Delish Muesli Bars

Muesli bars or flapjacks can be a great breakfast on the run or lunchbox treat.

Unfortunately most shop bought versions are very in high sugar and saturated fats. I have created this recipe to use less sugar and more natural sweeteners like dried apricots, cranberries and ground cinnamon, which is great for all of those getting beach ready for the summer and those training for the Flora Women’s Mini Marathon. The recipe uses heart healthy fats from Flora, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds. Oat flakes, rich in B vitamins and cholesterol lowering fibre, make up the base of the bars.

Whip up a batch of these super delicious and “moreish” muesli bars for a lunchbox treat to look forward to!

 Makes 12 Bars

125g Flora Buttery

85g dark brown sugar

3 tbls honey

1 tsp ground cinnamon

120g porridge oats

40g desiccated coconut

75g self raising flour

65g dried cranberries

80g dried apricots, finely chopped

50g sunflower seeds

50g pumpkin seeds

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 160°C. Grease a baking tray with a little Flora Buttery. Line with enough parchment paper to hang over the sides. Grease the top of the paper too.
2. Melt together the Flora Buttery, sugar, honey and cinnamon and stir until the sugar dissolves.
3. Mix this sticky mixture quickly into the dry ingredients.
4. Press mixture firmly into the tray.
5. Bake for 20 minutes until lightly golden. Lift out of the tray and allow to cool on a wire rack before cutting into squares.

tbls-tablespoon

tsp-teaspoon

Apple and Carrot Muffins

Shop bought muffins are a bugbear of mine-full of sugar and very high in calories. They are really just a cake cake without the icing…definitely not a good breakfast option or a lunchbox filler!

The Flora Apple and Carrot Muffins in my recipe get a fibre boost from apples, carrots and oats-all good sources of healthy carbohydrates too. The recipe uses natural sweeteners like apple, raisins and nutmeg and less sugar. 

They are ideal for breakfast or as a lunchbox treat as preparation for the Flora Women’s Mini-Marathon …good luck ladies!

Makes 12 muffins

150g plain white flour

100g brown wholemeal flour

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp bread soda

Pinch sea salt

½ tsp ground nutmeg

1 apple, cored and grated

1 small carrot, peeled and grated

¼ cup oat flakes

2 tbls raisins

2 tbls chopped walnuts

1 large egg, beaten

200ml buttermilk

40g Flora Buttery, melted

60g dark brown sugar

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a muffin tray with muffin cases.
• Sieve the flours, baking powder, bread soda, salt and nutmeg together.
• In a separate bowl, mix the apple, carrot, oat flakes, raisins and nuts together. Mix the egg, buttermilk, Flora Buttery and sugar and add to the bowl.
• Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients and stir briefly to combine. Don’t over mix, the mixture should still be lumpy.
• Spoon the mixture into the paper muffin cases and bake for 20 minutes.
• Allow to cool on a wire rack.
• Serve with Flora Light, Flora Original or Flora Buttery as a spread.

tbls-tablespoon

tsp-teaspoon

Grilled Peach and Halloumi Salad

As a South African, BBQ’ing or ‘braaing‘ is a massive part of our culture, practically coded into our DNA. Traditionally a male dominated area, there is still this strange gender segregation at a South African BBQ.

The girls normally make the salads, garlic bread and dessert and gossip and chat on one side (far away from the smoke!), while the men gather round the BBQ, clutching beers and performing this mysterious ritual of charring meat over an open flame.

Well move over lads!!

BBQ’ing is really not that difficult. It is my favourite way to entertain, even in chilly weather. But we can do better than a few bangers and burgers cremated on the BBQ. Why not look to other countries and cuisines for a bit of inspiration?

Give that boring chicken skewer a bit of the ‘Ish factor’ – Spicy ‘Boerewors’ sausage from South Africa, Peanut Chilli Chicken from Thailand, Harissa Lamb from North Africa and golden grilled Halloumi Cheese and Peaches from Greece. With a few extra condiments in your pantry, you’ll be able to transform any meat and produce gorgeous veggie options that everyone will enjoy. Even fresh ingredients like halloumi cheese, has a long shelf life so can hang out in your fridge until you spot a bit of BBQ friendly sun.

Harissa Lamb Skewers

The Salads ..

I have a passion for vibrant, punchy salads – no tired looking iceburg lettuce, watery cucumber and anaemic tomatoes. You don’t need to serve a huge selection, maybe two or three of your favourites – and not shop bought coleslaw and potato salad!

I love using bright, colourful fruit and vegetables like pomegranate seeds, finely sliced fresh fennel, mangoes, avocados and plenty of zingy orange, lime and lemon. I also always serve a potato bake and either garlic bread, foccacia or tomato and fennel bread. Move beyond just ketchup and mayo and serve an interesting selection of condiments and dips: Greek tzatziki, Middle Eastern hummous, Argentinian chimichurri, homemade chutneys and relishes, chilli sauce and flavoured mustards.

So move over lads and hand me those BBQ tongs! … I’ll show you how it’s done, the Ish way.

Rozanne 

Fennel Pollen

The warmer Spring weather and longer, brighter days are very pleasant and uplifting-except if, like me, you suffer from hayfever! This allergic respiratory condition is aggravated by air born irritants like pollen and dust. So the innoxious looking Spring  blossoms are not such a welcome sight if you’re a sufferer.

Hayfever can really be debilitating, I always poo pooed sufferers until I got it myself, but now I empathise.

I thought it wonderfully ironic, as a chronic hayfever sufferer, to do a piece on cooking with pollen-the latest food craze! Facing my springtime nemesis, but as a harmless but delicious culinary seasoning. I first came across this wonderful niche gourmet food product when I did a masterclass with Michael Viljanen-the rising star in the restaurant world of Gregan’s Castle and now The Greenhouse fame.  Michael uses delicate pinches of fennel and dill pollen to infuse subtle flavours into dishes, both savoury and sweet. The pollen can also simply be sprinkled on an edible garnish, serving as a seasoning.

The second time I came across fennel and dill pollen for cooking was on Twitter! I was chatting to David Mason from Global Harvest in Dorset in the UK, and he kindly sent me some samples. One of the best foodie gifts that I have received!

I had great fun experimenting with the dill and fennel pollens as a seasoning. So far I have used the fennel pollen in a chocolate torte and the dill pollen with pan fried scallops- Delish!

But I still couldn’t get my head around where the pollen comes from and how you could possibly cultivate enough plants to harvest enough pollen? How did they harvest the pollen without need a bottle of antihistamines? And why wasn’t I allergic to the pollen when I handled it? And (internal dialogue), who was nutty/clever enough to come up with such a barmey idea?

Fennel Pollen Truffles

So David introduced me to his supplier, the Pollen Ranch (don’t you love that name?) from California. The Pollen Ranch is a small company established in 2001 with the first sales beginning in 2002. Pollen Ranch produces Wild Fennel & Dill Pollen. The pollen is collected once per year in the month of July. It is collected with permission from private, city, county and state owned property located in Napa, Sonoma and Solano counties of northern California.

The pollen is hand collected by picking the umbrels (flowers) which are then placed in plastic 35 gallon buckets. Once gathered the umbrels are spread on to a canvas tarp to be sun dried. When they are sufficiently dried they are gathered for transport to the facility located in Goshen, California where they are screen filtered numerous times. After the screening process the result is pure fennel pollen spice.

It is then placed in large plastic bags, sealed and placed into a new clean and thick walled plastic 35 gallon bucket with lid and taken to a cold storage facility where it is kept until used. As a result of the fennel pollen being a dry product and stored in a temperature and humidity controlled facility, the shelf life is virtually unlimited. However, each harvest year, to date, has been sold out in the same year. As for customer shelf life, it is recommend that customers store the fennel pollen in a cool dry place to achieve a two year shelf life.

Due to the nature of the screen filtering processes the pollen umbrels become completely inert with no known airborne allergenic threat. Once the pollens are put through any cooking or food preparation process the pollens become totally inert and pose no known risk of allergy. So you’re safe from the sneezes and puffy eyes!!

Think of using dill or fennel pollen in place of the fresh herb. And also as a dried seasoning, like salt and pepper, to infuse flavour into sweet and savoury dishes. You only need a tiny sprinkle of the pollen as the flavour is so concentrated. I find the fennel fabulous in baking and desserts.  And the dill, of course, is superb in any fish dish or flavoured butter.

Here are some examples of recipes that have been developed using dill or fennel pollen:

Salted Caramel & Fennel Pollen tartlette

Home Cured Dill Gravadlax

Dark Chocolate Fennel Pollen Truffles

Wild Dill Pollen Tuna Carpaccio

Fennel Venison Salami

Poached Cornish Hake, chilli, crab and Dill

Chocolate & fennel Tort

Dill Choux pastry filled with salmon, crayfish & caper mousse

Smoked Duck & Fennel Ham

Baked Sea Bass with a Breaded-Walnut & Fennel Crust

Wild Fennel Venison Carpaccio

White Bean Fennel Soup

Crayfish and Dill Pollen Risotto (Somerset Spelt Risotto)

Tuscan style Pork Belly with Fennel Pollen

Fennel Butter

Sea Bass with Fennel emulsion

Fennel & Rosemary Breadsticks

Skate wings with a gentle Dill sauce

Dill Butter

Dill or Fennel Thai Crab Cakes

Dill Pollen & Caper Sauce

Fennel Biscotti

Steamed Mussels with Fennel Pollen & White wine

Dill & Cucumber Salsa

Green Bean, Fennel & Feta Salad

Tuna Steak with Dill Butter

Baked Salmon with Mustard & Dill Sauce

Go easy on those cakes Pat !

I had great fun on the Pat Kenny show this week where we were talking about all sorts of Delish food ideas for Easter – not only did I get to share some really amazing recipes but I managed to feed the troops in RTE as well.

You can find the different recipes on my blog from the links at the bottom of this post but I thought just to whet your appetite I would share the really interesting (something you can tell your grandchildren, or not as the case may be!!) story about Simnel Cake, one of my Easter dessert recipes.

Simnel Cake – The Story!

Those disappointed when Christmas Cake starts to become scarce will be pleased at the Easter arrival of the Simnel Cake. Similar in taste to a Christmas Cake, Simnel Cake is a rich fruit cake with a layer of sweet almond-scented marzipan baked running through the centre of it.

It is then topped with another layer of marzipan and then eleven small balls of marzipan are placed in a circle on top. The eleven balls represent the eleven true Disciples of Christ. Judas is, of course, notably absent. There is a tradition which states that the cake was given when people went “Mothering”.

This was not initially an early reference to Mother’s Day, which occurs a few weeks before Easter in the UK, but a time when people would visit their “Mother” church, the largest in the parish. Families would meet up at this larger place of worship and exchange gifts or share food.

As time went by, and the emphasis was placed on more secular forms of the custom, the occasion was changed more literally – to visiting the mother of the family. Although often attributed to being of medieval origin, an early reference to Simnel Cake is in the work of Robert Herrick, a poet in the seventeenth century.

He wrote in 1648: “I’ll go to thee a Simnel bring, ‘Gainst thou’ go’st a Mothering, So that when she blesseth thee, Half that blessing thou’lt give to me.”

(The Works of Robert Herrick).

There ya go …. I just thought I’d share a little piece of history with you!

As promised here are some of my recipes for Easter – enjoy ..

Norman’s braised lamb shanks with chunky tomato stew

Greek Lamb and Tzatziki

Raspberry Orange Chocolate Mousse Cake

Easter Sponge Eggs

Simnel Cake 

Simnel Cake

This is the Simnel cake I spoke about on the Pat Kenny show on RTE and the one with a really fascinating story – I hope you enjoy the cake as much as the story! 

Delish!

Serves one cake

Marzipan:

180g caster sugar

180g ground almonds

3 egg yolks

2 tsp orange or rose water

2 tbls brandy

Icing sugar, for rolling

Cake Batter:

130g butter, softened

130g soft brown sugar

2 medium eggs

130 self raising flour

½ tsp mixed spice

200g mixed dried fruit

50g dried figs, chopped

30g mixed peel, chopped

30g glacé cherries, chopped

Zest of 1 lemon

2 tbls brandy

Decorating:

Apricot jam, to glaze

Egg, to eggwash

Method:

• Marzipan: Mix the caster, ground almonds, eggs, brandy and rose water together. Dust your work surface with icing sugar and knead to form a soft dough. Pinch of a third of the marzipan and roll out into a circle approximately 14cm across. Set aside. Wrap the rest of the marzipan and chill in the fridge.
• Preheat an oven to 140°C. Grease and line a 15cm cake tin with baking parchment.
• Cake: Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Sift in the flour and mixed spice. Stir in the dried fruit, mixed peel, cherries, brandy and lemon zest.
• Spoon half the batter into the cake tin. Level with a spoon and top with the marzipan circle. Cover with the remaining batter. Bake for an hour to an hour and a half until firm to the touch and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin.
• Once cool, turn out of the tin and remove the baking parchment. Melt two tablespoons of apricot jam and brush over the cake. Roll out a third of the marzipan and cover the top of the cake. With the remaining marzipan, roll into 11 equal sized balls. Whisk up an egg and use the egg wash to stick the balls to the cake along the edge, evenly spaced. Place under the oven grill until browned.

Easter Sponge Eggs

This is one to have great fun with this Easter and one that the small kids and the really big kids will enjoy – as always these are Delish!

Makes 12 eggs

Method to prepare eggs:

1. Use pointy pliers to put a hole in the round end of the egg. Make it as big as

the tip of your finger. Then use the handle of a teaspoon to coax the raw egg

out into a bowl. These can be used for scrambled eggs later or for further

baking.

2. Dissolve 100g salt in a bowl with 1 litre of water and place the empty eggs in

it for 15 minutes. Make sure they are fully submerged.

3. Then Place the eggs upside down in egg container to dry.

4. Oil all eggs from the inside.

5. Place 700g of salt in a spring form and cover with tinfoil. Place the empty

eggs on the tinfoil and make sure they sit in the salt nice and snug.

Ingredients: (For 12 Eggs)

4 Eggs

125g Butter

125g Icing sugar

125g Ballybrado White Spelt flour

1 tsp.Baking Powder

Zest from one Orange

Method to make sponge:

1. Whisk eggs, butter and icing sugar until light and fluffy.

2. Fold in flour, baking powder and orange zest.

3. Fill the dough into the empty eggs about ¾ and bake at 190◦C for about 20- 30

minutes until golden brown.

4. Pastry that has flown out the top can be scraped off with a knife and the eggs

can then be painted or dyed with food safe colours.

Serves 8

300g dark chocolate, broken into pieces

150g butter

5 eggs

50g caster sugar

zest of 1 orange

150 raspberries, frozen

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a 20cm springform cake tin with baking parchment and grease well.
• Place the butter, orange zest and chocolate into a glass or metal bowl over a pot of simmering water. Gently melt and stir well.
• With an electric mixer, beat the eggs and sugar together until it expands and forms a pale, fluffy mousse.
• Pour the chocolate mixture into the eggs and beat well.
• Pour the chocolate mousse into the prepared cake tin. Evenly scatter the raspberries over the chocolate, alloweing the, to sink in.
• Bake for 20-25 minutes until just set. Allow to cool completely in the cake tin before turning out.
• Cut into slices and serve with whipped cream if desired.

This is very decadent and most Delish! …. go on you deserve it

One of my dad's favourites!

If there is lamb shank on the menu, my dad is guaranteed to order it, one of his favourites. And if there is one thing Norman knows how to cook, it’s lamb. My dad taught me to make little incisions in the meat and insert slivers of garlic and fresh rosemary to infuse flavour.

Cooked low and slow, lamb shank should fall off the bone and melt in your mouth. Served here with a chunky tomato stew for an easy side. The citrusy herby topping is like a gremolata used in Italian cuisine that adds freshness and flavour. So both Greekish, Italianish and Normanish!

Serves 4

4 lamb shanks

2 T pure olive oil

5 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced

4 sprigs of fresh rosemary

4 medium carrots, roughly chopped

4 sticks of celery, roughly chopped

1 large onion, roughly chopped

2 bay leaves

12 peppercorns

1 bottle of good red wine

Chunky tomato stew:

1 T olive oil

1 red onion, finely diced

2 sticks celery, large dice

2 medium carrots, large dice

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2 tins chopped tomatoes

1 T tomato paste

1 T balsamic vinegar

1 t sugar

1 tin butter beans, rinsed and drained

Salt and pepper

Citrusy minty topping:

Zest of 1 orange

Zest of 1 lemon

2 T parsley, chopped

2 T mint, chopped

2 cloves garlic, sliced

Method:

• Prepare the lamb shanks by making 6 tiny incisions into each one with a sharp knife to create tiny cavities. Push a slice of garlic and a few rosemary leaves into these incisions. Season the lamb shanks very well with sea salt and black pepper.
• Preheat the oven to 150°C. In a large enamelled cast-iron casserole dish, heat the olive oil. Brown the lamb shanks on all 3 sides over a  high heat, about 4 minutes per side. Add the carrots, celery and onion to the casserole. Pour in the red wine and boil for 3 minutes. Add the bay leaves and peppercorns. Cover the casserole tightly and transfer to the oven. Braise the lamb shanks, turning once, for 3 hours until tender.
• To make the chunky tomato stew, heat the olive oil in a pot. Add in the onion, celery and carrot. Place a circle of parchment paper on top of the veggies to trap the steam. Cook on a low heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes before adding the tomato, tomato paste, balsamic vinegar and sugar. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for 30 minutes. Add in the butter beans for the last 10 minutes of cooking. Taste and adjust the seasoning.
• Mix the citrusy herb topping together and set aside.
• Make a ‘bed’ of chunky tomato stew on each dinner plate. Arrange the lamb shanks on top. Drizzle over a little of the cooking liquid, but discard the cooking veggies, they have done their job. Garnish each lamb shank with the citrusy minty topping.

This is absolutely Delish ! …. thanks Norman

Serves 4-6

 2 racks of lamb

4 large sprigs of rosemary, broken into small bunches

6 garlic cloves, peeled and cut into slivers

2tbls olive oil

Salt and pepper

Greek Yoghurt Marinade:

1x500g tub Glenisk Greek Yoghurt

Juice of ½ lemon

Tzatziki (Greek yoghurt and mint sauce)

1x500g tub Glenisk Greek Yoghurt

2tbls finely chopped mint

1 cucumber, peeled and seeded

Juice of 1 lemon

2 cloves garlic, crushed

Pinch salt

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 230°C.
• Make small incisions all over the lamb with a sharp knife. Score a diamond pattern into the fatty side. Insert garlic slivers and rosemary into the cavities.
• Mix the yoghurt marinade and pour over the lamb, coating the whole surface. Cover and refrigerate for 1-4 hours.
• Scrape off the marinade and place the lamb, rub with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and place in a roasting dish. Roast in the oven at 230°C for 10 minutes.
• Reduce the heat to 160°C and roast for 20 to 25 minutes for medium to medium rare lamb.
• Allow to rest before carving.
• To make the tzatziki, grate the peeled and seeded cucumber. Or slice into thin half moons. Mix the cucumber with the Glenisk Greek Yoghurt, lemon juice, mint, salt and garlic.
• Serve the lamb warm with the tzatziki and side vegetables of your choice.

Simply Delish!

Enjoy ..