Banana pancakes

When you treat yourself to a bit of a lie in on a Friday, but have to be in university for 2pm, it is nigh-on impossible to squeeze in both breakfast and lunch. So there is only one solution- make brunch! Which in other words is me making up an excuse to have a really big breakfast- it really is my favourite meal. I could stretch the truth a little and say that the pancakes were an homage to my American friends in the spirit of Thanksgiving, but I don't really have any American friends, and the idea actually came from watching Jamie's Best Ever Christmas on 4od (no, it is never too early to start watching old Christmas cookery specials all over again), where he made pancakes for his adorable daughters, inevitably giving me pancake cravings (I really am horrific for getting food cravings from TV programmes). So I threw together these fluffy little beauties, topped them with some delicious creamy Greek yogurt and gooey hot bananas and caramel (which decided to turn rock hard as it cooled- anyone know how to stop this?), curled up with a cup of coffee and an episode of River Cottage a very important and canonical piece of literature, and very much enjoyed the start to my day.

Ingredients

1 cup flour

1 cup milk

1 tsp baking powder

1 egg

1  sliced banana

1 knob of butter

2 tbsp caster sugar

Greek yogurt

Method

Whisk together the flour, milk, egg and b. powder to make a batter. Fry blobs in a frying pan in a little oil or butter (I used Fry Light) for a couple of minutes on each side until golden and pancake-like. In a separate pan melt the butter and sugar together to make caramel and cook the banana for a little on each side until gooey. Serve the pancakes with the yogurt, bananas, and a drizzle of the caramel.

I'm aware that these instructions aren't very detailed or exciting, but they really are that simple to make (and just heaven to dive into). Treat yourself.

Corned beef hash

Last night I used a very humble, almost controversial ingredient (food snobs look away now), a tin of corned beef. And I'm not even sorry; it was delicious. I made yet another thing that I've never attempted before (I'm not even entirely sure if I've eaten it before), and rustled together a corned beef hash. I remember watching The Hairy Bikers' Twelve Days of Christmas last year, sprawled across the sofa hiding from the cold, most likely haven eaten far too much festive food (Christmas telly-watching is the best), and have vague recollections of seeing the pair cook hash with pretzels for a load of people on some massive building site. I have the feeling it was an important building, but that detail is far less important that the velvety ooziness of the yolks from the poached eggs they served on top- a detail that I ensured was a part of my finished meal. So on yesterday's miserable dark November evening, I recreated their (breakfast) recipe and indulged myself in some proper comfort food, complete with smouldering crispy bits (a million miles away from the 'hash' I've seen some people make- essentially mashed potato mixed with corned beef), a wonderful kick of Worchestershire sauce (definitely the ingredient that made the dish), and served with a buttered  fresh-from-the-oven soda bread roll, which I'll save for another post. Oh I'm a tease- I know.

Ginger flapjack (Tea Time Treats)

This is my first time entering anything like this, but after seeing the theme for this months Tea Time Treats, hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage and Kate at What Kate Baked, I couldn't resist taking part, and made some ginger flapjack.

I've always loved flapjack (along with most people, I can imagine), it's such a childhood treat reminder, bringing back memories of Tupperware boxes, golden syrup tins and country walks in the frost with a flask of tea (or maybe that's just me); I've also always used the same fail safe recipe with just 4 ingredients, passed to me by my mum and guaranteed to produce sticky, yet crunchy, bars of sweet oaty goodness. However, a few weeks ago at Manchester Feast Market I tried a ginger flapjack from a bakery stall and have been wanting to try my own ever since- it was that good. So I messed a round a little with my fail-safe recipe in an attempt to make it a little gingery and a little more sticky and squidgy, and this was my result. Little squares perfect for tea time, with a hint of ginger that just tingles on your tongue. Unfortunately I didn't quite manage the level of squidginess I was going for- I seem to have inherited my Gran's knack of being unable to make flapjack that doesn't put your teeth to the test (I think 5 minutes less in the oven would have done it)- but they were still delicious, and perfect for an Autumn evening when only a comforting childhood favourite sweet treat will do.

Ingredients

6 oz/ 150g butter or marg

6oz/ 150g muscavado sugar

3 tbsp (ish) golden syrup

1 heaped tsp ground ginger

8oz/ 200g oats

Method

In a saucepan, gently heat the butter/marg, sugar and syrup until melted. 

Stir in the ginger and oats and press into a greased baking tray. 

Bake in a pre-heated oven at about 160°C for around 30 minutes or until golden. 

Cut into small squares (I got 24) and allow to cool in the tin (if you can wait that long).

Leeds Christmas Market

Apologies for not posting for a while, but after a reading week spent lying on the sofa at home gorging myself stupid on my mum's cooking rather than actually doing much reading (I did buy a book- if that counts), I have had a pretty busy catching up week living in the library, with a mountain of books and a plethora (told my mum I was going to get that word in somewhere) of bagels to keep me company. Which inevitably hasn't given me much time to post or anything interesting to post about. But I have managed to escape the clutches of John Ryland this weekend and have fled to Leeds to rest my brain a little.

One thing I'm not sure if I'm mentioned on here yet, but I have definitely mentioned to anybody that will listen to me (or even anybody that won't- I've been getting very strange looks on the bus) is that I am very excited for Christmas. Yes, I am aware that it is only November, but the evenings are really dark, the shops are full of Fair Isle jumpers, and- most importantly- Costa's Christmas coffee menu is out, and it's making me giddy. I am one mince pie away from causing a tinsel-explosion in my bedroom. One thing I have been getting very excited for is the arrival of Manchester's Christmas market; a combination of market and Christmas- are they many better things in life? But as it doesn't start until Thursday, you can only imagine how much like a hyperactive child I was when I realised that the one in Leeds started this weekend. Nice weather, toffee nut latte in hand, the smell of roasting chestnuts, the piped in jolly Christmassy tunes- I was a very happy bunny. I didn't actually buy anything- not even (shockingly for me) a bag of sugar roasted nuts. My boyfriend did buy a marshmallow thing which I've always seen (along with the huge queues at the stall) and imagined to be majorly overrated and overpriced- how exciting can a chocolate covered marshmallow be? But it was like a giant Tunnocks teacake- which it turns out is very exciting. I now cannot wait (even more- if possible) for the Manchester market to open, and then I can roll straight out of the library to a place where counting down the days until Christmas doesn't seem quite so sad, and where I can binge on roasted nuts, pretzels, hot chocolate, crepes, and generally satisfy my Christmas cravings the way I know best- through my stomach.

Bagels

I have been addicted to bagels for as long as I can remember. Whether with smoked salmon and cream cheese, butter and jam, chicken salad and mayo, scrambled egg and bacon... I'm not fussy really. My ultimate bagel, however, is one I fell in love with on a family trip to Florida when I was eleven, and give or take the odd hour, haven't been able to stop thinking about ever since. Breakfast is my absolute favourite meal- it just has all the best food- and on this holiday the breakfasts we had were worth skipping Disneyland for. Massive juicy watermelons (which only ever seem to taste right in hot countries when you know that your skin is going to see some sun at some point- it's just not quite as tasty in the miserable English drizzle), followed by one of the best breakfast foods- actually, scrap that, just general foods- I've ever eaten. Blueberry bagels. Simply toasted with butter, they were incredible. But it turns out they're an endangered species back in this country. 

 After reading a couple of bloggers' posts about making their own bagels, something that for some reason I've just never even considered an option, I decided to give it a go, with the view that if they were successful, I would be able to make my very own blueberry ones and stockpile them in the freezer. I used this recipe from the trusty BBC Good Food website, and they worked quite well. I kept them plain with a few poppy seeds sprinkled on top of half of them (I didn't want to be too adventurous on my first go, I'm far too afraid of failure for that), and having just eaten one warm from the oven with lashings of cream cheese, I was rather impressed with my efforts. They are a little bit fat and round (they remind me a little of hot cross buns, which in turn is making me crave hot cross buns- not entirely appropriate in November), but they taste... well, like bagels. Chewy, doughy, delicious bagels. Which means that I'm that little bit closer to having my very own taste of American blueberry breakfast yumminess baking in my oven. Which is far more excting than it should be.

Bonfire night

Last night was bonfire night! Which in true English tradition meant trudging into a muddy field wrapped in layers of woolly clothes to look up into the sky and omit a few 'oohs' and 'ahhs'. And it was wonderful. The fireworks were stunning, the bonfire was huge, it wasn't raining (a first for me- a dry bonfire night!), and there was even a little funfair. Which for me only meant one thing. Doughnuts. We're not talking your average squidgy, glazed, topped, Krispy Kreme- type, but proper, deep fried, covered in sugar, burn your hand and stick to your thighs doughnuts. I am a sucker for them. And they are only ever right when they come fresh from the fryer of a slightly questionable looking van at a funfair in a field. I kept the boyfriend happy with a bright red, sticky toffee apple (very bonfire night-esque but something I've never taken to), and stood ankle deep in mud, bag-full of greasy, fried, sweet goodness in one hand, sparkler in the other (ok I'm taking artistic liberties here, I didn't have a sparkler- my other hand clearly had a doughnut in it- but doesn't it make a nice image?), and we watched the sky light up with beautiful fireworks. All in all, a lovely evening. And we definitely didn't get ice cream on the way home...

 

[firework photo from www.bbc.co.uk]

Toad in the hole

I have been craving Yorkshire pudding for a good 3 weeks. And after a conversation with my mum and gran about roast dinners, and watching Jamie Oliver tuck into them on Tuesday night (the best mouthful of food he'd ever eaten- apparently), it had reached a new level of craving. So last night I made toad in the hole. A visit from the boyfriend was the perfect excuse to cook and tuck into a big homely dish (it seems a bit sad to make it just for one- although with two sausages left and a perfect one person-sized pot, I may have to be a bit sad), and it didn't disappoint. I used the only sausages that should ever be used- Cumberland, and Jamie Oliver's method of making Yorkshire puddings that he used on Tuesday's Jamie's Great Britain, in which you measure your eggs and use the same amount of milk and flour. Served with lashings of onion gravy, it went down very nicely. Granted my onion gravy did look a little like apple sauce as I realised too late that the only stock I had was chicken, but for my first gravy-making attempt it tasted pretty damn good (better than it looked anyway). And the toad in the hole was just perfect- nice meaty spicy sausages, crispy Yorkshire with a little bit of squidgy in the middle, and a hint of thyme (any excuse for me to use thyme). Very suitable for a cosy dark night in hiding from the Manchester weather (rain- lots and lots of rain).

 Look what I got yesterday! After my whinging about not being able to afford pretty new cookbooks (which he didn't even read, he was just surprising me), my boyfriend landed with a copy of Jamie's Great Britain, all for me! Massive boyfriend points were obviously awarded (in the form of most of the aforementioned toad in the hole), and now I have a shiny new book to cook from! Satisfied Yorkshire pudding cravings, and a beautiful new book- what more does a girl need ey?