In the UK, we throw away 24 million slices of bread per day. And yet supermarkets still sell pre-made breadcrumbs! What is happening? Whizz your leftover loaf into breadcrumbs and freeze them so they’re always on hand for coating fish or chicken; sprinkling over mac n’ cheese for crunch; adding to veggie burgers and crab cakes; making…
Tag: quick
Quiche / Egg Muffins
These healthy, handy little quiche muffins are quick and easy to make and are perfect for lunchboxes (yours or children’s), toddler meals, weaning feasts, substantial snacks and picnics. They also make great use of leftovers – you can put almost any old veg, cheese, herbs and shredded meat into them that you have lying around….
Thai-meets-Scottish crab cakes to celebrate Scottish Food & Drink Fortnight
The approaching end of Scottish Food & Drink Fortnight prompted me to devise this recipe showcasing one of my favourite local ingredients – crab. Our house in East Lothian almost dips its toes into the North Sea, and fishing boats are a common sight from our windows. Though there’s little white fish left, mackerel, langoustine and crab remain plentiful, the…
Banana, oat and coconut sugar-free biscuits
This is a great first baking recipe for tiny hands to help with – lots of squishing possibilities, helpful tasting, pouring, scrunching and mixing, and ONLY THREE ingredients. Also fool-proof to make, even if you’re trying to prevent a toddler from simultaneously falling off the chair they’re standing on, eating all the banana and smearing dough…
Haemul pajeon – Korean seafood pancake
This rainy-day Korean snack is a favourite dinner of ours – we call it ‘humpty pigeon’, after my husband mis-read the meals blackboard. Healthy comfort food, it’s an omelette pancake based on spring onions and seafood: ‘pa’ means spring onion, ‘jeon’ pancake, and ‘haemul’ seafood. It’s usually made with shrimp or prawns among the seafood,…
Sue Quinn’s no-bake low-sugar cheesecake
A quick post, mostly to remind myself that this cheesecake by Sue Quinn is an extremely useful, quick and delicious pudding (that link takes you to the Sunday Times paywall, but you can read the recipe). I used around 170g of (shop-bought) low-sugar raspberry jam instead of her home-made blueberry jam, beating most of it into…
Olive, caper, walnut and herb sauce (for pasta/cous cous/quinoa/bruscetta)
A store-cupboard sauce based on salsa verde, for when you need something quick, flavoursome and can’t be bothered to go shopping. It’s also a handy way to use up that jar of capers lurking at the back of the fridge, and it will freeze well. Ingredients Zest and juice of 1/2 lemon 75g walnuts Small…
Quinoa and celeriac fritters (better than they sound)
Surprisingly delicious for a recipe that sounds off-puttingly healthy, these are great hot and fresh, and work really well for baby-led weaning. They freeze well: make up a batch, then open-freeze the ones you don’t eat before popping them into a freezer bag. The fritters defrost quickly, then crisp back up in a dry frying pan….
Easy cheesy pasta
An incredibly quick version of macaroni cheese that owes something to the Greek dip tzatziki. It might seem a bit odd to have warm cucumber, but it works somehow. For babies this can be spoon-fed or just plopped onto the highchair tray for grabbing. Freezer friendly Ingredients 3 tablespoons full fat creme fraiche Leaves from…
Fabulous free-from, no-refined-sugar chocolate mousse
There are a two different versions of this recipe, though both use the same method: one makes a creamy mousse like your regular chocolate/cream/eggs/sugar recipe, and one sets harder and can be cut up to make ‘truffles’. This mousse is rich – you don’t need a lot of it, and considering it contains no refined sugar…
Sugar-free peanut butter & banana blender mini muffins
Sugar-free, flour-free, gluten-free (if you use GF oats), dairy-free, practically effort-free to make…yet somehow still tasty enough to eat yourself as well as handy for small people snacks (and relatively mess-free too). Add whatever you like to this basic recipe – 1/2 tsp vanilla extract; chocolate chips; whole raisins or chopped nuts for bigger children;…
Learn to Cook: how to scramble, boil and poach an egg
There’s something poetic about an egg. One of the cheapest, most nutritious and easily cooked of foodstuffs, they are nevertheless taken for granted, have been libelled with health misinformation and tainted with fears about animal welfare, salmonella and allergens. But eggs are not so easily broken: in 2015 we still ate 12.2 billion of them – averaging 189 each…
Time to Cook 