Fabitos For Tea

I have recently been trying to experiment with polenta, and find easy, healthy ways of cooking it, without much success… I came across this recipe from Andi Oliver and Neneh Cherry for cornbread. It’s not exactly a healthy recipe (hello butter and sugar) but it sounded so yummy I had to give it a go. I switched their use of plain flour for wholemeal, to try and balance it out a little, which gives the muffins a wonderfully nutty taste and texture. I would modify this recipe further if I made it again, reducing the sugar content, and adding some spice, perhaps a mix of black pepper and paprika, or some chopped fresh chilli, to balance out the natural sweetness of the sweetcorn and polenta. I would also say that this recipe makes muffin batter of epic proportions, so experiment with reducing down the quantities of ingredients if you don’t want such a big batch. They baked beautifully however, and are pretty much effortless.

375g Wholemeal plain flour

225g Polenta

110g Sugar

4tsp Baking powder

1tsp Salt

110g Butter, melted

2 Free range eggs

480ml Milk

1 Small tin sweetcorn

1. Preheat oven to gas mark 6/210C/400F
2. Line 2 muffin trays with paper cases.
3. Place all your dry ingredients into a large bowl, and stir through so evenly distributed. Add in your melted butter, eggs, and milk, stirring well after each addition to ensure all the dry ingredients are fully incorporated into the mixture. Stir thoroughly until the mixture resembles cake mix.
4. Add in your drained tin of sweetcorn and stir again until mixed through.
5. Spoon heaped tablespoons of the muffin batter into your prepared cases, then place both trays in the over, to bake for approximately 20 minutes, or until the muffins have risen well, turned a wonderful honey-golden brown, and are springy to the touch. (Use a skewer to test them if you are unsure, when cooked an inserted skewer should come out clean.)
6.  Cool in the tray for a few minutes, then transfer onto a wire rack to cool. They are of course most delicious when straight out of the oven…

And so my little cornbread muffins will be travelling to work with me in the morning, for the lovely ladies I work with to nibble on (if I haven’t eaten them all)… I hope they like them as much as I do!

So here it is, my first proper official post.

Easing myself in, because I’m a bloggy newcomer and still have new kid shyness…

This evening, a long day and never-ending rain called for a dinner that was comforting and warm. But determined not to be lured into eating something wintry and less desirably healthy, I opted for a stirfry of epic proportions, with some seriously GOOD veggies.

By its very nature, a stirfry can consist of pretty much anything you want, cooked quickly in minimal oil, so really good if you’re hungry but tired. Also, because you want to leave your veg with a nice bit of crunch, not overcooking them means all those clever vitamins will stay locked inside.

Today, I wanted our stirfry to be super tasty and a bit posh, so I put in a whole load of everything.

I used (to feed two, but throw in as much or as little as you like depending on numbers):

5 miniature purple spring onions

A handful of red cabbage

3 baby sweetcorn, halved and cut into bite-size chunks

A few slivers of butternut squash

A few strips of carrot

A handful of thinly sliced runner beans

Brocolli, a couple of florets, broken up.

PLENTY of baby Pak Choi (my favourite)

Several sprigs of coriander

In terms of cooking, it’s fairly self explanatory. Get your pan nice and hot (wok’s are obvious choice, a decent non-stick pan will work fine) with a little bit of vegetable oil, and throw everything in at once (APART from your Pak Choi, spinach, or whatever leaves you’re using, and the coriander). Rather than adding extra oil, I add water, and stick the lid on if needs be to steam the veg. When it’s all basically nearing your desired level of cooked-ness, add the leaves and coriander, and stir them through until the have wilted a little and it all starts to smell amazing. VOILA - done.

With this, I cooked some free range chicken breast strips that I had quickly soaked in a basic marinade of honey and soy sauce (I LOVE Kikoman soy sauce) and griddled, to cut out using much more oil. They were small strips, so took about 10 minutes to cook through, caramelising slightly from the honey/soy mix.

For vegetarians, this volume of veg is plenty without the addition of a meat-replacer, but if you’re after a protein fix and don’t fancy chicken, you could easily have some marinated tofu in there instead, or even a few Edamame beans.

We had a very small amount of white rice with our stir fry, although to be honest it was only to satisfy our carb-y cravings, if you’re a little less hungry, it can survive without.

Fill your dish and add any further seasoning you’d like, I’m usually more than happy with just a drizzle more soy and some freshly ground black pepper. YUMMY. A big, colourful bowl of goodness was just what was needed on a grey summer day.

Alas, I took no photos. rookie mistake, will try harder in future. Because it looked awfully pretty.

So the photo should be credited to Tartelette, whose food blog is rather lovely, and from whose flikr photostream I pilfered these purple spring onions:

http://www.tarteletteblog.com/

http://www.flickr.com/people/40995944@N00/