Wolds & Hedgehog Bread

Aloha lovely people!

As I'm sure you know, it is currently a UK bank holiday which means nothing better than some quality time with friends and family. My Mum and Dad suggested a walk in the Lincolnshire Wolds, which was absolutely lovely. For me, you can't beat being in the midst of the countryside to feel calm and let your worries float away- and we had a really lovely time! I've made a mini compilation of the pictures we took below:

For the Wolds it was pretty hilly, and we also came into contact with some pretty fetching looking sheep- with them having curly hair they felt like my kind of sheep. Hence allowing me to get up close and take lots of pictures!

Anywho, once we got back from our 4 mile treck across pastures green, I decided to get some bank holiday baking in and make some Hedgehog Bread. I've been making these lovely little bready beings since I was a little being myself- my Mum loved turning things into animals to get me to eat them, including cucumber crocodiles, bagle snakes, the list goes on. I still love these bread buns and somehow when something is made cuter it immediately tastes better! I plan to keep making these forever and one day introduce my own children to the culinary art of animal food, haha! So, here is a vague recipe for Hedgehog Bread- we usually do it from memory :)

So cute I could eat them up.. oh wait

Ingredients:
650g of various strong bread flours- in this recipe I used 300g white, 200g wholemeal and 150g of seedy fancy wholemeal flour from a mill nearby (ooh get me!)
1 tbsp/ 15g of fats (with a little extra for greasing the tray) - I used olive oil but you could also use butter in a very soft consistency
A packet of dried yeast (which I believe is about 7g)
1 tsp of sugar
2 tsp of salt
400ml of warm water (whack the kettle on for a few minutes)


It's all very easy. First preheat the oven to its' lowest setting. Get together all your dry gubbins (that's flour, salt, sugar and yeast) in a bowl and mix it up a bit. Add in the oil, and mix that in too. Get your warm water, and add gradually. I start off mixing with a spoon then get my hands in there and start kneading. Once you have it in a ball-like shape in the bowl, take it out and start kneading on a floured surface for about 10 minutes. Pop it back in the bowl, cover (cling film, any other cover that won't go mad in the over on a veeery low heat) and then put it in the oven, with the door slightly closed, for 30 minutes. This is proving, not cooking- so don't turn the heat up! After 30 minutes, take your now rather large dough out- let's make some hedgehogs! Grease (again I use olive oil) your tray. The mix makes about 8 hedgehogs, each about fist sized. Roll into hedgehog-esque shapes (round at the back, pointed towards the front). Now place them on the tray and put them back in the still only mildly warm oven, for another 20 minutes. After this, they should be all cute and chubby looking. Bring out your fully proved hedgey hogs. To make the spikes, use some scissors to make cuts upwards along the little cuties. You can also add raisins for eyes, or chopped black olives would also do the job. Your bread balls of love are now ready to go in the oven! Whack it up to full temperature, and when it reaches this, put them in. They take around 15 minutes to bake but do keep an eye on as it varies every time. When they're ready, they will be hard on the outside (with a tap) and the spikes will be, well, spikey!

Ta da! You now have hedgehog bread. Aren't they marvellous? Don't they bring joy to an otherwise boring lunch? Just me?

I hope you enjoy my rambles of reckless abandon. Until next time!

Ciao xxx

Healthy Breakfast

Aloha!

I think breakfast can get rather boring when you're keeping track of calories, and on a small budget. Luckily, I've stumbled across this easy breakfast idea from the lovely people at 'Cook Yourself Thin'. Available from Amazon here. Granola when bought can be both expensive, if you'd like a decent kind with fruity bits that aren't just raisins (eurgh, raisins) and also pretty high in sugar! Granola is baked in the oven, usually in some kind of oil/ sugary combination, so you can see why it would ordinarily  be off limits if you're trying to keep fit!

The crunchy granola as featured in Cook Yourself Thin is a breath of fresh air in comparison. For 50g it's about 183 calories, so plenty of room to put lots of lovely gubbins with it- fruit, yoghurt etc. Unfortunately they haven't put the recipe up on the website, but I'm happy to pass on the rough idea of how to make it :)

You'll need:

200g jumbo porridge oats (I'm sure the regular kind would do just as well)

30g Mixed Seeds (I used sunflower seeds and pumpkin ones as they came in a pack at Sainsburies from 40p!)

30g Chopped Nuts 

60g Dried Fruit, I used a berry mixture- another Sainsburys packet! 

1 tbsp of Sunflower Oil

100g Runny Honey

1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

Rough idea of how to make it: Preheat the oven to 150c. Mix together all the dry ingredients apart from the fruit. In a mug, mix the oil, honey and vanilla extract (in that order). Mix these two together, place on a baking tray and bake for 10 minutes. Take out, add the fruit, and bake for another 10. E voila! Let it cool and whack it in airtight container. It should keep or a month :)

Happy granola-ing!

xxx

On being a food snob

I’m pretty sure by now that I’ve made it clear I am a student. Therefore, if I’m conforming to the normal assumptions of student life, I should be living off baked beans and pots of supernoodles. Unfortunately, I just can’t live like that. Some may call it being a ‘food snob’, some may call it money wasted, but I just can’t bear the thought of basics sausages.

The thing is, I don’t understand why there is this assumption that because we’re living on budgets, we have to eat pretty yucky food. Maybe it’s because I really don't enjoy clubbing, and do not drink that much that I have more money to spend on yummyness. Maybe it’s because for me, food is one of the greatest pleasures of life. But I have made a decision that the one thing I refuse to skimp on is good food. So yes. I buy taste the difference sausages. I eat hummus. But I’d much rather spend a bit more on what’s going in my stomach and actually enjoy it, hence getting my money’s worth, than buy basics eggs, basics pork chops and basics vegetables and end up with a plate of food that tastes of nothing.

I think it was when I witnessed what my friend was eating for dinner that made me decide to write this- literally cheap beef mince and peas. If that makes you happy, fair enough- each to their own. But it bugs me when people laugh at your pot of tzatziki, or your blue cheese in the cupboard. Why is spending money on food any worse than spending £30 on a drunken night out? I’d much rather have the pleasant feeling of satisfaction from some tasty grub, than a nasty hangover. Meanwhile, unlike many who might say their best time at uni was that mental night out on the lash, the best time so far I’ve had at University was skiving a Critical Practice lecture to go to a Nigella book signing with two friends (followed by McDonalds, such a hypocrite).

So to sum up, if you’re a student, stop feeling guilty about eating hummus. And if you’re reading this as a non-student, you’re not the only one who really really loves Waitrose.

Ciao! :)