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{Guest} Great Summer Chicken Ceasar Salad

Summer SaladA few weeks ago I was at the Britmums conference, where I attended a food blogging session. One of the comments that came up in that session was that new or uncertain cooks like to have a step by step picture guide of how the recipe should look at every step. As an amateur-home-must-feed-the-children cook, I don’t really have time to take photos of every step of the food making process, but when this opportunity to share a food video came along I thought I’d post it especially for those of you who like a step by step guide.

In this Rayburns Cast Iron Oven video, the chef, Dick Strawbridge produces crispy golden croutons and delicious moist chicken, perfect for this Chicken Caesar Salad. (Do watch the video, but read through the instructions too, as he skips steps and throws some surprise ingredients at you if you haven’t read through it first!)

Here are the ingredients you’ll need:

  • 100g (31/2 oz) parmesan cheese
  • 3 garlic gloves
  • 6 anchovy fillets, chopped
  • 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
  • Juice and zest of 1 lemon
  • 1 egg
  • 4 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra for frying
  • 2 thick slices of bread
  • 2 teaspoons fresh lemon thyme leaves
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 450g (14 ½ oz) chicken breasts, cut into chunky strips
  • 2 rashers of smoked streaky bacon, cut into small pieces
  • 2-3 little gem lettuces

If you would like the step by step method, head over to the Rayburn website.

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Raw Nutty Chocolate Mousse

I’ve been teasing people with this recipe for two days now, not because I’m mean, but because I simply haven’t had the time to write it up, but here it is. We’ll call it version one, because I have some changes I want to make to it, but my husband taster said that’ll make it a different desert, so maybe I can justify having two chocolatey puddings close to each other. No one minds, right?

Raw Nutty Chocolate Mousse

First thing to remember with this desert is that despite it’s sugar free, dairy free, wheat free appearance, it’s still really high in calories, so pace yourself. On the up side, it’s so incredibly rich a few tablespoons each should do you just fine. My friend Emily wanted to top it with lemon shavings for decoration. I hadn’t thought of that, but good point, Emily! Next time.

Despite the high calorie count – see the nutritional information at the end of the post – they are at least good calories, and good for you, filled with healthy stuff.

Either way, it is utterly delicious. It absolutely ends any sugar cravings, and fulfills the sweet tooth, completely. I left this a little bit nutty, but you can make it entirely smooth by blending it longer.

Let me know what you think!

Raw Nutty Chocolate Mousse
Recipe Type: Raw, Desert
Cuisine: Raw
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 3
A gorgeous summery, delicious, healthy desert that blows your sweet tooth and chocolate cravings out the water.
Ingredients
  • 2 cups cashews (500ml)
  • 4 dates – more if you prefer a sweeter desert
  • 1/4 cup coconut oil (80ml)
  • 1/4 cup cacao powder(80ml)
  • 1/4 cup (80ml) + 2 tablespoons syrup of choice
  • 1/2 cup water (125ml)
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1 teaspoon lemon juice
  • Pinch of salt
Instructions
  1. Add all the ingredients in the order listed, and blend until smooth.
  2. In the Thermomix, that’s speed 10 for about 90 seconds. If you want a smoother texture, blend longer.
  3. Scoop into serving dishes and refrigerate for at least fifteen minutes to cool it down and allow the coconut oil to set a little.
  4. Enjoy!

nutrition

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{Slightly} Healthier Ice Cream With Rapadura

Ice cream, lovely as it is, is not exactly good for you. It’s sugary, fatty, and well, yum.

Rapadura Ice Cream

But, it’s summer, and when my children want ice cream, I’d rather give them something full of vitamin C, iron and B Vitamins: enter Rapadura Ice Cream. Now, sometimes I’ll have a nice, healthy yoghurt ice cream on hand, which is by far my preference for the children, but everyone cheats some times.

The rapadura gives this ice cream a really rich, caramel flavour, which I find delicious.

I use my Thermomix to mix this up, but you can use any blender or food processor. It’s also preferable to use an ice cream maker, and if you don’t have one – I don’t – use a steel container. I don’t have one of those easier, so I just use any old bowl, and it works a charm.

 

{Slightly} Healthier Ice Cream With Rapadura
Recipe Type: Ice Cream
Cuisine: Sweets
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 10
I make ice cream in the Thermomix. If you have an ice cream maker, you can use the same ingredients but follow manufacturer instructions. If you have neither, use a regular blender for this recipe.
Ingredients
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 250g cream
  • 250g milk
  • 150g [url href=”http://www.amazon.co.uk/Biona-Organic-Rapadura-Sugar-Pack/dp/B006MW27UG” target=”_blank” title=”Affiliate Link: Rapadura Sugar”]Rapadura [/url]Organic Whole Cane Sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • pinch salt
Instructions
  1. Place all the ingredients into the Thermomix bowl and cook for 5 minutes and 80C on speed 4.
  2. Pour into a freezer bowl, and place into the freezer for 3-4 hours until firm.
  3. Mix it all up again, and return to freezer. Repeat every couple of hours until it is the right consistency, then serve.
  4. If you’re saving it for another day, remove from freezer about 15 minutes before you want to serve.

nutrition

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Festival of Food: Mint Cordial Recipe

Mint cordial What’s lovelier on a hot summers day than a refreshing mint cordial? Well, I don’t know, but a mint cordial definitely hits the spot. Mint is used to relieve normal pregnancy nausea, and abdominal pain. Chewing mint leaves will make your teeth whiter over the course of a couple of weeks, and eliminate toxins from the body. Some even claim mint can cure asthma, although I’ve not seen any research on that.

  • This easy recipe will make enough cordial for 3 – 5 litres of mint juice, depending on how strong you like it.

    • Welcome to the Festival of Food Carnival. This month, we celebrate Smoothies and Mocktails!  Hosted by Diary of a First Child and Hybrid Rasta Mama, you’re welcome to join us next time, or if you have a previously published recipe you’d like to share, add it to the linky below.

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Festival of Food: Mint Cordial Recipe
Recipe Type: Drink
Cuisine: Summer
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
A gorgeous summery mint infusion
Ingredients
  • 2 cups fresh mint leaves
  • 500g sugar or rapadura
  • 2 cups water
Instructions
  1. Lightly crush the mint leaves to release some of the flavours.
  2. Add sugar and water to a heavy bottomed pot and then add mint.
  3. Bring the mixture to boil for five minutes, then simmer lightly for 15 minutes.
  4. Cover and leave as is overnight
  5. Strain the mixture to remove all the leaves, then decant into a bottle and refrigerate.
  6. You can keep this in the fridge for 2 – 3 weeks.
  7. Just add to still or sparkling water to taste.
  8. Enjoy the refreshing yumminess.

Reprinted from Diary of a First Child

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Please take a moment to visit the blogs of our other Festival of Food participants. The links in this list will be live by the end of the day, as participants are all in different time zones.

Stay connected! Be sure to “Like” the Festival of Food Carnival Facebook page.

 

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Wild Garlic And Cashew Pesto

Where my inlaws live, the public bridleway is lined with wild garlic on one side and dandelions on the other. It’s a foragers feast! Last year I picked a shopping bag full of wild garlic, brought it home, cooked with it and stuck a two plants in a pot. They looked as though they were dying, so I forgot about them and got on with the year. Cleaning out the garden this spring, I found four beautiful Ramson plants! I actually did a little happy dance, because I sometimes crave this stuff!

Wild Garlic PestoWild garlic is simply delicious stuff. In the spring it has a much milder taste than late in the summer, and unlike it’s commercial counterpart, you eat the leaves and the flowers, not the bulb (although you could).

Identification: You can smell the garlic before you see the plant. It has broad, spearlike leaves, which smell like garlic, and pretty white, star-like flowers, in a rounded ball shape, which also smell like garlic. All parts are edible, the leaves preferably in spring.

Poisonous lookalikes: The leaves do look a lot like the Lily of the Valley, which is poisonous but doesn’t smell like garlic, and if it doesn’t smell like garlic, it isn’t wild garlic.

Uses: Basically, anything you could do with Basil, you can do with wild garlic. You can make a soup, add it to salads, stir fry with onion and olive oil as a vegetable (instead of spinach, for example), and add a few dandelion heads for colour.

Here’s on my favourite recipes for Wild Garlic: Wild Garlic and Cashew Pesto

(Pine nuts are seriously expensive. Cashews are a lot cheaper, and just as good.)

Wild Garlic And Cashew Pesto
Recipe Type: Dip, Sauce,
Cuisine: Pasta
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Total time:
Serves: 4 – 6
The amounts in this recipe are rough guides. If you have more or less of an ingredient, it doesn’t matter. Cashews provide the ‘bulk’ in the ingredients, and the Ramsons are very strong in flavour, so while you can add more you don’t need to.
Ingredients
  • 1/2 cup loosely packed Ramsons/Wild Garlic
  • 1/2 cup Cashew Nuts
  • 1/4 cup Parmesan Cheese
  • 1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt
  • Pepper to taste
  • 1/3 cup Olive Oil
Instructions
  1. If you’re using a Thermomix, place everything in the bowl, and blits on Turbo for 3 seconds and you’re done.
  2. If you’re not:
  3. Crush the cashew nuts
  4. Grate the Parmesan Cheese
  5. Place the salt into a pestle and mortar and add the wild garlic. Use the ‘friction’ of the salt to crush them together.
  6. Add the olive oil for a smooth paste, before adding the cheese and cashews and stirring in well.
  7. Pepper to taste.
Notes
Use as a spread on a rustic bread or as pesto for pasta. Keeps for around 3 days in the fridge. Top with edible Ramson flowers for prettiness.

 

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Four Thieves Vinegar

Healing VinegarFour Thieves Vinegar can be used both for food, and around the house for cleaning and decontaminating.  It can also be put in the bath or used medicinally.

Allegedly, Four Thieves Vinegar is so named after the four thieves who pillaged the homes of Plague victims but were not affected by the Plague themselves. When they were eventually captured, they would have been put to death for their looting, but were instead given their lives in return for their secret.  If you Google Four Thieves Vinegar, you’ll find a few variations on the ingredients. This is the one we use. It makes a pretty good salad dressing, if nothing else.

Four Thieves Vinegar
Recipe Type: Dressing, Cleaning
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Total time:
Ingredients
  • 1 Tablespoon each of: [br]
  • [url href=”http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dried-Lavender-flowers-200g-www-thespiceworks-co-uk/dp/B004DA9L8A” target=”_blank”]Lavender[/url]
  • [url href=”http://www.amazon.co.uk/Abbey-Botanicals-Dried-Sage-Herb/dp/B00AGWRDPW/” target=”_blank”]Sage[/url]
  • [url href=”http://www.amazon.co.uk/AbbeyBotanicals-Herbs-Thyme-Leaf-whole/dp/B002AK258I/” target=”_blank”]Thyme[/url]
  • [url href=”http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lemon-Balm-Love-Cleansing-150grms/dp/B004BAU2F8″ target=”_blank”]Lemon Balm[/url]
  • [url href=”http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hyssop-For-Protection-Cleansing-50grms/dp/B004BAZTR4/” target=”_blank”]Hyssop[/url]
  • [url href=”http://www.amazon.co.uk/Abbey-Botanicals-Peppermint-Dried-Loose/dp/B005WGKOAI/” target=”_blank”]Peppermint[/url]
  • 3- 5 Garlic cloves
  • 1 cup [url href=”http://www.amazon.co.uk/Raw-Health-Apple-Cider-Vinegar/dp/B004JBRVAI/” target=”_blank”]Organic Apple Cider Vinegar[/url]
Instructions
  1. Place the herbs in a large sterile jar and top with the cider vinegar.
  2. Cover tightly and leave in a cupboard for six weeks, till it’s well infused
  3. Strain off the herbs and garlic and use the vinegar as needed.

 

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Dandelion Fritters

20130504-184301.jpgI do so love Dandelions. Not only do they bring with them the promise of spring, of sunshine and of warmer weather, but they also provide a wonderful opportunity for getting outdoor with little people. My daughters love picking dandelions and ask if we can as soon as the sun peeks out in spring. We pop some water in the freezer, head out for an hour or so to pick dandelions, then come home and make fritters for dinner.

You can have them savoury with salt and pepper, and sweet, with lemon and sugar. Hold your dandelion by the green bit and eat the yellow, as you would with a strawberry. There’s nothing wrong with the green bit, it’s just a bit bitter.

IMG_1084

Dandelions don’t keep very long, so you need to cook them as soon as you get home. Once fried, eat them immediately.

Dandelions are high in loads of vitamins. Just for interest sake, a cup of dandelions contains:

Vitamin A 112%,

Vitamin C 32%,

Vitamin E
9%,

Vitamin K 535% of your daily requirements. So they’re pretty healthy, and a great way of getting good vitamins into yourself and children.

 

 

Dandelion Fritters
Recipe Type: Foraged Food, Fried
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
My children and I love foraging for Dandelions! It’s such a fun afternoon’s activity, involving them in and leading to dinner. Pop some water in the freezer before you go out, pick just what you’ll eat, pick at the flower as you don’t need the whole stem, and don’t eat much of the green bit (it’s bitter). Always soak dandelions in salted water for a while to get the bugs out and use the coldest water you can to make the batter.
Ingredients
  • 10 -15 Dandelion flowers per person trimmed so that there’s no bitter stalk, and washed
  • 1 medium egg
  • 225ml ice-cold water
  • 100g plain flour
  • Optional extras:
  • Lemon juice
  • Icing sugar
  • Mustard
  • Salt
  • Pepper
Instructions
  1. Beat the egg in a bowl and add the iced water. The water must be as cold as possible, as this prevents the batter from absorbing too much oil, keeping it light and crispy.
  2. Lightly mix in the flour with a fork and beat gently. Don’t worry too much about lumps.
  3. Dip the dandelions in the batter, and drop in hot oil. The oil should ideally be at 180C/350F for cooking dandelions; if the dandelions sink to the bottom of the oil, the temperature is too high.
  4. Fry till golden brown, then remove and place on paper towel
  5. For a sweet treat, drizzle lemon juice over, then dip in icing sugar. For a salty treat, dip in mustard, or our favourite, sprinkle over salt and pepper and enjoy!

Reposted from Diary of a First Child