Very, very Simple Blueberry muffins
Anna (aged 10) and I made these in 5 minutes flat and they were snapped up before you could “Blueberry”. We managed to save one for the lunchbox the next day!
1 egg
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup milk/butter milk
1 1/2 cups flour – I used half plain and half wholemeal flour
1/2 cup brown sugar (can use less)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
a scant tsp of your favourite spices
Preparation:
Spray bottoms of 12 muffin forms Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees C – 190 may be better for a fan oven.
It’s easiest to use paper muffin cases.
Beat egg until foamy in a small mixing bowl. Beat in oil and milk. In a separate bowl, sift together all dry ingredients.
Stir in blueberries. Make a well in the center and pour in liquid ingredients.
Mix together with a spatula until dry ingredients are moistened; no more than 25 to 30 strokes. Do expect your mixture to be lumpy!
Fill each muffin cup slightly more than half full.
Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from tin at once to prevent further cooking! Best to eat then and there, or hide them for a snack the next day!
Makes 12 muffins
Autumn has landed and it’s raining sushi restaurants in The Hague. This is quite a delight to my family who are experts at ordering Kappa Maki and Vegetable Tempura. For me it’s the Sea weed salad and the Udon Noodles everytime. The Lunch box will be reviewing these soon!
It is also harvest time in our small city garden which was groaning under the weight of James Grieve Cooking Apples. Those sweet sour apples have now been cleverly denuded by a group of enthusiastic and creative kids using fishing nets and brooms! We then started peeling ( not as easy as it looks kids! ) and made a fab wholemeal hazel-nutty encrusted crumble with lashings of cinnamon and freshly grated nutmeg. It was delicious served with vanilla ice-cream. I have been trying out new recipes and came up with these individual filo pastry tartlets - great for school lunches and coffee time.
I have been researching various healthy eating books all holidays and have written a talk for Power Talk International (Clingendael chapter) which I will deliver next Tuesday called “Falling in Love Again (with food). I will talk about how what we eat and how our way of eating has changed so significantly within generations and cultures and how complex everything has become. Essentially the message will be “Don’t buy your food where you buy your gas” and eat “real” food, not too much at one time and eat lots more vegetables and fruit. Simple really, but realistic and quite divinely delicious.
Our favourite cooking website - 101cookbooks.com has just alerted us to another great blog/campaign The Great Big Vegetable Challenge in which one gallant parent seeks to change her son Freddie’s attitude to eating veggies! - see it at http://greatbigvegchallenge.blogspot.com
Filo Apple Pies
Filo pastry
2-3 medium cooking apples
a mix of brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg or use maple syrup/jam to sprinkle and sweeten
1 table spoon of butter melted to brush filo squares
left over blue berries or strawberries
Preheat the oven to 175 fan oven or slightly higher for a conventional oven.
Peel, core and slice apples thinly
Line muffin lines with cup- cake papers
melt some butter or use a very light oil
Cut filo into squares to fit into muffin pans - use three overlapping squares to create a star effect. Place apples slices to create a petal like appearance. If you like you can place a slice of strawberry or a blueberry in the centre. Sprinkle with the sugar or syrup mixture and brush petals and apples with butter or oil.
