Pantastic

I sent my mum a picture from my phone yesterday.

I knew she’d like it as much as I did, even though my phone couldn’t capture how lovely the thick frost looked on the yellow petals:

Unfortunately, owing to my phone’s predictive text, the email with it said “I’m sending you a picture of a frosty croat”.

Nothing wrong with chilly Slavs, of course, but I think it might have surprised her a bit

But moving on from Croats, crocuses and the like, today was of course Pancake Day.

I wasn’t as committed to the cause as I was last year, having considered making some for breakfast last night and deciding I couldn’t be bothered. Such lack of dedication.

I did make some for dinner though:

That ugly-looking pile may not be instantly,  or even at all, recognisable as pancakes but take my word for it. Buckwheat mix, chopped wilted spinach and garlic powder, pancaked and topped with sauted mushroom and leek and a dollop of vegan cheezy sauce.

Given that I love pancakes, spinach and said sauce, it was a fair bet that these would go down well

They were great and I’ve now got loads of ideas for other savoury pancakes. Did you have pancakes today? And are you giving anything up for Lent?

In the pink

I won’t say it’s felt like spring this week – because last time I did that, we got snow soon afterwards.

But it was amazing how quickly it all went; there was still about a four-inch layer in some places on Monday evening but by Tuesday evening, all gone

And although I’m not going to mention spring, it was lovely to see this:

This was even better:

It’s been nice to cycle to do the horses in the morning without needing my bike lights, it’s been nice not to have to wear so many clothes it’s hard to move.

It was nice to go out for a few drinks for a friend’s birthday last night and it was nice to have a lie-in this morning.

Warning. More beetroot is coming your way

I gave my mum some of the Valentine’s beetroot cookies and she really liked them – but there’s still a lot of it in the fridge. So as I had pancake-making time this morning, I made these:

Beetroot and apple pancakes

50g Orgran buckwheat pancake mix (or buckwheat flour with baking powder)

20g beetroot, very finely grated

Half an apple, coarsely grated

2tbsp egg white

1tbsp milk/water

1/4tsp ground mixed spice.

Mix all together till very well combined and cook over a low heat. As is standard, I had mine with maple syrup and fresh blueberries:

I have to say I prefer the carrot pancakes but I think the beetroot/apple combination is a good one. I used half an apple because the other half was bruised and horrible but I think using a whole one would be good, as would maybe using a tablespoon of apple puree instead of the water… but my quest to not dislike beetroot with a passion is still on course. Just about

And of course, although I didn’t even thinking about mentioning that it felt like spring at the start of this post, which I wrote this morning, we had howling winds and horizontal rain all afternoon. Nice.

Have you seen any signs of spring yet?

 

Mrs Beet-on

As I said in my last post, I’m consistent.

Which is why I posted about not being too keen on Valentine’s Day this time last year. Single or not, I’ve never been too keen.

But yesterday, my mum texted to say she had some “Valentine’s possibilities” for me. I was intrigued… and then I saw she’d bought me these: (thanks Mum!)

Definitely Valentine’s possibilities! But what sort of cookies to make?

Putting the need for roll-out dough together with the surplus of beetroot at my dad’s, (come on, don’t try to pretend beetroot isn’t the first thing that springs to mind when you think of making cookies) I made these:

With inspiration from my carrot cake cookies.

60g brown sugar or coconut sugar

2tbsp coconut oil

2tbsp milk

1/2tbsp beetroot juice

75g oat flour (I ground 75g whole oats)

15g cornflour

35g sorghum flour

35g beetroot, very finely grated (use the tiny holes on the grater)

1/4 tsp baking powder

Heaped 1/4 tsp ground mixed spice

1/2 tsp vanilla

Grate the beetroot, then squeeze the juice out into a bowl. I guarantee that while the juice is running through your fingers, either the phone or the doorbell will ring. Have fun explaining

Mix together the oil, sugar, beetroot juice and vanilla till well combined. (Keep the rest of the beetroot juice in the bowl for later). Sieve the flours, spice and baking powder together and mix really well, then fold in the beetroot. Bring together as a ball, wrap and chill for 30-45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 175C. Roll the dough out on a floured surface, and with a floured rolling pin, to about 1/8″ thick, cut out shapes and transfer to a lined baking sheet. Bake for seven minutes and leave to cool and harden on the sheet.

They lose the gorgeous colour once they’re cooked, of course… but they still look good.

Being childish and arranging them in different ways is not optional.

Once they’re cooled, you’ve got a use for the rest of the beetroot juice. It doesn’t take much to colour your icing (I just used sieved icing sugar and enough lemon juice to make a paste, then added a couple of drops of beetroot juice to get different shades).

For a sugar-free topping on some, I used coconut butter, a bit of lemon juice with it would be great too, I reckon!

Sad though it is to admit, I’m quite pleased with them they taste great too; I love the way the very slight earthy beetroot flavour actually works really well with the spice, I like the way you can taste the oat flour – and I  love the lemon icing on the soft cookies.

(I’m also quite pleased that it went from -7C this morning to 2C by 5pm… I can see patches of grass instead of evil whiteness, I even cycled to the yard for the first time in a fortnight AND got too hot… not long now!)

Before I go, I’ve mentioned a lot about my congenital lateness and this recipe proves it again. I saw Fork and Beans’ Valentine’s bake-off competition a couple of weeks ago, for baked goods that were vegan, gluten-free, etc and as this one’s also egg-free, soya-free and just about everything else-free, I thought I’d enter it – but of course, submissions closed last week

Keep an eye on Cara’s blog though, because it looks like some delicious treats have been entered, in time for February 14!

EDIT: I’m linking this to brilliant Ricki’s Wellness Weekend; check out the other great vegan, GF goodies on offer

What’s your take on Valentine’s Day?

Keeping out the cold

Well, the snow hadn’t all gone by Monday evening – as proved by the fact it’s STILL THERE!

It’s quite entertaining in hindsight because Monday was so much milder than is usual the day after a snowfall, I thought we’d have a mild week. I even planned to cycle to do the horses on Tuesday morning but a noselength out of the back door was enough to put the brakes on that plan, as demonstrated by my dashboard a couple of minutes later.

Dear lord above, -12C?! And the external thermometer at the yard made it -13 – and it was MINUS SIXTEEN last night. Seriously, not a happy bunny

So please appreciate my courageousness for taking my gloves off to take these pictures:

I quite liked that line of footprints

Sadly, my phone couldn’t quite capture the low mist. -13C or not, it was stunning.

I’m going to blame the cold weather for the fact I’ve been eating for England this week. Conveniently forgetting that I always do, of course.

Because it’s barely been struggling above freezing (even at 6pm today, my car said -6C) I’ve wanted warming, filling meals. Like this:

It takes a while to make but that lentil loaf is so filling, great for a cold evening. What I also find entertaining is the fact that recipe’s on a post called “I’m (not) dreaming of a white Christmas”. At least I’m consistent.

And although I can blame the cold for wanting to eat a lot, I’m not sure I can blame it for my current cravings for ice cream. Consistent I may be, but surely that’s just weird

What’s your favourite comfort winter dinner?

I said no thank you!

However much I practised the art of snow denial last night… however much I closed all the curtains and pretended it wasn’t going to happen..

The forecast dumpload had been dumped. I closed the curtains pretty smartish.

And made pancakes – again.

And when I opened the curtains – again – it was still there

I walked up to the yard, which was ok on the road, but then I cut across some fields… when I got to this bit, which led to open fields and a slight upwards slope, it was MUCH harder going.

Despite the ridiculous number of layers I had on, I was roasting by the time I got up there.

Then there was much heaving around of hay and full buckets of water (the tap has been frozen for days) which at least gives you a great all round workout

When I got back home,I realised that as it’s likely to be freezing solid as we speak, I’d better get the car dug out if I’ve got any chance of getting to work tomorrow. It took a LONG time.

I made more cookies to cheer myself up.

It’s not as if I’ve been making copious numbers of cookies every Sunday recently or anything… it’s all just because of the snow

My friend said she’d heard it was all going to have gone by tomorrow night… everything crossed! Everything. Hope you’re keeping warm!

No thank you

I woke up to this this morning:

Actually, that’s not strictly true. A) because I’d stayed at a friend’s 20-odd miles away so that wasn’t the view and B) it wasn’t that much

But it was a couple of inches; enough to A) make me swear a lot and B) make an interesting first half of the journey home  – where not a flake had fallen. There’s no room for complacency though, as every forecast is predicting a dumpload of the evil stuff tonight. That’s the technological meteorological term, I believe.

And snow or no snow, it wasn’t pleasant to see this on my car dashboard at 7am yesterday:

That’ll teach me for trumpeting about how it felt like spring the other weekend

I’ve been making slightly more of an effort with cooking this week, like this:

I hadn’t cooked meat for ages but thanks to some Asda offers on diced turkey breast and a howge box of mushrooms, plus a sudden compulsion, I made a massive stir-fry on Thursday night. I included onions, real garlic (I’ve been lazily relying on the granules for ages but the real McCoy is so much better!) peppers, mushrooms and vegetable stock powder and it was delicious. It made four helpings too, which is always a result.

Said box of mushrooms also meant I had enough to make more of this soup:

If ever there were such a thing as soup weather, this is it – and I love that one, even if I do say so myself. I did mean to enter it for Covent Garden’s soup of the month competition too – about which they emailed me a while ago but I forgot! – but then saw that this month’s theme is flavours of the world coming together in London. I’m not entirely sure leek and mushroom qualifies

But the competition looks great and as it doesn’t seem as if it’s going to warm up around here any time soon, I’ll just have to get creative.

Have you had any snow?

I’m beet

Thank you for all the nice comments on my last post! I’ve propped my certificate up on my bookshelf for the moment, so I see it every time I walk past… I’m sad like that

It isn’t very rock ‘n’ roll to say that to celebrate on Friday, I went to the mad lengths of…. going to bed at just gone 10pm. Pathetic though it sounds, I’d not had much sleep on Thursday night :-)

I had a lovely lie-in on Saturday and, despite the huge amounts of food downed on Friday, was well up for breakfast straight away.

On that note, although it might sound completely irrelevant, my dad dug up the rest of his root vegetables last weekend and among them was one of these:

More than one, to be honest; a lot more.

It’s also honest to say that beetroots and I have a love-hate relationship. And by that, I mean a love-hate relationship without the love part. It’s not my fault either, the beetroots just don’t want to compromise.

But there were so many, they needed eating, they’re being widely touted as having the most amazing health benefits - and they were free.

I took a deep breath - and the offending beetroot- and made breakfast:

I grated the beetroot really finely and cooked it in the microwave, then stirred it into porridge, made on the hob with ground flaxseed and ground mixed spice. I added some maple syrup, braced myself – and dug in.

I was impressed by the colour, although it’s fair to say my white sink didn’t look quite as impressed, and it was actually ok. The things I don’t like about beetroot are its “earthy” flavour and its texture but the texture wasn’t relevant because it was grated and although I could still taste the earthiness, the spice and maple syrup actually worked with it. I don’t think I could exactly be classified as a beetroot lover yet, but still. One step at a time

I went out for a few drinks on Saturday night, which was great, then made pancakes on Sunday morning, back with the safety of carrot cake for breakfast:

These are definitely my (current) favourite-ever pancakes. With maple syrup on top, it’s just like eating hot, crisp-edged carrot cakes for breakfast and the juicy blueberries on top just take them to new extremes of breakfast bliss

And of course, no Sunday is complete at the moment without making cookies. Or a version of these cookies, to be precise. This week’s attempt (and I don’t know how I didn’t think of this before) involved chocolate hazelnut butter:

Chewy, crispy and chocolatey – need I say any more?!

Cookes: soft and chewy or crispy?

Beetroot: love it or hate it??