Food for the soul

17th April 

It's been a strange week in our household, the children have returned to school after the Easter holidays but I have not returned to work.  I am still under orders from the doctor to take it easy and that was fine in the beginning but I'm not good at doing nothing.  So instead this week has been much about food for me, here are five of this weeks favourite.

Firstly, I've been trying different herbal teas and then adding in some fresh ingredients too.  As soon as the mint is up in the garden, I am going to try some of my own mint tea.  Have any of you experience with making your own herbal teas, would love some recommendations and steering in the right direction.

Camomile, ginger and lemon tea

I have over the past three weeks lost my appetite a tad but this week it has returned and I was craving vegetables, I turned to Delia as I often do and decided to make her Moroccan chicken, this is the photograph before adding the chicken and before the rice was cooked, I just love these colours, the flavour was lovely too.  This is a great supper dinner for friends as you can assemble everything before hand and then just pop it in the oven with nothing to do when everyone has arrived, a great make ahead dinner.  Moroccan chicken

Moroccan chicken

The weather has been wonderful of late but the beginning of the week I was still cold, out came Delia again and this time real soul warming food for dessert; chocolate bread and butter pudding , a great British classic with a twist.  It went down a storm in our house.

Chocolate bread and butter pudding

Thursdays herald crochet evening and it has become a tradition that I make a cake for the chatter, crochet and cake sessions.  Each week I make something new, all the recipes are here on the blog.  This week  as I was having a bit of a Delia fest, I decided to stick with her and delved into her Summer book, here I spied her American muffins, making six of the coffee and walnut ones and then adapted the basic recipe to add in mixed berries that I had in the freezer.  I added 110g of frozen berries into the basic mix.

Coffee and Walnut muffins

Mixed berry muffins

Basic muffin mix according to Delia: Makes 6 large muffins or 20 mini muffins
150g plain flour
1 level table spoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
40g caster sugar
50g melted butter
1 egg, size 2
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

For the coffee and walnut variation you will also need:
2 tablespoon instant coffee powder mixed with 1 table spoon of boiling water
75g finely chopped walnuts
For the icing:
icing sugar
2 teaspoon of instant coffee mixed with a little boiling water
6 walnut halves


With muffins it’s always a good idea to have everything weighed out and ready before you startBegin by sifting the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl, lifting the sieve up high to
give the flour a good airing.

Now, in another bowl, mix together the egg, sugar and melted butter and vanilla essence. Return the dry ingredients to the sieve and sift them straight into the egg mixture.

(This double sifting is crucial because we won’t be doing much mixing.)

What you now need to do is take a large metal spoon and fold the dry ingredients quickly
into the wet ones – the key word here is quickly (i.e. in about 15 seconds).

What you mustn’t do is beat or stir, just fold, ignoring the uneven appearance of the mixture because that’s precisely what makes the muffins really light. Over-mixing is where people go wrong.

Next, quickly fold in the walnuts and coffee – again no stirring.

Now divide the mixture between the muffin cases. Sprinkle on the demerara and bake near the centre of the oven for 25–30 minutes until well-risen and golden brown.

Remove the muffins from the oven, and transfer them straight away to a wire rack to cool.

Store in an airtight tin or cake box.

However I may have been busy with food this week but having been inactive for 7 weeks due to torn tendons in my foot and the added complication of pleurisy, the waistline has expanded and I think I may need a life style change when it comes to food, so whilst forced to rest over the past few weeks I ordered the below book.  I am plodding through it and getting the enthusiasm up to try and reduce if not totally quit sugar from my diet, shhhhh don't tell the rest of them in my household... they will be part of this too!

This is what's coming my way...

Thank you for everyone who took time to comment on my previous post   here , it seems many of you laughed and shared the same issues within your house hold.  Watch out for the next instalment soon of my husbands shenanigans when it comes to my crafting...

Joining in today with  Amy   for Five on Friday, pop over and see what others have been up to too.

♥  Thank crunchy it's Friday  ♥ 

PS  He still hasn't noticed these yet...  shhhhhhh, don't tell him!