Baked tomatoes & feta on toast

June 3, 2019October 31, 2019 ~ Corrie ~ 5 Comments

I went to an insanely overpriced but beautiful health food shop today in Finsbury Park. Sometimes, I like to swish around this shop and pretend I’m a regular customer. I even put three large avocados in my basket knowing they’re £2.50 each without so much as a small grimace on my face – I’m such a good actress. (I quickly put two back without anyone noticing.)
I spend a good 20 minutes picking items off the shelves, pretending to read the labels before returning them to their place – God, I’m having a great time. I eventually reach the counter with a mere five items in my basket all carefully plucked and examined ready for purchase.
“That will be fifteen pounds and twenty nine pence, please,” says the smug man behind the counter with long greasy hair. Shit – he knows! He knows I think this shop is ridiculously overpriced and that I usually shop at Tesco. The bastard! Two can play at this game. I smile sweetly and tap my bank card on the card reader as if I don’t have a care in the world.
I turn to leave, still smiling like a slightly deranged mental patient.
“Would you like a date?” the greasy haired man calls after me. Feeling slightly flattered, but mostly awkward, I turn to say, “Sorry, I have a boyfr….” when I realise he is elbow deep in a giant glass jar of what looks like crusty old turds. My neck is suddenly very hot as I realise my error.
“Err, yes please,” I say quickly, as he drops a large date into my open palm. I take a bite, thinking I can always chuck it away when I get outside, but to my surprise it’s soft, sweet and delicious. I then burst into tears – it’s been a hard month.

Back home, I spread the expensive bread I just bought with the expensive feta and top with baked expensive tomatoes and you know what? When you feel like utter shit, there’s nothing better than glorified cheese on toast to make everything okay again… That and a big juicy date. So weird.

Baked tomatoes & feta on toast
Serves 2 / Hands on time 10 mins / Total time 25 mins / V
Extra virgin olive oil
4 large tomatoes or 6 medium tomatoes on the vine
6 thyme sprigs
100g vegetarian feta
1 small garlic clove, peeled
2 large sliced sourdough bread, toasted
2 poached eggs to serve eggs (optional)

Method
1. Preheat an oven to 220°C/200°C fan/425°F/gas mark 7. Leaving the tomatoes on the vine, place on a non stick baking tray and spear each tomato with a fresh thyme sprig. Drizzle with olive oil and season well with salt and pepper. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.
2. Once the tomatoes are baked, turn the oven off and leave the tomatoes inside to keep warm. If you’re poaching eggs, now is a good time to get them on. Toast the bread and rub each slice with a peeled garlic clove. Split the feta between the 2 slices and squish down roughly with the back of a fork.
3. Remove the warm tomatoes from the oven, discard the thyme sprigs and evenly distribute the tomatoes on top of the feta. Press the tomatoes down using the back of a fork releasing some of the juice. Serve immediately drizzled with extra virgin olive oil, a good crack of salt and pepper and top each with a poached egg (optional).

If you’ve had a go at making any of my recipes, I’d love to hear from you. Follow me now @corrieheale and tag your recipe pictures using #corriesrabbitfood.

V – Vegetarian

My avocado on toast

October 2, 2017October 31, 2019 ~ Corrie ~ 8 Comments

I’m not going to tell you how to make avocado on toast but I am going to tell you my current favourite breakfast combo. I make this most Saturday mornings for me and Jamie, I love it and I think he likes it – he could always make his own breakfast but that has literally never happened.

Rub a piece of toast with a raw garlic clove and top with half a smashed avocado seasoned with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with smoked paprika, pumpkin seeds and a good drizzle of Pomora extra virgin olive oil. Top with two rashers of vegetarian bacon – I rarely eat meat substitutes but I do like veggie bacon every now and again. Finish with a fried egg (I like the gorgeous orange yolked Clarence Court eggs) and enjoy your weekend… I know it’s Monday but we can dream.

If you’ve had a go at making any of my recipes, I’d love to hear from you. Follow me now @corrieheale and tag your recipe pictures using #corriesrabbitfood.

V– Vegetarian

Peanut butter, honey & pears on toast

July 31, 2017October 31, 2019 ~ Corrie ~ 4 Comments

Peanut butter and honey on toast might seem like an odd combination but trust me, it’s a wonderful thing. I was first introduced to it by my old school friend Hina. Hina was (and still is I believe) Japanese and the Japanese like their peanut butter a bit sweeter than us Brits. So after school, we’d often scamper back to her boarding house and eat peanut butter on toast slathered in honey, which I later christened ‘Hinabutter’.
Anyway, so I forgot all about Hinabutter until I purchased an insanely expensive pot of raw honey recently. Apparently the 40p honey I’d been buying all these years was no better than eating filtered dog turds. So did it really taste all that different?
Well no, not really but there’s a quite a significant difference between the two despite tasting very similar. For a start, regular honey tends to be pasteurised and filtered, which is said to destroy the honey’s natural vitamins and nutrients. Whereas raw honey, comes straight from the hive so remains untreated, unheated and unfiltered. This means, unlike regular honey, it retains most of it’s nutritional properties and can even include the odd bit of wax, pollen and a couple of bees knees (literally). Although don’t worry, raw honey is often strained to remove wax/knees so no need to freak out, humans have been eating raw honey for thousands of years. Anyway that’s enough eduction for one day, now where was I?
Oh yeah, so for the past week, I’ve been pouring honey all over my peanut butter on toast like some kind of deranged Pooh Bear which doesn’t exactly make for a balanced breakfast. So I chucked in some pears and a bit of ricotta to help balance it out and to help cut through the sticky sweetness of it all. Bananas I’m sure would work wonderfully too but as I can’t stand the little buggers, I think I’ll stick to me pears thanks guvna… Not sure why I’ve gone all cockney but there you go. Enjoy!

Peanut butter, honey & pear on toast
Serves 1 / Hands on time 5 mins / Total time 5 mins / V
2 slices of bread
Knob of butter
Crunchy peanut butter
Honey, preferably raw or organic
½ conference pear, cored and sliced
1-2 tbs of vegetarian *Ricotta
Sprinkle of pumpkin seeds

Method
Toast the bread of your choice and top with an even layer of butter and then peanut butter. Drizzle the toast with a couple of teaspoons of honey and spread evenly with a knife. Top with slices of pear, drizzle with a bit of extra honey and serve with a sprinkling of pumpkin seeds and a good dollop of ricotta.

If you’ve had a go at making any of my recipes, I’d love to hear from you. Follow me now @corrieheale and tag your recipe pictures using #corriesrabbitfood.

V– Vegetarian
*Ricotta is traditionally made with animal rennet but you can get vegetarian varieties. UK supermarket home brands tend to be, click here.

Mushrooms & goats cheese on toast

January 19, 2017October 31, 2019 ~ Corrie ~ Leave a comment

Forget Brexit, forget Donald Trump, we have a bigger crisis on our hands people, brace yourselves, this news is horrifying and potentially life changing… Ready?

There is currently a courgette shortage…

CUE NATIONAL HYSTERIA!!!! Where’s Deliciously Ella?!!! Can someone check she’s not sitting in a corner somewhere, spiralizing her own fingers like some courgette deprived lunatic?
I mean, I like courgettes as much as the next person (actually I don’t, I find them slimy and horrible, that’s why I grate them into my recipes) but surely the lack of courgettes isn’t such a bad thing after all? Think about it, now all those spiralizing, clean eating freaks can stop fainting and eat a proper meal, because you know what tastes better than boiled strips of courgette? Literally anything but especially spaghetti! So stop pretending you’re gluten intolerant (because hardly anyone is) and boil up some delicious pasta why don’t you. Oh and whoever came up with the word ‘courgetti’ should be shot.
Anyway, as usual, this post has nothing to do with pasta or courgettes but the humble mushroom and one of my other favourite carbs, BREAD! I pretty much love anything on toast, especially Marmite but I found some left over goats cheese from Christmas and a couple of portobello mushrooms in my fridge and thought, yes! Enjoy.

Mushrooms & goats cheese on toast
Serves 2 / Hands on time 20 mins / Total time 20 mins / V
2 large portobello mushrooms, roughly sliced
2 cloves of garlic
60g soft vegetarian goats cheese
1 tsp unsalted butter
2 pieces of bread for toasting
2 sprigs fresh thyme
Pomora extra virgin olive oil to serve
2 poached eggs to serve (optional)

Method
1. Roughly chop the mushrooms into strips and crush the garlic. In a large saucepan, heat and melt the butter on a medium heat. Once melted, add the mushrooms and cook down in the butter. If the butter absorbs quickly, add a dash of water to help the mushrooms steam. Cook for about 5 mins until the mushrooms begin to soften.
2. Add the garlic along with the thyme sprigs, give it a good stir and cook for a further 2 mins (again, add a dash of water if needed to help cook the mushrooms down).
3. Once the mushrooms start to look soft and cooked, add a third of the goats cheese and mix straight in. Season well with salt and pepper. Take off the heat and cover with a lid to keep the mushrooms warm.
4. Meanwhile toast the bread and poach the eggs (optional). Finally, discard the thyme sprigs and serve the mushrooms on top of your toast with the remaining goats cheese, a good drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkling of fresh thyme leaves.

If you’ve had a go at making any of my recipes, I’d love to hear from you. Follow me now @corrieheale and tag your recipe pictures using #corriesrabbitfood.

V– Vegetarian

Lizzie special

January 11, 2016January 25, 2020 ~ Corrie ~ Leave a comment

Simon and Garfunkel, Ben and Jerry, Pinky and The Brain and of course, peanut butter and cheese… Huh? Peanut butter and cheese? Are you mental? No my friends, not mental, very sane. This unlikely paring is in fact not unlikely at all, it’s a heavenly mix of hot salty melty goodness, mmm.
Okay, so perhaps it’s not a combination you would immediately put together and certainly not with cold cheese (barf) but it’s one of life’s dirty little secrets, so wrong but yet so right. This is something I tend to feed people without telling them what it is first, to prevent fussy idiots from turning their noses up at it. Recently I made it for my boyfriend Jamie, he’d managed to scoff two whole slices in his gob before blurting out “is there peanut butter in this?… Yum!”
As for me, I’ve been chomping on this delectable snack all my life, and not once did it ever occur to me that it was a little unusual. Invented by my dearest mum Lizzie, the ‘Lizzie Special’ has managed to keep me alive for over 31 years. Actually I think the Lizzie Special was partially invented by an old friend of my mum’s called Rosemary, but Rosemary is a horrible person so lets not give her any credit. She once rang the Samaritans because my mum and dad didn’t invite her over for Christmas dinner.
Also ‘Rosemary Special’ doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. So fuck you Rosemary, the Lizzie Special lives, unlike your friendship with my mum which is long dead. Enjoy everyone!

Lizzie Special / peanut butter & cheese on toast
Serves 1 / Hands on time 5 mins / Total time 10 mins / V
2 slices of bread
Unsalted spreadable butter
Crunchy peanut butter
Medium vegetarian cheddar cheese, sliced

Method
Put on a hot grill and lightly toast the bread. Spread each slice with butter and generously with peanut butter. Slice the cheese and place evenly on top of each slice and grill until the cheese begins to bubble. Serve immediately.

If you’ve had a go at making any of my recipes, I’d love to hear from you. Follow me now @corrieheale and tag your recipe pictures using #corriesrabbitfood.

V – Vegetarian

Birthday avocado & eggs on toast with sweet chilli sauce

June 20, 2015January 29, 2020 ~ Corrie ~ 2 Comments

Birthday Avocado & Eggs On Toast with Chilli Sauce

It’s my 31st birthday today, yippee hooray!… Although I don’t feel as fresh as I perhaps hoped I would, managed to drink a tad too much Prosecco last night at Mahiki. Have woken up to some very unflattering pictures of myself on Facebook. In one of them I’m sprawled over my poor friend Rachel, drinking out of a giant cocktail treasure chest through a very long straw. Classy.
Anyway, it was fun so who cares. This is my favourite hangover breakfast (so end up eating it most weekends). It’s super quick, super easy and super tasty. I tend to always have some sliced sourdough in the freezer for hangover emergencies such as this one, I suggest you start doing the same. It also helps that I live with an avocado addict so I always have the bits I need to make this.

Birthday avocado & eggs on toast with sweet chilli sauce
Serves 1 / Hands on time 10 mins / Total time 10 mins / V🌶
You’ll need: A small frying pan
1 small garlic clove, peeled
2 slices sourdough or bread of choice
1 tsp rapeseed oil
2 eggs
1 avocado, flesh scooped out
Chilli flakes to serve (optional)
Sweet chilli sauce

Method
1. Put a small frying pan over a medium to high heat with a tsp of oil. Meanwhile peel the garlic clove and toast the bread. Once the oil is hot, crack in the eggs and fry until the whites are set and the yolks are soft – I often cook mine with a lid on to ensure a set white but be careful not to over-cook the yolks.
2. Rub each slice of toast with the raw garlic clove and smash the avocado on top. Finish with the fried eggs and serve with chilli sauce and a sprinkle of chilli flakes.

If you’ve had a go at making any of my recipes, I’d love to hear from you. Follow me now @corrieheale and tag your recipe pictures using #corriesrabbitfood.

V – Vegetarian. Df – Dairy free