Coffee Muffins

It’s weird the way naming conventions in food work, isn’t it?

Orzo is a type of pasta, it’s small, and sort of rice shaped – like pine nut. One of the best things about Orzo is that like rice you can use it to make a very fast risotto type dish, called an Orzotto.

In Italian orzo means barley, so back in 2010 when I made a risotto using pearl barley, it too was called orzotto. While pearl barley cooks into a delicious risotto dish, you can’t say it’s fast. It takes longer to cook pearl barley than it does to cook rice.

Risotto is a firm favourite in our household, but the rice version takes a bit long for a week night meal. This is where Orzo (pasta) steps in.
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Back in May 2010 I made wholewheat hot cross buns and I got a pretty good reception on them.

It’s not exactly the right time of year for Hot Cross Buns but I gave them another go, but then breads and sultanas never really go out of season!

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So how can I claim these are healthier than my wholewheat 2010 buns? Well this time I substituted coconut oil for butter, low fat coconut milk for milk and Light At Heart sugar for, uhm, sugar.

I guess I should be up front about it – I was given Light At Heart sugar for free by Tate and Lyle, however I had been hearing about stevia based products for years and been dying to try them. Unfortunately until December 2011 they weren’t allowed to be sold in Europe! The good thing about Stevia based sugar is that it’s half the calories of normal sugar but it’s all natural. (i.e. Not weird Splenda type stuff that was invented in a lab).
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About this time of year I start to really crave sweet things after dinner. Ok I crave them all year round but maybe it’s just I give in a lot more easily when it gets dark and cold…

This is a happy medium, I get something sweet but it’s an apple, so it’s obviously healthy – right? Ok so it’s an apple filled with brown sugar, sultanas, nuts and the tiniest hint of butter. But it is AH-MAZ-ING. You need to try this.
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I haven’t been baking or cooking very much this month or last. Blogging has gone much the same way. My weekends have been spent almost entirely outside soaking up the first of the good weather, and in reality gutting our new garden.

However I decided it would be wrong to let Easter pass without at least baking something, so I opted for Simnel Cake.

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Unfortunately they are just as quick to eat!
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