Sugar Rush... Cinnamon Bagel Doughnut!

Everybody needs a breakfast like this, once in a while....?
Now, i admit - i haven't posted much on our glorious food blog of late and i apologise.
I am on a small-ish diet (although you wouldn't know it from this) and i have huge plans to tell you about the yummy recipes i've been trying.
THIS was a treat for my Girl and Me, who needed a sugar rush for a late Brunch.
Chop the bagels in half.
Whisk up 2 eggs with some milk - soak the bagels in the eggy mix for about 5 mins each side.
Fry them up in a bit of butter.
When they are gently cooked on both sides - pop them on a plate that is covered in sugar and cinnamon (add what you like really)

Sugar, Cinnamon, comfort rush - ahhhh, the joy - accompanied with a large pot of tea!

You can do the above with eggs and cheese to have an eggy cheesy bagel doughnut - just OMIT the sugar stage!!

*note to self* share my new recipes for Sweet Potato Pancakes & Potato-less Fish Cakes.

.....somebody peel me off the wall, iam ZINGING!

I am an Addict!

Oh my goodness....

Mr B will vouch for this! I am addicted to....Asparagus!Last year, it was almost a daily treat, like a pregnancy craving for a whole month! I was known to send Mr B out on special spears expeditions! Go, Man, hunt/gather the pointy green stuff!

Asparagus, Asparagus, Asparagus!

It seems a bit early but there is British, seasonal Asparagus in the shops now! In this case the lovely M&S again! 2 packets of the lovely stuff for £3!

I say once more, it is not that I have squillions of pounds....like most homes with small children we live on one salary....but I reason in my head:

Asparagus OR Marie Claire?

Hmmmmmmmmmm.....well I don't if this is a sad admission, but asparagus wins every time!

This was my lunch time bliss today!Grab a steamer or a pan of water (you can boil them together), get water boiling.Note time.Place room temperature egg in water, pop on steamer, chuck in your asparagus (fibrous ends snapped off....if you are a glutton like me, you eat those too, raw!).Time it! 4minutes!Egg soft boiled to perfection, al dente asparagus (drop in a knob of butter and shake about in the steamer top)Kitchen surface to your tummy in under five minutes!Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!

x

NigellApp....Quick Recipe Collection

http://www.nigellaquickcollection.com

A lovely friend of mine, who is waiting patiently for a long over due letter from me (.....I promise it is on its way!) sent me an email link to this fabulous bit of kit!

Now it does unfortunately rely on you having an iphone! Perhaps you were debating upgrading to one, or were 'shall I, shan't I' -ing about one and another phone! Well if you are, in anyway as in love with Nigella, as I am, then this could be the post that sways you!

Nigella has a new App, that she is terming the NigellApp! It contains a collection of quick recipes, videos (brilliant, what can be better than Nigella in your pocket?!) and a shopping list option connected to all the recipes. It is a joy!

It is like having one of her cookery books in your bag/ pocket! It is just as pretty, retro, homey but elegant. Not only is it gorgeous to look at but the recipes are wonderful too. I was watching the videos while waiting for parents meeting and debating what to make as a late supper for me and MrB. Genius!

When alone yesterday, smallest B napping, I had a to make a quick lunch before getting back to work. I choose another fabulous, super quick recipe - Mushroom Steak Sandwich!

Marks and Spencers currently have huge Portobello Mushrooms, picked daily, on offer! They are mahoosive and of course, delicious!

Place your mushroom in a roasting tin, dot with butter, sprinkle on a little handful of fresh parsley and a finely chopped garlic clove. Roast in a hot oven (200c). This doesn't take long, for it to soften and start oozing black juices.Split a ciabatta roll, place face down in the roasting tin to soak up any of the juice, smooth on a layer of Dijon mustard. Place your mushroom on top, scatter some salt on top and a squeeze of lemon juice. I then stuffed mine with some baby spinach! A simply perfect interlude to the day! Warm buttery, garlicy sustenance, in under 20 mins + trashy magazine + silent house = lunchtime bliss

x

A Little Tradition on Your Breakfast Table

We are all interested in shopping local, to have food that has traveled the smallest distance to reach our tables. It is not all convenience and cheapness anymore. Food and how we buy it has a connection to our communities, our families as well as to our traditions and memories.This is an easy, convenient, only pennies more, simply joyous way of doing this.

Get yourself a milkman!Such simple pleasure to be had in opening the door and finding your fresh milk on the doorstep. Such convenience in a new swizzy email supported ordering process...you can change your delivery right up to nine o'clock the night before! Such variety....milk, eggs, juice, fruit boxes and even pet food! Such a sense of tradition, a pride in supporting millkman and not the local GIANT!

Recycle the last of your plastic bottles and have a peep at these lovely folks website

http://www.milkandmore.co.uk/OA_HTML/ibeCZzpHome.jsp?minisite=10040&site=&respid=22372

I am loving it!

Still loving "Miss Dahl"...

So.... i bought her book.
You expected it of me, right? she is now my new best best friend, in my head. The book was worth it to me, just for reading all the personal stories of her life. I can believe it to be true - the travel, the modelling, the weight debate....
Mostly i love her book as it really is close to how i eat. Miss Dahl is a vegetarian and a food lover, like my good self. But she also appreciates (and cooks) good quality meat for those that she loves. So the recipes were all how i would cook.

MOST-est and BEST-est of all though, Sophie Dahl completely understands food in all its goodness:

Have you EVER cried when reading a cookbook? (not you MrsB, it is inevitable you have my gorgeous, soft hearted Love) imagine me in bed last night, reading this:

"...cooking and eating can be so simple, yet both can be a far reaching expression of love and humanity that is universal....

...The last supper, conjured after someone has died or left, that you play over again in your head: What did we talk about? What did we eat? How could we not have known that this was going to be it? Grasping the bones of the mundane and holding them close and dear"

"Grasping the bones of the mundane" writes Miss Dahl, "and holding them close and dear" this is exactly what cookery does for me. She says it so much better than I. And, when i find myself in a horrible dark place, that comes and goes - cookery is that precious mundanity that helps anchor me.

This morning i found myself alone and in need, so i made a batch of Easter Marzipan Cakes (from the wonderfully Motherly Nigella) and, for breakfast, some of Sophie's "Indian sweet potato Pancakes" pg.30 of the book

Some of you may squint at the idea of something curry-ish for breakfast, but i am made of hearty stuff! and i like the thought of a challenge...

I made these this morning and only deviated 'slightly' from the recipe by adding crushed corriander seeds - my dads voice in my head "why can't you follow the recipe as it is? why go adding bits it might not need?" well, it's not as if corriander is so far off the Indian / Asian Palette is it?

They were fresh and tasty - good for you and low in fats etc... as i am beginning to expect of Miss Dahl. But, you know me. They were a little bit too healthy so i added a generous soft slope of Cambozola blue brie on the side....

Taste = heaven!!

With a breakfast like that under my belt, i am either:

a) set up for a good couple of well fuelled hours...... or .....

b) salivating over what's for lunch!

I shall be watching her, tonight, 8.30pm, BBC2 (and Holby City on i-player later)

FlapJacks....

I love to eat them.
I love them moist and caramel-y with some sort of fruit in them.... And i have been making them since i was child (necking half the mixture before it was cooked) and playing 'cookery programmes' with my friend Debbie.

So, why, Oh why, Oh why, Oh why do i still muck them every single time??

Care to give me your recipe and method? for whichever i use - i am damned.....

Answers via the comments / on your blogs / via the heavens, however you please.... but PLEASE, help me!?

So, what did we think of 'the Delicious miss Dahl' then??

I read a book last year - - - it was massively long and such slloooooww reading. Nothing really happend in it at all, it never 'got' anywhere... and i couldn't decide how i felt about the characters... and it was a gripping and fascinating book.
I just couldn't form an opinion on it and i found that really frustrating... i OFTEN have an opinion.... on most things...!

I now have an opinion on Sophie Dahl:

I was ready to hate her - i promise i was. There was no room in my life for yet another staged celeb cook..... but i gave her a chance. I blanked my mind completely and i watched The Delicious Miss Dahl with a free and easy mind.

I loved it.

I loved the settings and the recipes. I loved her face and her talking. And most importantly of all, over everything - I wanted to eat the food she was making.

I cannot say fairer than that.

So, if you watched the show - and had one of those terrifying moments where you couldn't find your own opinion, please feel free to borrow mine...

I loved it - *fans this way purlease* xxx