Hands up if you ate too much this Bank Holiday? Is it even possible to have a healthy Bank Holiday? I’m not convinced it is; so far every one this year I’ve spent socialising or seeing family, and this one wasn’t much different…
On Saturday Q and I set off to Wales to visit my grandma, but not before stopping by Oxford to visit a beautiful pub for lunch (blog post coming soon). We made light work of devouring three courses and seemingly had no problem later that evening when returning home from Grandma’s, in taking up my parent’s invitation to come and have a curry with them.
Then on Sunday evening we had four friends over for dinner. Q was in charge of starters with homemade pholourie, chips and dips. We then got stuck into a giant roast duck dinner complete with all the trimmings and an obscene amount of roast potatoes. Finally, we gobbled our way through an entire pavlova (yummy recipe for this bad boy coming soon as well!) all washed down with copious amounts of Prosecco.
Monday I woke up with a gyoza craving and demanded that we went out for lunch: a hearty feast of chicken gyoza and wonton noodle soup. Then a giant chocolate cookie saw me through to a visit to Q’s family where we had a beautiful homemade seafood paella. It was so good that I had seconds… and thirds… and rather a few more glasses of Prosecco…
Yeesh! My stomach has been working overtime! I have to admit after all those big dishes I was ready for a simple meal and a quiet evening in, especially after the first day back at work. Why is the first day back so hard? You’d think you’d be well rested and raring to go!
Last time I had myself a little TV picnic I mentioned how good I had found Boursin with fruity bread. It inspired me to make some homemade, sweet, seedy snaps, filled with different seeds and studded with dried cranberries. They’re super easy to make in 10 minutes and are a match made in heaven with garlicky, creamy, cheesy goodness. [insert Homer Simpson drooling]
Seedy Snaps
- Makes 16
- 200g runny honey
- 80g sesame seeds
- 80g sunflower seeds
- 80g pumpkin seeds
- 65g dried cranberries
- 65g caster sugar
- Season well with black pepper
In a pot add all the ingredients, bring to the boil and stir regularly. The mix needs to get to at least 150c so the sugar reaches the ‘hard crack’ stage, meaning your seedy snaps will, well… snap! Once at the right temp and the seeds look nice and golden, spread onto a very well greased baking tray (silicon mats are great for this) and spread to around 5mm thickness. Once cooled a little but not fully hardened, cut into squares and then leave to cool completely.
Cool, creamy Boursin with crunchy and sweet seedy snaps is an absolute dream team! Great after that long, first day back at work. I’ve sat here, relaxing on the floor in front of my coffee table with a lovely selection of my homemade snaps and yummy cheese happy as a clam! Simple but tasty and indulgent – exactly what I needed 🙂
Disclosure: this is a paid post. As always all thoughts (and recipe!) are my own.