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How to make Kefir at home

Kefir is yoghurt’s low-maintenance, tarty cousin. She’s got a gutsy attitude and is addictively refreshing among a sea of shiny, clean eating accessories. I have a feeling 2018 is going to be her year.

When can you meet? Today! Find kefir grains in the refrigerated section at your local health store or trendy café. We got ours from The Hopsack in Dublin 6. Failing that, a quick Tweet thankfully sorts out most bourgeois problems in Ireland. Kefir grains look very similar to cooked rice pudding. Nothing too freaky, I promise.

The grains burp and feed on whole milk, gobbling up the natural milk sugars and lactose. All those gorgeous good bacteria multiply faster than grass through a goose. What you’re left with is a funky ferment more potent than natural yoghurt.

Kefir

Makes 500ml

Use organic milk, raw milk, goat’s milk, even coconut milk. I drink kefir straight up on ice, but yogi types like to flavour their kefir with second ferments using honey and vanilla pods. Kefir is also really great with spicy curries, to help your tastebuds and mascara survive the heat. It makes a rather brilliant marinade for meat, replaces buttermilk in baking recipes, and sings with soft cheese as a last minute mash-up for spreads.

2-3 tablespoons milk kefir grains
500ml full fat organic milk (goat’s, cow’s, nut milk)

1 Using a clean mason jar or 500ml glass bottle, pop the kefir grains in with your preferred type of milk.

2 Cover with kitchen paper, secure with a band, and leave on your kitchen counter 24-36 hours to ferment.

3 When the desired tang is achieved, remove the kefir grains with a plastic sieve and pop the live grains into fresh milk to start the process all over again. You’ll know the grains have doen their work when you see the milk split a little.

The fresh kefir can be refrigerated or guzzled straight away to pimp your flora.

If you aren’t reusing the kefir grains straight away, they can be stored in a little whole milk for 1 week in the fridge. The milk be will perfectly good to use – the chilled temperature merely slows down the fermentation process. It’s okay to keep extra kefir grains in the freezer too.

One final point – if you are using plant milk, the kefir grains tend to benefit from a little cow’s milk every 4 or 5 batches of kefir-making. This is because the kefir grains like lactose as a source of go go juice.

Taking the hell out of healthy.

Hit “BOOM” at the top left corner with your email address my friend, to receive new monthly recipes direct to your inbox. Here’s hoping 2018 will be your most exciting year yet!

January 9, 2018

White Chocolate Porridge

Cacao sounds like a verb. Something you do to someone when they tamper with your temper.

Ka-Kow! It also sounds like a magical spell, which is exactly what cacao does to porridge.

Cacao butter is going to take your porridge to a whole new level – that’s why we call this recipe The Elevator.

Curiously, cacao butter is creamy and pale. If you close your eyes and smell it, you’d never guess it wasn’t chocolate. You see, cacao butter is responsible for All Things Chocolatey. That’s right. This ingredient owns you.

Like all butters, cacao fat is damn delicious and leaves your palate purring for more. But a little goes a long way. We now know that moderate amounts of good fats form an integral part of our health – avocados, unsalted nuts, olive oil, egg yolks. Cheap, bastardised fats in convenience products and confectionery, will often brutalize your waistline and your arteries.

Find the unadulterated raw form of cacao butter in health shops and Supervalu stores nationwide. It’s not housed in the refrigerated area – look instead for the superfood shelf made for savvy shoppers like you.

White chocolate porridge

Serves 1

1 tablespoons raw cacao butter, roughly shaved

120ml (1/2 cup) preferred form of milk

4 tablespoons oat flakes

Pinch of flaky sea salt

Pistachios and raw honey, to serve

I bet you have a particular way of cooking porridge, attentive to your own neuroses. Me too! This recipe will work, whichever way you choose to cook it.

For everyone else, I recommend bringing the cacao butter and your preferred milk to a gentle heat, below simmering point. Then add the oats, the flaky salt and cook for 5 minutes until the oats expand. Try not to let the pot boil, burning the taste of the milk.

Serve with great big globs of whipped or set honey and a cup of Early Grey.

Some crazy-ass news?

The US edition of my cookbook, Tasty.Naughty.Healthy.Nice, reached number 1 on Amazon for New Releases. #WTAF

As a result, Amazon have dropped the price in celebration. Here’s the link, should you fancy sending an American pal some Irish sunshine through the post this week!

Namaste my friends.

October 16, 2017

Breakfast, Lunchbox, Treats & Snacks, Vegan &/or Raw

How to Make Sesame Snaps

Cutlery numbs my taste buds. I’m convinced my fingertips start to recognise flavour before any of it reaches my mouth. Eggs and guacamole on toast? My digits get to taste it first. Imagine the same breakfast with a knife and fork? Or eating a hamburger with cutlery? Sushi perhaps? Even pizza?

Look, if I’m to be perfectly honest, I think we can taste words too. Often reading a restaurant menu is the best part of the meal. Each word is like a little comet of deliciousness.

I don’t think any of this constitutes as news, except that I rarely spot people using their fingers with the same giddy determination and shamanistic frenzy I apply to my meals. Clearly, more people bow to the sophistication of a fork – a majesty which I think is comically misplaced. There are some intriguing results out there, led by scientists, to suggest other homo sapiens behave like me. Phew. (Although it’s possible these studies were led by historians rather than gastro physicists. Nevermind).

This week’s recipe is a playful experiment for your taste buddies. Let’s munch half the batch with our fingers. And then chew the rest of the sesame snaps using a fork. Ask your taste buds to vote.

Sesame seeds morph into extraordinary little explosions of flavour in the oven. We love them for their sweet nutty smack, but also for their plant-based calcium which makes them great for growing nippers. In Hinduism, sesame is referred to as the seed of immortality. This is probably because of its pumped portfolio of plant lignans and other crazy cool protective compounds like phytooestrogens.

These sesame snaps make me feel like I’m going to live forever. And if I don’t? I’m happy to die trying.

Sesame Snaps

5 tablespoons sesame seeds

1 tablespoon rice malt syrup or maple syrup

Pinch of sea salt

Preheat your oven to 220C.

In a cup, mash the ingredients together with a fork. Spread the mixture over a baking tray lined with non-stick parchment as best as you can. It’s outrageously sticky, but don’t worry. The heat will help the mixture collapse.

Bake at 200-220C for 5 mins, until bubbly. You want the water to evaporate from the mixture which will give it its crunch.

Allow to solidify once cooled. Smash.