chapatti

Had a lovely play in the kitchen yesterday. Made some chapatti using some Approved Food flour – do you remember those huge, massive, giant bags I got ages ago? Yes, I’m still using them.

Chapatti made with chapatti flour rather than wholemeal flour do taste different. Better I think, so I may well get some more especially for them once I run out. I ‘only’ got one bag of the chapatti flour (‘only’ because it’s a 16kg bag). Whereas I got not one, but four of the granary flour. Also 16kgs.

The shop selling these types of ingredients in Tunbridge Wells sell the giant bags, I’ll have to see how much they are when I pop in next. If it’s not worth it, I’ll just get a little bag from Asda.

I also made a lovely loaf using the chapatti flour, just for the sheer joy of seeing what it would be like.

It’s lovely, and I had a thick slice of it with peanut butter for breakfast this morning. I cut it all up and will freeze the remaining slices so they don’t go stale.

muffins

Then I made Mike some muffins with cocoa powder, walnuts and raisins. You can see them in the corner of the picture, cooling on a wire rack. I cut down the sugar a little as well, although he now says that he would like a bit of chocolate fudge icing on the top. So I’ll do that tomorrow. I’ve put most of them in the freezer as muffins are best spanking fresh, so I’ll have to take them out again to do it.

a warm salad

Today, I made myself a wonderful warm salad for lunch. I used a raw beetroot and cut it into julienne strips, then did the same with a stick of celery. They were stir fried in the wok with a handful of halved pecans and a little oil, adding a splash of water when they threatened to dry out. I tipped the whole lot onto a plate, crumbled over 30g of value feta and drizzled over some vinaigrette, home made, of course. You just need to stir fry the beetroot until that raw edge has gone off. The warm salad was absolutely delicious, filling and sustaining.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen raw beetroot in a supermarket. So you’ll probably need a greengrocer, or wait until the summer until they are in some peoples gardens.

Nespresso

I have a Nespresso machine and have a cup two or three times a week on average. I can only have decaf. I will need some more capsules soon, so I was looking around to see the best price. The Nespresso site itself revealed that the two types of decaf capsule I have now aren’t available anymore and that there are four more, all different, types.

I couldn’t decide which I wanted to try, so popped in the Heathfield branch of Steamer Trading to ask about them there (they sell the machines). They don’t sell the capsules, but were very informative about them and said they would give me a couple to try. When they got to that part, they gave me two sleeves of capsules, not the individual capsules I was expecting. Lovely jubbly! We all love a freebie don’t we 😊

Amazon revealed that there is a refillable stainless steel capsule available. You have to buy single use lids to go with them, but they are only a few pence each. Having said that, I really like the flavour of the Nespresso decaf, so I’ll probably just stick with those. I don’t have enough of them to worry about the cost of them, and I am fortunate enough not to have to.