Mixed mushroom, cranberry and hazlenut quinoa

hannahnicklin — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 20:43:23 +0000

So this was, strictly speaking, a little more work of a lunch than I had time for today, but it was very worth it. Best only making it if you have a full hour, though it’s mostly letting it simmer while you do a sudoku or something. Pretty faithful to the original Alice Hart recipe (seriously, buy her book, it’s the perfect useful/nice to look at mix), except I got basil pesto instead of parsley because I am busy and tired and not paying attention at the moment. Also I used half/half bulghar and quinoa, and it tasted good, and looked really nice, so might be worth a try if you fancy the speckled look? Commence recipe:

Prep Time: 25 | Cook Time: 25 | Servings: 2
Nutritional Info: 401kcal 34g carbs 26g fat 8g protein

Ingredients:

place the dried mushrooms in a jug and cover in 350ml boiling water, set aside

melt half the butter with the oil and fry the fresh mushrooms over a high heat until golden brown, tip into a bowl and set aside

return the pan to a gentler heat, add the remaining butter and soften the shallot/s,

add the garlic and quinoa and cook, stirring for about 5 mins until golden and pale

Strain the soaked mushroom, saving the soaking liquid, chop up the porcini and add to the quinoa

Pour over the mushroom water and add a good pinch of salt. Lower the heat and simmer gently for 18-20 mins until the liquid is nearly all gone.

Stir in the cranberries and pesto just a minute or two before the liquid is totally absorbed

serve with a squeeze of lemon, sprinkle with hazelnuts and parsley.

et voila:

Looks nice, tasted good, too.

Homemade Cranberry, Macadamia Nut, and Dark Chocolate snack bar

hannahnicklin — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 17:17:11 +0000

So, I have a problem. An addiction, in fact. Whenever I find myself in a train station or passing a Julian Graves or similar I have this compulsion to buy an Eat Natural Cranberry, Macadamia Nut, and Dark Chocolate snack bar. At 99p a pop this is a habit that I simply can no longer maintain. And then it occurred to me; bake my own! So I went through the back of the packet with a calculator, and with a bar weight of 45g, worked out the proportions of ingredients where they were listed, and then used the proportional placing of each un-percentaged ingredient, and some previous experience of baking snack bars to make and perfect the FOLLOWING RECIPE. This is like science. Awesome, tasty, science. It’s completely gluten free, if that’s a thing for you, and is vegan if you use soya spread instead of butter and replace the honey with golden syrup. Here we go:

Makes 10 x 45g bars | Prep time: 15 minutes | Cook time: 25-30 minutes

Nutritional info per 45g bar; 218 kcal, 23g carbs, 13g fat, 2g protein

Ingredients:

Preheat the oven to 160’c. Mix the nuts, berries, coconut and rice crispies in a bowl together

melt the butter, honey and sugar together over a low heat

combine the ingredients, until well mixed, then press down firmly into a greased baking tin

bake for 25-30 mins until golden brown

Allow it to cool before cutting up and removing from the tin. Press together if a little fragile (they will take a while to set)

Melt the chocolate, turn the bars over to the flat side (I didn’t do this but it makes more sense), and spoon the chocolate over, leaving to set. Or do something more arty. Whatever you like, really.

Allow the chocolate to cool & set. Wrap each one in tin foil for eating on the move. Donenomnom. View of both sides:

dried cranberries – Food That We Make

Mixed mushroom, cranberry and hazlenut quinoa

Homemade Cranberry, Macadamia Nut, and Dark Chocolate snack bar