New Menu at Handmade Burger Co, The Oracle, Reading

Handmade Burger Co has a new menu – and I was asked if I’d like to go to their restaurant at The Oracle, Riverside in Reading to try it out. (Of course I said yes). 

To be frank with you, as a family, whenever we have a burger craving we always pop down to Handmade Burger Co. We like the fact that you can tweak the burgers they have on offer to suit you – our girls prefer them without pepper, for example – and the chef is always happy to whip them up a plain burger. Want something gluten-free? Then they’ll give you a pile of coleslaw instead of the bun with your choice of burger. There are 40 or so burgers on offer there, and I’ve raved on here before about the old-fashioned chips they serve as well. So when I heard that they’d developed a new menu I was worried my favourite burgers had been replaced. They hadn’t. 

Macho Beef, Cheese and Bacon burger at Handmade Burger Co, Reading

New beef burgers on offer include the New York Deli, Mexican and The Macho Barbecue Beef Cheese and Bacon. There’s also a new Chicken Tikka Masala burger (I was tempted) and a Chicken Chorizo burger, and quite a few new vegetarian options (always good to see). There are also a range of sliders – choose between beef or chicken – three little mini burgers on brioche buns. 

Chicken Sliders at Handmade Burger Co, Reading

The Macho Barbecue Beef, Cheese and Bacon burger was thick and meaty – two burgers inside a brioche bun (you can have sourdough if you like though) with cheese and strips of bacon. It comes with a barbecue relish to finish it all off. The beef was full of flavour (no flat, pressed supermarket-style discs of beef here) and studded with chopped herbs. Just like a home-made burger. 

The chicken sliders included Sweet Chilli Chicken; Chicken Cheese and Bacon and a Smoky Barbecue Chicken. I’m always a bit worried with chicken breast used as the middle of a burger because they’re so difficult to cook so they’re still juicy but these really were. They’re also slightly charred from the grill, so their smoky flavour comes through all the sauces and condiments. Probably my favourite of all these was the sweet chilli slider. 

I went for the Three Cheese and Baby Leek burger – a vegetarian option – which comes covered in breadcrumbs and inbetween a split sourdough bun with lettuce, tomato and a gorgeous Bramley apple relish. It wasn’t overly cheesy and the sweetness of the leeks came through perfectly. The Bramley relish just finishes it all off – a beautiful burger and it won’t be the last time I’ll be going in there for one. 

Three Cheese and Baby Leek Burger with Bramley Apple Relish, Handmade Burger Co, Reading

A word about milkshakes: if chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream milkshakes aren’t enough, they’ve developed some premium shakes including Oreo, Mocha and Peanut butter and banana. The one you see here is the Oreo shake, blended until ice cold and frothy and served in a metal cup with an extra wide straw, so you can suck up the Oreo chunks. When you’ve got down to the bottom, ask for a spoon, like we did. 

I’ll admit it, I was a fan of handmade Burger Co before I went along to try the new menu. The staff are always happy to stop and chat a little bit, there’s never any drama and the burgers are always brilliant. You order at the till so you’re not trying to attract the attention of busy staff just to place your order. And you get to customise your burgers to your heart’s content. I was only pleased that with the new menu, it’s now even better. 

Handmade Burger Co is situated at The Riverside (on the cinema side) at The Oracle in Reading. 

Have you eaten at Handmade Burger Co? What did you think? What are your favourite menu items there? 

Are Saturated Fats Really That Bad for Us?

Saturated fat has been all over the news (again) this weekend. It’s all been about companies that make chocolate bars and also supermarkets promising to reduce the saturated fat content in everyday foods, to help save us all from heart disease. 

And, while health experts discuss the dangers of eating it, I’ve quite often found myself listening to them, with my head in my hands. 

Not because I’m worried about saturated fat. But because I worry they might be missing the point. 

I recently read a book. It’s called The Great Cholesterol Con by Malcolm Kendrick. And in it, Dr Kendrick puts forward his belief that we can, in fact, eat all the fat we want to – because, he says, heart disease is not caused by saturated fat or high levels of cholesterol in the blood. 

After reading this book, along with lots of articles online, I’m convinced that although saturated fat might have a part to play (I’m not a doctor, after all), it’s a large intake of refined carbohydrates and sugar that we probably should be watching. 

Pork belly – packed with saturated fat – (probably not that scary. Probably.)

Sugars and Carbohydrates in the Body 
It’s likely, that in the early years of human development, our diets weren’t very sugar or carb-rich. I can’t see Paleolithic man nipping out for a spaghetti carbonara and chocolate fudge cake on a Saturday afternoon. We evolved on a diet based largely on meat and fish (and foraged veggies and fruits) for about 2.3 million years, say the experts. 

Only fairly recently though (over the last 10-20,000 years or so) we started eating wheat – breads, pastas, cakes, biscuits – that sort of thing. So our diets changed and became more heavily dependent on grains and then later on, refined sugar.

But what happens when we eat refined carbohydrates and sugars? The body converts them to sugar. If they are not used immediately for energy, the body then stores it as fat. Saturated fat. 

It’s this bingeing on refined carbs and sugar (which is essentially treated by the body as the same thing) that I believe contributes more to obesity and heart disease than, say, a duck leg with veggies for your tea. A Swedish doctor has recently warned that eating too many refined carbohydrates and sugar could be linked to health problems like obesity and diabetes. So a chocolate company offering to reduce the saturated fat in a chocolate-coated, sugar-laden chocolate bar to save us all – while a step in a good direction – doesn’t really do it for me, I’m afraid. 

Verdict
I’m not saying that we should all start wolfing down lard and butter straight from the pack. That wouldn’t be good either. But perhaps we need a clearer understanding about how diets that are very high in carbs and sugar might be affecting our health.  

But it’s not just a question of eating more meat and fewer breads and sweets. Bacon, sausages and sliced meats can contain large (unnaturally occurring) amounts of saturated fat – not to mention possibly preservatives, flavourings, lots of salt and other things – so it would be a good idea to cut back on those too. And refined carbs and sugars don’t have to go out of the window completely – they just don’t need to form the basis of all of our meals.

Biochemist and Nutritionist Mary G Enig has said that there is ‘very little evidence’ that a diet low in saturated fats and cholesterol can ward off heart disease. Cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra stated in the British Medical Journal last week that the relationship between saturated fat and heart disease was a ‘myth‘ and other factors, such as sugar in the diet, were often overlooked by researchers. Sweden has also acted on new evidence that carbs and sugars could contribute to an increased risk of heart disease by advising the public to cut down on them. 

And what do we do? We get companies to reduce the saturated fat in chocolate bars. 

The Great Cholesterol Con on Amazon (affiliate link)

Would love to know what you think – do you agree with the government’s plan to reduce saturated fat in ready meals and chocolate bars? Do you eat saturated fats? Or do you avoid them like the plague?  

Announcing… The Comfort Bites Comfort Food Challenge

Link-ups and blog events are a great way of getting creativity going and kick-starting discussions about our favourite foods. And I’ve been thinking for a while that I’d like to start hosting one.

So here is…. The Comfort Bites Comfort Food Challenge *cue fanfare*

It’s really simple. All you have to do is blog a recipe, linking back to this page, using the event badge (above) in your post. It should be in keeping with the theme of the month, and must be some sort of comfort food to you. For example, it might remind you of something someone close to you makes you (or used to make you), a childhood memory, or just a favourite food you like to snuggle up with and eat when the rain is pouring down outside. Feel free to share your stories or connections to the recipe and why it’s comforting to you.

Please also share your creations by posting an image on the Blog’s Facebook page, Twitter or Instagram. Mention me @joromerofood or use the hashtag #comfortfoodchallenge and I’ll retweet any that I see. 

So let’s get started.
The theme for November’s Comfort Food Challenge is… PASTA

I thought we’d start with an ingredient that many people will consider good, old-fashioned comfort food. Remember your recipe can be gluten-free (use GF pasta if you like), vegetarian, vegan, meaty, cheesy – whatever you want to cook, as long as it’s a dish containing pasta. Use any kind of pasta you like – lasagne sheets, penne, fusilli or spaghetti – and obviously adorn it with whatever ingredients you want to.

The Rules:

• Please blog a pasta recipe, that is a comfort food to you, and email me with the link to the post, your name, and an image that I can use in the roundup, where I’ll also link back to you. Your blog post must link back to this page and include the event badge (above).
• All entries must be received by 28th November 2013.
• You can re-blog an old recipe if you like, but please ensure that you include the badge and links as above in your new post.
• Please don’t copy and paste recipes from cookbooks or elsewhere on the internet to enter – recipes must be your own. Please abide by copyright laws. 

I’ll be posting my entry soon!

Happy cooking! 

New Liberté Greek Style Yoghurts

You’ve seen the ads. Those ones where they delve into a tub of yoghurt and then tip the spoon upside down to show how thick it is. This one:

Well, I was asked if I’d like to receive some Liberté yoghurts to try, and I said yes. 

Strawberry Liberté yoghurt

I was sent a pack of lemon, strawberry and also a honey-flavoured yoghurt. They are thick and creamy, and probably about the same texture as my current favourite, Fage. At the bottom of each pot you also get some flavour. The lemon flavour was good – a bit like a sweet lemon curd, not too sharp – and the honey was quite a classic combination – I always eat yoghurt with honey nowadays. The strawberry flavour was our favourite though: nice and sweet and it ripples through the yoghurt as you eat. 

It seems that Liberté is being marketed as a low-fat, grown-up yoghurt, but my children polished off the rest of them before I could. I also couldn’t see anywhere on the pack that the yoghurts contained any good bacteria for your tum – that would be an added bonus if they did. 

Lemon Liberté yoghurt

Have you tried Liberté yoghurts? What did you think? 

Auto Immune Protocol: Comfort Bites Recipes and Where to Start

You might have heard me talking about the Auto Immune Protocol (AIP) recently. It’s a hardcore version of the Paleo diet, which eliminates not only grains and dairy but also nuts, seeds, nightshade vegetables and eggs (the whites are thought to trigger a flare up more than the yolks, which many people can reintroduce). 

All this is believed to help soothe inflammation in the body, and could therefore ease conditions like arthritis, psoriasis, digestive disorders and other auto immune diseases. It’ll also help you identify what your food triggers might be, once you start introducing foods back in, in a controlled way. It can be difficult to find comforting food to eat on the AIP so I’ve put together a list of my own AIP recipes and added some useful links where you can find more recipes and information too. 

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that even on a strict and very limited diet, you can still enjoy good, comforting food. I hope you like these recipes, do let me know what you think. 

Comfort Bites Auto Immune Protocol Recipes

Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner:

29 AIP Breakfast Ideas
This roundup has 29 ideas for AIP breakfasts… 

Ginger Chicken with Courgette ‘Noodles’
Ginger is great for calming down inflammation in the body and it’s thought that it aids digestion, too. I’ve made a stir-fry but used courgette ribbons in place of the usual wheat noodles. Clean, fragrant and delicious!

Ginger Chicken with Courgette ‘Noodles’

Slow Cooker Beef Cheek, Port and Bacon Stew
Beek cheek is quite a gelatinous meat, and needs long, slow cooking. If you’re cooking this in a casserole dish in the oven, up the beef stock to 500ml, clamp on a lid and cook in a 160ºC oven for about 3 hours until the meat is soft. Organ meats and slow-cook cuts are great for healing. 

AIP Cottage Pie
Yep, it’s beef but the mash on top is nightshade free and is actually made from parsnips and cauliflower. Real, gorgeous AIP comfort food!

Slow Cooker Garlic Lamb Shanks with Lemon Dressing
Soft, tender lamb shanks. Slow-roasted garlic. A citrussy lemon dressing. And all cooked in a slow cooker so you don’t have to think about it all day? 

Beetroot Salad with Garlic and Parsley
Fed up with eating just plain, cooked beetroot? Then try this salad, flavoured with garlic and parsley – the original recipe uses sherry vinegar but you can replace it with apple cider vinegar for strict AIP. 

Fragrant Herb and Chicken Coconut Soup
Based on a Thai curry, this soup is fragrant and warming but contains no chillies (they’re nightshades). Perfect for using up leftover roast chicken and quick to make, too. 

Fragrant Herb and Chicken Coconut Soup

Roasted Queen Squash with Sage
You tend to eat quite a bit of squash on the AIP, as it’s starchy and not a nightshade veggie. Use this method with any squash, or with pumpkin. Perfect with roast chicken or meat patties. Incorporate the leftovers into breakfast.

Bacon-Wrapped Chimichurri-Stuffed Chicken Breast
You can cool any leftovers and eat this with salad for lunch the next day. Inspired by my trip to Argentina, it contains proper, traditional chimichurri sauce. 

Pork, Sweet Potato and Red Onion Hash
A quick, effortless meal – perfect for any time of the day. I wanted to recreate the flavour of my favourite sausages (pre-paleo) so I added some mace and sage leaves to the mixture. One of my favourite dinners, you can also try it with other types of mince like turkey or beef. 

Slow Cooked Crockpot Pulled Pork Cheeks in Guinness
Pork cheeks are a nutritious and cheap cut of meat – I’ve slow-cooked them here in the crockpot of a slow cooker for a few hours in Guinness. The alcohol burns off over the long cooking time, so although there’s no alcohol in the AIP diet, most people will be able to tolerate this fine. 

Butternut Squash Fries
You do miss fries if you can’t eat white potatoes – but it just means you start trying to make them with other veggies. And these butternut squash fries are lovely, especially with a roast chicken alongside. 

Breakfast Pork and Leek Burgers
Not just for breakfast – eat them whenever you like, even once they’re cooled down as picnic/packed lunch food. I love them because they echo the flavours of one of my favourite conventional breakfast sausages. Flavoured with pork mince, chopped leeks and a pinch of mace. Beautiful.

Chicken, Coconut and Butternut Squash Curry (AIP + seed and nightshade spices)

This is a recipe for the next stages of your auto immune protocol diet, not for the elimination phase. It contains seed and nightshade-based spices so you can make this dish if you find you’ve introduced them back into your diet and they haven’t affected you. I’ve included it here though as it has lots of natural fat from the coconut, vitamins A, C and fibre from the butternut and lots of soothing fresh coriander (cilantro to my American friends). 

Paleo AIP-friendly Lamb Biryani

This recipe uses cauliflower for the rice and an AIP-friendly spice blend from the Feed Me Rachel blog. A great way of using up leftover roasted lamb, too. 

Persian Watercress, Strawberry, Chicken and Bacon Salad
Sweet, salty, crunchy and soft. So good for lunch or a light dinner – you can also make it as a packed lunch and take with you when you’re out and about. 

Autoimmune Paleo Meatloaf
A meatloaf recipe that complies with the AIP – no egg and no other binders – just onions, minced beef and herbs. Oh, and some bacon. (Don’t forget the bacon). 

12-hour crockpot (slow cooker) chicken broth
Broth is healing and restoring and you’ll eat (and drink) lots of it on the auto immune protocol. This slow-cooker recipe takes the effort out of it, and the long cooking time means that you get all the goodness from the bones, too. 

Autoimmune Paleo Argentine Puchero
This adaptation of the traditional Argentine stew uses sweet potatoes in place of the white potatoes, along with butternut squash and cabbage. It’s made with beef shin – a full-flavoured, tender, slow-cook cut of beef. 

Autoimmune Courgette ‘Bolognese’
What do you do when you have a Bolognese pasta craving and you’re on the autoimmune protocol? Well, you make this. It has a rich, ‘no-mato’ sauce as a base and uses lamb mince, bacon and courgette (zucchini) ribbons for the ‘pasta’. Finished with a scattering of fresh basil leaves for sweetness. 

Autoimmune Paleo Meatballs
No egg, no breadcrumbs – no banned spices or herbs. Turns out they’re not necessary for cracking good meatballs. These AIP meatballs are great – just serve them with a no-mato sauce. 

Thai-Inspired Turkey Meatball Curry
Coconut milk, fragrant lemongrass, coriander leaf and turmeric all combine here to make a soothing, creamy curry. Probably my favourite dinner. Ever. 

Argentine Pollo Provenzal
I ate this in Argentina – roasted chicken portions with garlic, lemon and parsley – gorgeous. 

Tuna and Basil Cucumber Bites
A quick lunch, appetiser or party food – just tuna, avocado, basil and lemon on a cucumber slice. Easy peasy.

Pork Liver and Bacon Pâté
Organ meats are fantastically good for you – and a great way to incorporate them in your diet is in a tasty pâté. I usually eat this either as a snack or for breakfast, with a quick salad and some gherkins. 

29 AIP BBQ and Grilling Tips
I love barbecues, because it’s one of the sure-fire ways I know I can actually eat AIP with no compromises. Here’s a roundup I made of 29 ideas and tips for keeping your barbecue AIP. 

AIP Meattzza con Palmitos
The AIP take on a pizza – minced beef topped with basil leaves, sliced palm hearts, no-mato sauce and olives. Perfect. 

Celeriac Fries

Craving potato fries but can’t because they’re nightshades? Then don’t worry. Make these. They’re crisp on the outside and achingly tender and fluffy on the inside. They also go especially well with lamb.

Slow Cooked Lamb Shanks with Paleo Mint Sauce

The good old British Sunday Roast. Lamb with mint sauce. Except the stuff you buy in jars has quite a bit of sugar in it. Here’s my AIP-compliant version. 

Roasted Prawns with Smoked Garlic, Parsley and Lime

This is a fantastic recipe for a date, or just during the summer months. Roasting the prawns keeps them super-succulent – and will give you a good dose of nutritious things like zinc and omega-3 fatty acids. 

Barbecued Poussins
Flavoured with lemon, parsley and garlic, these little tiny chickens are wonderful grilled on the barbecue. Reading this in the depths of winter? Then marinade and roast ’em in the oven. 

Turkey, Bacon, Fig and Raspberry Salad with Pomegranate Molasses Dressing
Pomegranate molasses is one of the natural sweeteners we can have on AIP – and it has a sharp tartness as well as a super-sweetness at the same time. It works brilliantly for dressings, and its sharp, fruity flavour works well with bacon. What’s not to love? 




Desserts:

Quick Bramley ‘Apple Pie’ Pudding with Cold Coconut Cream
Cooked apples are easy on the digestion and I’ve added just a hint of cinnamon and a little honey for sweetness. They pair really well with whipped coconut cream, and remind me of the flavours of an apple pie. 

How to Make Whipped Coconut Cream
A dairy-free alternative to whipped cream, this is great with any fruits or berries. And it’s simple to make. 

Autoimmune Coconut and Banana Pancakes

You don’t need to go without pancakes on AIP – these are ideal as a sweet treat and fully AIP compliant – but make them in moderation just because of the natural sugars in the fruit and in the drizzle of maple syrup that’s served alongside. 

Healthy Coconut and Raspberry Lollies

I’ve used vanilla to flavour these lollies – packed with nutrients from the raspberries and good fats from the coconut cream. I believe that although vanilla is classed as a seed and therefore not allowed on AIP – many people can tolerate vanilla extract. You could always omit the vanilla if you wanted to. 

Coconut, Strawberry and Vanilla Ice Cream
Completely dairy-free and refined sugar-free: AIP ice cream. 

Blueberry Cream Cups
A coconut and blueberry kind of mousse topped with whipped coconut cream and warm blueberries and their dark juices. Need I really say more? 

Roasted Cherry Ice Cream Sundae
Yep, it’s AIP compliant – and roasting the cherries intensifies the flavour. A winner for a special occasion. 

AIP Strawberries and Cream Milkshake
This works either as a drink, smoothie or a sort of dessert. You get that same flavour you’d get with a conventional strawberries and cream milkshake – but this one’s made from real strawberries and coconut milk. My kids love it. 

Looking for more of my AIP compliant recipes? Then check out my book, which has over 30 recipes that are all AIP compliant – such as AIP fudge bars, Slow-Roasted Pork Belly with Rosemary and Sea Salt, and AIP ‘ice cream’. It’s called Simple Autoimmune Paleo Comfort Food and it’s available on the Amazon Kindle store, worldwide. 

Resources for the Auto Immune Protocol: 

These are links to blogs that I’ve found really helpful, if you’re new to the AIP then these are a good place to start:

The Paleo Mom – written by Sarah Ballantyne, this blog deals with some of the science behind the paleo diet and the auto-immune protocol. Many of the recipes are straight paleo, but there are some that are AIP friendly too. A great read if you want to understand what’s actually going on in your body and why certain foods can trigger auto immune disease flare-ups. Sarah has a degree in medical biophysics and has written two books.  

Auto Immune Paleo – written by Mickey Trescott, this blog is all about AIP. Mickey has published an ebook, but she’s also campaigning to get her book published in print, too. The book, The Auto Immune Paleo Cookbook, has many recipes that are AIP-friendly, including a cheesecake-style dessert! 

Eileen at Phoenix Helix also runs a weekly AIP Recipe Roundtable where bloggers link up AIP-Friendly recipes – a great place for inspiration. If you’re beginning to think food on the auto immune protocol is boring, this will give you lots of new ideas. 

Have you used diet to manage your auto immune disease? How are you getting on? And do you fancy trying any of these recipes? 

Note: Always check with your doctor before starting any diet.

Tackling Leftovers: Rice

We’ve all done it, cooked too much rice for our dinner and ended up ether slinging it in the bin or covering it with cling film, storing in the fridge and then, er, slinging it in the bin after a couple of days. But did you know that here in the UK we throw away 64,000 tonnes of rice per year? This amounts to £150 million worth of rice, thrown away, every year. It’s a heck of a lot of money. 

Avoid cooking too much rice
So what can you do? Well firstly, try to avoid cooking too much in the first place. Measure out the rice before you cook it – most labels suggest about 75g per serving – less for small children. No more guess-work, no more accidentally tipping more rice into the saucepan, and it’ll be on your shopping list less often, saving you money. 

Preparing and Storing Rice
Although rice looks innocent enough, with its bouncy, fluffy grains, you do have to take care when preparing and storing it. Here are a few tips:

Cool the rice quickly – don’t leave leftover rice near a warm oven or cover it while it’s still hot. Get it cooled, covered and in the fridge within an an hour of you preparing it. 

Use any leftover rice within 24 hours. Uncooked rice contains spores of a bacterium called Bacillus cereus. If you leave cooked rice at room temperature, these spores can develop and if you eat the rice, you could end up with a bad tum. That’s why it’s also important to reheat rice thoroughly, until piping hot, and don’t reheat it twice. It might sound strange, but if you’ve had an upset stomach after visiting the takeaway, it might be the rice – and not the sweet and sour chicken – that’s to blame. Takeaways often cook large batches of rice in advance and then stir-fry (reheat) portions as you ask for them. So in this case, the rice has already been reheated at least once by the time you tuck in, and if you then reheat takeaway leftovers the next day, you’re increasing your risk again. 

Stuck for ideas for rice leftovers? Try these tasty ideas:

Wholegrain Basmati Rice with Kale and Cashew Nuts
Bill Granger’s Rice Salad – with olives and red onion
Home-Made Arancini – using up leftover risotto
Stir-Fried Brown Basmati Rice  – with mushrooms ad soya beans
Tom Yum Fried Rice with Oriental Mushrooms
Burritos – fold leftover rice into tortilla wraps with beans, meat, veggies and salad

And you can makes cakes with leftover rice, too!
Chocolate Rice Cakes, from Sydney blog My Kitchen Stories

How do you use leftover rice? 

Feed the Beast Pop-Up Cake Shop Opens This Week

If you’re familiar with gruesome cakes, you’ll probably be aware of Miss Cakehead and the amazing Eat Your Heart Out pop-up cake shops that she organises. Last year we had the anatomically correct exhibition which featured fungus-infected toenail cookies, cakes showing the cell structure of STDs and vodka jelly in petri dishes. We’ve also had The Depressed Cake Shop, which helped raised awareness of mental illness, and featured ‘Black Dog’ macarons and ‘Misfortune’ cookies. Well, this week, another one opens: Feed The Beast. 

Miss Cakehead with the Kraken Mouth Cake

The event is supported by Kraken Rum and will be held at the Rag Factory just off London’s Brick Lane between 25th-27th October from 11.30am-6.30pm (over-18’s only). You’ll see the (now famous) interactive maggot extraction cupcakes – complete with mango-flavoured ‘maggots’ which are removed before the cakes are eaten. 

Maggot Extraction Cupcakes by Twisted Fondant

Tentacle Cake by Conjurer’s Kitchen

There’s also a Kraken mouth cake, created by Heartache Cakes, with 100 individual hand-made chocolate teeth, as well as lots of other beast-themed cakes created by industry experts, as well as ‘wounded hands’ liqueur chocolates.

Kraken Mouth Cake by Heartache Cakes

They’ll also be a variety of rum cocktails available, and you can watch a video of the Kraken Rum Edible Autopsy while you’re there, too. 

For more details check out the Feed the Beast website, follow @Miss_Cakehead on Twitter  or on Facebook. 

20-Minute Macaroni Cheese

Consider this. It’s Friday. You’re tired, and the kids are complaining that they’re hungry. You want something comforting and delicious but quick to make too – on the table in 20 minutes. Well, I’ve got it for you. It’s a super-quick macaroni cheese *cue wild applause*.

But before I get carried away I have to say that I got the idea for this mac ‘n’ cheese from Jamie Oliver. In his recipe in Cook With Jamie, he does away with the need for floury béchamel sauces and long baking in the oven. I’ve modified it, so it spends less time in the oven, you spend less time at the stove and also so there’s less washing up (always good). I’ve limited the ingredients too, so as long as you have some macaroni in the cupboard and a few cheeses in the fridge, you’re most of the way there. By all means add herbs, chopped ham, grilled bacon – whatever you have to hand – if you wish. This recipe is also great for those who need to eat gluten-free – as there is no flour in the sauce, you can just use gluten-free macaroni pasta. 

20-Minute Macaroni Cheese (Inspired by Jamie Oliver’s Macaroni Cheese recipe)
Serves 4

Ingredients
300g macaroni (use a gluten free variety if you need to)
250g tub mascarpone cheese
25g Parmesan, grated 
125g ball of mozzarella

Method
Boil the macaroni until it’s al dente – it will finish cooking in the oven. Drain the pasta well (reserving  about 3 tablespoons of the starchy cooking water), and flick the oven on to 220ºC. 

Tip the macaroni back into the pan you cooked it in, along with the reserved water and stir in the mascarpone. Grate in three-quarters of the Parmesan cheese, stirring to mix well. Taste and season if it needs it (the Parmesan is often quite salty and for my children, this is often enough). Tip the whole lot into an ovenproof dish and tear up the mozzarella ball, scattering it over the top of the macaroni. Finish by grating over the remaining Parmesan. Slide the dish into the hot oven, and bake for 5-7 minutes, until a light golden cheesy crust has formed over the top. You can finish it under the grill if you prefer it darker. 

Allow to cool only ever so slightly and serve. 

Prosciutto Crisps (Paleo, Gluten-Free)

The thing is, with Bonfire Night and Christmas on its way, you might be looking for an alternative to wheat or oat-based crackers for your guests to nibble on. So why not make meaty Prosciutto Crisps? 

Great with cheese, avocado (or guacamole even), perhaps also some patés, houmous and, well lots of things, they take just a couple of minutes to make in a dry non-stick frying pan. You could also use them as a side for soup or serve with just about anything. Break them up and crumble into a salad, too (perfect for dipping into a boiled, egg, I might add). 

This idea came about when I realised I had no bacon in the fridge and decided to cook up a mixed grill for tea one night. I grabbed the Prosciutto out of the pack and decided to heat that up instead, to go with the eggs. And so we ate Prosciutto Crisps with our dinner.

And when you dry-fry Prosciutto, something really magical happens. You watch as the wafer-thin slice of ham starts to pucker and shrink as the fat around it melts away, leaving a crisp with a really intense flavour and crunchy texture. Here’s how to do it. 

Prosciutto Crisps

Heat a non-stick, dry frying pan on the hob – you don’t want a raging heat, just a medium heat will do the job. Peel the Prosciutto from its wrapper and lay each slice down very gently, flat onto the pan. Within a few seconds it should start to shrink, darken and crisp up. After a minute or two, flip it over and cook on the other side. When crisp, remove to a board and leave to cool slightly before serving. 

How to Make Whipped Coconut Cream (Dairy-Free, Auto Immune Protocol,Paleo)

If you’re on a special diet, and you can’t eat dairy, you’ll be pleased to know that coconut cream whips up very nicely into a fluffy, cold cloud of deliciousness that you can eat alongside fruits, pies and cakes.        

And it’s easy to do. Let me show you how. 

First, put your unopened carton of coconut cream (not ‘creamed coconut’, that’s something different and usually contains grainy bits) into the fridge and leave there overnight. Don’t shake it, don’t move it about too much, don’t play ‘catch’ with it, just put it in the fridge. 

When you’re ready to eat the next day, snip open the carton and tip upside down over a bowl, squeezing gently. You might find a little liquid trickles out – catch this and then drain it away. Squeeze the carton and the thick coconut cream should pour out slowly. Give it a brief whip with a fork, to fluff it up – it should be stiff, just like whipped double cream, but with that lovely coconut flavour and sweetness. Serve spoonfuls alongside your favourite desserts. 

How would you use whipped coconut cream in a recipe? I like mine with my Bramley ‘apple pie’ Pudding. 

A Cupcake for Breast Cancer Awareness Month

55,000 people are diagnosed with breast cancer each year – and its not just women that are affected – 400 of these people are men. And when I discovered that this month is Breast Cancer Awareness Month I wanted to do something to help. 

It’s often said that cancer affects one in three of us – if not us personally then someone close to us. I’ve been directly affected by breast cancer, losing my grandmother at a fairly young age to the disease, when I was a teenager. When she was diagnosed, there wasn’t the publicity about it as there is now. As I understand it, she felt a lump in her breast one day but dismissed it, thinking it would go away. It never did. Thanks to the work of the various cancer charities, there’s so much information available to anyone worried or affected by all types of cancer, and they constantly encourage us to check ourselves and report any changes to our doctor. I like to think that if my Nan had been diagnosed today, she would have had a better chance of survival. All because of important research, increased publicity and the support given to people by these charities. 

So I made a cake. A special one. The cake is chocolate, with a strawberry inside. When you cut into it it looks a bit like a heart, as well as taste blimmin’ delicious. Each cake is topped with pale pink fondant, and a slightly darker pink ribbon, resembling the breast cancer ribbon worn by so many people who support breast cancer charities and raise awareness of the disease. 

Pink Chocolate Cupcakes with a Strawberry Surprise
Makes 12. 
Ingredients
120g softened, salted butter
120g golden (unrefined) caster sugar
2 eggs
25g cocoa powder (I use Bourneville)
1 tsp vanilla essence
120g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder

250g white fondant (ready to roll) icing
a few drops pink food colouring
12 small strawberries

Method
First, mix together the butter and sugar until fluffy. Crack in the eggs and then the vanilla and cocoa powder. Give the whole thing a good mix together and when smooth, fold in the flour and baking powder. Divide between 12 cupcake cases and bake at 200ºC for 18-20 minutes until springy to the touch. Cool completely. (Don’t attempt to start the next stage until the cakes are fully cooled – while warm they have a tendency to crumble apart, so it’s definitely worth waiting for this.)

Once the cakes have cooled, take a small, sharp knife and chisel a triangular-shaped hole into the top and centre of the cupcake. Remove the piece of cake and very gently ease a washed and fully-dried strawberry into the hole. Cut the top of the strawberry if it sticks out, so it is flush with the top of the cake. 

To make the icing, knead the fondant until smooth and pliable, adding 2-3 drops of pink food colouring as you go. Once you have a uniform, pink fondant dust a board with a little icing sugar and roll out to about 3-4mm thick. Using an up-turned glass or a cookie cutter, stamp out circles and place these over the top of your strawberry-filled cupcakes. With the remaining fondant, colour this a shade or two darker with the pink colouring and roll out into a narrow strip. Cut sections of the strip and twist to form a little ribbon-shape. Gently place on top of the cupcake and serve. 

If you’d like to donate to this worthwhile cause, visit the Breast Cancer Care website for more details. Charities such as this one rely on donations to provide information and support to those affected by the disease. 

Slow Cooker Beef Cheek, Port and Bacon Stew (Paleo, Auto Immune Protocol, Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free)

There’s a bit of a ‘thing’ about cuts of meat like oxtail and beef cheeks. They’re very trendy at the moment and we all know we should eat them but you don’t often see people queuing up for them at the butcher, and they’re not widely available in supermarkets. 

But they’re very cheap cuts of meat, containing important nutrients like collagen and they’re also full of flavour. And because they’re quite tough, they do need long, slow cooking before they turn meltingly tender and soft. 

I’ve left the dousing of flour out in this recipe, to make it suitable for people eating gluten-free. But if you want a thicker sauce (and if you can eat gluten), coat the beef chunks in a tablespoon or so of seasoned plain flour before browning in the pan. Because I’ve not added any extra stock, the vegetables and the meat make their own juices and provide the sauce, along with the port which adds richness. If using flour, you might want to add a little beef stock. 

Just one more note – although alcohol isn’t allowed on the auto immune protocol, it’s generally accepted that it’s ok to cook with it.  

Slow Cooker Beef Cheek, Port and Bacon Stew

Serves 6-8 

Ingredients

half a teaspoon duck fat

2 chunky garlic cloves, chopped

1 small onion, peeled and chopped

3 rashers unsmoked, streaky bacon, chopped

1 leek, washed, trimmed and cut into chunks

2 carrots

2 beef cheeks, chopped into bite-sized pieces

Splash of port, or red wine

small bunch of thyme

pinch of salt

Method

Melt the duck fat in a large frying pan and fry the garlic, onion, bacon, leek and carrots until the onions have begun to soften. Scrape half of the veg into the bottom of the slow cooker’s crockpot and the rest into a bowl. Add a little more fat to the pan if you need it, and brown the beef cheeks for just a few minutes. Tip this into the crockpot on top of the vegetables and then scrape the reserved vegetables over the top. Add a splash of port to the pan and increase the heat, using a wooden or silicone spoon to de-glaze the pan. Tip this over the beef in the slow-cooker, along with the thyme and add a pinch of salt. Replace the lid and leave on high for 4-6 hours, or until the beef cheeks are meltingly tender. 

Cobnut Fudge

Do you know what cobnuts are? Well, they’re a type of hazelnut and they grow here, in Britain – in Kent, to be exact. And as nuts, they pair really well with chocolate. So when I was asked if I might like to try a little handmade chocolate and Kentish cobnut fudge, of course I said yes. 

The fudge is made at Potash Farm, near Sevenoaks in Kent. It’s sweet, slightly crumbly and comes in generous, dark blocks. There are just enough cobnuts in the fudge to be able to taste them and give the fudge a little crunch, but for me personally, it would be the icing on the cake if there were a few more. 

There’s nothing weird in the ingredients either – just sugar, evaporated milk, Kentish cobnuts, cream, condensed milk and butter, cocoa and vanilla. 

It would be an unusual gift and draws on the popularity of the British Food movement that’s happening right now. Perfect for a Christmas pressie too. Check out more at www.kentishcobnuts.com. 

Have you ever tried cobnuts in a recipe? What did you think of them? 

Review: Cosmo, Reading

If you know your way around Reading, you’ll find Cosmo – a new(ish) all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant – on Friar Street, more or less opposite to WHSmith. For those that don’t know Reading so well, get onto Friar Street and just look for the queue of people snaking out onto the pavement at about 11.55am. They’ll be queuing outside Cosmo.

My first advice if you plan to eat at Cosmo is to book first. You can then glide right past the queues and into the restaurant before everyone else comes pouring in. Our server said that although it’s busy at lunchtimes (and it was), in the evening you really do need to book a table. 

black pepper chicken/sweet and sour chicken at Cosmo

Once seated, you order your drinks and are then given full-reign of the 150-or-so dishes on offer within the restaurant. You can choose Thai, Chinese, Mexican, English, Italian, Japanese, and Indian (don’t miss this – it’s round the corner at the back of the restaurant) – and you can go up as many times as you want. Although we were told that the full range of dishes isn’t out at lunchtimes, there was really plenty to choose from. I opted for Chinese noodles (lovely – dark, thin and full of flavour), along with some sweet and sour chicken and also some black pepper chicken. The chicken was moist and tender. My husband opted for some mini spring rolls and crispy prawns with his noodles, although these had the shell on underneath the batter so required a bit of DIY-peeling, but nothing too major. 

noodles, spring rolls and crispy prawns at Cosmo, Reading

The dishes are mostly served in lidded containers, which I presumed were heated, but we found the food just the right side of warm, and we were there for when they opened. I reckon this probably got worse as people forgot to replace the lids after filling their plates, but if there was some way of keeping the food hotter I think it would be a good thing.

I don’t usually go for the buffet-style ‘all you can eat’ restaurants – but I found benefits with it here. Firstly, you can eat there on special diets. Gluten free? Then choose rice instead of bread. Low-carb? Fill your plate with meat and veggies. No one’s going to look or question you, and you don’t need to go through the whole thing of modifying the set menu with your server.  So that was a good thing. Secondly, you don’t have to wait. Take your seat, order your drink and GO. We were in and out of there in about 40 minutes, and we filled our plates twice and had pudding too. 

As for the environment, I’d say it’s great if you just want a quick lunch or if you’re having a party. But it wouldn’t be my choice for a quiet or more intimate meal. Everyone hurriedly milled about with heaped plates and as soon as they’d finished, they were up again for more. It was quite loud, and where we were seated we were fairly close to the couples either side of us. But as I said, there are occasions where you’d want a busy, vibrant atmosphere like that – quick lunches, parties and something for the kids.

The staff were great. They were attentive, and as soon as they see you’re on to pudding they politely ask if you’d like a coffee. You leave your used plates on the table and they take them away while you’re going up for more. Kids love it at Cosmo, because they get to eat noodles, sausage and chips, curry and spring rolls – all on the same plate. 

At a lunchtime rate of £7.99 each for as much as you can eat (there’s an allocated time slot otherwise people would stay there all day) it’s cheap. And I can see why it’s so popular. The food was OK – if they could find a way of keeping it hotter that would be better – but it was fine. You can eat quickly, you don’t have to wait, and you eat exactly what and how much you want. The staff are attentive and do a good job of keeping everything running smoothly – there’s always someone hovering around if you need them. Kids love it, too. Would I go again? Probably I would, with the children. They’d find it really fun. But for a more intimate meal, it wouldn’t be my first choice.   

Price: 9/10
Service: 9/10
Food: 7/10
Atmosphere: 6/10

Cosmo is at 35-38 Friar Street, Reading RG1 1DX. For more information on the menu, prices and opening hours check out the Cosmo Restaurants website. 

We dined at Cosmo as their guests.