You may have read my previous comments on breakfast (Pudding for Breakfast, October 2012), my tiring of cereal and looking for alternatives.  This situation reared its head again late last year when our chickens slowed down on their usually reliable egg laying.  I believe they need a certain amount of light each day in order to be productive and so, suffering from some sort of avian SAD, the girls were no longer managing their full daily quota.  My boiled egg breakfast was put on hold and an emergency replacement had to be found.

Enter my granola which I used to make and had rather forgotten about.  Crunchy, nutty, seedy and oaty it has zipped to the top of the hit parade once more and even, with the addition of dried cranberries, featured as our Christmas Breakfast.  On top of Greek yogurt with or without a chopped banana it is a rocking start to the day.  I feel happily full until lunchtime and even better, the whole family love it.  That said my son has it without nuts and my daughter has it without seed or nuts.

Whilst it is undeniably a little sweet, it isn’t loaded with refined sugars, nor with salt or preservatives (and other unknowns) so it must score pretty high on the healthy scale.  We have kept the dried cranberries that denoted it as our Christmas Granola but you could easily substitute raisins or chopped dried apricots.  The seed and nut combination below is what I use but as ever, you can customise this to your tastes.   One more thing, there seem to be various grades of maple syrup, one of the cheaper ones would be fine here.

Granola

2 tablespoons vegetable or light olive oil

100ml maple syprup

3 tablespoons runny honey

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

300g rolled oats

50g sunflower seeds

50g pumpkin seeds

100g nuts (I use part chopped hazelnuts, part chopped or flaked almonds)

20g desiccated coconut

50g dried cranberries

Preheat the oven to 150.  Mix the first eight ingredients thoroughly in a bowl.  Spread over two baking sheets and put in the oven for 10 minutes.  Remove from the oven, split the coconut between the two and give it all a good mix.  Return to the oven for a further 10 minutes.  Once golden, remove and allow to cool.  Add the cranberries and put into an airtight jar or tin.

I am always pretty excited by the New Year.  Rather like the feeling of opening a new book, clean and fresh, not knowing what is in store but with the hope of something fulfilling.  Of course Spring, which I love, is a while away but I know it is out there and I am already looking forward to the new green leaves, the tiny shoots and buds and a bit more sun.

In the same way that I don’t know what the new year holds, I don’t know whether this January will be the one when I actually do lose a few pounds.  Although I only had two slices of Christmas cake and five or six mince pies, some of my clothes are feeling a little snugger than they were.  To the point in fact that a pair of jeans literally fell apart whilst I was wearing them last week (sitting on the sofa in case you wonder, not doing anything strenuous).  So if ever there was a hint from my body to me, this was it.

What I do know however is that I won’t be following some diet that restricts me to four bananas a day and nothing tomorrow, or only protein one day and vegetables the next.  I want to eat food that is healthy and delicious but relatively normal and also, family inclusive.  I can’t be doing with one thing for me and another for the children.  Surely it is good for us all to indulge in more crunchy, colourful salads, vegetables in a way we all like them (easier said than done chez May) and fruity puddings.

First on my list then is this zingy carrot salad that will awaken any tastebuds feeling jaded after the party season.  It is raw, fresh and crunchy, quick and cheap to make and deeply moreish.  Having made some today I am now going to roast a chicken for supper so we can then have cold chicken and carrot salad tomorrow for lunch and I am already looking forward to it.

Carrot Salad

2 large carrots, around 300g, peeled and cut into matchsticks

2 tablespoons light olive oil

Juice of one lemon

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 red chilli (seeded if you don’t want it too hot)

Small clove of garlic, finely chopped

Good pinch of salt

1/2 teaspoon caster sugar

1 chopped spring onion

Large handful of parsley and/or rocket chopped

In a medium bowl mix the oil, lemon juice, cumin, salt, sugar, chilli and garlic together.  Add the carrot, spring onion and parsley and/or rocket and give it a good stir.  Leave for half an hour before eating stirring several times.  Taste in case you need a squeeze more lemon or seasoning.   Serves 2-3.

Could this be the Christmas Cocktail?  After the picture above was taken the glass had to be almost prized from my hand such is my delight in the Sloe Vespa.  Should you be in possession of a bottle of sloe gin then you are half way to this delicious cocktail which is simply a dash of that topped up with super chilled prosecco.  It is the perfect drop to sip anytime it is cold outside and the fire is lit and is also a marvellous Christmas drink.

I found the sweet little quarter bottle of Prosecco in Waitrose and it makes two glasses of roughly the amount you see above.  What with all the shopping, wrapping and cooking to be done over the weeks ahead, I think a glass of this could be Santa’s little helper…..

Now for a non-alcoholic but just as delicious number.  Equally at home every day or sparkling at a party – a Pomegranate Fizz.  This is deeply lemony and tangy with a slight floral air about it.   Better than I make it sound, very drinkable and absolutely worth a try.  Pour a small amount of pomegranate molasses into a tumbler and add a little sparkling water.  Give it a good stir, the PM is quite treacly in texture and this mixing incorporates it with the water.  Top up the glass with more sparkling, some ice and if you are feeling particularly festive you could add a few pomegranate seeds or better still, put them with the water in the ice trays before freezing.

Christmas Biscotti and Snowflake Cookies ready for School Christmas Fair.

These biscotti are crunchy and fabulous and extremely useful to have in a tin.  They go perfectly with a cup of coffee and are just the ticket around Christmas for those of you not so keen on the endless array of mincemeat treats.  You can customise the biscotti to your own tastes but I couldn’t resist the red, white and green combination of dried cranberries, white chocolate and pistachios – it is this colourful trio which makes them Christmas Biscotti.  By all means leave out any of the above if they are not to your liking, I omitted the nuts when I made these for our school fair.

These would make a very elegant accompaniment to coffee after dinner, perhaps with a glass of Vin Santo into which to dip them.  Adding a bowl of clementines with their glossy leaves still attached and some big fat dates would make this suitably Christmassy.

100g caster sugar

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

125g plain flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

A pinch of salt

25g white chocolate chips

25g dried cranberries

25g pistachios

Preheat oven to 180. Whisk the sugar and egg together, add the vanilla, flour, baking powder and salt and mix well.  Finally gently fold in the chocolate, cranberries and pistachios.   Form the dough into an oval log and put on a parchment lined tray.  Bake for 25 minutes then turn the oven down to 160, cool for 5 minutes, cut into slices and put these slices back onto the tray and bake for a further 10 minutes, turning once.  Makes about 20.

My granny had an orange Tupperware for biscuits which usually contained Nice biscuits (Nice you note, rather than nice).  I wasn’t very keen on the container nor on the contents but always forced one down in the way that children seem unable to turn down a biscuit.  Now that I think about it, biscuits in the 70’s were not what they are today.

Bourbons, pink wafers, custard creams, Rich Tea, digestives, gingersnaps. Then there were Garibaldi, exotically named and invitingly glazed but always mouth puckeringly dry.  Viscounts with their pat of mint cream, a real treat as foil wrapped almost counted as confectionery.  Oh and those hefty rectangular shortbread bricks which invariably came in a tartan packet.   We weren’t exactly spoilt for choice back then.

Now however, biscuits practically take up an entire aisle in the supermarket.  All the above remain, time will not wither us etc. but there are now hundreds of newcomers from the white chocolate dipped cranberry beauty to the extraordinary pencil thin Mikado.  There are Belgian chocolate dipped wafers, American Oreo’s and various French sables and galettes.   For the purposes of research you understand I tasted a few old favourites, Breakaway – the chocolate didn’t seem as thick and am I imagining it or are they smaller than they were?  Or perhaps I am just bigger.  Blue Riband which I remember as a proper after school treat were dry and disappointing.  Kit Kat’s happily remain exactly the same.

So I parade up and down the shelves looking at what is there and what is new but then a voice in my head pipes up “we will make biscuits at home – home made are much nicer…” When I was a child these words would make my heart sink, bought things seemed so much more exciting and yet, I can hardly believe it is me saying them now.  True though and here is a recipe which I hope will prove the point.

Vanilla Biscuits

100g soft butter

30g icing sugar (plus a little extra to dust)

90g plain flour

30g cornflour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180 and line a baking sheet with baking parchment.  Cream the butter and sugar together and then add the flours and vanilla until combined.  Put the mixture in the fridge for 20 minutes to make it a little easier to handle.  Take a teaspoonful and roll into a ball, put on the baking sheet and flatten gently with a fork (dip the fork in flour so it doesn’t stick).  Repeat with the rest of the dough and then bake for 20 minutes (check after 15) until just golden on top and cooked on the bottom.  Cool on a wire rack and dust with icing sugar if you want.  Makes about 24.

These are perfect as they are but you can see from the photograph that I sandwiched a few with some chocolate icing I had left over.  My children loved the doubles with the extra treaty filling – I prefer them unadorned with a cup of tea.

I love harissa – for me its fragrant heat seems to go with so many things – and always have a jar on the go.  Inspired by Poilane tartines I’ve tried these harissa roast tomatoes with various other ingredients, stirred through nutty brown rice and on toasted sourdough, all good,  but this is my favourite.  The lentils seem to go with the tomatoes particularly well and the garlicky yogurt is the finishing touch.  It is one of those dishes that is not only yummy but you feel is really doing you good.  Cheap, super healthy and delicious which is a pretty good combination.

100g puy lentils

1/4 stock cube, chicken or vegetable

1 bay leaf

1 clove of garlic, peeled

3 tomatoes cut in half (through their equator)

2 teaspoons harissa

2 teaspoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoons olive oil

Parsley, a small bunch

Garlicky yogurt to serve

Preheat the oven to 180.  Put the lentils in a pan with the stock cube, bay leaf, garlic and cover with boiling water, cook for 15-20 minutes (topping up the water if necessary) until cooked but not soft.  Drain and keep warm.

Pu the tomatoes in a small baking tray, try and balance them so their cut sides are flat and level.  Mix the harissa, sugar, vinegar and oil in a bowl with a couple of pinches of salt, pour this over the tomatoes and roast for 30-40 minutes until soft.  You can “baste” them a couple of times if you want.

To serve, pile a couple of spoonfuls of lentils onto a plate, top with 3 tomato halves and a good blob of yogurt.  Sprinkle generously with parsley.  Serves 2.