BAKING FOR THE BRAVE

Recipe: Banana Bites

Time Taken: Half an hour max

Ingredients: A banana, a big handful of fruit n nut & shitloads of oats

 

Hi readers,

If you’re reading this, that means you must have survived the first Monday of 2015. Did you realise? I literally salute you for your efforts! We’re all Trojans today! And we are survivors.

 

So, I’m Hayley and I survived the first Monday of the year. But parts of today I did not like! Today’s been a tough one! I’ve had a bad exam… I’ve been subject to extortion once more from Specsavers (the swindling bastards)… and I’ve not been feeling superb. And it’s been COLD.

 

However, my Monday hasn’t been the worst. I wasn’t the guy who tried to take a ladder up the escalator with him in Wilko and ripped a hole in the ceiling with it. I wasn’t the Chinese student who was hit by a car on Percy Street. I wasn’t the person who let rip reeeally loudly in pilates (just for the record!). And I bet your Monday hasn’t been the worst on Earth either. Truly, someone will have had a worse day than you. They will!

 

Try to be grateful for something good that came of your Monday. Like, for meeee… Well, firstly, I had pancakes for breakfast this morning and they tasted awesome. I reheated ones from the batch I made yesterday (see my last blog post!) and served em up with banana and honey. This was a TOP shout.

 

Secondly, I walked to uni and both a dog walker and a cyclist smiled at me on the way. I smiled back.

 

Thirdly, my Pilates instructor chatted to me today and said that she liked my leggings. I have been taking her classes at the gym for two years now, along with having been in several of her geography lectures (this woman is a living Wonderwoman), and never thought that she noticed me. I really look up to her. And today she chatted to me. I was dancing inside.

 

Fourthly, I came in this evening from my dreadful exam, to find that my Forever 21 order had arrived… AND EVERYTHING FIT. This never happens. New sales clothes for me!

 

And fifthly, finally, I baked some terrific Banana Bites last night that I munched on for lunch at the library. And they brought sunshine to my tum. One of my best friends (for the blog I’ll call her Floss as I feel this is her true name) gave me the recipe last night and when I got home I literally made some straight away. Saddo I am. And now you have to go bake some so that they can be one of the good things about your day tomorrow!

 

But, before that just have a think, what’s been good about your day today? Have a proper think and I hope you can come up with at least 5 things like I did, even though parts of today were horrendous for me. Always remember to be grateful for each day!

 

Soooo, without further ado, here’s how to bake Banana Bites in ten easy steps...

1. Heat your oven to 200˚C.

2. Use a fork to mash a banana in a bowl.

 

3. Add a big handful of raisins and peanuts.

 

4. Chuck in some oats.

 

5. Stir it up!

 

6. Keep adding oats and stirring until your mix has a consistency like porridge.

7. Grease a baking tray.

8. Spoon your mix onto the tray in 4 biscuit-sized rounds.

 

9. Safely transport your tray into the oven to bake for 20 minutes.

10. When your Banana Bites are golden brown lift em out of the oven and leave to cool on the tray.

ChefBeHere Top Tip: You might want to turn one of the Bites over to check it’s baked underneath and not gooey still. Otherwise, your Bites might go soggy. Not good.

And that’s it! Here’s my Banana Bites fresh out of the oven :)

 

Aren’t these incredible? There’s nothing bad in them! Aaaaaall the ingredients are healthy. So these are a totally guilt-free munch. But it feels like you’re having a massive treat! Banana Bites are chewy and they’re filling and they’re so moreish. And somehow they taste like childhood.

I can’t believe this recipe works. That it’s possible to make something healthy with so small and so healthy a bunch of ingredients. You barely use any dishes. You barely lift a finger, really. Gah. WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME ABOUT THESE BEFORE. Thank you endlessly Floss for letting me in on the secret.

Readers, go bake. And know that tomorrow will be a better day.

Munch safely,

Hayley

CHOC-NAN-ICOT... WHAT?

Recipe: Chocnanicot Muffins, I call them

Time Taken: 1 hour

Ingredients: 150g marg, 250g sugar,3 eggs, a teaspoon of vanilla extract, 2 ripe bananas, 250g plain flour, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, 125g ground almonds, 150g dried apricots, 150g plain chocolate aaaaand either one big chocolate cookie or a few small cookies

 

 Hi readers,

Today, it’s Wednesday! It’s another day in the big run up to Christmas. For me, another day of general laziness and festive cheer. You can’t begrudge me this, readers, because after I graduate in June I’m probably going to be working for the next 50 years of my life. And some of those years I might have to work on Christmas Day! The horror! So I’m allowed one last good Christmas. And I hope, whether working or not, you’re having a good Christmas season, too. :)

 

So this morning I was reading the news headlines, keeping up with the world beyond this house, and I read about a student from Lancashire, called Dominique, who lost her bank card on a night out this December and was offered £3 by a homeless man, called Robbie, (this was the last of his money!) to get a taxi home. Dominique didn’t take Robbie’s money but she was really touched by his offer. 

And so, soon after, Dominique started asking friends and family and so on, to each donate £3 towards raising the money to help get Robbie somewhere to live. She also slept rough for the night alongside homeless people such as Robbie, in order to raise further money for the cause. And Dominique’s raised over £20,000!! Isn’t that incredible?!

I’m so wowed by what she’s done! As my friends at uni and my family at home know, I struggle a lot with the cold at winter. Up in Newcastle, I’ve been really worried this year about the homeless people near our university library. It’s been bitterly cold and all the students trudge past them each day to go sit in a heated building, and they’re often still there when we come out at the end of the day. I don’t know how they can bear it. 

And I know there are a lot of people in need around the world, and a lot of people in need in the UK. And you can’t help everyone blah blah. And the actions of some homeless people may have contributed towards them becoming homeless blah blah. But it’s bloody awful. And I hate that I don’t have the money to buy the people hanging out around the library a cup of coffee, at least. Something warm. When I have a proper job, I’m going to try to buy a homeless person a hot drink every day in winter.

So today, in my warm home, I’ve been baking up a storm for my family. And I hope I inspire you to do some baking too! It’s good for the soul. :) But I was thinking, maybe, if you don’t have enough friends and family to feed 12 muffins to, is there someone in need that you could offer a muffin to?  Maybe you could make someone’s day by being generous beyond belief, and offering them a home baked muffin? 

Plus, if this isn’t for you (and sadly I don’t know where to find people living on the streets in Woodhouse) or you’ve been really taken up to help people in need this Christmas, there are loads of ways you can spread some magic in December! You could help out at a soup kitchen? You could spend some time with an elderly person on your road? If it snows, you could even help them to shovel their front path? You can make such a difference with your time.

Also, I found a really cool website where you can donate £5 to cover the cost of a birthday cake being baked especially for a child in Sheffield, whose family is finding it hard to provide one on their special day. Isn’t that the best idea ever? Check it out: http://www.freecakesforkidssheffield.com/

Anyway, I’ve said my piece. And I hope that, this December, some of you might be thinking about the people who don’t have lovely homes to go home to. I know I will. And I wish them all the best for getting through Christmas. 

And now I can tell you about my baking!! Today, readers, I had the itch to do some serious baking in the kitchen! But I’m really broke so I was strictly limited to the ingredients we have in the house. This is normally a big issue, but I was pleasantly surprised!! The lovely mother has come through, and stocked up for my visit home. :) In the end I decided to combine banana, apricot and chocolate… in a moment of muffin-inspired genius!

To rustle up some of your very own Chocnanicot Muffins, follow these 20 simple steps…

1.       As it’s very nearly Christmas, pour yourself a drink. Why not?

2.       Line a muffin tray with 12 muffin cases.

3.       Prep your apricots! Measure out 150 grams of them and chop them up into quarters using a sharp knife.

 

4.       Prep your bananas! Peel them both and use a fork to mash them up.

 5.       Prep your chocolate! Break it up into pieces in a bowl.

6.       Prep your cookie! Use your hands to crumble it up into tiny pieces in a bowl.

7.       Heat your oven to 180°C.

8.       Measure your marg and sugar into a large mixing bowl. Add a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Then crack your eggs into the bowl. 

9.       Stir it up!

10.   Now stir in your mashed bananas. So much goo!

11.   Place a sieve over your bowl and sift your flour and baking powder over the mix. 

 

12.   Stir it up!

13.   Add your ground almonds and your apricot chunks.

 14.   Once more, stir it up!

15.   Spoon  your mix evenly between your 12 muffin cases until they’re all mostly full.

 16.   Transport safely into the oven to bake for half an hour. Catch a show on TV!

ChefBeHere Top Tip: The ad break of your show (I was watching Friends) is the perfect time to turn your muffins around in the oven so that they’re facing a different way, just in case some are baking quicker than others.

17.   When your muffins are golden and well risen, take them out of the oven and leave to cool.

18.   After a while (and maybe another drink) stick your chocolate in the microwave to melt for a couple of minutes. Don’t let it burn, mind.

19.   Spoon your melted chocolate evenly over each muffin.

20.   Sprinkle your muffins with cookie crumble for decoration! Serve to your adoring friends and family, and then anyone else you’re feeling generous towards.

It wasn’t to be this simple for me, readers. Disaster struck on Step 18 when I burned my chocolate in the microwave. It wasn’t fit for use whatsoever, and we had no more chocolate or no icing sugar in the house. What a nightmare! However, I got inventive and managed to melt some marshmallows in the microwave, stirring hot chocolate powder into the marshmallow goo little by little, and I used this instead of melted chocolate to stick my cookie crumble on to my muffins with. Phew!

Here’s my marvelous muffins!

What do you think? Impressive, huh? I’m so proud!! Decoration is not something I normally bother with. My baking often flies straight from the oven shelves into the mouths of hungry flatmates. And it’s such a shame! I’m so glad to day that I took the time to do something on top of my muffins. Even inspite of the disaster I had in the kitchen. Because they look so pretty!

Now, I can’t yet report on how these babies taste. They’re under lock and key, being saved for pudding after our tea later. But hopefully they taste as good as they look! As I was botching various recipes together, and turning loaf recipes into muffin ones, I was a little uncertain about whether these angels would rise or not or whether they might even explode, but I hit it on the head apparently. Who knew. They domed to perfection! 

So… go! Shoo! Stop drooling over my photos and go bake your own muffins! Do it! If you don’t have the apricots you can sub in any other dried fruit. And if you’ve already overdone the chocolate this Christmas, you could drizzle glace icing over your muffins and stick a piece of dried banana on top, there’s your decoration! Let me know how this one turns out.

And remember, always, to be grateful for the kitchen you bake in.

Bake safely this Christmas amigos,

Hayley

MAKE IT, FAKE IT, PANCAKE IT!

Recipe: Fruit Pancakes

Time taken: No time at all

Ingredients: 100g flour, 2 eggs, 300ml milk, a little oil, some honey & loadsa FRUIT

Allo allo readers,

How are you?? Are you well? Are you feeling tip top? Fabulous? Sublime? I certainly hope you are! Readers, I’m a little ill. Somewhat under the weather. I have to say, having had a big week out this last week of uni term, filled with Christmas drinking and dancing and frosty late nights, it’s not shocking I’m ill. I 100% deserve it. I brought this up on myself. I was the leader of all doom. I drank LOTS and I wore LITTLE and it’s been BLOODY ARCTIC in the north-east. But still, I’m feeling sorry for myself. And I’m sorry that I haven’t been blogging! All of those nights out and a broken laptop have meant I’ve had to take a break from ChefBeHere. 

Sad face

But I’m back!! And this time it’s personal. BOOM. I’m back home readers, down in sunny Sheffield (still freezing, to clarify). I’ve revived our old-as-time PC. Sort of. It’s working for now. And I’m shakily blogging! Shaking it ChefBeHere style. A Christmas comeback!

So readers, today I’m living up to the student tradition of the First Day Home and I’ve been having a good rummage around the kitchen cupboards. What do we have in? What are these foods that I’ve been missing for months? How has branded packaging changed since summer? Have any special treats been bought for my homecoming? 

And it’s delightful! Of course treats have been bought! There’s Quorn in the house! Pink lady apples! Galaxy chocolate! AND CADBURY’S TOO! It truly is a joyous time of year. I can’t wait to get stuck in and throw together some luxury meals. But first readers, while I’m still a novelty and I’m being oh so slightly cared for by my beautiful mum , doing some wining and reclining, I want to blog about my last meal in Newcastle yesterday! 

Yesterday, hungover (again) having been to a cracking Temples gig with my friend Woody the night before (go see temples if you get the chance!), I finally sacked it off with my attempts to eat up all the food in my cupboard. Was my hangover craving wholemeal pitta breads? No. No, it wasn’t. Peanut butter on those? Hell no. 

I suffered for Temples… so worth it

So we went to the caff on the road! My treat place to go! Delicious Decadence. This café, kids, is literally the Shangri-La for any hungover student within a mile radius of my road. It’s ON MY ROAD. Whatever state you’re in, it’s pretty much guaranteed that you can claw your way along the pavement to get to the caff. And you just have to really, for the good of your health. The place has healing powers. 

Our caff

Me and Woody hit Delicious Decadence like Santa hitting the brandy on Boxing Day. And our caff did not disappoint! Woody opted for a fry-up in a sandwich. A graphically awful looking creation. Not his first nor his last. And I decided to order smiley-face pancakes! Hadn’t had these before, hadn’t seen them ordered. I thought it meant they’d draw smileys on in sauce, BUT IT WAS SO MUCH BETTER! They print the pancakes with smiles! I don’t know how, I just don’t know, but it’s so much fun! They have all different smiles and some of them wink at you, and they’re fluffy and lovely and OH MY GOD.

Smiley face pancakes

It was a love at first pancake. Howeverrrrr, I have to say, these guys were awesome and big up to my pancake bros in the sky, buttttt… they just came with syrup. A little bowl of syrup. Like, only syrup. Like whattttt? Such a waste! There are so many things you can DO with pancakes. You can give them faces, for god’s sake! So it seemed a bit of a waste to serve them just with syrup. A little lacking in magic.

How do you make pancakes magic, you ask?? WITH FRUIT! Readers, my favourite pancakes are by far the ones that are fruitylicious! They have the fruit factor! Tooty fruity yummy in ma tummy sorta healthy pancakes, all up in the fruit scene!

I know, as a Northerner, pancakes with gravy is a thing. I’m a vegetarian yes, so your savoury pancakes with cheese n veg , they’re a menu staple. I’m a four-year-old-at-heart so jam pancakes live on. There will always be a place in my heart for the classic lemon and sugar. Yes, as a chocaholic, it doesn’t hurt to get out the Nutella. Indeed, these are all ways you CAN eat pancakes. But increasingly, readers, I don’t think you SHOULD. 

I advocate fruuuuuit! There are 2 ways to go about rustling up some fruity pancakes…

(1)    FAKE IT

1.       Buy some scotch pancakes or some crepes. These come ready-made and packaged from the supermarket. You can pick different types, like I like the scotch pancakes with raisins in em.

2.       Chop up loads n loads of fruit. Then more. Add a little more. Any dried fruit in the cupboard? Get that out, too.

ChefBeHereTopTip: You can never have too much fruit and I don’t think there are any fruits which don’t work on pancakes.

3.       Either toast your scotch pancakes or heat your crepes in the microwave.

4.       Pile them in a bowl or on a plate.

5.       Drizzle with honey.

6.       Pile with fruit!

7.       Tuck in. :)

Like this! Mmmmm

 (2) MAKE IT

1. Heat your oven to a low heat. Something like 100°C maybe.

2. Chop up loads n loads of fruit. Then more. Add a little more. Any dried fruit in the cupboard? Get that out, too.

3. Measure 100g plain flour into a bowl along with a pinch of salt.

4. Make a well in the middle of your flour and crack 2 eggs into the well. Pour your milk over the top.

5. Take a fork or a whisk and mix this all up! 

ChefBeHere Top Tip: You need some serious arm action to make a smooth batter out of your ingredients. No lumps, readers!

6. If you have any patience (I don’t) set the batter aside to rest for half an hour. But you don’t have to. It just helps somehow.

7. Wipe a small frying pan with some oiled kitchen towel and put it on a hob over a medium heat.

8. Spoon a couple of tablespoons of batter into the pan. Tip your pan around so the batter spreads out and let it cook for a minute or two!

9. Try and flip your pancake over so that the other side can cook. If you’re feeling like a pro, you can toss the pancake in the air. Good luck to you.

10. Spoon your pancake onto a plate and put it in the oven to keep warm.

11. Repeat the last steps again to make another pancake.

12. Keep going until all your batter is gone and your plate is piled high with pancakes!

13. Drizzle your pancakes with honey.

14. Pile with fruit.

15. Tuck in. :)

Like this!

What do you think, readers?? How do you rate your pancakes with fruit? Whether you decided to make em or fake em, do you like your pancakes?? Which fruits did you use? Are these pancakes any competition for your usual ones? What do you normally top your pancakes with?? So many questions!

I have so much love for pancakes with fruit readers. Especially when I’m home and luxury fruits like strawberries are on offer. Also, pancakes are a warm dish. Which is what everyone wants with the weather being the way it is right now. A winter warmer.

Plus, you know, just because it’s winter and you can’t go an hour without encountering some kind of luxury food advert, doesn’t mean we should turn our backs on good old fruit. And our waste-lines and our skin might just thank us for a little vitamin-hit now and again this December. I read a quote recently which said “Love yourself enough to live a healthy lifestyle”. And I wholly agree.

I wish you all warmth, tastiness and goodness. So… give my pancakes a try? 

Get your fruit on safely,

Hayley