Creating my Perfect Porridge

A couple weeks ago, the lovely people over at Flahavan's sent me a bit of a porridge survival kit to create my #PerfectPorridge with.  If you follow me on Instagram you might well have seen lots of pictures of my porridge in the morning.

For years porridge has been my go-to favourite breakfast, it's healthy and filling.  But it wasn't until Flahavan's sent me their parcel that I tried 'jumbo' oats, or chia seeds, or goji berries and an assortment of other tasty treats to adorn your porridge with.

Over the next couple of weeks I will share a couple of recipes with you on how I make my #PerfectPorridge - I'll give you a hint - both recipes will be super-duper easy :)

Excuse the blurry picture, but here's a picture of the lovely kit that Flahavan's sent to me - I adore the bowl and spoon! I don't mind admitting, even if I haven't had porridge and I've had cereal, it's been out of that bowl since (it's an M&S Truro bowl)

Here's some of my creations so far - the top two were overnight oats which is why they look so milky - I'd never tried overnight oats with milk before, and now I know why! Much better with yoghurt. The top left one has goji berries, chia seeds and fresh blueberries.  Top right is goji berries, coconut flakes, and cocoa nibs. Bottom left is goji berries, chia seeds, coconut flakes and a big teaspoon of seedless raspberry jam, and bottom right is just the raspberry jam (with the porridge ofc!).

To make these, I used:

40g Flahavan's Jumbo Porridge Oats
250ml milk

I tend to let it very gently simmer on a very low heat, giving it only the occasional stir.  Then I add in the toppings at the end, depending on what mood I'm in, depends on what I'll add.  I'm loving it with fresh fruit - I did buy some pineberries the other day, they would have been amazing in this!

How do you make your perfect porridge?

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Recipe: Vegetarian Pasta Sauce a la Pixie

No, this recipe doesn't contain pixie's! But it is one I made up, therefore it has the pixie name on it :) This isn't different really from other pasta sauces, but it does contain whole kalamata pitted olives, which isn't that common.  So, without further ado, here's what you're going to need.

INGREDIENTS

1 x Tin cherry tomatoes

1/2 jar pitted kalamata olives

Handful chopped basil*

3 x finely chopped garlic cloves*

1 x pack quorn chicken chunks

1 x tbsp tomato puree

Salt and black pepper

A splash of olive oil

*These products I use pre-prepared and frozen from the supermarket

METHOD - The Sauce

(Cook up your pasta as usual)

1.  Heat up the oil in the pan, then add the pack of quorn chunks, add a couple pinches of salt, and some twists of black pepper

2.  When they're on their way to being cooked, drain the olives and add them

3.  Keep mixing them up, the after about 3-4 mins, add the garlic and basil

4.  Take your tomato puree, and add a little hot water to it in a cup and mix it up - add this to the mixture

5.  After 1-2 mins, add the tin of cherry tomatoes and give it a good stir

6.  After another 5 mins it should be done and read to add to your pasta

Serving suggestion: Serve with some grated cheese on the top, whether parmesan or cheddar

It's nothing glamourous, but it does taste very yummy, especially with the whole kalamata olives. The quorn chunks are amazing too, they absorb flavour really well, so each one you bite into is like a little pocket of flavour :)

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Recipe: Fererro Rocher brownies

I admit it, this isn't one of my recipes.  The brownie recipe I stole from Another Innocent Girl, and the inspiration I took from Pinterest, however, I did do one small thing to adapt it, which technically makes it mine :P

Here's what you'll need:

100g unsalted butter

150g milk chocolate

4 medium eggs

250g Caster Sugar

100g Plain Flour

1 tsp Baking Powder

30g Cocoa Powder

2 dessert spoons of Nutella

12 Ferrero Rocher's

And here's how you make it:

Preheat your oven to 180'c.  Get a tin, grease it and line it with grease-proof paper.  Then, great a bain marie and melt the chocolate, butter and nutella together (make sure the spoons of nutella are generous!).

Whisk together the eggs and sugar with an electric whisk, you're aiming for it to be very light and thick enough to hold a trail when you lift the whisk out of the mixture.

Measure out the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and cocoa) and sift them into the sugar & eggs, then fold it all together.  Be careful though as you don't want to remove the air from it you've just whisked into it.  Then pour in the melted chocolate mix and continue to carefully fold.

Pour into the tin, and place your Ferrero Rocher's, making sure you space them evenly, try to make sure they're completely covered if you can too.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until nicely crusted but still soft in the middle. I tend to take it out at 20-25 minutes as I have a fan heated oven and it tends to cook food very quickly - and with these I was aiming for gooey middles :)

If you make them, be sure to tweet me a picture of them to @twinklinpixi3 :)

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Orange drizzle cake

About a week ago I attempted to make the wonderful Mary Berry Lemon Drizzle cake for the first time.  Seeing as it's such a great recipe, it turned out to be an awesome cake.  But while I was devouring it, I couldn't help but think that I'd never seen anyone make an Orange drizzle cake, and how it might be very tasty.

So with two sets of guests coming over yesterday, I sent the hubby to Sainsburys to get supplies and set about making the orange version of the cult classic, and you know what?  It turned out great!  Because I don't have a juicer thingy to get juice out of fruit, I found that the 2 lemons in the recipe didn't give me enough juice for the crunchy glaze on the top, so I figured that 2 oranges would be perfect - 2 oranges turned out to be slightly too much, but it did help add more moisture to the already-moist sponge.  Anyway, I can't take credit for this recipe, it's the original Mary Berry one, but adapted for oranges.

Ingredients
225g self-raising flour
225g unsalted butter (softened)
225g caster sugar
2 tsp baking powder
4 medium eggs
4 tbsp milk
The zest of 2 oranges

For the crunchy topping:
Juice of 2 oranges
200g granulated sugar

You'll also need a tin, approx 30 x 23 x 4 cm.

Method
1.  Pre-heat your oven to 160c (325f/Gas 3)
2.  Grease your tin, and line with grease-proof paper
3.  Put all of the ingredients into a large mixing bowl
4.  Beat together with an electric whisk/mixer (this can be done with a wooden spoon if you don't have an electric whisk) until the mixture is light
5.  Pour into tin, making sure the mixture is level
6.  Bake in the centre of the oven for 35-40 mins (if your oven is fan assisted, you can probably shave a few mins off that as it'll bake quicker)
7.  While the cake is cooling on a wire rack, mix up the juice of the oranges with the granulated sugar and give it a stir
8.  Once the cake has cooled, spoon on the orange/sugar mixture evenly across the cake.  Cut and serve.

Tip - if the orange/sugar mixture looks a bit runny, add some more sugar as the crunchier the topping is, the nicer :)

Please let me know if you make this and let me know what you think, it went down very well in my household and with our guests - it didn't last into the evening!

Georgina <3
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