Tomato baked eggs

Hello,

I promised yesterday on instagram that I would post this delicious recipe of tomato baked eggs. I made this for the very first time on Wednesday and it was so delicious and extremely easy. I think anyone could make it because it is that easy. Here is what it looks like and what to do:

Tomato baked eggs

Ingredients:

• 1 large potato washed and diced
• oil to fry
• 1 crushed garlic clove
• 1/4 red pepper
• 1tsp dried chives
• 1/2tsp paprika
• 1/2 of a 400g can chopped tomatoes
• 9 green olives
• 2 eggs

What to do:

1. Add the potato to a pan of boiling water and simmer for 10 minutes
2. While the potato is boiling, heat the oil in a frying pan. Once heated add the garlic and pepper and cook for three minutes
3. Add the chives paprika, chopped tomatoes and olives to the pan and cook for 3 minutes
4. When the potato is done drain it then mix in well with the tomato sauce
5. grease a small/medium pan with oil/spray/spread and then add in the tomato and potato mixture
6. Make two dips in the mixture and then crack in the eggs into each one
7. Bake for 15 minutes with an oven temperature of 180 fan oven or 200 normal

Enjoy 🙂

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Apricot and walnut sandwich bars (Mary Berry recipe)

Hello,

Some of you might know that I absolutely love baking. It is one of my favourite things to do but unfortunately anorexia has taken it away from me as my mum was getting a bit frustrated when I used to bake all of the time but I wouldn’t eat any myself. I remember when I was in hospital, every Friday was baking day and I would make chocolate brownies and biscuits etc and I would give them to my family and all of the other patients and staff. It was like no one expected me to eat any of what I had created. None of the staff said anything so I just kept baking and giving it all away. But then when I came home I WANT to eat my baked goods so I stopped baking from fear of having to eat it because I have made a pact with myself if I bake then I MUST eat it. And then at the weekend I hadn’t baked in months so I thought it was the perfect opportunity to bake something and eat it. I made these apricot and walnut bars from Mary Berry and they are so delicious. They felt wasier for me because they have oats and wholemeal flour and walnuts in but they still have their fair share of ingredients which my eating disorder would make me cry and run from. So I thought I would share this recipe with you. And of course it is Mary Berry so it has GOT to be good right? 😉

Apricot and walnut sandwich bars

Ingredients:

• 50g rolled oats
• 50g light muscovado sugar
• 40g chopped walnuts
• 200g wholemeal self raising flour OR plain wholemeal flour with 2tsp baking powder
• 175g butter, melted
• 175g dried apricots, chopped into small pieces
• 50ml water
• 2tbsp caster sugar
• grated rind of 1 lemon

What to do:

1. Pre heat your oven to 130 degrees (fan) or 150 degrees and then grease and line a 18cm square tin with baking parchment. Begin by making the apricot filling. Place the apricots, water, sugar and lemon rind into a small saucepan. cover and simmer gently until all of the liquid has evaporated. Remove from the heat and allow to cool while you prepare the oat mixture.
2. Mix together the oats, flour, sugar and walnuts in a bowl. Pour in the melted butter and mix well.
3. Press half of the oat mixture into the tin and press down evenly. Spread the apricot mixture evenly on top and then top with the rest of the oat mixture evenly.
4. Bake in the oven for around 45 minutes. I got nine squares out of my mixture and when still hot cut gently through the mixture to score out nine squares and then leave to go completely cold before completely cutting the bars and lifting them out of the tin.

Enjoy 🙂

Basic baked oats recipe

Hello everyone,

So, I tried baked oats for the very first time this morning and it was incredible. It came out all crispy on the top and soft and gooey in the middle and I shall definitely be making these again and experimenting with different flavour combinations. I posted a picture of my baked oats on instagram this morning and I got a lot of comments for the recipe so for those of you that read my blog here is the basic recipe for my baked oats. I will also be trying out more flavour combinations and when I do I will put up another post for different recipes. But I thought I would just share with you the base recipe today and then you can experiment yourself with any flavour combinations and toppings you like.

Baked oats basic recipe:

Ingredients:

• 50g oats
• 150ml milk of your choosing
• 1tsp baking powder
• 1/2tsp honey/agave nectar/golden syrup etc
• 1/2 a mashed banana

What to do:

1. Heat the oven to 180 fan oven or 200 degrees normal. Combine the oats and milk in a bowl
2. Add the mashed banana, sweetner of your choice (I used agave) and baking powder and mix until combined
3. Spray an oven proof dish with fry light or use a little oil so it doesnt stick. (I actually forgot to do that and it stuck a bit but it came off easily when I soaked it in hot water and washing up liquid)
4. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes

Enjoy 🙂

Before I put mine in the oven I topped it with the rest of the banana and then put peanut butter on top once it had baked.

Yesterday lunch

Hello everyone,

I shall be posting a recipe later on today but first I wanted to do a little post about my lunch that I had yesterday. Me and my mum love going out for lunch so we decided to make it a regular occurrence and we usually go once a week depending on how busy we both are. It’s lovely to spend some time with my mum and also I sometimes meet her before/after therapy so it puts me in a good mood. We have two favourite cafes now but we want to find new places to go because it’s always nice to go somewhere different!

The place I went to yesterday was actually a shop and they have a cafe on the top floor. I think lots of places do that now actually and I like going there because then I can look at all of the kitchen/craft stuff when I am finished 😉 Yesterday I felt like a toasted sandwich and I hadn’t actually seen them do toasted sandwiches before but maybe that is because I wasn’t looking? I chose a cheese and tomato toastie and it was delish.

And then for pudding we both got a cake and I got the coffee and walnut cake which is one of my favourite ever flavours. I have also had the chocolate brownie there before as well. I think I like my chocolate things 😉 I shall have to try the chocolate cake next time I go. I have always been eyeing it up but I think that saying you eat with your eyes is true. Because once my dad bought a cake slice and I just wouldn’t have chosen to eat it because it looked just a bit boring but I had it and it was actually very tasty. I don’t know I think that I do usually make such a fuss if my food doesn’t look tasty I think that is definitely something I need to work on! But I don’t think it is a specific eating disorder thing. I think it is a me being silly thing! Ramble over… Here was my cake.

I did enjoy it but it was very very dense. It wasn’t light and fluffy and my mum said that my homemade cakes are 1000x better. I think a bake session is in order this weekend 😉 Something different will be happening next week. Something different and scary. On Tuesday I am going out for lunch but I am not going with my mum, I am going with my dad. Me and my dad have a difficult relationship and my illness has made it worse. The other day I was just talking with my dad and suddenly I asked him out for lunch. I am not one to be so forward but I did it and I am actually very proud. Me and my dad don’t really do anything together and if we do then my mum is always there. So I hope that this will be a good time to bond and also it will be out of the house and at my favourite cafe so I think (I hope) that I will feel relaxed because most times I don’t feel relaxed at home and that’s when the conflict starts.

I think I am making important steps and I am quite proud of myself which one day I won’t be ashamed of saying! Eating lunch out is getting a little bit easier each week and I think it just proves that if you try then you will succeed. I am aware that most people might not go out for lunch once a week but I think for me it is helping challenging myself and it helps putting an hour aside each week so me and my mum can have a good chat in a calm and relaxed environment which unfortunately is not home at the moment but it will be. Just take each day as it comes.

My day in pictures

Hello everyone

I have had quite a productive day today and I wanted to tell you all about it and show you some pictures. There has been a slight hitch however that I baked a cake today and I did a step by step of all the pictures but then me being me I FORGOT to take a picture of the actual finished product. WHO DOES THAT? Well, I got extremely flustered but I wanted to show you the pictures anyway and you will just have to believe me when I say it looked fantastic 😉

The ingredients before I gave them a good beating…

The ingredients after I gave them a good beating. Fact: cake batter tastes better than the actual cake just saying

Had to take a picture of my favourite Cath Kidston spatula didn’t I

This would be one of the sponges but then that’s as far as I got with the picture taking I’m afraid

And then other things that I have done today was I made two birthday cards:

Birthday card number one

Birthday card number two

And then I had to buy some cake ingredients, went to see family and wrote a pen pal letter oh and I made my dinner but no photo today because I am posting the recipe tomorrow. (if you follow my instagram then hello you have probably already seen said photo) and then that’s me, I feel very productive.

I hope you all have a lovely evening

To new beginnings

Hello,
I have decided to start up my blog again as I stopped posting for a long long time. I have decided that it will be a bit like last time, I will just talk a bit about my recovery and also I will post some recipes because one thing you should know about me is that I just LOVE to cook and bake!
So, to those new readers and to everyone actually I thought I would do a little introductory post. I won’t say my name just yet for privacy reasons but I am 19, I love cooking and baking as I mentioned earlier, I also love horse riding and I love doing little crafty projects like making cards and bracelets and little things like that.
I am in recovery from anorexia and I have been in recovery for four years now. Since I last posted a lot has happened but I shall just give you a quick overview. Everything was going really well at one point, I was at a good stable weight and I was going to college, going to party’s, had such lovely friends. But then around Christmas time 2014 I started to relapse but I didn’t listen to anyone saying it was my eating disorder in control, I didn’t think I was ill again of course because that is what anorexia does to you. It clouds your judgement and it makes your world so tiny that you have no one but each other. Eventually things took a turn for the worse and I was admitted to an adult psychiatric ward in February 2015. Luckily they don’t like keeping the patients there for months at a time. They like to get them better as soon as is possible and then have them recover at home in the community. There was a time when I was going to be transferred to a specialised eating disorder unit which is miles away from where I live and I would have had to have stayed there for 4-6 months but luckily I complied with my meal plan eventually and then I only had to stay in hospital for 5 and a half weeks.
I have been out of hospital for roughly two months now and things are really going well. I still have bad days of course because recovery isn’t all about the ups, it is about the downs as well. But the main thing is that I am plodding along and I have absolutely no desire to go back into hospital which is why I shall be sticking to my meal plan in the long future. This was just a short update post to say hello. And I might even put another post up later today. If you have any questions feel free to ask me, goodbye for now 🙂 

New family member

Good morning,

I just wanted to show you all my hamster that I got a few weeks ago. She is adorable and can just sit in your hand for hours wile you stroke her. I love her so much.

Maisie

Maisie is definitely another reason of why I want to recover and for all of my other animals because they need me to be well enough to look after them and slowly I will get there. I need to do some college work today and then I have a driving lesson so hopefully that will be good. I may even do some baking if I feel like it.