Recipe: Kefir Lemon Poppy Scones

A few days ago I had a "day off", meaning Aidan spent the day at his grandparents. When I dropped him there my mother in law was just making scones so I felt a craving for them all the time during my dentist's visit and on the way home. Then my sister Marina texted to ask if she could call in giving me the perfect excuse to start baking. I had a lot of kefir to use up so it had to be kefir scones. But I wanted to add a bit more flavour. After some browsing on the internet I came up with these poppy seed scones that turned out surprisingly well. Luckily I wrote down all the ingredients and quantities.

So here is the recipe:

300g self-raising flour (or plain flour with 3 tsp of baking powder mixed through)
150g wholemeal flour
70g poppy seeds
100g butter cut into cubes
285ml kefir (or buttermilk) plus a little bit more for glazing
1 lemon
85g sugar
1 tsp baking soda


Preheat the oven to 200C fan.
Mix the flour with the baking soda and cut in the butter then use your hands to bring it all together.
Grate the lemon zest and mix with the sugar, then squeeze the juice out of the lemon and mix about half of it with the kefir.
Add kefir, sugar and poppy seeds into the flour and butter mix and stir with a wooden spoon to mix it all together. Then knead with your hands to make a dough.
Turn out onto a floured surface and roll out thickly (no rolling pin required). Cut out circular shapes using a cup or glass and transfer them onto a baking sheet. Use the other half of the lemon juice and mix with a little bit of kefir and glaze the scones using a brush.
Bake in the preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes depending on the size of the scones. They should be ready when they turn golden brown.
Enjoy with butter and orange marmalade!

Recipe: Kale Salad with Chicken, Halloumi and Roast Vegetables

Kale seems to be everywhere at the moment. There are loads of recipes featuring kale on the internet and in recently published cookbooks. My local supermarket has big piles of curly kale in the middle of the vegetable section with blackboards advertising its many merits. It seems to be one of the new superfoods. The first time I consciously came across kale was on my sister's blog and I had to look up the German translation as I didn't know what it was. It doesn't seem to be very popular in Germany, or at least it wasn't a few years ago. I couldn't find it in the supermarket when I wanted to make the kale chips recipe my sister had given me.

There's plenty of it in Ireland though, and after we had moved here I started to use it now and again. But it's only recently that I really began to love kale salad. When I first tried to make it I made the mistake of not chopping the leaves small enough and as a result found the salad very hard to chew. It really makes all the difference to cut the leaves as thin as you can.

Anyway, here is my version of kale salad, inspired by Minimalist Baker (of course) and a lovely chicken kale salad I had at a coffee shop in Dublin. It's very filling thanks to the chicken, halloumi and the roast sweet potato and beetroot and it makes a great dinner. For a vegan version you could leave out the chicken and halloumi  and use more sweet potato and beetroot instead (and use maple syrup instead of honey).

Makes 2-3 portions

1 small sweet potato
1 small beetroot
olive oil and dried rosemary for roasting
2 chicken fillets
4 thick slices of halloumi cheese
2 handfuls of curly kale
1 handful of butterhead lettuce
1 handful of rocket

6 radishes
2 spring onions
2 tblsp sprouts
1 tblsp fresh basil
1 tblsp fresh coriander
6 cherry tomatoes
3 tblsp hummus
2 tblsp lemon juice
1 tsp honey
some almond milk
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F).

Chop the sweet potato and beetroot into small cubes and mix with olive oil and rosemary.

Roast in preheated oven for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile cut the chicken and halloumi into small cubes and fry.

Wash the kale, butterhead lettuce and rocket. Chop the kale thinly making sure to cut out the stalks in the middle. Tear the lettuce and rocket into small pieces. Place into a salad bowl.

Wash and chop the radishes and onions. Add to the leaves.

Wash and chop the basil and coriander and add to the bowl together with the sprouts and tomatoes.

Mix the hummus with the lemon juice and honey and add almond milk to make it pourable. Season with salt and pepper and pour over salad.

Put the warm sweet potato, beetroot, chicken and halloumi on top of everything.

You could add pomegranate seeds if you wanted... But that might be pushing it over the edge...