing sugar in batches.
Add enough milk to give you a soft consistency.
 The quickest way to decorate cupcakes is to simply use a small palette knife to spread it onto the top. 
Looks particularly effective if you colour the icing with different colours (paste colours are best – they are more vibrant and don’t add any extra liquid to the icing).

How do you make cupcakes light and fluffy?
I mix my cupcakes in my stand mixer or magimix.  I simply throw all the ingredients in (I don’t even sift the flour) and I mix for approximately 1 minute until it is all combined. If you don’t have a mixer then the best way is to try and incorporate as much air into the mixture as you can.  By hand it’s probably easier to use the traditional method of beating the sugar and butter together, mixing in the eggs & vanilla and then stirring in theflour/baking powder with a metal spoon.  If using this method I would definately sift the flour. Another common question is how to get the cupcakes flat. You need to watch how much batter you put into the cake cases.  If you want them to be slightly below the rim of the cake case (if, for example, you are going to flood it with glace icing) then don’t fill it any higher than half way.  If you want a slight peak then fill up to 3/4 full.  Baking at a lower temperature though also really helps.  You may have to experiment with your own oven but I find that baking in my fan oven at 150 means that 9 times out of 10 they come out beautifully flat and ready to decorate.

Any other quick tips to turn so-so to special?
It is so simple to decorate cupcakes to make them look amazing! Colour is a key thing in my opinion, using a variety of colours with your icing will make a great  display.  Also having a few bits of equipment such as the Mr Whippy Nozzle, some sprinkles and a few  plunger cutters can turn a very plain cupcake into an amazing work of art. Without, to be honest, an awful lot of  skill or time required. Using a cupcake tree is a great way to show off your cupcakes!

Anything new you’d like to tell us about?
We’ve recently launched cupcake decorating courses and they are proving incredibly popular.  The idea behind the courses is not to train people to be professionals (although with the skills you learnt you could easily kick start a cupcake decorating business) but just to show busy mums, dads, grannies that anyone can decorate cupcakes and with a bit of imagination, the right equipment and some confidence in your ability you can create fantastic gifts, birthday treats or just a centre display for pudding.  The cupcakes shown here were made yesterday on one of our courses. The lady had never done anything similar before. I’m sure you agree that they look divine! Our courses run just outside Milton Keynes. We offer discounted group bookings (which are currently on special offer).  Groups of up to 8 people can book for as little as £200 per group.

Come and visit Mums Who Bake – or give us a call on 0844 736 5882. Don’t forget the ANGELS code at checkout for your 10% discount!

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Best-ever chocolate cookies

Thursday, August 13th, 2009
Nutty about cookies

Nutty about cookies

If the thought of virtually instant home-baked cookies appeals, read on. Debora Robertson, food writer, editor, and darned good cook, writes an inspirational blog called Love and a Licked Spoon. It’s packed with mouthwatering recipes, ideas for table settings, and quite a lot of cocktails. We particularly like the Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies, which Debora makes in batches and freezes in smart looking sausages, ready to whip out at a moment’s notice, cut, and throw in the oven. We might just get organised enough to give it a go. Thinking about it, the next time Smog orders, sorry, organises a PTA meeting would be the ideal moment to unleash homebaked smells into the house. In the meantime, a spoonful of Whole Earth’s finest, possibly with a Nutella chaser, is going to have to get us through the morning.

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Breaking news – Granny does know best

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009
Blue sky thinking in the Cote d'Azur

Blue sky thinking in the Cote d'Azur

Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall was fresh from a party to celebrate the success of Divas & Dictators: The Secrets to Having a Much Better Behaved Child, when Blog Angels & Urchins caught up with her at a do for Descent. Britain’s favourite granny (and mother of Hugh, Britain’s favourite cook-everything daddy), is children’s menu consultant to the ultra-luxe  ski chalet company. The group is famed for its piste-to-pillow service, offering hot tubs on ice, Jo Malone goodies, in-chalet Wellness centres and Perrier-Jouet champagne on tap. Their summer villas are just as special, in case you still haven’t booked for the holidays.  Jane is taking the group’s chefs through their paces devising recipes to tame even the stroppiest diminutive diva or dictator. We wangled a few secrets, and discovered she’s a mistress of disguise. ‘Grate beetroot into brownies, whizz raspberries into coulis, and slice apples into pancakes. Five a day? Five a meal, if you do it well’. We’re already fans of Jane’s bestselling tomes (The Good Granny Guide and The Good Granny Cookbook), and discovered son Hugh’s love for food started early on. A much asked for early Christmas presents was a sugar thermometer, and he started making fudge ice cream which he’d sell to local mums. Suddenly all becomes clear. We’ll have a longer interview with Jane in a future blog. Until then, here’s a recipe for  her delicious fork biscuits.

Ingredients
140g Self-raising flour
15g Butter, softened
50g Castor sugar
Grated rind of 1/2 a lemon or orange

Set oven to 175c. Beat sugar into the butter. Add the citrus rind, then gradually work in the flour. Make the mixture into balls the size of a walnut and place on a greased baking sheet. Flatten each ball using a fork dipped in water. Bake for 15-20 minutes.

Delicious! We’ve just enjoyed one with a cup of Lapsang.  

 

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