Easy peasy blueberry muffins

I was having a friend over for tea the other day and wanted to offer her something sweet. I knew I couldn’t leave the house as I was waiting for a guy to come around and install our broadband, so instead of running to the bakery I had to get my hands dirty.

And I’m not much of a baker, especially not when recipes get just the tiniest bit complicated. So I went for the simplest of blueberry muffin recipes.

They were quite yummy, not too unhealthy, and couldn’t have been easier to make. Also, I had most of the ingredients in the cupboard.

Here’s what you need…. (10 muffins)

110g butter
65g caster sugar
2 eggs
110g flour
1½ tsp baking powder
A tiny pinch of salt
1 small pack of blueberries (or other berries or even dark chocolate, if you’re naughty)

OPTIONAL: Orange zest OR a pinch of nutmeg

How to do it…

Whisk the sugar and butter together with a wooden spoon until fluffy. Add the eggs, whisk gently, add the flour, salt,  (orange zest or nutmeg) and baking powder. Leave in fridge to set for at least an hour – preferably overnight.

Put the mixture into lightly greased muffin forms until forms are a bit more than half full, and put around 8 blueberries in each. Bake at 200C for around 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Serve warm with creme fraiche or greek yoghurt.

Broccoli, leek & potato soup – easy, cheap and healthy winter food

I made this soup the other day without any recipe and surprised myself by how yummy it turned out (my cooking intuition is non-existent). The magic ingredient must have been the yoghurt as it added just the right amount of tartness/acidity to the vegetables.

If you want to give this hearty winter soup a try, here’s how I made it. All measurements are very approximate, so feel free to improvise:

Ingredients (4 pers.)

• Butter & olive oil for frying
• 4-5 leeks, chopped
• 4-5 garlic cloves, chopped
• 3 large potatoes, chopped
• 1 head of broccoli, chopped (use the stem as well)
• 1/2-1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
• water
• salt and pepper to taste
• cayenne pepper to taste
• 300 ml single cream (or milk)
• 400 ml yoghurt naturel (add a bit at a time, as you might want to use less)
• a few drops of avocado oil for decoration

How to do it:

• Heat up the butter and olive oil in a large saucepan and fry the leeks with the chopped garlic until soft.
• Add the potatoes and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the broccoli. Add a bit of salt and pepper + cayenne pepper.
• Add the chicken stock and a bit of water until the vegetables are covered and cook until the vegetables are soft.
• Take the saucepan off the heat and blend it (I just used a hand blender directly in the pan and left a few vegetable lumps for added texture).
• Put back on the stove. Add more stock/water if consistency is too thick, then add cream and yoghurt.
• Add salt and pepper (and maybe a stock cube) to taste.
• Serve with cheese sandwiches or whatever rocks your boat.

BON APPETIT!

pssssst! In the mood for more soup? Head for my butternut soup recipe.

Healthy purple potato haze

Yesterday I wanted to make “bangers & mash“. Weirdly enough I’d been craving  sausages ever since watching The Apprentice the day before, where the two teams were on a ridiculous sausage-making mission. So off I went to Sainsbury’s and what was the first thing I saw: purple potatoes!

Sam had been telling me about how these potatoes, originally from the high reaches of the Andes, are even more healthy than ordinary potatoes (10 x more antioxidants) and how they make some really yummy mash. So the timing couldn’t be better as they’ve just started selling these purple little buggers at Sainsbury’s. They’re called Purple Majesty potatoes and are grown by Albert Bartlett.

Down in my trolley they went together with some savoy cabbage. After the supermarket I headed for our brilliant local butcher, Sheepdrove Organic Farm, and bought some Cumberland sausages and ended up making this dish:

These potatoes are really, really easy to make, as they contain a lot of starch. Just make the mash like you normally would, for me that meant adding salt, pepper, butter and milk.

The savoy cabbage side dish is just delicious, healthy and easy to make: chop up the cabbage, put it in a sauce-pan with a bit of butter/olive oil, a couple of finely chopped garlic cloves and a sprinkling of salt and vinegar. Let it simmer under a lid for around 45 min. or until it becomes as soft as you prefer.

Serve with mustard and ketchup.

Bon appetit!

Bonus info for parents: I bet even the pickiest of children will happily sink their fork into this purple tower…

Spinatlasagne med hytteost – spinach lasagne with cottage cheese

Foto: Mette Bassett

En af favorit-retterne her i huset. Den er supernem at lave, sund, lækker og billig og et dejligt let alternativ til kedelig kødlasagne.

English: One of our favourite home-made recipes around here. It’s so easy to make, healthy and cheap and a nice lighter alternative to meat lasagne. (Scroll down for recipe in English)

Spinatlasagne med hytteost  (4 pers.) :

Det skal du bruge:

• 1-2 poser frosset helbladet spinat
• 1-2 hakkede løg
• Hakket hvidløg (så meget du har lyst til)
• 3  små bægre hytteost (300 g i hver)
• Lasagneplader
• Salt, peber, muskatnød, evt. chili.

Mornay sauce:
(Da jeg boede i DK brugte jeg bare den fra Karolines Køkken. Hvis du vil lave den selv, så gør du sådan:)

• Ca. 50 g smør
• Et par spiseskefulde mel
• En kop varm mælk
• En kop revet parmesan
• En kop anden ost, fx. gruyere
• Lidt salt og muskatnød

(Smelt smørret i en gryde og pisk melet i. Tilsæt den varme mælk under omrøring. Lad den hvide sauce koge op, så den får en passende tykkelse. Tilsæt osten til sidst. Og evt. lidt salt og muskatnød.)

Photo: Mette Bassett

Sådan gør du:

Steg den frosne spinat sammen med de hakkede løg og hvidløg. Tilsæt salt, peber og muskatnød undervejs (og chili hvis du vil have en stærk version).

Sluk for varmen, når spinaten og løgene er varmet igennem og det meste af den overskydende væske er fordampet. Bland hytteosten i. Smag igen blandingen til med salt, peber etc.

Find et passende fad og start med et lag spinat/hytteost-blanding plus et par skefulde ostesauce og derefter skiftevis plader og spinatblanding. Slut af med spinatblanding og en omgang ostesauce.

Bag i en 190 grader varm ovn i ca. 40 minutter eller indtil lasagnepladerne er bløde. NB: dæk lasagnen med alufolie, så overfladen ikke bliver brændt.

Server med salat og evt brød. Smager også dejligt som tilbehør til f.eks. laks. Velbekomme!

Spinach lasagne with cottage cheese (4 pers.)

This is what you need:

• 1-2 big bags of frozen whole leaf spinach
• 1-2 chopped onions
• Chopped garlic (as much as you feel like)
• 3 small tubs (3 x 300 g) of cottage cheese
• Lasagna pasta
• Salt, peber, nutmeg, dried chili (if you want)

Mornay sauce:

• 50 g butter
• 2 table spoons sauce flour
• A cup of warm milk
• 1 cup of parmesan
• 1 cup of other cheese (e.g. gruyere)
• Salt, nutmeg

(Warm op the butter and stir rapidly while mixing in the flour. Add the warm milk and bring the sauce to the boiling point, until it thickens. Turn off the heat and add the cheese, a bit of salt and nutmeg.)

This is how you do it:

Fry the frozen spinach with the chopped onions and garlic and add salt, pepper, nutmeg and chili to taste. Turn off the heat when the mixture is heated through and the excess liquid has evaporated. Mix with the cottage cheese and taste if it needs more seasoning.

Photo: Mette Bassett

Find a suitable dish and start with a layer of spinach/cottage cheese mixture and a bit of cheesesauce. Layer with the lasagna pasta and finish it off with a layer of spinach-mixture and cheesesauce.

Put in the oven at 190 degrees celsius for around 40 minutes (or until the lasagna pasta has softened). NB: cover the lasagne with alufoil so that the surface doesn’t get burned.

Serve with a salad or bread or with a piece of salmon.

Bon appetit!

Photo: Mette Bassett

Glem ikke at nippe til et glas hvidvin, mens du kokkererer 🙂

Oh, and don’t forget to sip a glass of white while cooking 🙂

Photo: Mette Bassett