Roast chicken & hot cross buns
Welcome to Growing Appetites, better late than never
Hello!
Do these hot cross buns (below) look homemade to you? I am putting that out there from the get-go, since I let my three year old loose with a piping bag and some very gooey flour and water paste. He’s especially proud of ‘the squiggly ones’. My patience withstood the experience and I am very pleased to share Martha Collison’s recipe for the fluffiest tear and share hot cross buns below in my Spring #2 meal planner. Not least because last year the hot cross buns I made were more akin to rocks. These are winners. Trust me. You just need a morning or afternoon at home and a warm space for them to prove. The willing tiny-helper is an optional extra (to be fair he cracked an egg and was a super little sous chef).
In other news, sorry this is a day late. Our 6-year-old fell and broke his arm on Thursday, meaning we spent the night in hospital. He seems to be doing fine now. He said it happened as he pursued his ‘dream’ to be like the cat in the hat and balance on a football!
I’ve introduced a new feature where I highlight the quickest, easiest meal in my planner – this time it’s creamy mushroom soup. You could make it with stock from a cube, but fresh stock is ideal - it fits in with the roast chicken on this April plan. See my method here. My delicious hack (at the base of the newsletter) is ginger and garlic paste, which I freeze and use a base in lots of recipes.
Below are the meals we have cooked for our family this week. I hope you find them useful. So lastly, if you enjoy Growing Appetites, then please do share.
Happy Easter!
Spring #2 Meal Planner
Friday: A lighter fish pie and the fluffiest hot cross buns
Saturday: Spiced meatballs in tomato sauce with pul biber butter served with broccoli and spaghetti
Sunday: Roast chicken with watercress & lemon stuffing, roast potatoes and carrots
Monday: Pinto bean chilli with guacamole (picture below)
Tuesday: “The quick & easy one” Creamy mushroom soup
Wednesday: Homemade thin and crispy pizza
Thursday: Leftover beetroot soup (last week’s recipe, frozen)
Find tips for each one below with links to recipes where possible (click the name):
Fish pie - I love this Sharpham Park recipe for a lighter fish pie, made with creme fraiche, dill, garlic and lemon juice instead of béchamel sauce. You could top it with puff pastry or mash instead of spelt crumble. I found it needed more like 40 minutes in the oven (rather than 20).
I love Martha Collison’s recipe for hot cross buns, out in last week’s Waitrose Weekend. I used a mixture of wholemeal and white spelt flour, which worked well and was generous with the spices, but otherwise followed her method to the letter. It is a wet dough so she recommends using a dough hook and mixer (if you have one). They were super fluffy.
Spiced meatballs in tomato sauce with pul biber butter is a recipe you can find on food writer Rosie Birkett’s Substack, ‘A Lot on Her Plate’ (subscribe for 7 days for free to get the recipe). It was a real hit this week. I’ve become such a fan of toppings. I think it encourages the kids to eat more adventurously when they can spoon things onto their meals themselves. The spiced tomato sauce elevated my usual version by adding crushed coriander seeds. You then top with a garlic yogurt sauce and pul biber butter. Pul biber is a mild chilli - don’t be afraid to brown the butter then watch it bloom into this amazing burnished sauce when adding the chilli.
Roast chicken with watercress & lemon stuffing (picture below) is a Diana Henry recipe taken again from Waitrose Weekend. I don’t normally make stuffing but would recommend this one. The chicken was so tender too. I roasted a 1.9kg chicken for 50 minutes then a further 30 minutes at the new temperature, having allowed it to come up to room temperature. I also chucked some Riesling into the bottom of the roasting tin for the final 30 minutes instead of using dry vermouth in the gravy. I use the vegetable water rather than chicken stock when making gravy, like my mum does. A great way to get kids eating watercress, which is packed with nutrients.
Pinto bean chilli with guacamole (printable PDF below). Extract taken from The Detox Kitchen Bible by Lily Simpson & Rob Hobson (£25, Bloomsbury)
The publisher kindly shared this recipe with my for my newsletter. I am such a fan of the The Detox Kitchen Bible, because the recipes are so tasty and nutritious (our favourites are the veg-packed dal, roasted cauliflower and prawns with black rice and lime and mung bean curry). This pinto bean chilli cuts down on cost by avoiding meat entirely. If you can plan ahead and soak beans you’re onto a winner flavour-wise. I would always add a dollop of (dairy) yoghurt too. I use my time-saving garlic and ginger paste, the base for so many curries and meals (see The Delicious Hack, below).
“The quick & easy one” Creamy mushroom soup - I think this is a forgotten classic. It couldn’t be quicker and is especially tasty when made with homemade chicken stock (you could use the carcass from this week’s roast chicken).
Homemade pizza (recipe below) - I got the boys to chop up ham, pineapple and mushrooms. We ripped up mozzarella and I defrosted some frozen spinach. I also made a basic tomato sauce with plenty of olive oil, tinned plum tomatoes and thinly chopped garlic, which gently simmers into sweetness, then we topped my homemade pizza dough recipe. The secret here is a hot oven and two pizza trays (something simple like this).
Makes 4 thin pizzas
500g white spelt flour
good pinch sea salt
7g dried yeast
1/2 tbsp caster sugar
325ml lukewarm water
Method: Add the yeast and sugar to your water and stir with a fork. Leave for a few minutes. Place the flour, and salt into a bowl and make a well in the middle. Add the yeast mixture, gradually mix in the flour from the edges then knead on a clean work surface for about 8 minutes until you have a smooth, springy dough. Allow to rest for 15 minutes or so. Divide into four. Roll the pizzas out on a well-floured surface about 30 minutes before baking. Pre-heat the oven to 230 degrees centigrade (fan oven). When you are ready to bake them, top with whatever you like (I start with a basic tomato sauce, thinly spread). Drizzle with a little olive oil. Cook two at a time near the top of the oven for 7-10 minutes until nice and crisp. Eat while hot.
Beetroot soup - this was frozen and leftover from last week’s newsletter!
The delicious hack - ginger and garlic paste
This small act saves me so much time in the kitchen, because I get annoyed about peeling garlic cloves and scraping the skin of garlic when I’m in a rush. Devote 15 minutes once a month and your tastebuds will thank you. Grab a bulb of garlic and peel the gloves. Grab a similar sized amount of ginger and scrape the skin off with the tip of a teaspoon. Chop the ginger into chunks. Place both garlic and ginger into a blitzer of some kind. I use a hand held blender in a tall container so it can properly blend. Add a good dash of water and blitz. You want to create a paste. Add more water if needed. Freeze into small ice cube sized portions. This is the basis for the pinto bean chilli above, for my dal, chicken curry, chickpea curry and similar.
Lovely stuff, Anna Marie! I’m so thrilled you like my meatball recipe, it’s good for the whole family isn’t it. This is a great project, I hope you’re enjoying Substack so far x