Category: Snacks

Categories
Snacks

My Australian Cheeseboard

It wouldn’t be Christmas without a decent cheeseboard. Travelling down under this year, I made a point that our choices would all be Australian-made.

Cheese here is heavily influenced by Europe. You will find versions of the most popular cheese from France, Italy and England that have been home-made in Australia. Alongside these are many small and independent producers experimenting with new styles and presentation.

You can see my selection for our Christmas Day meal in the photo above. Here are the ones that made my final cut, including further information and links to the producers, should you wish to find out more:

  • Endeavour Blue is from King Island Dairy, which is based on a small island in the Bass Strait between Tasmania and the Australian mainland. The island’s microclimate produces lush pasture, hence rich creamy milk and cheese. This blue is reminiscent of a good gorgonzola.
  • Gumleaf Smoked Cheddar from Bodalla Farm on the New South Wales coast, south of Sydney. Smoked in leaves of a gum tree, it is part of their Bush Tucker Cheese range. Thankfully, it doesn’t taste too strongly of eucalyptus, just good smoked cheddar!
  • Fresh Chevre Goat’s Cheese, dusted with ash, from Meredith Dairy in western Victoria. Ash helps balance acidity and develop a rind, while adding visual interest to your platter.
  • Brie from Udder Delights, an independent producer from Lobethal in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia.
  • Camembert, also from Udder Delights.

I also enjoyed a trip with family and friends to the Yarra Valley Dairy. Their range of goats cheeses are served as part of a sharing platter along with other delights like olives, cured meats, cornichons, home-made relishes and terrine, see my photo below.

The Yarra Valley is a major wine and cheese producing region of Victoria, in the hills north-east of Melbourne. Here is a photo I took of the vineyard and hills beyond, while stopped for some Cellar Door wine tasting at Yering Farm Wines.

A gourmet experience of rich and creamy cheese, fine wines, in a beautiful rural setting with sunny weather (it reached 37C!). All in all, a Beautiful Day. Time to add U2 to the ADK Spotify Playlist.

Categories
Breakfast Desserts Recipes Snacks

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

A feature of autumn is having lots of weird coloured and wonderful shaped pumpkins and squashes on our vegetable stalls. This recipe uses one of these to bring sweetness and moist texture to a set of freshly baked muffins. I recently made these on Halloween (as my photo shows!), but they are just as enjoyable for an autumn-themed breakfast, dessert or a snack with tea or coffee.

Servings

This will make 12 muffins.

Timings

10 mins to chop the squash, and 30 mins to roast it. The rest of the prep can be done while the squash is roasting, and the muffins will then take 25 mins to bake at 180C.

You Will Need

  • Pumpkin, butternut or other squash, peeled with seeds and pith removed, and cut into chunks. You will need 250g of chunks.
  • 255g self-raising flour
  • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • half tsp salt
  • 2tsp mixed spice
  • 140g caster sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 150ml milk
  • 2 tablesp runny honey
  • 90 ml vegetable oil
  • 50 g dried fruit
  • 50g chopped mixed nuts
  • a few handfuls of pumpkin and sunflower seeds to garnish

Method

  1. Spread the chunks of squash out on a baking tray, drizzle with oil, and roast in an oven at 180C for 30 mins.
  2. While the squash is roasting, prepare a muffin tin or mould.
  3. In a bowl, sift together flour, bicarb, salt, spices and sugar. Add the nuts and dried fruit and stir well.
  4. In a separate bowl, mix the egg, milk, oil and honey.
  5. When the squash has finished roasting, remove from the oven. The chunks should be charred and caramelised at the edges. Lift them on to a plate and set aside to cool for 10 mins.
  6. Whirl the squash chunks in a food processor with blade fitted, till you have a puree. This process should also help the squash to cool further.
  7. Scrape the squash puree into the egg mixture and stir. Then add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and stir well to combine.
  8. Spoon the combined mixture into the muffin tin or mould. Sprinkle a few pumpkin and sunflower seeds on top of each muffin. Bake in the oven, still at 180C, for 25 mins until golden.

Customise it!

Cut down on time to bake the muffins by roasting the squash earlier, perhaps when you already have the oven on cooking something else. Puree it and set aside to cool, then use as stated. Feel free to substitute other types of nuts and seeds as you prefer.

Musical choice for this post comes from Inspiral Carpets. I have just obtained tickets to see the band on tour in London next spring. I’m excited about this – I have grown to really like their music in the last few years but haven’t seen them before. I especially like the 60s sounding farfisa organ played by Clint Boon. They have lots of great tracks but this one seems particularly appropriate to the season – She Comes in the Fall.

Categories
Bakes Blog Snacks

Selkirk Bannock

Until recently, I had never heard of the Selkirk Bannock. That’s all changed since a friend of the family brought us one back as a gift from a holiday in the Scottish Borders. Delicious it is, too!

According to legend, Queen Victoria visited Sir Walter Scott’s granddaughter at Abbotsford in 1867, and was served a Selkirk Bannock made by local baker Robbie Douglas. As a result the Bannock became famous and fashionable throughout Scotland, and is still made today to Robbie’s original recipe.

A rich but lightly textured fruit loaf packed with sultanas, my first impression was the malty, slightly sticky soft crust giving off a scent of scotch whisky. According to the ingredients list, however, there is no whisky included in the mix.

It is eaten simply – sliced and spread with butter. Toast it and let the butter melt (see my photo), and it is even more delicious.

It fully deserves its place in Scotland’s great culinary tradition.

Accordingly, for musical inspiration, I’ve chosen a modern day anthem from Scottish duo Craig and Charlie Reid, better known as the Proclaimers. I was amused to read recently that an interviewer once asked Craig and Charlie how they first met (eh, they are identical twins).

I know how challenging it can be to meet my daily target of 10,000 steps. Maybe, however, with a good few slices of Selkirk Bannock with butter in me for sustenance, I too could manage 500 miles?



Categories
Blog Desserts Snacks

Take Me to the Beach

We spent the long bank holiday weekend by the beach at Branksome. The weather is still great here, and it was easy to swim in the sea each day. On the final day the breaking surf was a little too choppy for my liking, so I settled for going in knee high, and a barefoot run along the shore, stepping and splashing through the lapping waves.

One of the many pleasures in a trip to the beach is an ice cream from the kiosk. On this occasion, I noticed that they were stocking the new Vegan Magnum, and decided to give it a try. It’s a dairy-free version of the legendary ice cream on a stick. I’m not vegan, but I am always open to trying new foods and have enjoyed a number of vegan desserts in the past.

I wasn’t sure what to expect – the Magnum I consider to be no less than a modern design classic, and I did wonder if messing around with its ingredients may turn out to be a disaster. I was thinking of what happened when Coca Cola decided to update a famous soft drink that everyone had grown up loving, only to have to yield to popular opinion and go back to making it by the original recipe.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. In fact, it is quite difficult to point out the differences in a blind taste. The Vegan version still has a delicate chocolate couverture, made from coconut oil and cocoa butter, that fragments indulgently as you bite into it. The underlying ice cream, made from pea protein with vanilla, is sweet and velvety, and not at all (as I had feared) unduly coconut tasting. The only real difference I could pinpoint is slightly less richness to the creamy taste, but not in any way that would put me off buying another.

Dairy-free alternatives to foods have been growing in popularity for some time. A relevant factor in this is concern about the contribution made by the livestock industry to climate warming, and consumption of water at a time of increasing drought. Many believe a vegan diet brings health benefits and is kinder to animals.

What is clear is that anyone who is vegan can now enjoy a Magnum when they visit the beach, a theme park or go on any other great day out: a wonderful contribution to the cause of equality of opportunity.

I’m hoping there will yet be a few more trips to the beach before the summer is through. That will probably mean a few more Vegan Magnums to come, as I make the most of our Pure Shores.

Take Me to the Beach!

Categories
Blog Snacks

End of the Party

While sampling the foodie delights of the West Midlands, during my stay here for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, I’ve had the great fortune to come across the Merry Mouse. Who, you say?

The Merry Mouse is a Deli Van that visits the markets around the region. It’s particular speciality is local cheeses – often produced by small farms. You can’t fail to notice the distinctive livery.

Aided by helpful descriptions of the cheeses, and the knowledgable seller, I decided to put together my own Merry Mouse Cheeseboard.

First up was Cheddar Hop – a wedge of tasty, mature cheddar that had been rolled in toasted hops. This gives it a spiced and smoky flavour, with best bitter notes.

Accompanying this was a piece of Colston Bassett Stilton. The description given by the MM was that this was simply the best Stilton you can get. I’m not inclined to disagree with that assessment.

Finally, we had a slice of Cote Hill Blue, a soft and unpasteurised creamy blue brie-style cheese, made on a small farm in Osgodby, Lincolnshire.

Served up with some oatcakes and red grapes, and with the closing ceremony of the Games on TV, it made quite the occasion.

It’s been a thoroughly enjoyable 11 days at Birmingham 2022. The elite sports have been great to watch, and the Festival Sites, other cultural activities and local food and drinks, a joy to experience. All in all, it’s demonstrated the rich diversity of the West Midlands. The Games have shown once again the power of sport to bring people together and overcome barriers – something we were all in need of after the last couple of years of enforced separation and restrictions.

During the Ceremony, the Commonwealth Games baton was handed on to Regional Victoria, in Australia, who will host the next event in 2026. I will be visiting Victoria this winter and am looking forward to discovering more of the local food and culture there (including the local cheeses). However, more of this in a few months’ time

For now, it seems apt to close an amazing 11 days with this track from one of Birmingham’s own – The Beat.



Categories
Breakfast Recipes Snacks

Banana Oat Breakfast Bars

The recipe for these first appeared on page 66 of the February 2005 issue of Sainsbury’s Magazine. I know this because I ripped the page out and have kept it carefully ever since. I have lost count of the number of times I have made these – the recipe has proved reliable as a fresh, tasty and healthy snack for breakfast, lunchboxes, car journeys, filling the gap at half-time at a football match etc.

Servings

Depending on how you cut these, it will make 16 squares or around 20 rectangular bars.

Timings

15 – 20 mins preparation, plus baking time 25 mins.

You Will Need

  • 75g mixed nuts
  • 110g margarine
  • 75g demerara sugar
  • 3 tablespoons golden syrup
  • 200g rolled porridge oats
  • 75g self-raising flour
  • 40g dried cranberries
  • 2 medium ripe bananas
  • 1 egg

Method

  1. Spread the nuts across a baking tray and toast in the oven at 180C for 5 mins.
  2. While the nuts are toasting, combine margarine, syrup and sugar in a saucepan and heat gently until all have dissolved into a thick paste.
  3. Remove the nuts from the oven and chop in the food processor with blade fitted. Leave the oven on.
  4. Combine nuts, flour (sifted), oats and dried cranberries in a bowl.
  5. In a separate bowl, peel and mash the bananas, and mix in the egg.
  6. Combine the banana/egg with the oats/flour and give it a good stir. Finally , add in the syrup/sugar paste. Mix well so that there is no dry flour and all the oats are covered in the brown syrupy paste.
  7. Tip the combined mixture into a traybake tin. The one I use is 20cm square, but it also works with a rectangular tin measuring 25cm x 16cm ( I have made both with these ingredients).
  8. Bake in the oven, still at 180C, for 25 mins.
  9. Remove and leave to cool in the tin. Once cool, invert it on to a chopping board, then carefully invert it back again on to another board. You can then chop it into rectangular bars or squares, as you wish. These will keep in a tin for up to 3 – 4 days, though they are usually all gone well before that!
Categories
Recipes Snacks

Fruit and Nut Booster Balls

Ever find yourself tempted to snack between meals, and picking up a packet of biscuits or something else sweet-loaded to give you a quick sugar rush? Mmm, yes – me too. Try these energy booster balls as a healthier, tastier and ultimately more satisfying alternative.

The recipe is based on one originating from Sainsbury’s Magazine and (as with most things on the ADK blog) has been developed and customised through trial, experience and error.

Servings

This should make around 12 energy balls.

Timings

15 mins to make. They can then be eaten straight away but will taste better eaten cold from the fridge.

You Will Need

  • 100g mix of cashews and pistachio nuts
  • 150g mix of pitted dates and dried apricots
  • a sprinkling of cacao nibs
  • a few drops of orange essence
  • 4 tablespoons of desiccated coconut

Method

  1. Finely chop the nuts and the dried fruit. This is better done by hand rather than the food processor, as bitter experience shows the dried fruit makes a real mess of the blade!
  2. Put the chopped nuts and fruit in a bowl and add the cacao nibs and orange essence. Mix it all together into a sticky paste.
  3. Pull off a tea spoon sized piece of the mix and roll between your palms into a ball. Roll it then on a plate on which you’ve sprinkled the desiccated coconut, till it’s covered all over, then set aside. Repeat until all the mixture has been used, and you have around a dozen energy balls.
  4. Place in a sealed container and store in the fridge. Eat within 3 – 4 days.

Customise it!

You can try mixing in other types of nuts or dried fruits. Seeds also go well – the smaller the better so maybe sunflower or chia seeds. Omit the cacao nibs if you wish, and switch the orange essence for another flavour. Rolling in coconut isn’t compulsory, though it adds presentationally and stops the ball sticking to your fingers! Try covering half in coconut and half without. Cocoa powder is another option for a coating, and (with imagination) can help give the illusion that you are eating a truffle.