Hard work? There's just no knead.

Another post, another bread recipe. Inspired by a blog favourite of mine Budget Bytes, I prepared this unbelievably easy focaccia in time for a dinner party turned booze-up at fellow food enthusiast Hester's apartment. The guests were impressed.

I felt almost embarrassed to take compliments for something that was so simple to make, but not so embarrassed that I didn't glowingly reply 'it was nothing'. (It really was.)

Not out of place at a gourmet meal

Ingredients:

120g wholewheat bread flour

360g white bread flour

1/2 teaspoon instant yeast

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

480ml water

3 tablespoons olive oil (the better the quality, the better the bread)

Sprinkling of herbs - salt & rosemary is a classic combination, or basil and garlic

Method:

Add all of the dry ingredients to a large bowl and stir. Add the water and stir gently with a spoon until the mixture is combined and in a sticky ball. Cover loosely with a tea towel and let sit overnight/about 14 hours.

When you're around 2 hours before needing the dough to be ready, prepare a tin with oiled greaseproof paper or foil and and pour the dough onto the sheet. Stretch to the edges of the tin and let sit for another hour. Poke dimples in the dough and drizzle with extra olive oil, don't worry about adding too much. Sprinkle with extra herbs and salt. 

With the oven preheated to 200°C, place a sheet of foil over the mixture and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for a further 20 minutes, or until brown.

 Wait until cooled to slice or enjoy hot.

If you're worried about cooking times or leaving the dough for too long, you could always mix the dry ingredients before you go to bed and add the water when you get up in the morning. Minimum time and effort involved, and lovely risen dough for when you get home.

Prep time: Around 16 hours (the majority of which you will be sleeping for)

Hands-on time: 20 minutes

Oven time: 40 minutes


Extra step-by-step photos:

Healthy on a budget: 5 cost-friendly pasta recipes.

Although sometimes pasta gets viewed as an 'unhealthy' option due to its high carb content, it's actually a great choice two or three times a week as part of a balanced diet. Brown dried pasta is widely available these days and will only cost you around £1 per bag - about 5 meals worth.

Roast Veg Fusilli.

Here are some interchangeable recipes for you to use with your packet. Cook pasta according to instructions (normally for wholewheat it’s about 17 minutes on a constant boil) and mix with the following toppings, delicious hot or cold:

1. Pesto.
The simplest, and possibly one of the most delicious. A jar will cost you around £1 and last for about 4 servings, it’s a flavour enhancer so try it out on a toasted sandwich with mozzarella, basil and tomato. With the pasta, simply mix about a tablespoon through the meal. Ideas: add toasted pine nuts/grated mozzarella/make your own pesto!

2.Roasted veg.
Chop vegetables such as red onion, red pepper & cherry tomatoes and roast sprinkled with a little olive oil and salt for 25mins in a 200° oven. Stir into pasta along with the cooked juices. Extras: aubergine, courgette and mushroom also work well. Think Mediterranean.

3.Butternut squash, bacon & feta.
This works best with spaghetti. Dice your squash, drizzle with oil and roast for 30 mins in a 200° oven. Grill and cut bacon into small pieces, mix everything into pasta bowl and crumble feta over the top.

4.Garlic-herb pasta.
SO simple and so sophisticated! For one: in a saucepan, melt 1 tbsp butter, add 1 clove chopped garlic and sauté for 1-2 minutes until it has begun to soften. Add cooked pasta to the pot and sprinkle in a pinch of basil, salt & black pepper. Transfer to a bowl, add fresh chopped parsley or basil and top with grated Parmesan or cheese of choice. 

Garlic-herb tagliatelle with steamed kale.

5. Sausage & tomato.
Sausages are really cheap, and you can easily up the quality of this dish by spending a little more money on the meat. If you treat yourself, you’ll notice the difference. Cut uncooked sausages into meatballs and fry in oil with chopped onion, when browned and almost done add half a tin of chopped tomatoes per person. Add basil, salt, tabasco, a drop of balsamic vinegar and a spoonful of sugar. Reduce and pour over pasta shape of choice. Extra: place in oven-safe dish and top with mozzarella, grill until melted and cheesy.

Have any fail-safe pasta staples of your own? Please share them in the comments below!

Gourmet Pizzas

Making pizzas at home is one of my favourite things to do as a group. If there are a few of you, you can club together to afford decent ingredients and at a fraction of the cost of a takeaway or restaurant pizza. It's also a lot healthier than eating out as you know exactly what's going into every component of the dish.

The most rewarding part is making the dough. Don't skip this, it's fun and will really add that authentic Italian touch to the pizza! This recipe comes from an Italian cookbook, so it's pretty legit:

Pizza Dough
- 15g packet dry active yeast
- 250ml lukewarm water
- pinch of sugar
- tsp salt
- 350-400g strong white bread flour

Place the yeast and lukewarm water in a mixing bowl, stir in the sugar with a fork and let stand for about 7 mins, til the yeast has dispersed and started to foam. Spoon in the salt and 1/3 of the flour until it becomes dough-like and starts to peal away from the sides of the bowl. Sprinkle some of the flour onto a clean work surface and knead for around 10 mins, working in the remaining flour bit by bit. This dough cannot be overworked, so it's a good idea to let everyone have a go at the kneading part. It can be quite fun to relieve any underlying anger by violently punching the dough, picking it up and throwing it at the counter.

When the dough is elastic and smooth, form into a ball and place into a lightly oiled mixing bowl, drape a moist cloth over the top and leave to rise for about an hour in a warm place. I sometimes heat the oven then turn it off and leave it in there, or quickly turn all the hobs on high for a minute then turn off and leave on there. You don't want the dough to start cooking to careful that the place is not too hot. To test if the dough is proved, poke fingers into it and if the indentations remain, it's ready. Stretch the dough as thinly as possible into 4 pizza shapes, and ease into a clean roasting tin. The bases are now ready to be topped.

Every pizza should be topped with a simple passata base, this can be shop bought but just as easily home made with a few pantry staples - you might as well make everything from scratch!

Passata
- tin of tomatoes
- tbsp tomato puree
- garlic
- 1 onion
- drop of tabasco
- drop of balsamic vinegar
- spoonful of sugar
- salt & black pepper

Finely chop the onion and fry with the garlic, add everything to a blender and zizz, bring to the boil in a large saucepan and simmer for 10-15 mins til you have a delicious passata.

Now you have the base, let your imagination run wild! Experiment with weird and wonderful topping combinations, you may come across a taste sensation. Or, if your creative juices aren't yet flowing, have a gander at the tantalizing flavours my house devised and devoured.

In reverse order, saving best for last.

4. The Stuff We Had Left Over
A mish-mash pizza consisting of a few sliced peppers, onion, olives and fresh mozzerella topped with basil leaves.

3.Everything Is Better With An Egg On Top
Vine tomatoes, spinach & ricotta pesto blobs, fresh mozzerella, and a cracked egg.

2.Funghi Fish
Anchovy base with sliced & fried garlic mushrooms, fresh mozzerella and basil leaves.

1.Heaven On A Plate
Caramelised onions, goats' cheese and fresh mozzerella.

Extra tips:

- fry mushrooms in a little butter and garlic before they go on the pizza.

- to caramelise onions, cook slowly in butter for around 5 mins, add sugar and a small shot glass of brewed coffee, then reduce for around 7 mins til dark and sticky. It's almost like a chutney which is why the coffee works, but make sure there is enough sugar to balance the bitter flavour.

- It's worth spending a few extra pennies on good quality mozzerella, I find basics stuff a bit rubbery and tasteless.

- If in the oven (on about 200) the toppings are done but not the bottom, you can slide the whole pizza base-down into a frying pan to crisp it up.

Serve with fresh & vibrant salad to keep it healthy

Please let me know what interesting topping combinations you come up with!

Late night chocolate experiments

It often gets to that point in the night, not long after dinner, that I get an unstoppable craving for something sweet and deliciously unhealthy. Unstoppable, that is, without satisfying it.

Tonight I was in the mood for a thick, Spanish/Italian/Belgian style hot chocolate. Instant powder and boiling water did not fit the bill, so I threw together what cocoa products were around and success! A rich, thick, indulgent night time drink good enough to coat a hot sugary churro. 

I thought I'd write the combination down so that others may enjoy too, or at least I can refer back to this post to recreate:

• 2 squares bourneville
• 2 squares lindt caramel
• 2 ts green & black's chocolate powder
• 2 ts tesco's finest salted caramel chocolate flakes
• 1/4 t ground cinnamon
• mug of skimmed milk

Put all of the above ingredients into a small saucepan on low, whisk until smooth and chocolate is dissolved into milk. Heat to just below boiling, pour into mug and wait for 15 mins for the flavours to infuse. (This is the hard part). Mine developed a skin, which in my opinion is the sign of a good hot chocolate. Enjoy alone or with a traditional European questionably-shaped hot donut. Or with a questionably shaped hot European. Whatever's available. 

Note: this is not a recipe to be followed religiously - despite how tasty it is - just throw what chocolate you have into a saucepan with milk and whisk. But I will say: the darker the chocolate, the richer the taste.