Hot Apple Pie Pockets - Lazy Sunday breakfast in bed

Get your chops around this!  This is my quick method for hot apple pie stuffed croissants. It's simple, hot and delicious. Serve it with ice cream it's a win win!

Great for a breakfast in bed Sunday treat or as a speedy dessert.

Ingredients...

1 big Braeburn apple

1 vanilla pod

15g caster sugar

10g brown sugar

25g butter

a croissant from the local bakery

Ice cream from the freezer.

half a teaspoon on cinnamon if you like that kind of thing.

1 warm, comfy bed that you don't want to get out of (partner optional)

Peel and slice the apple.

Melt the butter in a saucepan

stir in the apple and the sugars

Split the vanilla bean lengthways and scrape out the vanilla beans and stir into the apple, butter and sugars melting away in the saucepan.  Smell that?  Mmmmmm!

Turn to a medium - high heat, stir and cook until apple is soft and sticky... and most of the liquid has absorbed into the apple making it look a little brown, sweet and toffee like.

Pop the croissants into the oven to warm through.  2 mins.  

Take the croissants out of the oven and slice open.  Stuff full of the warm apple mixture and serve with a dollop of good vanilla ice cream on the side.  You could also dollop with creme fraiche or yoghurt.

Best eaten like a sandwich... melt the ice cream inside it and you get that hot/cold wonderful combo.  WOW.  

Enjoy your Sunday guys!

Orange Juice

After a sunny start yesterday, I decided to put my pile of work to one side and sneak out of the kitchen to the local trading estate to try to find some curtains for the new place.

But I got distracted by a cool little cafe in the Marks and Spencer's homestore... Gosh. I'm so predictable!

I loved the blue and green chairs and the giant cake stands on the oversized shelves. Aren't they cute?  It looked pretty darn good with the natural wood too and gave me lots and lots of inspiration.

I also got excited to find a bottled orange juice that contained just pure squeezed oranges.  Yep, no absorbic acid, no concentrate, no weird stuff.  And it was very tasty and fresh too.

I'd been looking for an orange juice that just contained orange juice (no big ask you might think) for such a long time it was starting to make me consider getting a juicer and doing it my ruddy self! So thank you Marks and Spencer.

Now I just need to find a muffin that eliminates cellulite.  I'll let you know if I find such a wonder.  I don't hold much hope.

Bircher Muesli

There's nothing like a big breakfast and a good magazine to get your inner fire burning in the morning.  *Rocky Balboa theme tune*  I really needed a bit of OOMPh this morning because I wanted to curl back under my duvet and wake up in Spring (a lot of grey cloud cover today in the Cotswolds *sad face*).

So, this morning's breakfast choice was Bircher Muesli (because I had a Granny Smith Apple and some left over Blueberry syrup from yesterday's pancake feast) and I hate to see good food go to waste.

You're probably wondering where the Bircher Museli 'thing' originated from.  Well, it's a popular breakfast of uncooked oats, nuts and fruits (omit nuts if you're allergic to them like moi)  and was developed by some clever Swiss physician for his patients in his hospital.  So there you have it - it must be super healthy and fab.

It's also very popular in Australia, where I lived and worked until recently.  What more can be said; it's healthy, delicious, satisfying and very addictive - and as it's all natural, nutritious filled stuff, it's also figure friendly! *clap hands*.

You will need
A pack of Waitrose Muesli Mix (they do a nut free one which is awesome for nut allergy freaks like me!  Thank you Waitrose!)
1 cup of Orange Juice
1 Granny Smith Apple
a sprinkle of lemon zest
Leftover Blueberry Syrup, (for the recipe look here)
1 1/2 cups of Greek Yoghurt (or normal yoghurt, your choice, you could even opt for a vanilla yoghurt ...yum!)
A drizzle of honey (optional)

1. Mix the dry muesli with the orange juice and 1 cup of the yoghurt (you can leave it in the fridge over night to absorb and get all gooey which I love to do but if you're short on time you can leave it for 10 minutes while you make a coffee and grate the apple).
2. Then grate the apple on your cheese grater (cheese graters: not just for cheese my friends!).
3. Sprinkle the apple on top of the muesli mix.
4. Dollop the rest of the yoghurt on top.
5. Dollop the blueberry mix on top of that.
6. ...and if you're really feeling fancy, grate some lemon zest over the blueberries and drizzle with honey.

I really like the word 'dollop' today.  Can you tell?

I dare you to go to a meeting at your workplace and use 'Dollop' somewhere.  Tweet me if you do!!

Enjoy your brekkie reading your favourite magazine.  I'm in love with Company at the moment, they're new style is fab!