Banana & pecan bread

I know this isn’t my recipe, but it’s shared quite widely online so I hope Mr Ottolenghi won’t mind me posting this, especially as I can say nothing but good things about it! This is literally the most delicious banana bread ever and it's so easy to make. I made it one Friday evening (yeah my life is that exciting these days), so we could eat it for breakfast the next day. It's absolutely amazing with honey and tahini as suggested in the recipe which you can find in Plenty More.

Ingredients

• 150g Pecans

• 300g mashed banana

• 275g soft light brown sugar

• 3 medium eggs, lightly beaten

• 140ml milk

• 70ml sunflower oil

• 275g plain flour

• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

• 1 ½ tsp baking powder

• ½ teaspoon salt

To serve:

• Tahini

• Honey

Method

• Preheat the oven to 170ºc. Grease and line a 900g (2lb) loaf tin with baking paper.

• Spread the pecans out on a baking sheet and put in the oven for 6 minutes. When they’re done, take them out and roughly chop.

• In a bowl, sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder, then set aside. In a jug, combine the milk, oil and salt and also set aside.

• Put the whole bananas in a mixing bowl and if you have a stand mixer set on medium speed and this will mash them - easier than by hand. Add the sugar, egg and combine. Slowly add the milk and oil whilst continuing to mix, making sure all the ingredients are well combined. Then, add the flour mixture, continuing to blend on a medium speed for a couple of minutes. Finally, stir through the pecans before pouring the mixture into your prepared tin.

• Place the tin on the middle shelf of your oven and cook for 1 hour 10 minutes.

• When cooked, remove and leave in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool.Once cooled, slice the banana bread, spread the butter on one side and put it under the grill until lightly toasted.

• Spread with tahini, drizzle with honey and sprinkle with salt.

• Note - this bread is lovely without doing anything to it, so if you want it plain then go for it.

Tip

Remove the top shelf in your oven as this cake rises a lot.

Camargue red rice, quinoa, apricot & pistachio

I've had a packet of red rice in the cupboard which has been sitting looking at me for a while, so I thought I'd try find a recipe to use it up. After a quick search I found one by Yotam Ottlenghi, which sounded really interesting, with ingredients I wouldn't have put together myself. That's the nice thing about other people's recipes, right? This salad looks quite unassuming when made up, but it has a lovely delicate flavour which is quite different from any other I've tried.

Ingredients

Serves 4-6

• 60g shelled pistachio nuts

• 200g quinoa

• 200g camargue red rice

• 1 medium onion, sliced

• 150ml olive oil

• grated zest and juice of 1 orange

• 2 tsp lemon juice

• 1 garlic clove, crushed

• 4 spring onions, thinly sliced

• 100g dried apricots, roughly chopped

• 40g rocket

• salt and black pepper

Method

• Boil two medium sized pans of salted water.

• Add the quinoa to one and the red rice to the other. Cover and simmer over moderate heat until tender, about 12 minutes for the quinoa and 35 minutes for the rice, then drain the grains and spread them out on baking sheets to cool.

• Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and gently fry the onion (I actually used red onion as I didn’t have any spring). Season with salt and pepper. Cover and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until golden brown - about 10 minutes. Allow to cool.

• Get a large bowl, mix the orange juice, orange zest, lemon juice, garlic and the remaining 3 tablespoons of olive oil; season.

• Add the quinoa, rice, onion, apricots, pistachios and spring onions and mix together. Serve with rocket on top.

Tip

If you want to prep this salad the day before then just keep the dressing and nuts separate. Toss the salad together when you're ready to eat it.