Tea and Sympatico

Day 29 is holiday test run day. I like to make my own granola now and again and I've been thinking about trying to come up with a seasonal flavour for a while. I kept coming back to something that I like to make at this time of the year - gingerbread! I was pretty happy with the result but think I would like to tweak it still further. It's not overly sweet so I think next time I'd try adding a little more maple syrup, maybe 1/4 cup. I'd originally wanted to use dried apples but they seem to be out of favour at the moment and I could find dried fruit of all descriptions except apples! The dried pears tasted good but were a little too chewy for my liking and stuck in the teeth a bit! I think I would possibly try this again with some dried pineapple as pineapple and ginger is such a great combination. Anyway the texture came out great and I loved the pecans in it. I'll put the recipe below for people to play around with and I'll continue to refine it until...

So today's Mofo prompt asks 'Was there a food you used to hate and now don't?' As I'm sticking to my breakfast theme I struggled a bit with this as I couldn't really think of any breakfast foods that I don't like, if anything I feel I am discovering new ones all the time. 2016 has definitely been 'The Year of The Breakfast' for me. But then I remembered the first time I ever heard of Bircher Museli. It was about 15 years ago and I'd gone round to my friends Robert and Corinne's house. Now this pair are fantastic cooks and know their food so when Robert was talking up this Bircher Museli that he had started making I should have known it would be great. However, the picture that popped into my head of oats soaked overnight and then eaten cold in the morning just made me think, urggh, cold porridge! Now years later and a regular overnight oats eater I am pleased to say I am a huge fan of Bircher Museli too. Basically anything that takes a few...

The prompt for today is Autumn traditions. For me that would be roasting apples to use in recipes throughout the winter. I am lucky in that for the past few years I've had people give me organic homegrown apples. I use the recipe from Babycakes to prepare them. Roasted apples - From Babycakes by Erin McKenna 2lb apples peeled, cored and diced into 1 inch cubes 1 tablespoon of cinnamon 1/2 cup of agave nectar or Sweet Freedom 1/4 cup of fresh lemon juice Mix everything together and spread on a baking sheet covered with greaseproof paper and bake for 35 minutes. Once baked I like to keep some of the apples as chunks. There's a tealoaf and a muffin recipe in the book that uses them like this. The rest I blend up with a little more sweetener and some hot water to make applesauce. Most of the Babycakes recipes use applesauce so I tend to bag them up into various cup sizes ready to grab from the freezer when I need them. I've come to love doing this as...

Day 19 - Goth Day – Blues, purples, blacks? Let your dark side shine. As a former teenage Goth I got a little bit excited when I saw this prompt and immediately set about thinking about how to create a purple breakfast. I'd picked up a couple of bags of these Urban Fruit blueberry and blackcurrant mix a few weeks ago in Home Bargains and they seemed perfect for today's suggestion. Here's what they looked like straight out of the packet. I popped 2 tablespoons of them in a cup and added a little hot water, just enough to cover and let them re-hydrate further for about 20 minutes. I then blended the berries and water mix with 3/4 cup of soya milk in a blender. In a bowl I mixed this with 2 tablespoons of chia seeds and 1 1/2 tablespoons of maple syrup. Then I poured the mixture into one of my favourite cups and popped it in the fridge overnight. In the morning I served it with a few dried berries as a topper and this was really tasty and blackcurranty. I'll d...

If you've been reading up to now you'll know that as well as following the prompts I'm trying to do a breakfast theme which also features fruit and nuts in some way! Fairly recently I had a great charity shop score of a brand new 12 hole mini donut pan for £2. I am a massive fan of Erin McKenna's books Babycakes and Babycakes Covers The Classics . After trying donuts from the Babycakes Bakery in New York City many years ago I was so pleased to see donut recipes when I got the second book a few years ago but until now have not had the right equipment. On my first go I made the classic cinnamon sugar dusted donuts as pictured above. These were delicious and I can report that they froze well too. For my second attempt I made these for a visit from my niece and nephew and went the multi coloured decorating route. They loved these and asked for seconds. Yep, that's 6 year olds asking for seconds of vegan, gluten free baked goods, love it! And the fruit...

Today's prompt asks if an alien landed on your doorstep what would it eat? Seeing as it's an alien I wouldn't have a clue. It would also have to arrive around breakfast time to catch us in. With that in mind I would like to find out it's views on marmite. Would it be 'love it' or 'hate it'? Hands up if you watch 'Eat Well for Less'. If you don't the basic premise of the programme is that two blokes who used to be green grocers spend a couple of weeks with a family and find ways for them to dramatically reduce their food bills. It's usually things like making takeaway style food at home for cheaper, having one meal instead of cooking four different ones for picky eaters and buying supermarket own brand goods instead of pricier brand leaders. They also always feature one item where they reckon it is worth paying MORE. This is usually something like sausages or bacon from a local butcher instead of a supermarket it. In our budget hou...

Today's Mofo challenge is to take two cuisines and make them work together. In the spirit of the prompt may I introduce to you - Fritalian Croissants. We have the croissants from France married to perfect Italian pizza flavours. I mean who doesn't like pizza for breakfast!!! I like to pick up a tin of Jus Rol croissants whenever they appear in our local bargain shop. These were 39p instead of their normal RRP of £2. I also picked up a jar of sundried tomato pesto for 59p from the same shop. It was Dolmio brand and I was surprised to see it was vegan friendly. We don't normally buy pesto as Matt doesn't like pinenuts and basil gives me bad acid reflux. This had a teeny safe amount of basil though (2%) and the nuts used are cashews. It also means it fits with my fruit and nut breakfast theme, yay! Once the pastry is unrolled and cut along the perferations into triangles you simply add a smear of pesto, a sprinkling of Italian dried herbs and a smidge of vegan...