Farmersgirl Kitchen

Monday, 3 August 2015

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Scones

I spent Sunday afternoon in the kitchen. That's not unusual, but I hadn't been able to use my oven for a couple of weeks due to the installation of a wooden floor. Regular readers will know that I've been having a bit of a time of it over the last 18 months or so, with dry rot treatment and rebuilding half our farm house. We are on the home stretch now and the kitchen floor is the final major disruption.

Anyway, back to the baking, I wanted to make something relatively quick and easy but also satisfying, so scones were what came to mind. I'm always looking to fit in my kitchen exploits with one or other of the linky challenges run on other food blogs. I haven't entered We Should Cocoa for far too long and for August, Choclette at Tin and Thyme has given us free rein with an 'Anything Goes' theme, so throw in a bit of chocolate and voila!

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Scones
Makes 12-16 scones depending on how you cut them

400g spelt or wholemeal flour
100g oatbran (if you don't have any, then substitute flour)
4 level tsp baking powder
100g soft butter
3 tbsp crunchy peanut butter
50g soft brown sugar
100g dark chocolate chips
2 eggs, beaten
milk
2 tbsp dark chocolate spread

Heat the oven to 200C
Place the flour, oatbran and baking powder in a large bowl and mix together
Rub in the butter and peanut butter until you have fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the chocolate chips.
Stir in the eggs and enough milk to make a soft dough, reserving a little milk to glaze.
Add the chocolate spread in teaspoonfuls and swirl through the dough with a knife, do not overwork or your scones will be tough.
Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
Press the dough onto the tray in a rough circle about 1.25cm thick, mark lightly into wedges with a knife. Brush with milk.
Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown, leave to cool slightly then slide onto a cooling tray.

And the result...a huge success. The scones are so full of good things, they are not too sweet with just enough of a crunch of peanuts and swirls of chocolate to make them a great alternative to richer cakes.

Why not link up your chocolate recipe to We Should Cocoa?

Labels: baking, chocolate, chocolate spread, easy, oatbran, peanut butter, scone, spelt, We should Cocoa

Saturday, 4 April 2015

Easy Salmon and Butter Bean Bake for Canned Food Week

Healthy Eating: It’s in the can!

- Celebrating Canned Food Week 2015 (March 30 – April 5, 2015)

Eating healthily is one thing many of us aspire to do, whether it’s by following a diet, cutting out excess sugar or trying to eat a little less. However lots of us struggle to know where to start. That’s why for Canned Food Week 2015 (March 30 – April 5), Canned Food UK has teamed up with celebrity nutritionist Amanda Hamilton, to show you just how easy it is.

Canned Food Week aims to raise awareness of canned food and its nutritional benefits. This year Canned Food UK and Amanda Hamilton have produced a set of healthy eating plans, each one with recipes that will take you from breakfast through to dinner.

Running from Monday to Sunday, seven plans have been created for a number of different audiences, from older people and students, to families with younger children and couples. Each plan also features a brand new recipe from Canned Food UK, two of which have been designed by Canned Food UK ambassador and celebrity chef James Martin.

I don't know about you, but I always have canned food in the house. Tinned tomatoes are a must, I also keep a stock of canned fish and pulses, I even have a can of snails in my larder! It's always great to have some new ideas for how to use those cans, they are brilliant for self-catering and camping holidays too.

For lots of ideas, you can download the healthy meal plans from www.cannedfood.co.uk and cook some of the meals, which will be made available during Canned Food Week. I chose to make the Salmon and Butterbean Bake by James Martin, which is featured in the Healthy Eating Plan for your growing Teens, there are no growing teens in my household any more, but it's a lovely easy dish and works just as well for any member of the family. But don't take my word for it, you can watch James Martin making this dish on the Canned Food Cooking Channel

Salmon and Butter Bean Bake
A simple and easy bake to feed the whole family

Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 x 400g can chopped tomatoes
3 x 213g can pink salmon
1 tbsp chopped tarragon leaves
2 x 400g can butter beans, drained and rinsed
4 slices brioche bread, blitzed into chunky breadcrumbs
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method:

Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas 5.
Heat a large sauté pan until medium hot, add the olive oil and onion and sweat for 5 minutes until just softened then add the garlic and cook for another 2 minutes.
Add the canned tomatoes and bring to a simmer, then reduce the heat and cook for 10 minutes until just thickened.
Season to taste with sea salt and black pepper then remove from the heat.
Meanwhile, place the salmon into a bowl and crush lightly with the back of a fork until well mixed then add the chopped tarragon, sea salt and black pepper.
Layer a third of the tomato sauce into a medium ovenproof dish then top with half the butter beans, half the salmon, then repeat with another third of tomato sauce, then remaining beans, salmon and last of the tomato sauce.
Top with the brioche breadcrumbs and place in the oven for 20-30 minutes until golden and bubbling.
Serve with a crisp green salad.

It was really easy to make and very tasty and filling. So handy to have recipes you can put together from your larder that will feed a crowd, I'm sure my boys would have scoffed the lot!

Remember to check out the Healthy Eating Plans and the other recipes on the Canned Food UK website.

Amanda Hamilton, nutritionist, comments: “These plans have been created to help show people that eating healthily isn’t as hard or expensive as you think – it’s all about planning ahead. Good nutrition can seem overly complex at times so I’m happy to get behind a campaign that makes simple recipes suggestions that are genuinely accessible to the vast majority – they taste great too!”

Jason Hegarty, Chairman for Canned Food UK, comments: “We know that canned food plays an important role in cooking in the majority of UK households, and that is why Canned Food Week is so important to us. During the canning process, nutrients are locked in, so canned food really does present a healthy option. By producing these plans with Amanda Hamilton, we hope to show that using canned food is a convenient and affordable way to eat healthily.”

Labels: beans, canned food week, easy, fish, food for teens, Healthy, James Martin, quick, Salmon and Butterbean Bake

Saturday, 11 January 2014

Chorizo Burgers - A Random Recipe

It wouldn't be Christmas without a new cookbook. I was lucky enough to receive two new books, 'eat, The little book of fast food' by Nigel Slater:

and 'Dear Francesca, a cookbook with love' by Mary Contini:

They are both lovely books to read as well as to cook from so it was no hardship to choose a random recipe from one of my new books as requested by Dom at Belleau Kitchen for the Random Recipes Blog challenge.

Nigel Slater won the 'eeny meany miney mo' selection and then I just opened the little book of fast food randomly to find myself at the page for chorizo burgers. The recipe is copyright so I can't share it in it's entirety but there are only three ingredients: minced pork, cooking chorizo sausages, salt and pepper and ciabatta or pannini rolls. Nigel uses more chorizo than pork, my burgers were more like half and half. I simply formed the mix into burgers and fried them with a very little oil in a non-stick pan.

I made the burgers rectangular to fit better onto the rolls!

The burgers were really easy to make on a Friday night, when I would usually stick a pizza straight from the freezer into the oven! The texture was nice and soft and the chorizo sausage gave the burgers a delightful smoky piquancy. I will definitely make these again.

I used Heck Smoky Chorizo style sausages, they have a good flavour and softer texture than some chorizo which made them easy to mix with the minced pork. Please don't be alarmed by the Use By date, they were frozen well before that date and defrosted in the fridge overnight before becoming burgers!

@FarmersgirlCook Thrilled to hear this. Thank you. And lovely picture.
— nigel slater (@NigelSlater) January 18, 2014

Labels: Burgers, chorizo, easy, fast, Heck Food, Mary Contini, Nigel Slater, Random Recipes, sausages

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Farmersgirl Kitchen

Monday, 3 August 2015

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Scones

Saturday, 4 April 2015

Easy Salmon and Butter Bean Bake for Canned Food Week

Saturday, 11 January 2014

Chorizo Burgers - A Random Recipe

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