Spelt Bread

Now if you're like me and you can't eat wheat but LOVE fresh bread you need this spelt bread in your life. It's just as easy as usual bread but never annoys my moody stomach. This is what you need:

• 500g spelt flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon quick yeast
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 300ml warm water
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Firstly, shove all the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl and give it a good stir then stick in the oil and warm water, stir it with a wooden spoon until the dough is together enough to knead on a floured work surface. Keep kneading until it's lovely and smooth, then bung it back in the bowl, cover it in a tea towel and leave to rising somewhere warm for about an hour.

Once the dough is roughly twice the size, knead again for a few minutes and pack it into an oiled loaf tin. Leave it to rise under a tea towel again for 30 minutes or so and get it straight into a preheated oven for 40 minutes. By this time it'll smell super delicious and you'll have to get it out and try to leave it to cool before tucking in.

This spelt bread is particularly good still warm and with the lemon curd I wrote about, see the post here.

Lemon Curd

This is a recipe given to me by my mum, mamma Smeeeff is total domestic goddess and when I had to stop eating wheat she manage to bust out a total wheat free Christmas dinner - hero. So here's the pro's dairy free lemon curd. Here's what you need:

• 4 unwaxed lemons (juice and zest)
• 200g sugar
• 100g Vitalite
• 3 eggs
• 1 egg yolk

This recipe only makes around two jars but they are two jars of heaven! Lemon curd is one of those things that I could (and often do) just eat from the jar with a spoon... dangerous. So here's how you make these jars of deliciousness. Start by zesting the lemons, if you don't have a zester just use a cheese grater, you know that side of the grater that you have no idea what you'd use it for? It's that one you need here! And a good way to get the most juice out of your lemon is to roll it on the side, then slice it in half and jam a fork in each half as you squeeze the juice out. 

So put all the zest and juice into a mixing bowl with the sugar and Vitalite and put the bowl on top of a saucepan with boiling water. Stir this mixture until the butter has melted, in a separate bowl whisk the eggs with the extra egg yolk and add this into the lemony mix and whisk gently. Leave to cook and thicken for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally, you'll know it's ready when it's thick enough to leave a thick coat on the back of the spoon.

Take the mixing bowl off the hot water and set it aside to cool, then you just need to pour it into two sterilized jars, seal it and store it in the fridge until you can't handle it any more and decide to scoff it! It'll go really well on top of some toast, I'll be sharing a great recipe for spelt bread in the next few days and these two go together perfectly!

If you've never sterilized a jar it's a doddle, just wash them in warm soapy water and put the jars and the lids upside down on a baking tray and leave them in the oven at 160C until they are dry, them boom! Sterile.

Bacon and Feta Muffins

These savoury muffins are perfect for eating warm out of the oven with baked beans or scoffing cold on the go. Here are the things you need:

And if you can't figure it out from that photograph, here's the list:

• 2 x eggs
• 60g x Doves self raising flour
• 60g x rye four
• 110g x Vitalite
• 1/3 cup of soya milk
• 4 rashers of bacon
• 1 x onion
• 50g x feta
• 20 x olives
• handful of broccoli

First, preheat your oven to 200C then in a frying pan snip the bacon into small chunks and fry them until it smells awesome and add in the onion - make sure it's finely chopped. Set aside to cool when the onions start to turn translucent. In a big mixing bowl, whisk your eggs and chuck in the self raising flour and rye flour. Give this a good mix and add the Vitalite and soya milk (or just normal butter and milk if you're not into the dairy free version) keep mixing until it's a smooth batter.

Now it's a simple as throwing in the rest of the ingredients, olives, broccoli, bacon, onions and crumble the feta. Finally just oil a deep muffin tin, this recipe makes 8 muffins and stuff the mixture into the tin and bake for 30 - 40 minutes or until the look like this:

Like I said at the start of this post they are perfect as part of a dinner or just a snack by themselves like the photograph above, enjoy!

Mexican Meatball Soup

I've managed to totally fall in love with everything Mexican without even visiting... I blame things like the Day of the Dead and Frida Kahlo, it just all looks so amazingly colourful. But my favourite things about Mexico are of course edible, tequila - whether it be in a shot or in a frozen margarita, burritos and now my favourite Mexican food, meatball soup. I tried the recipe a month or so ago (see my instagrammed photo here) but it's too good not to share so I've made it again to share will you. It's the perfect comfort food for a cold evening.

You will need, for the meatballs:

• 300g minced beef
• 2 cloves of garlic
• handful of corriander
• lime juice
• hot sauce
• teaspoon of cumin
• salt
• pepper

And for the soup:

•  2 teaspoons of oil
• 1 large onion
• 1 clove of garlic
• 2 red chillies
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 cup of chicken stock
• cheese, tortilla chips and coriander to serve

The meatball is are so super easy to make, just mix crush the garlic into a bowl then add all of the meatball ingredients and mix them together, the best way to do this is to get your hands right in there. When it's all lovely and smushy, shape the meat into little meatballs that are small enough to eat in one bite and brown them in a hot frying pan. Set the meatballs aside on some kitchen paper and get started on the soup. 

So in a large saucepan, heat the oil, add the diced onion and crushed garlic, fry until the onion goes translucent and smells amazing. Then chop the two chillies (I left the seeds out but if you're a mentalist for spice then chuck them in too) and get them in the pan, fry them for a couple of minutes and finally whack the tinned tomatoes and chicken stock and let it simmer away for 20 minutes. Pop the meatballs in the soup and simmer some more then get the soup into some bowls, top with some grated cheese and coriander and enjoy with some tortilla chips. Now this usually does me for three portions so dinner for two and left overs for lunch the following day.