Comfort Food

 

You may have noticed that I can't stop putting crumb toppings on everything since making Nigel Slater's baked fish with a Parmesan Crumb topping recently. (page 220 of Real Food)

I think the best thing so far was a pasta bake made from left over chicken tagine. Mixed with cooked penne pasta, popped into an oven proof dish then topped with caramelised onions, garlic, grated Parmesan and wholemeal bread crumbs, seasoned and combined with olive oil (or you can use melted butter). Baked in a moderate oven for twenty minutes or so, until piping hot and the crumb golden brown and crunchy. Delicious served with spinach puree made from cooked spinach and garlic, seasoned, then mixed with a little Greek yoghurt, and a peppery watercress salad. 

The weather has been mad. Snow, sun, rain, fog, showers, rainbows. We'd go to bed after a sunny day and wake the next morning to thick fog. Or the shadow of big flakes falling, that made me want to just stand there with my  head bent back looking straight up into the sky to see where they were all coming from. That sky just goes on and on...

I blame the weather for this recent carbohydrate craving. I also blame my Lemon Poppy Seed Bun recipe...I wonder if poppy seeds are addictive? Or wether it's just when they are warm from the oven. I'm not a massive cake fan but I can't resist these moist little buns and wolf them down two at a time...not good...

To make a dozen of my Lemon Poppy Seed Buns you will need:

• 8oz/150g SR flour
• 2oz/50g ground almonds
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 7oz/200g softenend butter
• 7oz/200g unrefined caster sugar
• 4 beaten eggs
• Vanilla paste or extract
• The juice and zest of half a lemon
• Poppy seeds, about a couple of tbs.

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180c
2. Line a muffin tin with twelve paper cake cases
3. Put all the dry ingredients into a large baking bowl. Including the poppy seeds. Add until it looks as though you have the right proportion.
4. Add the eggs and vanilla paste and mix well.
5. Finally add the lemon juice and zest, combine well and beat for a couple of minutes.
6. Spoon the mixture into the muffin cases, dividing as equally as possible.
7. Bake for about twenty five minutes until the muffins are well risen and golden brown. I would check after fifteen or twenty.
8. Leave to cool for a few minutes on a cake rack

These are lovely and moist and tangy and very, very more-ish...

And in-between the cake and crumbs, we discovered a small Moroccan cafe with traditional music and low banquet seats and big floor cushions. We drank Moroccan peppermint tea and ate spicy Harira soup with flat brown bread. Wandered into The People's Supermarket a local co-operative and planned to find out more.  I ordered seeds for edible flowers from here and this custom made skirt form an Etsy shop. 

...and now I'm listening to the weather warnings for the weekend to come and wondering if we'll be able to get away to visit family as planned...

...hope you have a good one and that your plans don't get snowed or rained off either....

...unless you want them to be...

debx