Pancakes

Next Tuesday (17th February) is Shrove Tuesday, or, as others know it, Pancake Day.  If it were a typical Tuesday, there wouldn't be much time to make pancakes as my brother would have school and would miss out.  However this year, Pancake Day falls on the Tuesday that my brother is on half-term, and I won't be needed in uni until evening, so we can take the opportunity to have pancakes for breakfast together.  This is the pancake recipe that my grandma uses and showed me last year when she was teaching me how to make pancake rolls.  It's not a typical American pancake recipe, but it closer to the crepe-style of pancake.

Ingredients

1/4 lb plain flour
1 egg
1/2 pint of milk
1 teaspoon salt

Instructions

1. Measure appropriate quantity of plain flour.
2. Add eggs to mixing bowl.  Add one teaspoon of salt and whisk, preferably with a free-standing machine.
3. Measure out milk into jug.
4. Gradually add flour and milk to the egg mixture and whisk.  At intervals, use a spatula to remove mix from the sides of the bowl and incorporate them back into the mixture.
5. Set pan on cooker at about level 3.  Using a piece of spare rag, grease pan with sunflower oil.  Grease pan for each new pancake.
6. Add two tablespoons of batter for each pancake.  Spread the batter evenly in the pan and cook on both sides.
7. Serve the pancakes with sugar and lemon, or honey, or maple syrup, or any other topping of your choice.

Raw Granola with Raw Banana and Cashew Yoghurt

Last Thursday was the Health and Wellbeing fayre at uni, marking the launch of a new initiative to promote and sustain health and wellbeing amongst students and staff at the university through food, exercise, relaxation, and services such as the university's counselling service, the mental health charity Mind and NHS services.  There were various stalls with leaflets or, in the case of the Sustrans stall, a bicycle fitted with a blender which you could ride and make your own berry smoothie (which will next be available at uni on Wednesday 25th February for the Food Festival), as well as a quiz which you could complete with the chance of winning various prizes including month-long gym memberships.  At the stall at which you could register your attendance and maybe also receive a goodie bag (which contained a stress ball in the shape of a lemon, lip balm, hand sanitiser, a pedometer, a hand warmer and a few leaflets), you were encouraged to write on a post-it what you would like to see this initiative do for the university.  Being an advocate of food and looking after yourself, I took three post-its and wrote:

1. Introduce compulsory timetabled sessions on yoga/relaxation for all students.
2. Encourage students to eat breakfast everyday.
3. Encourage students to get enough sleep each night.

That second option is what I have a post on for this week.  Breakfast.  The most important meal of the day, or so they say.  The meal that should not be skipped in favour of sneaking a bit more sleep in before a lecture.  One of my friends was talking about wanting some granola a few days ago, so I felt inspired to look up a recipe for granola.  I found one in the January 2015 of the Asda magazine, but I've adapted it a lot by making it into a raw version by not cooking the granola mix and topping it with raw banana and cashew yoghurt, in accordance with this recipe for raw banana and cashew yoghurt from Choosing Raw.

Ingredients (to make 4 small servings)

1 cup cashews, soaked for 2 hours or more, then drained

2 large bananas

1 1/2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

2/3 cup tap water or coconut water

1 pinch sea salt

200g rolled oats

raisins, to serve

blueberries, to serve

 

Instructions

1. For the yoghurt, blend all the ingredients together until the mixture reaches a smooth consistency.
2. Mix together the rolled oats and raisins.
3. Scoop some of the yoghurt into the bottom of each glass.  On top of this, add a layer of the oat and raisin mixture.  Add another layer of the yoghurt to the glass.  At the very top, add another layer of the granola mix.
4. Add some blueberries to serve.

Sweet Potato Chips

This recipe for sweet potato chips comes from Anna O'Connell (annabanana-1 on Tumblr or annaoconnelll on Instagram).  It's fairly simple for when, like me, you're not a very good cook!

Ingredients

Sweet potatoes

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius with the fan on.
2. Peel and shape sweet potatoes into chips.
3. Cook chips in oven for about 30 minutes.

Potato & Cauliflower Curry

Today for lunch, my grandma made this potato and cauliflower curry that she found in the January 2015 edition of the Asda magazine.  It's full of delicious vegetables and is good to eat both on its own as well as with rice.

Ingredients (to serve 4 people)

1 level teaspoon fennel seeds
1 level teaspoon mustard seeds
1 level teaspoon ground cumin
1 level teaspoon ground coriander
1 level teaspoon turmeric
2 tablespoons sunflower oil
1 medium onion, halved and sliced
1cm piece root ginger, peeled and grated
2 green chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
400g potatoes, peeled and cut into 2cm chunks
1 bay leaf
225g pack cherry tomatoes on the vine, removed from the vine and quartered
1 cauliflower
1 tablespoon chopped fresh coriander, plus leaves to garnish

Instructions

1. Crush the fennel and mustard seeds in a pestle and mortar, or put in a small bowl and carefully crush with the end of a rolling pin.  Mix with the cumin, coriander and turmeric.  Set aside.
2. Heat the oil in a large pan and cook the onion until soft and translucent.  Add the ginger and chillies and cook for 2 minutes.  Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute.  Reduce the heat, add the spice mixture and stir for 1 minute.
3. Add the potatoes and the bay leaf and stir to coat.  Add the tomatoes and 400ml water and heat until simmering.  Cover and simmer for 5 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, cut the cauliflower into florets, discarding the tough stem and any leaves.  Add to the saucepan, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
5. Gently stir in the chopped fresh coriander.  Garnish with extra coriander leaves.

Berry Smoothie

First of all, a belated Happy New Year!  Second of all, it's the middle of exams here and everything's a bit of a mess, but after my deadline this afternoon, I have nothing until my presentation next Friday morning, so I'm going to give myself some time over the weekend to do a few non-academic things that need doing, such as writing a letter about an exciting little project that is coming up in February (the Food Festival), putting more stuff together for that, planning a few more radio shows, and catch up with a little bit of reading (which has been taking a back seat lately).  Thirdly, my only New Year's resolutions are to eat even more fruit and drink more water than I do already, and to sing, dance and enjoy life.  Tying in with the eating more fruit thing, yesterday, as well as three tubs of fruit (apple slices, oranges and grapes) during the day, I also rode the Sustrans smoothie bike that was at uni this week and made myself a yummy berry smoothie to drink while I was revising!  Here's how you can make it at home without a bike:

Ingredients (to make one cup)

1/2 a banana
a handful or two of mixed berries (e.g. raspberries, blueberries, blackcurrants, strawberries), chopped
a "glug" of apple juice

Instructions

1. Gradually mix all the ingredients together in a blender.
2. Once the mixture has reached a smooth consistency, pour into a cup and enjoy!