recipes | A Crafty Chai

Tag: recipes

09
Jan
2012

Weekend Food

Previously, when it’s got to the weekend, I’ve had a break from healthy eating. I know how that sounds! But sometimes you need a little treat. As this isn’t particularly healthy, I wanted to pick some recipes that weren’t too unhealthy but a bit of a treat at the same time. All of the recipes below came from the Quorn recipe book but some can be found on the Quorn website & I’ve posted links below.

Friday night :: Sweet & Sour stir fry

I’m not a massive stir fry fan. The packs of stir fry veg often look good but I don’t like the taste. The same can be said for store bought sauces. So when I saw this recipe in the recipe book, I thought I’d give it a chance, especially as my OH loves stir fry. It was really nice. Not quite like my favourite take away does, but good enough for a healthy homemade version. It’s super quick & healthy enough that you can reward yourself with a cheeky slimline g&t after!

Saturday night :: Cheese & Onion burgers

A few months ago, I tried to make bean burgers. They were the definition of an epic fail! Tasteless, burnt on the outside, raw on the inside, they were not my best hour! But I wanted to make nice homemade veggie burgers. These were a success! They actually looked & had the consistency of real meat burgers.

They are quite easy to make, though they take a little longer than other recipes I’ve tried recently. They do include marmite, which is fine, but I think we put a bit much in as the marmite taste was quite overpowering. The tip with these is to squeeze the patties quite firmly & not play around with them too much. They were delicious, though I think next time we’ll add some chilli to spice them up a bit. The recipe isn’t on the Quorn website but the nearest they’ve got is this recipe for fruity burgers.

Sunday night :: Toad in the Hole

This got a lot of love on Twitter when I posted the picture! It takes an hour to cook but the preparation is so easy. Simply put some sausages & onion wedges in a tin & roast. Then, after 20 mins, add the batter & roast some more. Serve with veg & gravy. A perfect Sunday dinner! Even though the recipe asks for Quorn sausages, I used Linda McCartney ones, as I prefer them. And I put them in frozen & used a white onion instead of a red one as it was all that we had. We will definitely be having this again!

I hope you enjoy reading about my healthy veggie cooking! Let me know if you try any or have any good ones of your own. x

04
Dec
2011

DIY Beauty

categories: Crafty

You may have gathered from my previous posts that money is tight…non-existent really. My ‘disposable income’ disappeared when I signed my letter of resignation. So cutbacks had to be made. But I didn’t want to stop doing the things that made me feel better so I knew I had to find a different way of doing them. I have previously made my own body scrub but have been looking for recipes for face masks and intensive hair conditioners that use ingredients from the kitchen. I don’t want to be buying a load of expensive things to put on my face then wash away.

So the lovely Nicola from Yarn Box let me borrow ‘Natural Superwoman‘ by Rosamund Richardson which had loads of recipes for lots of different things. I made the oatmeal face mask but replaced the rose water with honey. It was super thick! But it felt nice on my face and left my skin feeling really smooth and soft. And it smelt great!

I think that when I do it again, and I will be, I’ll blitz the oats in a food processor first to make them a bit thinner. I got oats everywhere! Also, it does need something thinner than honey to mix with otherwise it can just be lumps of sticky oats on your face.

The other recipe I tried today was a hair mask that I found on Pinterest. This is what I love about Pinterest. You can see one thing and it links back to the website so easily. This recipe comes from the Stella Wishes website. And there are loads of things to look at on there. The recipes are great but I really love the beauty section and the pictures.

I didn’t have any apple cider vinegar in my cupboards so just used olive oil & honey. This meant for quite a sticky mask. It was so easy to do and I’ll definitely be using this again. I’ve already added the vinegar to this weeks shopping list because I think it’ll make it easier to spread through my hair. That being said my hair is definitely softer, smells lush and it was easier to straighten because it was so well conditioned. The ends which often look quite dried out look healthy again. The mixture didn’t drip so I was able to finish off the chores I’d been working my way through. A fabulous recipe!

18
Aug
2011

4 Ingredient Nutella Brownies

categories: Crafty, Food & Drink

I love Pinterest. If you haven’t discovered it yet, be warned: You will get hooked on pictures of pretty things. One of my boards is called ‘Temptations’ and contains pictures of cakes & all things chocolaty! So when I pinned a picture of some Nutella Brownies I was keen to see where it came from & if there was a recipe. This is one of the things I love about Pinterest. Behind every picture is the original source. It led me to Savoury Sweet Life, which is a fantastic blog containing tons of recipes.

As it was my turn to host book group, I decided to bake them for when we’d finished our lengthy literary discussions about our latest book.

I printed the instructions off from the blog & set to work. They were the quickest cakes I’ve ever made (They’re not called 4 ingredient cakes for nothing!) I didn’t have a large egg & I think this affected the recipe. My batter wasn’t as shiny as the batter in the pictures. I was worried they might be a bit dry & I think they could do with being a bit more goey. I think if I’d used a large egg, like the recipe instructed, they would’ve been goey. I added hazelnuts to some but not all.

They went down pretty well & I’d certainly make them again but I would make sure I used a large egg next time. But they went down a treat at bookgroup & there’s even some left for guests visiting this weekend! x

26
Jun
2011

Gluten Free Cookies

categories: Crafty, Food & Drink

I’ve been looking for different baking ideas & have wanted to bake something for my gluten-free friends. So I’ve been trawling the internet for an easy gluten-free cookie recipe. It hasn’t been easy as many recipes call for loads of different types of flour & other ingredients which I don’t have. But then I stumbled across this recipe on All Recipes & it looked very easy. Phew!

Armed with my gluten-free flour & chocolate chips I gathered the rest of the ingredients. The mixture didn’t take long to put together & where the recipe calls for egg replacer, which I didn’t have or need to use, I simply just used one egg. The only other thing I did differently was use less chocolate chips – I know, madness right! But I had only bought 100g but I think it’s worked okay.

With the oven at the right temperature & the baking trays greased I set about spreading the dough out by about 5 cms. This means that baking them, in my small oven, is quite a lengthy & tricky process. The problem I had was that the cookies didn’t want to come off the trays easily even though they’d been grease. If anyone has a fool proof way of making them not stick I’d love to hear it!

After a bit of cooling the cookies were ready to eat & was lucky enough to have two testers (neither of whom suffer from coeliac disease) and they loved them! Good enough for everyone! I baked about 15 & used just under half the mixture. I’ve put the rest in the freezer to use another time. A tasty gluten-free treat! x