#24 Time is your most precious gift

Hello team, how are we all doing?

I think I’ve felt a little better this week… or maybe more accurately, a little less rubbish. There’s still been a LOT of whimpering (standard), I haven’t slept well and am therefore EXHAUSTED (how can you feel unthinkable tiredness just before you get into bed and then the moment you switch the light off, your brain decides it’s time to solve some life’s biggest questions?), it’s DARK (the morning’s are grim are they not?), I still have a sore knee, an itchy eye, (turns out I have some form of conjunctivitis on top of the eye strain, ace!), and dermatitis on my face that won’t clear up despite several different attempts (currently smearing Manuka honey onto it each night because honey heals everything right?).

Notwithstanding these ugly moments, there have been a few gems as follows:

• The sun has shone on more than one occasion which has been delightful… it’s also been insanely warm for this time of year!

• I’ve stumbled across a few quite wonderful recipes through some kitchen experimentation (see below).

• Almondy - Cherry compote on my porridge is a new favourite!!

• I’ve eaten the best Spanish plums and a little green-skinned fig, both from my local fruit & veg superhero - (Exsqueezeme Chester is the place to go for top notch F&V), the fig was HONEY-sweet, soft, and gooey- simply magical!

• I’ve held a real-life baby- terrifying and adorable in equal measure; I was particularly concerned when I ‘lost an arm’ as I was holding her and thought I may have dislocated it - you’ll be relieved to hear that all arms were attached and in the correct position when I handed her back!!

• I set out on a chocolate sponge mission (I will elaborate on this further in due course, but I have become obsessed with finding the ultimate choccy sponge, it struck me recently that there are COUNTLESS basic chocolate sponge recipes out there (along with chocolate chip cookies, lemon drizzles… the list goes on), and I want to find the best one, so I’m going to try to find it! I’m not generally that logical when it comes to things like this so I can’t guarantee that I will reach the end of my experiment any the wiser, but we can hope (watch this space for further news!). FYI sample one made early Thursday morning was good (albeit carnage as I overfilled the cupcake cases which resulted in major overflow) - my comments were ‘a little sweet, but v.moist, pretty chocolate-y and not too rich’ so a decent accompaniment to a thick wedge of ganache… but room for improvement (in my opinion)!

• I created some INCREDIBLE dried clementines to decorate a cake, I will try to share the recipe in the next few weeks because 1. I’ve had a LOT of questions about these little devils and 2. I think they would be a fabulous Xmassy addition - cake decorations/wreath additions or if you’re like me a lil’ snack!

• AND… did anyone watching the documentary on the humble sandwich - The secret World of Sandwiches? I think it was on channel 4? Anyway, I found it very fascinating viewing… I have also just discovered that they have done other episodes in the series that cover sweets, cereal and ice cream - SO I have some thrilling TV to catch up on!!!!

Other than that… I’m still persevering with Work, albeit slightly daunted by a busy week scheduled next week,…. and I’m thoroughly enjoying the Sofa each evening - I’m so WILD!!

One final nugget of wisdom: I overheard a conversation this week that REALLY resonated with me… the main message was this:

“Time is your most precious gift because you only have a set amount of it”

The discussion was more in the context of work; we ‘give people’ the gift of our time and attention every working day - from school through university and into our careers. The premise of the conversation was that we should spend our time on things or with people that are most valuable to us…. AND OMG this is SO right!

I know we all have to go off to work and do stuff that generally can be tiresome and dull… and I get that sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do in life to get by but also… this just felt like a really great message to anyone and everyone, that we need to make the most of this special little gift we have called life.

We should do things that are scary or enjoyable or fun or relaxing… and there is no rule book, so what works for you may not be someone else’s preference. From sitting on the sofa with your hot water bottle and sipping a cup of tea whilst reading a book, to baking, running or I don’t know - skydiving - the possibilities are endless and there is no right or wrong… but what IS important is that we invest our time wisely as per OUR rules! #PREACH

OK… enough waffle… recipe TIME…

Roasted Squash, lentil and grain salad
with Tahini miso dressing

I’m chucking this in because it tasted really great but I’m not sure how many of you are keen for this sort of stuff???… anyway, I threw this together a bit, and it REALLY delivered, so consider it a hearty autumnal salad you didn’t know you needed in your life. ALSO.. if you don’t make the salad bit, try the dressing - I think I could eat this on its own!

Serves 2

Ingredients

450g OR 1/2 x Large OR 1 x small: Culinary squash cut into 1cm thick slices or 2cm chunks for quicker cooking
Olive Oil to drizzle
1/2 tsp dried oregano
Pinch of chilli flakes optional
Pinch of flaky sea salt
1 x 400g can green lentils drained
70g dry mixed grains
150g tenderstem broccoli steamed
1 shallot finely sliced
100g chopped curly Kale
25g pumpkin seeds toasted

Dressing
15g Tahini
20g white miso
1 tsp sesame oil
10ml rice vinegar
10g runny honey
10ml mirin (or more honey if you don’t have mirin)
1 small garlic clove grated
1/2 tsp grated fresh ginger

Method

Lay the squash on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with a pinch of flaky sea salt, the oregano and chilli and roast at 200C/180C fan until golden and tender - around 30 minutes ish but will depend on size and type of squash so keep your eye on it. Add the broccoli about 10 minutes before the end of the cooking time to lightly roast it.

Prepare the mixed grains as per the cooking instructions on the packet.

For the dressing, add all of the ingredients to a small bowl and mix thoroughly. Add a tsp of water to loosen if necessary and set aside until ready to use.

To prepare, place the kale in a large bowl and massage with oil and salt until slightly softened. Layer over the grains and lentils followed by the shallot and roasted veggies. Drizzle over the dressing and sprinkle with pumpkin seeds. DIVE IN! (also great the next day!)

Squishy Pumpkin/Squash milk rolls

I sometimes wonder whether I should document some of these recipes as ‘Kitchen experiments’; this one would very much fall into that category - on that note, I do LOVE to experiment and learn as I go… although I wish I had someone to answer my endless questions when things don’t turn out EXACTLY as I expect!

I’ve known for a while that potato in your bread dough makes for super soft, tender bread that stays fresher for longer. However, I’ve never really tried it out… until now. Knowing that it was Halloween week on bake off and given the VAST array of cute pumpkins/squash on the scene at the moment, (I’m going to refer to them as pumpkins from now on but you get the gist that they are largely interchangeable), I decided to have a go at pumpkin rolls (incidentally, neither potato nor pumpkin rolls actually taste of potato or pumpkin, the cooked starchy veggies just provide a vehicle for even greater moisture in your dough which theoretically makes for a plusher end result - WIN!) I dabbled with the idea of making these rolls sweet, sticky & loaded with pumpkin spice, which would have been great, but I figured a simple bun (which could take a savoury or sweet spread) was a better place to start for my first experiment.

What struck me as I prepared these rolls was that there could potentially be a huge variation in the consistency of the pumpkin puree due to the drastically different water content of pumpkins/squash (particularly if home prepared and not bought in a can) AND based on preparation; baked, steamed, boiled etc. In this instance I steamed the pumpkin; with hindsight, roasted may have been more tasty - will try that next time - AND I would opt for a more orange pumpkin in future because this fella was a bit pale and therefore didn’t yield vibrant orange buns - sad times - nevertheless, they turned out pretty damn fine so I will try not to be too critical!

Now, this dough is STICKY and therefore really needs to be kneaded in a stand mixer, but with a fair bit of mixer action and a couple of short rests in between, you should produce a super soft, smooth, and elastic dough… and after a few hours proving, some PURE comfort worthy rolls. I'll be frank with you, these rolls are fairly plain but I’ve been thinking A LOT recently about our individual tastes and preferences - in fact I could talk about this at length in the context of other life-ness but we’ll save that for another rainy day - and you know what? sometimes I think plain is really bloomin’ magical… I have made some suggestions in the notes if you want to pimp things up a bit though!

After all that chat… here’s what I did… let me know if you give them a go!

Makes 9

Ingredients

100g Pumpkin/squash puree [I steamed 150g cubed pumpkin and mashed it up then reweighed 100g - you could also use canned pumpkin puree]
300g Strong White Bread flour
15g Caster sugar
6g Sea salt
5g Instant dried active yeast
120ml Whole milk lukewarm - 20 seconds full power in the microwave
50g Egg - use 1 large and save the excess for egg wash later
25g Unsalted butter softened

Method

Combine the flour and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the salt to one side of the bowl and the yeast to the other. Meanwhile combine the milk and pumpkin/squash puree in a jug, then add to the dry ingredients along with the egg and butter. Mix on a medium/high speed using the dough hook attachment for around 8-10 minutes, then scrape down the sides of the bowl and rest the dough, covered with a tea towel, for 10 minutes. Once rested, mix again on medium/high for a further 10 minutes or until super elastic, smooth and pulling away from the sides of the bowl - if you’re not sure whether it is ready after a second bout of 10 minutes mixing, rest for a further 10 mins, and check again for full gluten development. Once ready, place in a lightly oiled bowl and leave in a warm environment to prove until doubled in size - approx 90 minutes.

Grease & line an 8 inch square baking tin. Once the dough has doubled in size, empty out onto a lightly floured surface, divide into 9 equal sized portions (approx 65g) and roll into neat round balls. Place the balls in the tin spaced apart. Cover and prove, again in a warm place, until doubled in size, around 90 minutes - the buns should be getting cosy and touching each other. 20 minutes before fully proofed, preheat the oven to 195/175C fan. Once fully proofed, egg wash the tops of the buns and sprinkle with pumpkin seeds and bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden and baked through - should read 93C on a digital thermometer.

NOTES

• So, I mentioned above that these rolls are kind-of ‘neutral’ in flavour, which makes them perfect paired with salty butter and dunked in soup or spread with peanut butter and jam for the ultimate little snack. BUT… ideas to elevate the recipe further: you could increase the sugar up to 40g for a sweeter bun and you could include a tiny bit of spice in the dough (pumpkin spice blend would be fab), don’t overdo the spice in the dough though as it can inhibit the yeasts activity. Alternatively, use this dough as the basis for some super light and fluffy pumpkin spice (cinnamon) swirl buns. Finally, you could go savoury and add some herbs/spices/garlic/caramelised onion etc; I feel like rosemary or sage in the dough and a sprinkling of cheese on top would really work particularly well here!
  

Cheesy Wholemeal, oat and poppyseed biscuits

These biscuits are another level of comfort; they remind me of Christmas’s from my childhood where snacks were the pinnacle of the festive period for me - I still have VIVD memories of this M&S savoury snack selection that would feature in our house every year, it had nuts, bombay mix, little savoury biscuits/crisp things, it was EPIC, I’m deeply saddened that they don’t still produce it. Anyway, these biscuits hit that spot… only, I think they suffice as a year-round snack because they’re too good to just be enjoyed for Xmas… also, they’re a little more wholesome than your standard cheesy biccy as they’re loaded with wholemeal flour, a bit of oatmeal and seeds for extra goodness whilst maintaining a MELT IN THE MOUTH texture and all the cheesy goodness, basically, they’re simple to prepare and really great so you should defo try them!

Approx 20-25 biscuits

Ingredients

100g Plain wholemeal flour
50g Plain flour
20g Medium Oatmeal
5g Poppyseeds
1/4 tsp baking powder
100g Cold cubed butter
1 Large Egg yolk
50g Extra mature cheddar finely grated
50g Parmesan finely grated

Method

Combine the flours, oatmeal, poppyseeds and baking powder in a food processor. Pulse to combine. Next add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Next add the cheeses, and pulse a few times just to combine. Finally add the egg yolk and pulse until the mixture starts to come together in the food processor - it will start to collapse in on itself - don’t over work at this point. Remove the dough from the processor and place in some clingfilm. Bring together to form a smooth ish dough using the clingfilm to help you. Wrap tightly and refrigerate for a minimum of 2 hours.

Once ready to use, remove the dough from the fridge and leave at room temp for about 20 minutes just to make it a bit more pliable. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan. Roll the dough out between two sheets of greaseproof - if it’s still a little firm, be patient and wait until it’s slightly softened. Roll to a thickness of around 5mm then stamp out 5-6cm rounds with a cutter. Place on a baking sheet lined with baking paper - you may need a couple of baking sheets to take all of the biscuits. Re-roll remaining dough and repeat. Bake in the oven for around 15-17 minutes or until golden and baked through. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the trays for a couple of minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Eat on repeat!

EXTRA NOTES:

• I’m sure you alllll know this by now but if you buy a pumpkin/squash over the next few weeks, waste NONE of it: if you peel it first, roast the skin with olive oil and salt for a crispy skin situation, as for the seeds - remove them from the flesh, then wash and dry them THOROUGHLY, rub them in salt and oil (+ any other spices you fancy -cinnamon sugar as a sweet alternative also works well) and roast at 200C/180C fan for around 10 minutes or until golden and crispy - SNACK SENSATION!

• Reminder… you may have seen me chat a bit this week about my fab experience with Symprove - the gut health supplement I take - you can find out more about it here. My personal experience with it has been remarkable, it completely resolved my horrible IBS symptoms earlier in the year - I genuinely thought there was something really awful wrong with me due to the pain I was in - and I definitely feel generally better for taking it. I hate thrusting things down people’s throats when it comes to recommendations, but this one I’m passionate about. I now know I’m not unusual, (well not unusual in the context of struggling with IBS!!); I’ve had so many messages from people this week reporting similar symptoms to those I was experiencing - and whilst I can’t guarantee that Symprove will work for everyone, it has been SUCH a blessing for me, therefore I’m keen to try to help anyone else out there who may benefit too, by spreading the word about it! Symprove have kindly given me a discount code to share, so if you fancy giving it a go, use STEPHB15 for 15% off a 12 week pack (for new UK customers only – valid once per customer & can be used online or via phone).

• Special shout out to Laura and Evie - two friends I have made via social media since the early Bake Off days - their messages of support this week have been SO delightful so thanks to both of you for being such Angels!

OK…. I’m shutting up now, you’re all nodding off with boredom!

Sending all the love and hugs!

Steph xxx