How to make creme caramels

Question: How to make creme caramels?

Answer: With nerves of steal and a willingness to be burnt.

But it’s worth it. Because creme caramels can be (well, need to be) made the night before a dinner party. And that’s handy. They’re also yummy and impressive. Win-win!

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Almond and pomegranate black quinoa salad

Here is something a bit different for Clever Muffin – it’s savoury and has two things never before featured: quinoa and pomegranate. Pomegranate is fun, quinoa is…

I have ‘issues’ with quinoa. When I first started this blog I had this conversation about 18 times with various people:

Well-meaning individual (WMI): Oh, you have a food blog, have you tried keeeenwaah yet?
Me: You mean quinoa?
WMI: Oh, it’s actually pronouced keeeenwwaaaah.
Me: You mean quinoa?
WMI: No, keeeenwaaaah…. It’s very healthy and *insert text here about how healthy and fab it is*.

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Rasberry oatmeal low-fat muffins

These muffins will work. They will be full or oatmeal and raspberries. They will have minimal calories and still be equal part moist and delicious.

Predictable.

Safe.

No need to know where the life jackets are or the emergency exits. Everything is, and will be, just dandy.

Say it with me: raspberry oatmeal low fat muffins.

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Asian prawn salad

This type of salad is perfect for warm summer evenings. The crispness of the vegetables, saltiness in the prawns and sweet and sour flavours of the sauce makes this a party in a bowl.

I live in a lovely big old converted 1930’s mansion in London. We have the only one-bedroom place in the block and I love it.

The best part is the giant backyard which is kept in amazingly good condition. There’s even a little well up the back and family of foxes.

On warm nights all the various residents tend to come out from our separate little boxes armed with wine and sit around wooden tables together. 

More than anything, I will miss this yard when I leave London in a few weeks. This is not something many Londoners could say.

*sigh*

The night I made this salad the sun had already started setting and my camera wouldn’t do the dish justice. I gave up and went in to the garden to eat it. Hearing of my troubles, my neighbour, who is a smashingly good photographer, grabbed his much better camera and took the two shots at the top of this post. (Not the little ones of veggies below, they’re my handy work!).

A big thank you to Paddy. You’re a good egg. Even if you do like a sing-a-long at 4am. You can see his photography here.

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Servings: 2

Ingredients
A dash of peanut of sesame oil
20 grams of rice vermicelli noodles (it’s a token amount)
1 small carrot, peeled in to long strips
1/3 medium zucchini (courgette), julietted
100 grams green beans
1/3 red capsicum (pepper)
1/3 yellow capsicum (pepper)
4 large closed cap mushrooms
½ savoy cabbage
225 grams cooked prawns
A handful of coriander (cilantro)
1 cup bean shoots

Dressing
Juice of 1 lime
1 teaspoon oyster sauce
3 teaspoons soy sauce
1 small garlic clove, finely chopped
1 small chilli, finely chopped (or a teaspoon of chilli flakes)
1 tablespoon chopped spring onion
1 teaspoon brown sugar
2 teaspoon of cornflour, to thicken.

Method

1. Place your vermicelli noodles in a bowl of hot water and allow to sit while you prepare the rest.
2. Cut up all your vegetables into thin sticks. Cut your cabbage in to quarters and chop very finely. For the carrot, hold it at the end and make long strips with a peeler. Place in large bowl ready to tip in your wok later.
3. Pick a good handful of coriander leaves and chop roughly, set aside.
4. Combine all ingredients for sauce in a mug, set aside.
5. Drain your noodles. Make your wok good and hot with a dash of peanut or sesame oil. Fry the prawns quickly if raw, about 1 – 2 minutes. As soon as they’re orange, they’re cooked. If precooked heat through for about 30 seconds.
6. Add vermicelli noodles. Fry for another 30 seconds. Throw in the rest of your vegetables with a tablespoon of water (to steam them a little while frying) toss for 3-4 minutes, stir sauce through then place straight in bowls.
7. Top with bean shoots and coriander. 

Do: Add any veggies you fancy. Empty your veggie draw and make up your own customised salad. And if prawns are expensive, swap them out for chicken.

Healthy? 227 calories a serve. Lovely.

Gluten free? Check your sauce bottles (especially soy sauce), but otherwise you’re good.

Storage: Noooo…. Eat right there and then. You could take it for lunch the next day, bit it’d be a bit soggy.

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Chocolate carrot muffins

Pop quiz time!

Would you like:

a) Some dark chocolate
b) A carrot
c) All of the above

If you answered c, then boy do I have a muffin for you!

Before…(well kind of, you use grated carrot, but it wasn’t as pretty to get my point across)

After! (like magic)

These are SUPER moist and dense. You can thank the all the carroty/oaty goodness for their texture. Plus they have vitamin D.

At 140 calories a muffin, these are also one of the healthiest muffins around. Especially as most sweet things this low in calories would contain some god-awful sweetening agent. And you can taste that stuff. Word.

Ingredients
1 cup raw oatmeal or quick oats
1 cup low-fat milk
3/4 cup flour / rice flour or a gluten-free alternative
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons of cocoa powder
2 eggs
1 cup grated carrot
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup (about 100 grams) of dark chocolate chips

Note: I cut up some of a block of dark cooking chocolate for the chocolate chips, the recipe tends to lend itself to the rough kind of chocolate chips you get by doing it that way.

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 C. Grease a 12 cup muffin tin or line with patty cases and spray with cooking oil.
2. Soak the oatmeal/oats in the milk while preparing the rest of the ingredients.
3. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa powder together, then add the rest of the ingredients, including oats/oatmeal (don’t over mix!).
4. Spoon into the prepared muffin tin and bake for 12-15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean and they bounce back to touch. Cool on wire rack. Makes 12.

Healthy? 140 calories a muffin.

Gluten free: I have made these with rice flour and they work really well. No one even noticed. This muffin is moist enough to handle GF flour well. Make sure your oats are GF too.

Storage: They freeze well, otherwise best eaten within a couple of days. Store in airtight container.

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