Georgina Hayden

Ok, so I’d be lying if I said I didn’t start everyday with a coffee. I try and eat well, I don’t eat ready meals or fast food but I’m not a health food aficionado – I need caffeine and I need it within half an hour of waking up. And I’m not even a coffee snob; I adore good freshly ground coffee and living in east London there really is no shortage of amazing coffee roasters and cafes – see below for some of my favourites. However I’m Greek Cypriot and I also have a real love for instant coffee. Nescafé especially, as it reminds me of being a kid. (If you have ever been to Greece or Cyprus you’ll know how much the locals love a frappé).

So this morning was a Nescafé morning. The small caffetiere was dirty and being morning and me being lazy I hit the instant stuff. Heaven.

However anything other than coffee in the morning is a struggle. Weekend brunch is a winner, weekday mornings however just feels a little too early. And at the moment, where I am at home a lot of the day it’s quite easy to skip this all-important meal. I am trying to get into a routine though and this morning I wanted to go for a swim and knew I had to eat something first: cue the breakfast smoothie. I’ve really taken to smoothies over the last few months – it’s ‘something’ as opposed to eating nothing and is easy on the digestion for this breakfast-avoider. But most importantly, it’s the 5-a day thing. Actually consuming your 5 a day is hard work and takes dedication, so knowing I’m getting some nutrients feels like a bloomin’ good reason.

So for today’s breakfast I made a ‘raspberry milkshake’, which was incredibly delicious, nutritious and way better than a crusha down the Wimpy.

And the best tip of all? Chop up any ripe fruit you have lying around and freeze in sandwich bags, always ready for a smoothie attack. Reduces waste and makes smoothies lovely and thick – especially bananas, which give you a gorgeous creamy texture.

Here are a few of my favourites. All recipes serve 1. And if you haven’t got frozen bananas, use fresh and add a couple of ice cubes to chill.

Raspberry Milkshake

A small chopped and frozen banana
Handful of raspberries
8 grapes (or just use a few more raspberries)
Large spoonful of organic black cherry yoghurt (also be delicious with Coyo – dairy free coconut yoghurt)
Freshly pressed apple juice

Place all the ingredients into a blender with about 250ml of apple juice. Blitz until you have a smooth and creamy smoothie, adding a little more apple juice till you have your desired consistency.

Breakfast on the run

Heaped tablespoon of rolled oats
1 medjool date, stone removed
A couple of good pinches of ground cinnamon
A small chopped and frozen banana
a teaspoon of chia seeds
Full fat cows milk or almond milk (or any milk of your choice – hazelnut, soya, rice etc)
A drizzle of honey (I only use honey if I am using cows milk, as the others tend to have a sweetness to them already)

Place all the ingredients into a blender with around 250ml of your preferred milk and leave to sit for 3-4 minutes, to give the chia seeds time to swell up and do their thing. Blitz until you have a smooth creamy texture, adding a little more milk if you think it’s a bit thick.

The Popeye

This is based on a favourite of ours where I work, the kermit juice, an absolute winner of a breakfast smoothie. The twist being a squeeze of lime and milled flaxseeds, for optimum iron intake and a hit of omega 3.

A small chopped and frozen banana
1 small kiwi, peeled and chopped
Large handful of baby leaf spinach, washed
A squeeze of lime
Fresh apple juice
A tablespoon of milled flaxseed

Place all the ingredients in the blender with around 250ml of the apple juice. Blitz until super smooth, adding a little more juice if needed.

Coffee coffee…

So, if you’re ever in London town and want to hit some top coffee spots check out the links below for some of the best beans around.

Monmouth Coffee – Founded in ’78 Monmouth really has been around longer than a lot of these places put together. Expect to queue for what is exceptional coffee and totally worth it (it moves quickly). One of my favourite things? Curling up with a coffee in the Borough Market branch and digging in to the bread, butter and jam in the middle of the large table. All from the market and around £3 for as much as you can eat.

Climpson & Sons – a pioneer in the East London coffee roasting trend, Climpson’s has been around for 9 years and is still one of my favourite brews around. Their Broadway market no-nonsense cafe is always worth a visit, and great value for money.

OZONE – Old St based coffee roasters, this place does an exceptional flat white and some of the best brunch in town. The kedgeree is out of this world.

Caravan Exmouth Market and Caravan Kings Cross – Small batch coffee roasters, the blends are delicious along with superb food. Personal fave is the ham hock hash with poached eggs and mustard hollandaise. Be prepared to queue for a long time on the weekends though.

Allpress – Based in the heart of hipster central, Shoreditch based Allpress do great coffee and simple but delicious food. A perfect mid-shop caffeine hit.

TAP – I have a real soft spot for Tap, their laid back approach and delicious coffee make this an approachable contender. You don’t need to queue for hours or eat anything, you can sit and read and just drink delicious coffee. I spent many hours in there before or after the numerous hospital appointments we have had over the last year. And the staff are always nice.

Workshop – One of the largest of the coffee shops, Workshop Clerkenwell do great coffee and good food. Their corn fritters with halloumi, poached eggs and chutney are dreamy. The other branches have great reviews too.

Omelette with smoked haddock - Ozone Coffee Roasters — Omelette with smoked haddock – Ozone Coffee Roasters

A few weeks after losing Archie (our little boy), my better half Peter returned back to work but would come home at lunchtime everyday to see me. The first day he came back was the first day I stepped into the kitchen (we had survived on foods from incredibly generous family and friends up until this point). We ate scrambled eggs and avocado on toast. Or that was the plan at least, in actual fact we pretty much just ate avocado and blackened bread. I’d ruined the scrambled eggs, charred the toast. How can you ruin scrambled eggs when you cook for a living? Who knows, but I did and it led to a melt down. What was I going to do with my life? I can’t even scramble eggs! It was not pretty.

It has been a bleak few months and for the first time in my life food and eating have been pretty low down on my priority list. I didn’t think I’d ever actually know what it felt like to eat for energy and not for fun, but that is what it has been like – food to fill a hole. But then little by little my love of cooking is creeping back in. Our large groaning bookshelf is serving a purpose – how many cookbooks does one girl need? It is rebuilding my confidence, rebuilding my body -which has taken a battering, and is helping me fall back in love with cooking and eating.

Being someone who writes recipes for a living I’ve never been particularly good at following recipes from books, often I would read them as inspiration and tweak things here and there depending on what I have and what is in season. However I genuinely feel like this mammoth book collection has been a saving grace – I haven’t felt able to ‘go it alone’ and being hand held is exactly what I need right now. My weekly goal is to find things to cook during the week, make a list and shop. Simple but it is proving to be a huge help. I love going to the butchers, fishmongers, green grocers and even supermarket – things I took for granted before. There is something wonderful about being frugal too. My aim is to make use of everything we have, trying to keep waste to a minimum. It’s a wonderful exercise.

So what do I mean by foods that heal then? There are the foods that are nutritionally sound, such as the bombay eggs and spinach I had for lunch today (spinach, turmeric, green chilli, garlic, cumin, free range eggs… winner on so many levels), which I know are healing me on the inside and then there are the recipes that are healing emotionally. There is definitely something calming almost meditative with certain recipes, especially things like baking and preserving which take time and patience. There have been many batches of bread over the last few months (a few inedible), and even Peter has become addicted to the no nonsense recipe we have adopted.

So for my first ‘healing’ recipe I give you a simple one. Jam. It was one of the first things we made, and we’re still enjoying the fruits (sorry) of our labour. Also, making apricot jam leads onto one of my favourite meals of all time… the most comforting thing you’ll ever eat. I’ll save that for next time though.

Apricot jam

1kg apricots (when I made this years batch I also had a glut of flat peaches, so threw a few of those in there too)
600g granulated sugar
Juice of 2 lemons
A bay leaf

Halve the apricots, keeping 6 of the stones to one side, and place the flesh in a large heavy bottomed saucepan. Add the sugar, lemon juice and bay leaf and give everything a good stir. Leave to one side to steep for a couple of hours.

Using a nut cracker, or rolling pin (be careful though!) crack 6 of the apricot stones and remove the kernels. Place in a small bowl and cover with boiling water, for just enough time to remove the brown paper skin. Split each kernel into 2 and add to the pan of fruit.

After 2 hours place the pan on a low heat and stir until all the sugar has dissolved. Once it has dissolved turn the heat up to medium-high and cook for around 25 – 30 minutes, stirring often. You want the apricot flesh to have cooked down and should have a lovely deep colour – it’ll be a medium soft set jam.

When the jam is ready, leave it to cool for 10 minutes and then carefully spoon into sterilised jars (try and make sure you get at least one apricot kernel in each jar). Seal whilst still hot and then leave to cool before labelling them. Once you open a jar, remember to store it in the fridge.

Easing into breakfast

Foods that heal