Staffordshire Oatcakes (Oat Pancakes)

Staffordshire Oatcakes are soft ground out pancakes traditionally eaten with the ingredients of a full English breakfast, but are great for an additive free wrap for lunch.

These are made with simple ingredients, including dried yeast, but have a better flavour if left to yeast further by leaving to stand overnight before cooking.

Makes 5 pancakes

125g oatmeal, or ground porridge oats

75g wholemeal bread flour

50g plain white flour

1 tsp dried yeast (that does not need to be activate first)

1/2 tsp salt

250ml water

250ml milk, or use water again

If making the oatcakes the same day as the batter, heat the water to 38C (you should be able to hold a finger in the water without it hurting).  If leaving the batter overnight don't worry about the temperature of the water.

Whisk all the ingredients together. Leave for about 15 minutes until the surface of the batter is bubbly.

When ready to cook, heat a pancake pan over a medium high heat.  Brush the pan with oil and pour in a large ladleful of batter.  Tilt the pan quickly to ensure the batter covers the pancake pan evenly.

Cook for 1.5-2 minutes until the top is dry with no wet batter.  Turn with a fish slice and cook the other side for the same amount of time as the first.

Instagram: leesashomemade

Facebook: Leesa's Homemade

Spicy Aubergine & Bean Soup

I was gifted several large aubergines that needed eating.  The one that didn't find it's way into an Aubergine Parmigiana or Babaganoush has been made into a warming hearty soup on this frosty day.

Serves 4

2 tbsp olive oil

1 large onion, peeled and diced

1 large aubergine, cut into 2 cm cubes

1 large garlic clove, peeled and crushed

400g tin of borlotti beans, pinto beans, or chickpeas

400g tin of chopped tomatoes

100g roasted red peppers, chopped into bite sized pieces

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp smoked paprika

1/4 tsp hot chilli flakes

1 tsp red wine vinegar

500ml recently boiled water

2 vegetable stock cubes, crumbled

Chopped flat leaf parsley or coriander to garnish (optional)

In a soup pan, fry the onion in the olive oil over a medium heat for about 5 minutes until it starts to soften.

Add in the aubergine and fry for another 10 minutes until lightly browned.  The aubergine will absorb the olive oil.  You can add more olive oil if you wish, or keep moving it around the pan to brown.

When the aubergine is browned, stir in the garlic and cumin seeds, and then the rest of the ingredients apart from the parsley/coriander if using.

Simmer the soup for 20 minutes. Serve with a sprinkle of chopped herbs if you have any.  The herbs not only add a nice contrast of colour, but another layer of Middle Eastern flavour.

This soup can be thickened into a stew by adding 100g red lentils or 50g soup pasta with the wet ingredients, or simply reducing the water by half.  Serve over couscous or rice if serving as a stew.

Instagram: leesashomemade

Facebook: Leesa's Homemade

Zoe Science & Nutrition Baked Root Vegetable Medley

With beetroot and half a butternut squash to use up on New Year's Eve, and a vegetarian to cater for, I tried this recipe I saw on @Zoe instagram account.  In spite forgetting to set an oven timer due to the jollity of board games and sparkling wine, it turned out well.  I had the last serving today on homemade wholegrain sourdough toast drizzled with extra virgin olive oil.

Serves 2 as a main or 4 as a side 

1 sweet potato

1 small squash

1 beetroot

5 Jerusalem artichokes (didn't use - used several small beetroot and large sweet potato instead)

1 handful cashews, soaked in boiling water for at least 10 minutes

400g tin of white beans (recipe said drained, but I didn't) 

1 tsp miso paste

a few sprigs of thyme

2 cloves of garlic

100ml milk of choice (used the bean liquid instead)

2 tbsp olive oil

Salt & pepper to taste.

Preheat the oven to 190C.

Thinly slice your vegetables using a knife or mandolin and layer into an ovenproof dish with fresh thyme.

In a blender, combine the beans, soaked cashews, garlic, milk and miso paste into a pourable sauce. Taste and adjust the seasoning as needed.

Cover the vegetables with the sauce and push down to ensure they are submerged. Drizzle the olive oil over the top and place in the oven for around an hour until the vegetables are soft and the top is golden and crispy.

My tips; brush some additional olive oil over the bottom and sides of your baking dish.  Also, my vegetables were not submerged by the sauce so I covered the dish with some aluminium foil.

Instagram: leesashomemade

Facebook: Leesa's Homemade

Sourdough Starter

Starting your own sourdough starter is child's play.  If no-one has any active starter they can spare you, simply mix bread flour and water and leave it to ferment for around 5 days.

I use wholemeal bread flour for my starter, even if making a white sourdough loaf.  I find it ferments quicker and is not as sour as white bread flour.

50g x 4  wholemeal bread flour
50g x 4 lukewarm water

Day 1: Mix 50g bread lour and 50g lukewarm water in a clear lidded container. Mix well and and leave, with the lid loosely on, at room temperature for 24 hrs.

Day 2: Mix another 50g bread flour and 50g lukewarm into Day 1's mixture. Leave, with the lid loosely on, at room temperature for another 24 hrs.

Day 3: Mix another 50g bread flour and 50g lukewarm into into your growing starter, and leave for another for another 24 hrs.

Day 4: You should hopefully start to see your starter becoming more active, with bubbles visible through the clear sides of the container. Mix in a further 50g bread flour and 50g lukewarm water, and leave for another for another 24 hrs.

Day 5: Your starter should be very active/bubbly now.  If not, continue to feed it daily until it does. 

When your starter is ready, pour off 300g (or whatever your recipe requires) for the loaf you are about to bake.  Feed the remaining starter with 50g bread flour and 50g tap water and store in the fridge for 24 hours before you want to use it.

Instagram: leesashomemade

Facebook: Leesa's Homemade

Wholegrain Sourdough

Wholegrain sourdough does not have the big cosmetic 'holes' that have become associated with artisan'white sourdough.  Instead it is a dense, filling, high fibre bread. 

I sell homemade white sourdough, but have begun making this wholegrain sourdough loaf for my partner and I.  As with sourdough, it is a lengthy process, but it is mostly hands off and requires no tricky shaping or turning out.  If you don't have any sourdough starter you could have your own homegrown starter in 5 days, and sourdough on your New Year's resolutions.

Makes 1 large or 2 small loaves
Preparation time: 36 hours (hands on time about 30 minutes in total)
Cooking time: 1 hour

300g active sourdough starter

250g wholemeal flour 

250g wholegrain flour (I use Sainsbury's Wholegrain Seeded Flour, but intend experimenting with varying quantities of wholemeal rye flour, malted flour, spelt flour)

25g mixed seeds

10g salt

300g warm water

I have based the timings of this loaf around a working day, and baking the loaf first thing in the morning.

Two nights before (36 hours before) you want to bake the loaf, take the starter out of the fridge and leave on the counter to warm up.

The following morning (8am - 24 hours before), feed your starter with 50/50 wholemeal flour and water to make 300g starter plus about 20g to keep back as reserved starter. Leave the starter on the counter throughout the day.

Late afternoon (5-6pm - 4 hours before you go to bed), weigh out 300g of starter into a large mixing bowl.  Whisk in the water with a fork, and then stir in the rest of the ingredients.  Mix well with the fork then use your hand to ensure everything comes together.  You should have a sticky but stiff dough.  Wholemeal flour absorbs more water than white bread flour so you may need to add more water to make a workable dough that you can push your fingers into with some force but holds it shape when folded into a ball.

Cover with a clean tea towel and leave somewhere warm like near a radiator, in the airing cupboard or in a sunny window.

Every hour for the next 4 hours, with a wet hand, stretch and fold the dough in half onto itself, top down, bottom up, left to right, and right to left. Recover and leave for another hour.

After the final stretch and fold, tip out onto a lightly floured surface, stretch out to a rectangle and then roll up like a Swiss roll to a sausage shape to fit in a loaf tin lined with greaseproof paper.

Loosely cover with a large plastic bag, with enough room for the loaf to rise without touching the plastic, and leave to rise overnight in a cool place. I've begun making this in winter, so leaving the loaf to rise in the kitchen overnight with the heating off has been perfect. In summer I may have leave it in the fridge overnight if it rises too much, although wholegrain flours don't rise as much as white so this loaf may never overflow it's loaf tin.

The following morning preheat your oven to 230C.  Once up to temperature, place the loaf in it's tin on the middle shelf and bake for 20 minutes at 230C and 20 minutes at 200C. 

After 20 minutes at 200C, tip the loaf out of the loaf tin and remove the greaseproof paper.  

Turn the oven down to 180C and bake for a final 20 minutes.

Baking lore advises to wait a couple of hours for loaves to cool to body temperature before slicing. I'm not entirely sure why. From experience hot/warm loaves are harder to slice, with the bread often tearing. But the urge to taste a freshly baked loaf is hard to resist...

Curried Bubble & Squeak (Potato Cakes) with Coriander Relish

Got leftover boiled or mashed potatoes, cooked carrots and greens? I thought I'd jazz up Bubble & Squeak with some curry spices and some coriander relish to use up some odd leftovers.

Serves 2

200g potato

Handful of cooked carrot, cabbage, Brussel sprouts etc

1 tsp garam masala or curry powder 

1 tbsp plain or chickpea flour

2 tbsp olive oil for frying

Relish

30g pack of coriander 

1 large garlic clove, peeled and roughly chopped

2 cm ginger, roughly chopped

1/2 tsp hot chilli flakes 

2 tbsp dried mint

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar 

1-2 tbsp water

Mash the potato well, before adding in the finely chopped vegetables and spice.  Do not add any oil or butter as you need a stiff mash that you can shape into four 'burgers' and keep their shape.  Add a little flour to the mash if needed to make it stiffer.

Fry the potato cakes in the olive oil in a non-stick pan over a medium high heat for about 5 minutes each side or until golden brown.

Whilst frying the potato cakes, whizz together all the relish ingredients until you have a pourable, double cream-like, consistency. Add more water and vinegar if needed to get a pourable relish.

Dip the potato cakes into the relish or pour over.

Instagram: leesashomemade

Facebook: Leesa's Homemade

Braised Red Cabbage

Quick braised red cabbage to accompany our Christmas Dinner of slow roast mutton. The other half of the red cabbage went in Red Cabbage Coleslaw.

Serves 4

1 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, peeled and diced
350g red cabbage (half a red cabbage), thinly sliced

1 large cooking apple, cored and diced

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

large pinch of nutmeg1 tbsp brown sugar or maple syrup

4 tbsp red wine vinegar

1 tbsp cranberry sauce optional

Soften the onion over a medium heat in the olive oil in a saute pan for about 5 minutes.

Stir in the cabbage and the spices and fry for a a few minutes until shiny.

Add the apple, sugar, and red wine vinegar. Stir in well then cover, turn down the heat to the lowest, and cook gently for half an hour.

Stir in the cranberry sauce if using, adding a little water if the cabbage is drying out a little.

Serve warm with mutton, pork, duck...

Instagram: leesashomemade

Facebook: Leesa's Homemade

Berry & Seed Yoghurt

There are so many suggested high fibre, gut friendly, longevity foods that I somehow feel there are not enough days of the week to fit them in.  My current fave Fruit & Seed Yoghurt breakfast has a plant count of 11, plus probiotic yoghurt

80g frozen summer fruits (blackcurrants, redcurrants, raspberries, blackberries) 

100g greek yoghurt

1 tbsp chia seeds

1 tbsp ground flax seeds

1 tbsp mixed seeds (pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, golden linseeds, hemp seeds)

1 tbsp organic porridge oats

1 tsp maple syrup (optional)

Ideally, mix everything together the night before.  Failing that, microwave the berries for 1 minute, then stir in the rest of the ingredients.  The summer fruits are very tart so I like to add a little maple syrup.

Instagram: leesashomemade

Facebook: Leesa's Homemade

Feta & Walnut Dip

Needing last minute nibbles for a get together with the girls, I was inspired to add some walnuts to whipped feta to serve on homemade sourdough crostini.  It went down well so I'd better write up the recipe before I forget

Makes a small 150g pot

100g feta

25g walnuts

1 small garlic clove, peeled and crushed

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Zest of half a lemon (optional)

1-2 tbsp whole milk or greek yoghurt

Whizz all the ingredients together in a mini food processor, adding milk or greek yoghurt to get your preferred texture (stiffer for spreading on crostini, looser for a dip).

This was made with half a block of feta as the other half had been eaten in a salad at lunch.  A whole 200g block would serve a small gathering better. Just double the ingredients.

Instagram: leesashomemade

Facebook: Leesa's Homemade

Cheats Nduja (Spicy Italian Pork Paté)

Unusually, I came across a recipe for a vegan nduja and made a meat version, as quite often I find myself making vegan versions of meat recipes.  We're not vegans, but meat has become a weekend treat. So as today is Saturday I made this Nduja pasta sauce.

Nduja is a fiery spreadable salami made with Calabrian chilli peppers.  There weren't any Calabria chills in Asda in Eastleigh in Hampshire, so I used the remnants of some Chipotle paste I had plus some hot chilli flakes.  I think I will stick to hot chilli flakes in future as they are easier to find.

Serves 6 with 500g dried pasta

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

500g higher welfare pork mince

2 tsp sweet paprika

1 tsp fennel seeds

1 large garlic clove, peeled and roughly chopped

1 tsp red wine vinegar

100g roasted red peppers, keeping the liquid

1-2 tsp chilli powder or flakes, to taste (it is supposed to be fiery!)

In a frying pan, fry the pork mince in the olive oil over a medium high heat until browned.

Stir in the paprika, fennel seeds, and garlic and cook for another couple of minutes.

Add the red wine vinegar, stir around and then the peppers.  Stir then turn off the heat to cool for a 10+ minutes.

When cool enough run through a food processor, adding the reserved roasted pepper liquid if required, to make a spreadable paste.

Serve over pasta (a mug of pasta water helps make the 'nduja into more of a sauce), on toast or canapés.

Keep in the fridge for 3 days, or freeze in portions.

Instagram: leesashomemade

Facebook: Leesa's Homemade

Sourdough Discard Pizza

I saw couple of reels making sourdough discard pizzas and thought I'd give it a go.  As I don't discard any starter, so I fed my starter more so that I had enough.  This makes a moist, crumpet like pizza base. And for once, no-one left any crusts!

Makes 3 pizzas

150g active sourdough starter

1 cup bread flour

1 cup water

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Toppings

Premade tomato sauce

Sliced mozzarella

Other toppings of choice; chorizo, ham, anchovies, olives, capers, pineapple...

Leave your starter out overnight to wake it up.

In the morning, mix in the bread flour and water, cover and leave to ferment for as long as you can.

At dinner time, turn the oven on to 220C to preheat and heat an ovenproof frying pan or shallow casserole dish on the stove.  

When the pan is piping hot add the olive oil and a US cup measurement of sourdough starter.

When bubbles start to burst on the surface of the pizza base spread on the tomato sauce and toppings of your choice.

Place the pan and bake in the hot oven for 10 minutes until the topping is bubbling.

Instagram: leesashomemade

Facebook: Leesa's Homemade

Sloe or Damson Port

This recipe was on an allotment Facebook group I was on a few years ago.  I saved it as a screenshot, but am now saving to my blog for easier reference.

The recipe presumes you have made Sloe Gin.  More recently I have been making Damson Brandy, and this port works just as well if not better with brandied damsons.

500g drained sloes, after straining your sloe gin.

750ml cheap red wine

100g sugar

200ml brandy

Add (return) the sloes to a large preserving jar, together with the red wine and the sugar, seal and shake.

Shake (or stir - one of my cheap preserving jars leaks if upended) the jar every day for 3 weeks to dissolve the sugar.

After 3 weeks add the brandy and shake/stir again, then leave in a dark place for 3 months.

Drain, decant into bottles, and finally discard the sloes.

Instagram: leesashomemade

Facebook: Leesa's Homemade

Nordic Salmon Soup/Chowder

Lohikeitto (Finland), Fiskesuppe (Norway), Laxsoppa (Sweden), and Fiskisúpa (Iceland) are all Nordic creamy salmon and potato soups or chowders. This is a simple warming meal in a bowl that takes just over 30 minutes to cook.  I based my recipe on an online recipe for Lohikeitto, and added extra potatoes to make this into a simple dinner for 4.

Serves 4

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 leeks, washed and sliced

2 carrots, peeled and cut into bite sized pieces

1kg potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces

1 clove of garlic, peeled and crushed 

1 litre fish or vegetable stock

400g salmon, skinned and cut into large chunks

200ml double cream (I only had 100ml hence mine not looking very creamy)

Small bunch of dill, finely chopped (didn't't have any but would definately add it next time)

Sweat the leeks in the olive oil in a large covered pan over a gentle heat, stirring from time to time.

When the leeks have wilted down to half their size at the start (about 20 minutes), add the carrots. Sweat in the covered pan for a couple of minutes whilst you chop the potatoes. 

Add the chopped potatoes, garlic, and stock which needs to just cover the potatoes.  Put the lid back on the pan, bring to the boil, then turn down to a simmer for 10 minutes.

When the potatoes are cooked through stir in the cubed salmon, cover and simmer for 5 minutes to cook the salmon.  When the salmon is cooked, pour in the cream and chopped dill.  Heat the creamy soup gently and remove from the heat when it is steaming but not boiling.  

Serve.

Instagram: leesashomemade

Facebook: Leesa's Homemade