Cooking Corner - Rustic Ham Mousse

Rustic Ham Mousse

If you need to whip something up for a pot luck party or a quick lunch, this is something that will impress. Every time I make this I get asked for the recipe (which is a bit embarrassing because it is SO simple to make!)

It's also a great one for the kids to do, as long as they are supervised when using the blender.

What you need:

200g of cream cheese
150g cooked ham (quality ham not that horrid processed pretend ham)
1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
Fresh chives, finely chopped (optional)
Salt and pepper

Pop the cream cheese and ham in a blender and whizz up until smooth. Add the mustard and chives and combine.

Serve with crusty bread and veg sticks.

Told ya, super easy and it's delicious!

The Cooking Corner - Potato, cheese and courgette pizza

When I was growing up, we always had a Sunday Roast on a Sunday evening, no matter where we had been or what we were doing, my mom always managed to pull of a roast. I'm not sure how, it take me all day to deal with a roast dinner!

Here we have sort of fallen into the tradition on pizza on a Sunday evening, it's quick and easy and doesn't matter if we are out all day. I like to try new recipes, so here is out latest, adapted from a Jamie recipe.

Potato, Cheese and Courgette Pizza

Recipe: (makes 3 personal sized pizza)

For the dough, I admit, I am lazy and throw it all in the bread maker, set it to pizza dough and leave it to it. If you are doing it by hand, mix the dry ingredients together (except yeast) first then add the wet and mix together until all combined. Let rest somewhere warm, then knock back, separate into 3 chunks and roll out, place on lined baking trays.

• 100g strong white flour
• 100g wholewheat bread flour
• 50g semolina flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 7g dry yeast
• 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 165ml warm water (add yeast to this if you are hand mixing)

For the topping. 

• 125 g boiled new potatoes
• 1tsp olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 1 medium onion thinly sliced
• shake of dried basil
• 100g thinly sliced cheese
• 200g courgette, slice with a veg peeler

Heat the oven to 250deg C

Heat a frying pan with the olive oil in it. Then add the garlic and onions, cook through until golden. Add the potatoes and mash into the onion and garlic. Season and add the basil. Turn off the heat.

Spoon the potato mix over the bases then add a layer of sliced cheese and finally the courgette on the top. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, then pop in the oven.

The original recipe said 7 - 10 minutes but ours need 15 mins, so keep and eye on them!

Really tasty and a good way to use up left over spuds! Also a great recipe for anyone who doesn't like tomatoes.

If you have a great pizza recipe let me know in the comments, always on the look out for new things to try!

The Cooking Corner - Overnight Oats - choco banana

Ebi-kun eats like a horse in the mornings, he puts away far more than both daddy and myself, I'm not sure where he puts it because there isn't much of him!

In the winter we alternate between porridge and eggs in the mornings but now the summer is here, no one wants porridge, and eggs every morning gets a bit boring!

A lot of my health nut friends have been posting about overnight oats and I must admit, the thought of cold porridge makes me want to vom... but... I though it was worth a try!

The first batch I made was tropical fruit and went down well, so we tried choco banana today, also good except when I was making the breakfasts up last night I had left the choco chips on the shelf above the oven so they had melted! That meant is was less of a choco chip, more of a choco chunk!

The great thing about overnight oats is that it doesn't take long to put together and in the morning you just take it out of the fridge and eat - minimum washing up too!

I used the jugs that came with the nutribullet but any big glass or jar would do.

RECIPE: (makes 1 serving)

• 1/3 cup yoghurt
• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1 medium banana chopped
• 2/3 cup milk
• few dashes of vanilla
• 1 tbsp honey or maple syrup
• 2 tbsp choco chips (or a sold blob!)
• 1 tbsp chia seeds (for those in Japan I got them at Kaldi)

You can easily sub in things like almond milk or gluten free oats to suit your needs.

Put in a cup/jar. Put on a lid and shake well until mixed - if you don't have something with a lid you could mix it in a bowl and mix well instead.

Put on the lid and pop in the fridge.

By the morning it has all combined into a thick mixture. I'm not overly excited at the texture, as I'm not really a fan of gooey foods but it goes down ok and it really fills you up! Because it's oats, it keeps you feeling full for longer too, which means I don't get those mid morning munchie feelings!

I will share other versions as we try them!

And if this is something you eat at home, share your favourite combos!