_ Sweet mince pies are one of my favourites over Christmas, and as I cannot eat them due to their high fat contact we have been looking for an alternative. This is a recipe that we have been experimenting with over the Christmas period. Every time we have made it we have slightly changed the mix but I will still share it regardless, as a work in progress and it seems a long time to next Christmas
Ingredients
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This is a fantastic alternative to batter and really healthy at the same time. Essentially the mackerel is rolled in oats providing fibre and extra texture at the same time. As it is so healthy it can be served with hand made oven wedges (make sure you keep the skin on) which can be cooked at the same time in the oven, along with another (fresh) vegetable – peas or carrots. The ingredients given are enough for two
Ingredients 4 Mackerel fillets 1 cup of oats 1 orange, (or grapefruit, or lemon) 1 tbsp olive oil 1 tsp mustard e.g. Dijon 1 egg – the white salt and pepper to taste How to cook - Set oven at 210 (and put wedges in if having them, as they take around 30 mins and the fish takes around 15 mins) Put the egg white in a shallow dish Take the zest off the citrus fruit, and mix with the oats in a bowl If the mustard is in powder form add to the oats and citrus zest if not then lightly smear on the top of each fish fillet Place the oats in a similar shallow dish to that of the egg white Oil a metal baking tray that is large enough to hold the fish fillets Holding the fish fillet by the tail dip in the egg white making sure both sides are covered, then place in the bowl of oats mixture. Covering first one side then the other Place the fish now completely covered in oat mixture in the tray skin side down – You have to remember which was the skin side Repeat the process for the remaining fillets Cut the citrus fruit into segments and place on the fish fillets Put in the oven for around 15 minutes, Test with a fork to see if cooked The other vegetable can be steaming while this is cooking And enjoy.. The local wildlife are feasting on all the plums. The rooks settle on the higher branches shaking them causing the plumbs to fall to the ground. A fox has then been feasting on them, along with the local mole colony. They have opened up one of their hills and evidently been dragging the rotting plumbs down their hole.
Having picked a very large tub full and spent three hours cutting and stoning them, I was able to use them for cooking. Some went to the freezer, some for a crumble and some for jam. The recipe is given below making 4-5 medium sized jars of jam Ingredients 1 Kg washed stoned plumbs Grated zest and juice from one lemon and one lime 900kg granulated sugar 300ml water Method Put plums in large pan Add 300ml water Bring to boil and simmer for around 30 minutes until the fruit is squashy Add the zest, fruit juice and sugar Boil vigorously for around 10 minutes until the setting point is reached Put clean glass jars in oven at 140 C with lids off upside-down for 10 minutes. Also put lids in oven if metal With great care take glass jars out of oven and fill to just below the top with the jam Cover with disks of waxed paper Put lids on, label and store in cool dark place Should keep for around 12 months, though once open keep in fridge This year we have a bumper crop of small plums. In fact so many that several branches have broken off the tree in the recent high winds. This has generated large numbers of windfalls which seemed a waste to leave to go rotten so have turned some of them into Plum Chutney. This tastes fantastic in salads or in sandwiches. The recipe is given below
Ingredients 1 large bowl full of stoned and chopped plumbs 1- 1.5kg 350-400gms chopped and cored apples (windfalls are good here) 250gms chopped onions 150gms raisins 1 Chopped chilli 1 tsp fennel seeds 1 tsp allspice 1 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp coriander 1 tsp salt Freshly ground black pepper to taste 600 ml cider vinegar – or white wine vinegar 250-300gms brown sugar (more sugar is needed if using cooking apples, and if plumbs are not quite ripe) Method Put all the ingredients into a large pan Bring to the boil and stir until all the sugar is dissolved Simmer gently for 1.5 -2 hours until a golden brown colour - stir regulalrly to make sure does not stick Put clean glass jars in oven at 140 C with lids off upside-down for 10 minutes. Also put lids in oven if metal The chutney should be thick and glossy now With great care take glass jars out of oven and fill to just below the top. Cover with disks of waxed paper Put lids on, label and store in cool dark place Should keep for around 12 months, though once open keep in fridge Watching the Great British Bake Off, always makes me feel really hungry, especially for things I cannot eat due to the low fat diet I am on, so to combat this graving, I thought we would have a lovely Risotto, with freshly baked bread. The ingredients for the Risotto were largely inspired by what needed to be eaten in the fridge. (Any suitable vegetables will really do. ). Anyway this is what I used to make a meal for two.
Ingredients
Serve with warm crusty bread. (and the rest of the bottle of wine if allowed to drink it) I had a large number of ripe bananas, and was wondering what to do with them. It seemed a shame to put them in the compost, then I had the thought of experimenting with a tea bread recipe I have. Well the result is delicious, so I will share the experiment with one and all.
This is a very simple recipe, the only downside is that it is very moreish, so does not last very long, though I am sure it would keep for a few days in an air tight container. Ingredients
his is an everyday bread recipe, that is a mixture of wholemeal and white flours. It was given to me by an American friend about 15 years ago. It has been tweaked slightly since then but is simple and easy to make, and produces very tasty bread
Ingredients
This is a bread machine recipe. The ingredients need to be added in this order. Then the machine should be set to ordinary bake, large size medium crust. It makes an 860 gms size loaf. Each large bread machine slice is roughly 60 gms in weight which works out roughly around 2.7 gms of fat per slice. It makes a nice airy mixture which keeps fairly well, and is delicious both as fresh bread or as toast. The other day whilst watching the Great British Bake off baking bread, got me thinking about how much fat is in a slice of bread. Whilst we normally make our bread, occasionally it is necessary to buy some, and I have noticed that the amount of fat per slice varies a huge amount. It can be less than 1 gram per slice to more than 4 grams, when it then gets highlighted as high in fat or even in some supermarkets marked in red.
The recipe given below makes an interesting beetroot bread. The bread comes out with an interesting red tinge to it, whilst tasting delicious at the same time. The ingredients given below are for a medium sized loaf Ingredients
This can be made easily made in a bread machine putting the yeast in first, followed by the flower, then rest of ingredients and finally the water. Using the basic normal setting for a medium loaf medium crust. If the spring onions are added at the start of the process then they will be absorbed into the general mixture of the bread, adding to the depth of taste. If they are added at the end of the dough cycle then they keep their structure and have a more distinctive flavour. Of course it can also be made without a bread machine, allowing to rise for a couple of hours after basic kneading of the dough with the spring onions being added when it is knocked back. Then put in a greased tin and cook in a hot oven as per any normal medium sized white loaf. The resulting bread has around 1 gram of fat in it per slice assuming that you get 14 slices or more from the loaf. Enjoy Chicken is one of the meats that I am encouraged to eat as it it low fat, hopefully helping my liver on the road to recovery, but I am not meant to eat the skin as that is fatty. So often a recipe ends up putting all the flavours onto the skin, which is no good to me. Not to be undone I have come across this method of cutting the meat and getting the spices down into the bird. It works really well in the taste department, though does slightly spoil the look of the roast bird when it comes out, as the breast is not a beautiful smooth golden spherical shape but rather a series of parallel slits
Ingredients 1 large (or medium) sized chicken 1 lemon 1 onion Freshly ground black pepper 1 teaspoon of wholegrain mustard 1 to 3 teaspoons of Spice mix depending on how spicy you want it. I made a Turkish spice mix for a change, details given below, but any spice mix can be used Turkish Spice mix - To make this I used the following (It is given as a ratio so you can add as much spice mixture to the chicken as you want – I used the ratio 2 parts equals half a teaspoon and if dried/powdered spices are used any remaining can be stored for another time) 2 parts tarragon 2 parts oregano 2 parts chopped fresh chilli (or powder) 1 part coriander 1 part cumin 1 part cinnamon Mix these together thoroughly in a bowl with a teaspoon Method
It tastes good both hot or cold. (if not on a low fat diet you can use the juices that come from it to fry some vegetables along with the onion rings that come from the backing tray as they hold a lot of spicy flavours) Enjoy To keep to my low fat diet I don't have any form of butter or spread on my toast in the morning, so what I do have has to taste that extra special. Well here is a recipe for a marmalade, that meets these requirements, making around 5-6 jars of marmalade.
Ingredients 1 Large or (two small) oranges, grapefruit and lemons, and 3Ils of sugar (1.3kg). Method
Enjoy. |
Tim Fuller
Dyslexic doodles on photography, food (growing, cooking & of course eating), faith and other fascinating things. This is a personal blog expressing my views. Archives
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