Baked Mushroom with Goats Cheese and Parma Ham

A simple supper for you guys tonight. Heat the oven to 180'C. Clean a large field mushroom, remove the stalk and lay face up on a baking tray. Spread with pesto, some soft goats cheese, and a piece if parma ham. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes. Serve with a crisp salad. Easy!

Toast Florentine

So Toast Florentine is my fancy name for toast topped with spinach and egg, in the style of a Florentine pizza. Get it? The spinach is pan fried very quickly in garlic and olive oil -by quickly I mean about 30 seconds. Pile onto toast, top with a poached egg, sprinkle generously with salt and pepper and drizzle with a little extra virgin olive oil. A very healthy brunch indeed.

Cheese!

If you haven't tried this cheese,well you HAVE to try this cheese! It's called Caprice des Dieux, and is a mild creamy cheese with a similar texture to Brie. I couldn't be happier right now-enjoying this with some crusty bread and Sauvignon Blanc, then getting my heels on and going out for the evening. Yes I realise after a few drinks I may regret the cheese but god dammit it's worth it! Seriously. Available in the UK from Waitrose. Do it. And no, I'm not de-toxing.

Happy New Year!!

Well here it is, 2012! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year!
I know my blog posts have been rather few and far between but JEEZ December was so busy I barely had time to cook let alone blog about it...thankfully I had a very restful Christmas and was able to catch up on a lot of eating. A lot. New Year's Eve was no exception, as I enjoyed a great dinner party with friends. There were Cosmopolitans, beef stew and some (quite rowdy) board games...

After midnight we headed into town for some more drinking and dancing, then back to mine for a late night feast and an attempt to watch a movie at 4am before all falling asleep in front of it! So of course the first day of 2012 had to be seen in with a Full English....

So with enough food stored up in me to last the rest of the Winter, I am whole heartedly looking forward to 2012. I hope all of you have an amazing year full of love, laughter and adventure!

Miss P x

Banana and Honey Flapjacks

Always end up with a few over ripe bananas? This flapjack is an easy little way to use them up! They're also great sources of energy for lunchboxes or after school. I've added chocolate chips here too, but that's not at all necessary...

50g butter
60g brown sugar
1 1/2 tbsp honey (or golden syrup)
2oog porridge oats
2 small bananas, peeled

small handful of milk chocolate chips (optional)

In a pan, melt butter, add sugar and golden syrup and stir well - or simply melt together in a bowl in the microwave.
Mash the bananas with a fork (if you have a little helper they'll enjoy this) and mix into butter mixture with the oats. Spread into a greased and lined baking tray, roughly 15cmx20cm in size. Flatten with the back of a spoon, and bake at 200C/Gas 6 for 15-20 mins until slightly brown.
Leave to cool, then cut into squares - I cut mine into 12.

Spiced Pumpkin Muffins

Ok not the best photo I'm afraid, but I had to take it from my iPhone as my camera was out of battery! But ignore that. These muffins are delish and make a perfect Autumnal treat, especially warm straight from the oven.
I adapted a recipe which you can find here and made a few tweaks. For example, the Americans are huge fans are canned pumpkin pureé but I used fresh. Mostly because it tastes better, but also because canned pumpkin is hard to get hold of over here so is therefore stupidly expensive! Having said that, pumpkins can be a pain in the ass to prepare so feel free to use canned. Two other little changes: I swapped 1/3 of the flour for wholemeal, just to make them a bit healthier, and she uses "pumpkin pie spice mix", but I just used a rough combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger.
You could also add dried fruits such raisins, sultanas or apricots to these. Or maybe even some chopped preserved ginger. Whoooo you can go crazy with these muffins! Yeah, live on the edge!

Spinach Soup aka Dinosaur Swamp

Ok so Dinosaur Swamp might put you off this soup...but if you've got a little one it will make them really into it. And who doesn't want to watch their kid eat a whole load of spinach? Exactly. Luckily it's delicious too. I cooked this with Toby so he could put the spinach in himself-I'm a firm believer in involving kids with the cooking process so that they're familiar with ingredients and not "scared" of them. He loved seeing how the huge handfuls of spinach he threw into the pan shrunk so quickly. If, however, you have a delicate eater who will not not knowingly eat a leaf, then just serve this up to them when it's ready. They will never know how much goodness is in it! In the past I have also served this with little dinosaur shaped bread or sandwiches, using a cookie cutter. Raaaar!

2 tsp olive oil

2 crushed garlic cloves

1 small onion

1 medium potato, peeled and chopped

250ml low sodium organic vegetable stock (from a cube)

200ml semi-skimmed milk

approx 200g baby spinach leaves

Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add the onion, garlic and potato and saute for 5 minutes.

Add the vegetable stock and milk, bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes or until the potato is starting to soften,.

Add half the spinach, season, and simmer for 5 minutes more.

Cool slightly. Stir in the remaining spinach and blend with a hand held electric blender.

Easy!