Farmersgirl Kitchen

Friday, 20 April 2012

'Groovy' Focaccia and Salmon with Tomato Vinaigrette

I love olive oil, so I was intrigued when I was asked to review some oils from Groovy Food, I was sent two different oils:

Omega Cool Oil –a clever organic blend of Omega 3, 6 and 9. Specially pressed from flax, hemp, pumpkin and evening primrose seed oils, serving up a perfectly balanced amount of essential fatty acids, which our bodies crave. Cool Oil is also the perfect accompaniment to cold foods and as such is ideal when drizzled onto salads, blended into smoothies or used simply for dipping breads and olives.

High Five Cooking Oil – sees a unique yet complimentary fusion of five cold pressed virgin seed oils. Blended to perfection High Five Cooking Oil is the ideal healthier alternative to other cooking fats. Offering high nutritional properties whilst graced with a subtle flavour, the oils unique characteristics ensure the great taste is retained even when cooking at high temperatures.

I thought I'd put the oil to the test with a bit of baking and some cooking.

Groovy Focaccia

500g strong white flour

2tsp dried yeast

1 1/2tsp salt

1 tsp caster sugar

175ml water

75ml white wine

75ml High Five Omega Cooking Oil

2 tbsp rosemary, finely chopped

3 tbsp Omega Cool Oil for drizzling

Sea salt flakes for scattering

1. Put the flour, yeast, salt, sugar, water, wine and High Five Cooking Oil into your bread maker and set for dough.

2. When the dough programme finishes, roll or pull the dough out, oil a baking sheet or roasting tin and fill with the dough.

3. Cover with a tea towel and put in a warm place to rise for about an hour to an hour and a half.

4. Us your fingertips to gently press into the surface of the dough, brush with a little High Five Cooling Oil and scatter over the rosemary and sea salt.

5. Heat the oven to 200C and bake for 30 minutes until golden brown.

6. Sprinkle with the remaining Omega Cool Oil.

The Groovy Focaccia was very good, although I did miss the taste provided by the olive oil. I also tried dipping the focaccia in the Omega Cool Oil but I felt that the flavour of the oil didn't lend itself to dipping.

I was planning on having some salmon fillets for supper so used the oil in Recipe #2:

Salmon with Tomato Vinaigrette

4 salmon fillets

2 tbsp Omega Cool Oil

1 tbsp champagne or wine vinegar

1 tsp Dijon mustard

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 tsp caster sugar

4 ripe tomatoes, deseeded and finely chopped

salt & freshly ground pepper

1. Mix the Omega Cool Oil, mustard, vinegar, garlic and sugar together. Add the diced tomatoes.

2. Brush the salmon with oil and place in a hot frying pan skin side down to crisp the skin, when skin is brown, turn the salmon and cook for 2 minutes, then switch off the heat and leave as the heat in the pan will cook the salmon through.

3. Place the salmon onto the plate and spoon over the vinaigrette.

Serve with roasted red peppers filled with chopped tomatoes and garlic and drizzled with High Five Cooking Oil.

The salmon was delicious as was the roasted red pepper and I would say that the lighter flavour of the seed oil was a really good match for the fish and the vinaigrette was quick easy and one of the best ways of adding a bit of zing to farmed salmon that I have found.

The Groovy Food Oils collection is available throughout Tesco and Sainsbury’s stores nationwide, selected health food retailers and online at freefromandfinefoods.co.uk.

Omega Cool Oil – 250ml – from £8.49

High Five Cooking Oil – 500ml - from £6.99

The company themselves are very passionate about their products as you can see from their website: www.groovyfood.co.uk.

Disclosure Statement: I received two bottles of oil from Groovy Foods to review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. The prices are correct at time of posting.

Labels: Bread, breadmaker, champagne vinegar, digon mustard, Focaccia, Groovy Foods, High Five omega cooking oil, Omega Cool Oil, roasted red peppers, Rosemary, Salmon Vinaigrette, tomato, vinaigrette

Friday, 6 April 2012

Sticky Easter Buns

I've never been very satisfied with the Hot Cross Buns I've made at home, so this year I decided to try something a bit different. I like the idea of a rolled bun, like cinnamon buns, but with the flavours and filling that is reminiscent of a Hot Cross Bun. I made my dough in the bread maker, but if you don't have one you could follow any sweet dough recipe directions.

Sticky Easter Buns

450g strong white flour

1 pkt fast action yeast

2 tsp ground cinnamon

50g soft brown sugar

125g butter, melted

150ml warm milk (not too warm or it will kill the yeast)

100g yogurt

1 egg

1 jar of mincemeat

1 large cooking apple peeled and chopped

For the glaze

25g soft brown sugar

10g butter

6 tbsp water

Put the flour, yeast, cinnamon and brown sugar in the bread maker bowl. Add the melted butter, milk, yogurt and beaten egg. Set to 'dough' and go away and do something else. My bread machine takes 45 minutes to make a dough.

Now you have an option, you can either watch the video below to see what to do or follow the instructions that come after the video. This is my first video clip, so please forgive the length and the fact that I do seem to pick things up with my hands - they are clean, honest!

Flatten out the dough on an oiled surface (or it will stick) and then spread the mincemeat over the dough and distribute the apple pieces evenly across the mincemeat. Roll up the dough from the long side, tucking the join underneath. The slice across and put the the slices into a baking tin lined with baking parchment, cut side up.

Put to one side in a warm place, to let the buns rise for about an hour and a half until they have doubled in size.

Then bake at 200C/180C (fan) for about 30 minutes. To make the glaze, put the sugar, water and butter into a pan and heat slowly to melt the sugar, then bring to the boil and boil for about 3 minutes. Glaze the buns as soon as they come out of the oven. Leave them in the tin until just warm then remove and split.

They are very, very sticky and absolutely delicious.

I'm entering this for Alphabakes challenge, the letter is 'B' this month. This challenge is run by Ros at The more than occasional baker and Caroline at Caroline Makes

Labels: baking, breadmaker, buns, Easter, Hot Cross Buns, mincemeat

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Farmersgirl Kitchen

Friday, 20 April 2012

'Groovy' Focaccia and Salmon with Tomato Vinaigrette

Friday, 6 April 2012

Sticky Easter Buns

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