Stolen Sleep

I love daylight saving. It’s fantastic being able to enjoy some sunshine after work and have enough light left to go for a walk in the evenings but right now I am a little grumpy about the time change because daylight saving stole and hour of my sleep. Being a bit more tired than usual today I opted for a quick and easy dinner – Shrimp with Broccoli from eatingwell.com served on quinoa.

This stir-fry fit what I had in mind for my tea: fast, healthy and light but I was a little disappointed by the flavour. The shrimp is stir-fried in a little oil, garlic, crushed red pepper and added to steamed broccoli and a sauce. The sauce has vegetable stock, lemon and basil and is thickened with a little cornflower. I wanted the sauce to have a little more flavour. I think I’d make this again but would add a little lemon zest to give it some zing.

During the weekend I whipped up a batch of Banana Blueberry Granola. I love home made granola. It smelt so delicious as I was baking it in the oven. The whole house was filled by its aroma and I couldn’t wait for it to cool enough for me to sprinkle it on top of my yoghurt. This recipe is adapted from Allie’s Quinoa Banana Bread Granola. I have cut down the sugar a little and added some dehydrated blueberries I got from Farro’s– yum! Having banana in a granola recipe may seem unusual but it adds a subtle sweetness and helps the oats and quinoa form tasty little clusters.

Banana Blueberry Granola Recipe (adapted from Allie’s Quinoa Banana Bread Granola)

(makes about 4.5 cups)

Ingredients

• 1 ripe banana
• 1/8C honey
• 1TBSP canola oil
• 1t vanilla essence
• 3C old fashioned rolled oats (not instant)
• 1/2C quinoa
• 1/4C ground flaxseed (also known as linseed)
• 1t cinnamon
• 1/4t salt
• 1/3C pecan pieces
• 1/3C dehydrated blueberries (you could substitute raisins, chopped dried dates, dried cranberries or dried banana chips)

Method

1. In a large bowl, mash the banana until smooth
2. Mix in honey, oil and vanilla essence and stir with a fork until a smooth paste has formed
3. Stir in the remaining ingredients apart from the blueberries (or whatever substitute you prefer)
3. Spread mixture out in a roasting dish lined with tin foil (you want to spread the mixture out as much as possible so it crisps but need a dish with sides so you can stir it easily)
4. Bake at 175C until golden, stirring every 10 minutes or so
5. Toss through the blueberries and allow to cool

Lemon and Blueberry Mini-cakes with Lemon Honey Glaze

I made this recipe a few weeks back and had to post it before it got lost in the hundreds of recipe files in the depth of  my hard-drive. This recipe was inspired by Mimi’s Raspberry and Lemon Muffins and scaled back to yield two mini-cakes. I love freshly baked treats and hate things going to waste so I like to experiment with dessert recipes for one or two.

I am super impatient and there is no way I was going to wait for these mini-cakes to cool so that I could ice them so instead, I made a sticky glaze to pour over them. Delicious!

Lemon and Blueberry Mini-cakes with Lemon Honey Glaze Recipe

(serves 2)

Ingredients

Cakes

• 1/8C low-fat vanilla yogurt
• 3/4TBSP canola oil
• 1TBSP lemon juice
• 1 egg white
• 1/2C flour
• 1/4C brown sugar
• 1/2tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 1/4C blueberries

Glaze

• 3TBSP icing sugar
• 1TBSP lemon juice
• 1t honey (melt if using creamed honey)
• 1t vanilla essence
• 1/8C low-fat vanilla yogurt

Method

1. Combine dry mini-cake ingredients in a small bowl and mix with a fork until well combined
2. Whisk wet ingredients in a separate bowl into mixed
3. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and fold together. Try and handle the mixture as little as possible and stop mixing while there is still streaks of flour through the blend.
4. Add blueberries to the mix and spoon into two ramekins or two holes in a muffin tin
5. Bake for approximately 20 minutes
6. While the mini-cakes are cooking, prepare the glaze by mixing the glaze ingredients together until smooth

Single Serve Blueberry Cobbler

I have an epic sweet tooth and love few things more than a hot, sticky pudding to end my day’s eating. However, I don’t trust myself to make entire cakes or puddings because I know I will not win the fight against my will-power so I’m always on the lookout for recipes that can be adapted to make just one serving. When I saw the recipe for Blueberry Cobbler on food.com I knew I had to make it my own!

Single Serve Blueberry Cobbler Recipe

(serves 2 not-so-hungry people or one hungry eater)

Ingredients

Filling

• 3/4C blueberries
• 1/8C sugar
• 1tsp arrowroot powder (I’m pretty sure cornflour or normal flour would work also)
• 1 tsp margarine or butter
• 1TBSP water
• 1TBSP lemon juice

Topping:

• 1/4C flour (could use white, whole-wheat, or a blend of the both flours)
• 1/2TBSP sugar
• 2/3tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 1TBSP margarine or butter
• 1TBSP skim milk
• 1/4 egg (I just stole some egg mix from the frittata I was making)
• 1/3tsp almond essence (could substitute vanilla essence)

Extras (optional but delicious)

• 1TBSP sliced almonds
• 1t demerara sugar (brown sugar would work fine but I used organic demerara sugar from Edible Planet)

Method

1.Preheat oven
2. Combine filling ingredients in a microwave safe dish and mix until the mixture is boiling and thickened, stirring every minute or so. This took about 5 minutes in my microwave.
3. Mix together dry ingredients in a small bowl with a fork until well combine.
4. Melt margarine or butter and mix with wet ingredients in a separate bowl.
5. Mix wet and dry ingredients until doughy.
6. Spoon dough over blueberry filling in blobs
7. Sprinkle extras on top
8. Bake for about 15-20 minutes until the extras are caramelised and the topping is cooked through and fluffy.

I served this dessert with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and it was fantastic.

Vanilla Coconut Pancakes with Lemon Delicious Yogurt, Banana & Maple Syrup

I couldn’t let this blog continue without any food pictures so here’s what I made for breakfast this morning. Yes, that is a giant stack of pancakes and yes, I ate them all.

I used Angela’s for Blueberry Vanilla Pancakes recipe but obviously without the blueberries because I didn’t have any. The recipe states that it makes 6 medium pancakes so I halved it. It was probably a bit too much for one person so I’ll probably divide the recipe by 3 next time… … but halving it is just so much easier! The pancakes are layered with bananas, coconut, maple syrup and my new favourite supermarket discovery: Puhoi Valley Lemon Delicious Yogurt. It tastes so naughty – like you have spooned lemon curd through a creamy dessert. I swear I could eat this stuff spooned straight from the tub.