Baked Red Onion Bhaji

Pics to follow :)

Makes 8 medium bhajis

Ingredients;

• 2½ Meds/450g Onions
• 45g Flour, White Self Raising
• 1 Tsp Cumin
• 1 Tsp Turmeric
• 1 tsp Dried Coriander Leaves
  
• ¼ Tsp/1g Chilli Powder
• ¼ Tsp Ginger
• 1 Tsp Olive Oil
• 1 Tbsp Tomato Puree
  

Slice onions and soften for 5 minutes in the olive oil.

Mix dry ingredients together inn a medium sized bowl, add the puree and stir together to make a stodgy batter.

Stir onions through the batter until mostly covered.

Line a baking tray with non stick greaseproof paper and place dollops of the mixture on. This recipe makes 8 large bhajis.

Bake at 200C/ Gas Mark 6 for 15-20 minutes until golden.

Per serving;

Calories (kcal)	46.6
Carbohydrate (g)	8.2
Protein (g)	1.5
Fat (g)	0.9
Fibre (g)	1.1
Alcohol (g)	0.0
Fruit & Veg	0.7

Nearly No Fat Icecream

Today I've been mostly craving food, any food but the fattier the better. I decided to have a google and then a play in the kitchen and in under 2 hours I made nearly no fat 'icecream'.

Things you need

• 5 medium bananas - nice and ripe with no green showing but not too bruised.
• 100g of low fat yoghurt, mine is homemade.
• A plate
  
• An airtight tub
  
• A freezer
  
• A blender.
  

Slice the bananas and lay on the plate. Place in freezer for 1-2 hours. I have a heavenly quick freeze function that meant mine were ready to go in less than an hour.

Once bananas are frozen, place in blender and add 100g of low fat yoghurt.

Blend it until it's smooth. This can be slow going at the beginning, keep on in there and it will get easier as the banana breaks down.

After a couple of minutes it should be all smooth and delicious like this. At this point it is like soft scoop ice cream and is ready to go.

I placed (most of) mine in an airtight container and back in the freezer until later, it should firm up a bit more in the freezer and keep for a month or so. If it's given that long ;)

According to the calorie site I use, per 100g this pudding is

Calories (kcal)	109.1
Carbohydrate (g)	22.7
Protein (g)	2.2
Fat (g)	0.6
Fibre (g)	4.3
Alcohol (g)	0.0
Fruit & Veg	1.4

Enjoy :)

Tea or Coffee?

Busy days are here, things are finally start to peep through the soil. We've had some fun with mice in the greenhouse stealing all of my seed from runner beans to habanero, we think the cats have finally scared them off but on the lookout and everything is doubly protected now.

After watching 'How to Grow Your Own Drugs' I was again inspired to try my hand at something a bit different and ordered some tea and coffee seeds from the interweb.

The tea seeds needed soaking for 24 hours first, I kept them in a muslin to weigh them down.

Or they float a lot. This apparently means the seeds aren't as viable as they could be, but that's the interweb for you.

Plant each seed with the eye horizontal

Cover with an inch of compost

The coffee seeds were also soaked for 24 hours.

So I could remove the casing from the seed to enable it to grow.

Then planted into smaller pots but at the same depth as the tea.

These were then placed in warmth on my bedroom windowsill as it's a pretty stable temp up there. They can take several months to germinate so these are an infuriating project for an impatient gardener like me ;)

We took a break to make some more mead. This batch is an all honey recipe and is absolutely divine.

The vinometer says this one is around 8.5%. I'll do a proper detailed post on this at some point soon.

Hops are going crazy again. Such quick growth makes up for slowmoes like the tea and coffee ;)

My wisteria has lots of lovely green growth popping up

Blueberries look like they're going to do well this year.

My whitecurrant is really kicking off. I need to make sure we have plenty of netting for this year!

My little morello cherry looks very busy :)

Leaves uncurling on my apple tree

New shoots coming through on the Loganberry

Flowering comfrey

The Camellia in the back garden, the blooms are over so quickly.

Beautiful while they're here though.

Abi taking a break on a new little seat for potting on, it was a telephone table and chair that we were gifted from freecycle.

The Camellia in the front garden seems to have longer lasting blooms

My magnolia in full glory

The top of this needs trimming this year

The olive tree in it's new place this year, surrounded by the Goji bushes.

The herb bed showing lots of signs of life

Planting the leftover potatoes into tubs.

Phew, busy busy busy :)

Om Nom Taters

Today is a glorious sunny day, hardly a cloud in the sky. It's beautiful.

So despite having had no sleep for about a week due to the teething nightmares from hell going on with Toby, I decided today was potato planting day.

Last year, Steve had to do the majority of the work because I was heavily pregnant. This time round, I don't have that excuse. Boooo.

So, while Toby had his lunchtime nap Abi and I went out and got started.

Some chitted taters from our next door neighbours, they ran out of room

Abi trying to plant her sunhat

The varieties we've used, for my reference as well as anyone elses....hehe

Tada :)

No Cook PlayDough Recipe

A recipe for no cook playdough.

This recipe does involve boiling water so will need a grown up's help.

You will need:

125g of flour
90g of table salt/cooking salt.
1 tablespoon of cream of tartar
1 tablespoon of oil (vegetable or olive)
1 cup of boiling water
A few drops of food colouring.
A large mixing bowl (the food dye shouldn't stain, but I used a glass one just in case)
A mixing spoon.



Method:

Place dry ingredients in a bowl, add the food colouring and then mix thoroughly with the hot water. Once the dough starts to come together, it's easier (for me) to get my hands in and work the dough until it's the desired consistency.

Can be stored in an airtight container or sealable bags for a month or so.

If the dough starts to feel brittle or is losing it's cohesiveness, just roll together and place in fridge for a few hours and it becomes pliable again.

My little girl loves it