Fabulously easy flatbread

Flatbread isn't something I've made before. Well, unless ciabatta from one of those bags of bread mix. It was over 10 years ago - give me this one! It's this month's Fresh from the Oven challenge, which isn't something I've joined in with before now but I decided I would give it a go. 

It's January and I'm trying to reduce shopping bills, so having had a look in the cupboard at my many bags of flour, and having a pot of buttermilk that should have gone into soda bread last week but didn't was pretty much decided at that point. 

There's something innately satisfying about being able to make a quick bread to go with a dinner when I realise that something is just missing. Much like my loved and easy soda bread. I nearly always have yoghurt in the fridge so even without the buttermilk would be able to make these. 

So, I went back to a scribbled recipe from a friend I used to work with. It's possibly the easiest recipe I've ever posted on here, so really anyone can try it. I made a few additions to the recipe as I am always on the quest to add flavour. 

Fabulously easy flatbread

Ingredients 

A pot of buttermilk or Greek yoghurt
Bag of flour - I used wholewheat

Equipment

Mixing bowl
Non stick frying pan
Rolling pin

Empty your buttermilk/ yoghurt from the pot into the mixing bowl. Really scrape it out
Take that pot to the sink, rinse it out with water, then use a tea towel or kitchen towel to dry it out
Fill the pot up with flour, empty into the mixing bowl
Using your hands, bring the mix together to form a ball of dough

I used a 250g pot of buttermilk and that made 10 flatbreads

And that's it! Really! Well, Ok you need to cook it. 

Take a ball of dough about the size of a small satsuma. 
Flour your surface, and rolling pin. 
Roll out the flatbread until it's really thin - about half a cm. It's a sticky dough so you may need to re dust with flour. 

Heat up your pan (no oil) until it's hot, hot, hot. Lay the flatbread on the pan and cook until you start to see the bread bubbling. Turn it over and do the same with the other side. 

And that's it - we had them with leftover turkey chilli, grated cheese and soured cream. They're flexible enough to use as a wrap, but equally work to dunk into soup, or you could even use them as an alternative pizza base.. 

I made half a batch that were plain (ostensibly for M) and half that were heavily spiked with chilli and coriander. Given M's documented dislike of coriander I didn't subject him to those ones, but I can attest to just how good the breads are when flavoured. You could easily add other spices depending on what you were serving them with. 

The only thing I would say about these is that they don't keep. They were OK the next day for lunch with my soup, but after that a bit inedible. Definitely a recipe that's better made as you need it and happily, one that's easy enough to do just that with. 

Simple Summer Essentials: Peach melba - musical theatre style

 

 

 

The Simple Summer Essentials series is coming to an end - along with this (all too brief) spell of hot weather. The last recipes I have for you are all sweet - today's peach melba, a patriotic pavlova and a way to use up overripe soft fruits to make a fool.

Peach Melba was originally a pudding created by Auguste Escoffier to honour the soprano Nellie Melba. Vanilla ice cream, peaches and raspberry sauce combined with an ice sculpture of a swan (as a nod to the opera she was singing in) to make an outstanding dessert, recreated time and time over. by the time I became familiar with peach melba it had been diluted into one of those little pots of yoghurt, that along with Angel delight were standard pudding fare in the 1980's. Not quite what escoffier had in mind I'm sure!

Growing up, peach melba seemed impossibly glamourous and fancy. The type of thing one would have at a posh restaurant. Little did I know, that the combination of peach and raspberry I loved so fiercely in my little pots of yoghurt was an easily recreated dessert, one that could easily be done and done diet style as well.

So today's post is Peach Melba - musical theatre style (that is to say less overblown than opera) Consider this the Rent to La Boheme, or Miss Saigon to Madam Butterfly of the pudding world.

Serves 2

100g 0% fat Greek yoghurt (I use Total)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
100g raspberries pureed
2 peaches
1 tsp dark, soft brown sugar

Split your peaches in half, and remove the stone. Sprinkle the cut side with the soft, dark brown sugar and put under a hot grill until the sugar starts to bubble.
Meanwhile, mix the vanilla extract into the yoghurt and leave to stand. You could sweeten if you wanted, either with a sweetener or sugar. I don't find I need it and avoid artificial sweeteners as a rule, but you should make sure it tastes lovely for you.
This is an ideal way to use up ripe raspberries - either mush them up in a bowl, or (if you're being fancy) push them through a seive.
Then either, stir the puree into the yoghurt and top the grilled peaches with this (as I've done in the pictures). Or top the grilled peaches with plain yoghurt and drizzle with the raspberry puree

It's such a simple pudding, but grilling the peaches makes it slightly different as the peaches take on a fantastic caramelly flavour from the sugar and grill. This method of cooking them would also work on a barbeque if you're planning on one last hurrah with yours this weekend.

Meal Planning Monday: The healing edition

After last week's slightly incoherent, rambly post about the ills of hospital food, I'm still at home and slowly getting back to full strength. I'm hoping to go back to work next week, but have to get checked out by the doctor to say that's OK first. Consequently this week features a lot of comfort food, as demanded both by the weather and by the slowly healing system of this poorly person.

Breakfasts are 0% Total Greek yoghurt with some lightly stewed eating apples that I cooked down this evening with about 100g of sultanas soaked in orange juice and zest. I'm planning on making some granola to add some crunch - apparently crunchy foods increase serotonin and I've been craving them since my release last week.

Lunches for me are another batch of Nigella's split pea and frankfurter soup, with a good spoonful of lazy chilli stirred through.

Dinners, as I say are full on comfort food. It's not so much about calories, but about needing that soothing unctuousness that comfort food provides. M has work and Welsh this week so I'm getting the slow cooker back out for a hearty, warming casserole:

Monday: Toad in the hole, mashed potatoes and vegetables

Tuesday: Chicken and sweet leek pie with vegetables- cauliflower and spring greens I think

Wednesday: Chicken, butternut squash and barley casserole - I'll blog this as it's a long standing recipe I've been using for years that doesn't seem to have made the blog as yet

Thursday: Leftover casserole

Friday: Apparently I said we'd find out when we got there which means my brain was addled after thinking up four dinners. The fact that I just had to ask M this is evidence that I really am not on form yet.

I should be getting beetroot in my veg box tomorrow so M has requested Jenny's Beetroot chocolate cake, and I have a bit of a craving (is it the crunch again?) for Eccles cakes, so will be breaking out my t&t Delia recipe. 

I've promised M a roast on Sunday as he's at archery in the morning, so will either do the slow roast pork from the other week, or go steady on the cauliflower in the week and do roast beef and cauliflower cheese. Oh I think I've just decided! Beef it is, with a mustardy crust. Yum.