The Inappropriate Muffins

"Mummy lets make butterfly cookies" the Pose asked one Sunday while we were eating lunch.

"Ok Pose, if you are a good girl and eat all your sandwich we can make cookies" I lovingly replied.

"Ok mummy"

That's a verbal contract in my book.  

She didn't eat her sandwich.

Not the end of the world I grant you but with the current battle-of-wills-Mexican-style-stand-offs we have begun enduring as our little person demonstrates she has indeed inherited both her father's AND mother's stubborn-must-always-get-my-own-way-nature, I was determined to stick to my guns (ah the sweet sweet irony).

Within an hour I was feeling bad about it.  I had been away on the Thursday night for a biz trip and was departing for another 4 days on the Monday and wanted to have a nice Sunday with Posie.  I had also decided that it would be nice to leave something baked for them to eat while I was gone.  Plus muffins aren't cookies right, so I technically still won this battle (at least I'll keep telling myself that).

We all love blueberry muffins so it seemed logical that I'd make those to leave as a token of my love for my little family (ahhhhhhh).  Now here's where I admit that I've never made blueberry muffins from scratch.  Don't get me wrong, I've made them before but with a little help from Betty Crocker!  We have a little shop at the end of our road and they always have blueberries so we popped down to pick up a punnet.  Except they didn't have any today.  Le Pose spotted strawberries and bright little thing she is, suggested strawberry muffins.

After a little peruse on the t'interweb I found this recipe which seemed like good brekkie fodder...

The recipe - Strawberry Oatmeal Muffins courtesy of the Yummly website

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup rolled oats
2 tsps baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp salt
1 beaten egg
½ cup milk
¼ cup olive oil (light)
½ cup sugar (I used caster)
½ pt strawberries (chopped fresh)

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Grease 12 muffin cups (I just put muffin/cupcake cases into muffin tins, I didn't bother with the oil). 

2. In a large bowl, mix flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together egg, milk, olive oil and sugar. Mix in strawberries. Stir strawberry mixture into oat mixture just until evenly moist. Spoon into prepared muffin cups.

3. I then thinly sliced some strawberries to use for decoration and carefully pressed a slice into the top of each muffin.

4. Bake 18 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, until a knife inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Ummmm...

They tasted great and at only 174 calories were great for a low cal breakfast (I found dumping low fat yoghurt on top made it even yummier).  The Pose and the hubster both enjoyed them so it made me very happy.  Until hubster made a comment on the appearance.  I was horrified.  These were made with the little one's "assistance" so I felt awful that without thinking I had made "inappropriate" muffins with my toddler....ooops.*

* If you can't see it I'm not explaining!  How embarrassing....(*hands her head in shame*)

Pot-Age Patties

Bangers and mash.  Its proper British grub and everyone in my family loves it.  We've even converted the hubby.

Banger's are sausages.  I don't know why we call them "bangers" but this website provides quite an amusing explanation.  Strangely we also seem to call boobs bangers, in fact it was yelled at me the other day from some workmen.  "Oi luv!  You've got some great bangers!".  Yes, its every girl's dream being yelled at that she's got a good rack by the "panel" at a building site.  I have NO idea why boobs are also called bangers and I sincerely hope it bears no correlation with the sausage explanation.  Anyway...

My father looked after le Pose on Saturday night as hubby was off on a football training weekend (American not soccer) and I had been invited to an old friend's birthday party (literally known her my entire life from bump).  Just before I left he made their dinner - Bangers and mash - Posie's favourite.  Why is this important?  Simple, there was a ton of left over mashed potato and half a pack of uncooked sausages so I whipped up this little recipe...

The recipe - Pot-Age Patties with a Honey-Mustard Dressing (get it? Pot (potato) Age (sausage) well I liked it)

The patties:

5 medium sized potatoes, boiled and mashed with a little milk and butter

4 large pork sausages, casings removed leaving just the meat (you could also use store-bought sausage meat)

1 medium red onion, finely chopped

3 baby portabella mushrooms, finely chopped

1 egg

plain flour for dredging
olive oil for frying

The dressing:

1 tbsp honey

1 tbsp Bulldog Mustard (or other coarse grain mustard)

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 tbsp lemon juice


A salad of some description - I used a pre-bagged mix.


1. Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 6.


2. Put all the ingredients for the patties in a bowl and mash together with a fork then get it good and combined with a wooden spoon (or your mitts).

3. Grab a handful of the mix and shape it into patties about an inch thick (this recipe makes about 12 patties).  Dredge the patties in the plain flour.

4. Heat some oil (I used olive oil - my mother's close friend lives on an olive grove in Tuscany so I have an enormous can of incredible olive oil from their grove) in a large (preferably non-stick) frying pan or flat griddle.  Cook until golden brown on each side (about 5mins) then transfer the patties onto a baking sheet and cook for another 20mins.


5. While the patties are in the oven make the dressing.  Simply put all the ingredients into a bowl and whisk to combine.


6. Artfully place some lettuce on a plate (artfully place lettuce on a plate?  Seriously Lucy?!), put a couple of patties on top and drizzle (yes drizzle) the dressing all over.

Ah yes, artful salad.

7. EAT!


This was really tasty for a fairly light lunch made for my dad whilst Pose was asleep.  The sausage wasn't too overpowering but gave all the seasoning you needed (although I am always happy to add more sausage - British sausages were one of the biggest things I missed when I lived in the US and was the hardest thing to get a hold of.  The other was strong cheddar cheese.  Yes, I'm a cheese and sausage girl apparently).  To make it more brunch/hangover friendly it would be great without the salad  but with a 3min poached egg on top (cook it longer by all means, I just like my eggs nice and runny).

Enjoy :)