Himalayan Salted Butter Tea

Recently I came down with a sinus and throat infection that really knocked me about. My throat was terribly inflamed and everything was painful, from speaking to swallowing to even moving my jaw. Eating was pretty much impossible unless the food was in liquid form. I found that strong hot sweet black tea was the only thing that went down with the least discomfort and I drank it by the thermosful (lazy me would make a thermos of tea and take it back to bed so I could have it hot whenever I wanted without having to go downstairs).

Thank goodness for wireless internet and laptops, I was able to browse the internet for recipes while I was abed and while trawling through my del.icio.us page (they don't call it that anymore, it's just delicious now for some reason?) I found this post from Not Quite Nigella for Himalayan Salted Butter Tea.

Have I mentioned how much I love my fellow food bloggers? My blog is so tiny and insignificant compared to the wonders that are posted on so many fantastic food blogs out there. Indeed, my blog would be non-existent if I didn't have them to give me inspiration to try new things. I've just realised how many of posts have started with "I was browsing the web and found..." I am so grateful to all of them who spend so many hours sharing their love of food with the internet and I feel privileged that, in my own small way, I can be a part of it.

Anyway, I was ill with a sore throat and was finding that tea wasn't quite thick enough to coat my throat as much as I would like and I thought a warm frothy buttery tea would be something that I should try. I followed NQN's suggestion and used unsalted butter but I stuck to my standard Lipton Intense Black Tea. Everything was going wonderfully until I oversalted the mix. I added a little salt and tasted it and it was lovely but I thought it needed just a little bit more. Except I added too much and it became salty.

It was still very nice when you look past the saltiness. It had the wonderful milky consistency that coated the back of my extremely inflamed throat and was such a relief. It tasted good too (except for the salty part!).

See NQN's post here for the recipe.

Breads from Manly Farmers' Market

I've taken a huge shine to rye bread lately. I love it. I had a little bit of a craving for a crusty sourdough rye on morning and resolved to get some from the Jan Powers Farmers Market at Manly. I bought a light rye loaf from Sol Breads (front) and a rye sourdough from Levaine (back). I really wanted a sourdough and was a little disappointed when they didn't have one at Sol Breads and then I saw one two stalls further up at Levaine so had to buy both.


The sourdough rye was my favourite, the light rye I found was more dense and chewy. The sourdough rye was lovely and tasty.

Broccoli Slaw

I have been trying to eat more vegetables lately. I love salads and I've been trying to broaden my salad horizons but including different kind of vegetables. I had a bunch of broccolini in the crisper and I didn't know what to do with it so it was very exciting when I saw this post on Smitten Kitchen for a broccoli slaw. I love coleslaw and I love mayonnaise so any kind of slaw is awesome.

I used my lone broccolini with some red onion, sweetened cranberries and toasted almonds as directed. I love the dressing so much, it is my favourite.

That being said I don't really like broccoli. Something about the texture just doesn't so it for me. I want to try it again using Chinese cabbage because everything else is definately meant to be together.

See this post on Smitten Kitchen for the recipe.

Breakfast at Boardwalk on Eagle Street Pier

On Mother's Day (delayed posting, I know), D and I took my mother for a visit to the Riverside Crafts Market. While we were there we had a crazy idea to try and find somewhere for breakfast. We figured that we were quite early and hoped to find somewhere before the people started coming for their bookings. It was quite difficult, who would have thought that restaurants on the Brisbane waterfront would be heavily booked on a beautiful Mother's Day Sunday morning?

We ended up at the Boardwalk Restaurant who had some unreserved tables available. They had a lovely looking menu and we got to have a wonderful table overlooking the water.


The meals came out so quickly, we had only just settled with our coffes and hot chocolates when they arrived. D and I chose to have the big breakfast with eggs, bacon, tomato, hash brown and sourdough bread. One of my pictures seems to have gone missing and I can't remember what mum had.

The eggs were cooked perfectly, my poached eggs had a yolk that wasn't too runny but still oozed out gooey golden goodness when I cut into it. The tomato wasn't quite cooked, it was still very hard. I imagine that this was because we were early and they were preparing for a large volume of orders later on and the tomatoes simply hadn't had the chance to cook. The bacon wasn't hot, it was at best lukewarm and could have been cooked a little more.

However, the atmosphere and the wonderful company and the quality of everything else (the coffee and hot chocolate were brilliant) made for a very enjoyable Mother's Day breakfast.


The Boardwalk on Eagle Street Pier
Riparian Plaza
Level Promenade
71 Eagle Street
Brisbane, QLD, 4000
Ph: 1300 BOARDWALK or (07) 3221 0026
www.boardwalkbar.com.au

Dulce de Leche

I love public holidays, even when D has to work and I am home alone because I get to browse through heaps of online recipe sites and blogs and cook whatever takes my fancy.

This post on Not Quite Nigella inspired my fancy on Labour Day, especially because it didn't involve boiling a can to get tasty caramelness. I have never actually tasted dulce de leche before but I have read about it on many blogs and I was intrigued. Sweetened condensed milk is awesome in so many forms, so I couldn't see any way that by baking it in a water bath could be wrong.

It was extremely simple but still lots of fun. Simply pour your condensed milk into a pie dish, cover it with foil and pop it into a water bath and bake it until nice and golden brown.

It was amazing. Such a lovely milky caramel. NQN says that you should wait until it cools and then mix until smooth. Mine did come together quite smoothly but I still had grainy flecks throughout. I'm not quite sure why and it didn't affect the final taste, but I do still wish that it was silky smooth.

There are so many things that you can do with this, but my favourite was simply dipping in apple slices.

It was a great way to spend a public holiday.

See Not Quite Nigella's post here for the recipe.

Massaman Beef Curry

You know how sometimes you have a random television show on in the background, no one is watching the TV and you just haven't gotten around to turning it off yet but then something comes on and you think oh my goodness I'm so glad I saw this? No? Just me? Okay then.

That is exactly what happened one weekend. Some kind of sport was on the television and the game/match had ended and Weekend Extra was playing along in the background. I was about to turn it off when I heard the words slow cooker and massaman curry. I had to stick around after that.

D and I love our slowcooker. We don't use it very often as we still aren't convinced that it's safe to leave it on while we are at work, but we love it on weekends. Not only do we love our slowcooker, but we also love massaman curry.

This recipe is fantastic. I have never made massaman before, but after trying it this way and having it turn out so perfect I don't think I'll do it any other way. It's as easy as any slow cook meal, just add the ingredients, turn it on and at the end stir through some extra seasonings. It tasted as good as the massaman that comes from our favourite Thai restaurant.

Finishing it off with a splash of fish sauce, some sugar and lime juice was a definite must. They just gave it such a lift and lightness. I made mine a little more lime-y, I felt that it gave a really nice contrast to the creaminess of the rest of the dish. Note that the recipe uses tamarind, I didn't have any so I left it out.

Massaman Beef Curry
from Weekend Extra

750 g rump steak or lean topside
30 ml peanut oil
115g massaman paste
2 cans coconut milk
8 kaffir lime leaves
2 large potatoes (peeled, cut into 2 cm cubes)
2 tsp tamarind paste
100 g salted peanuts
2 limes (juice only), Asian fish sauce (Nam Pla) and white sugar to taste
¼ bunch Thai basil (for garnish)

Remove the fat from the beef and cut into 2 cm cubes

Place meat in a slow cooker and stir in the massaman paste so that all the meat cubes are covered

Add coconut milk, diced potatoes and lime leaves and turn on the slow cooker

Leave to cook for a few hours or until the beef is just tender

When cooked remove the lime leaves and add the tamarind paste. Stir in carefully

Then add ¾ of the peanuts

Finish the curry by balancing with the lime juice for extra sourness, the sugar for sweetness and season with the fish sauce

Serve accompanied with some steamed jasmine rice and garnish with the remaining peanuts and a bunch of Thai basil on top

Happy Birthday to You...

D and I were chatting about my blog today and he asked me how long my blog has been going for. Off I went to check the date of my very first post and lo and behold! it was today two years ago.

Happy 2nd Birthday blog!!!

Here's to many more years to come.

Chicken Bombay

My tiny freezer doesn't really lend itself to much once a month cooking. I really love the idea, it would suit me perfectly because I tend to do most of my cooking on weekends and I would love to have fabulous meals that I can just pull out of the freezer. Unfortunately, as I said before, my freezer is tiny and not very much can fit into it so I'm quite limited in how much of it I can do. That being said, I'm still having fun making the recipes even though I'm only making enough for one meal.

D loves honey mustard chicken. I'm not a big fan as most of the honey mustard recipe bases are just too sweet for me. I found this recipe for chicken bombay on Recipezaar and D was very enthusiastic. I was less so but I agreed to give it a go.

There is quite an astounding amount of butter in the recipe (well, astounding to me). When I made this the second time I cut back the butter quite a bit - maybe using a little less than half of the original amount. You warm all of the sauce ingredients on the stove until combined, then pour over the chicken and pop it in the oven to cook.

It tasted nothing like the honey mustard recipe bases. The curry powder took it to a whole new level and the mustard was really the star. The honey was just there as a nice counterpoint. The chicken was lovely and tender and it was really enjoyable.

It wasn't very saucy and since we served ours with rice it did make a the meal a little dry. I doubled the sauce amounts the second time (but cut back on the butter) and that made sure that there was still a little sauce left to be served on rice. It is an awesome dish.

Chicken Bombay
from *Pamela* on Recipezaar

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup mustard
1/2 cup honey
1 teaspoon seasoning salt (I omitted this)
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1.4kg chicken pieces

Combine all ingredients, except chicken, in a small sauce pan. Heat over medium heat until smooth and slightly warmed.

Roll each piece of chicken into the sauce and place in a greased, 9x13 inch baking pan.

Bake uncovered for 30 minutes at 190°C

Spread remaining sauce over chicken and bake for an additional half hour or until chicken is done.

To freeze: after casserole has cooled, label and freeze for up to 4 months.

To serve: thaw overnight and bake until heated through add an additional 30-45 minutes if baking from frozen.

Greek Egg and Lemon Soup

I have really been getting into Greek food lately. I'm really loving the flavours and techniques. I found this recipe on Recipezaar. Avgolemono (meaning egg-lemon, according to Wikipedia) is the base of many soups and its quite cool to cook a soup that could curdle on you if you aren't careful.

This recipe was a cheat's version using a microwave. It's so yummy and easy that I haven't tried making it the more traditional way, despite my enjoyment in trying the new techniques. I don't know if cooking it this way stops it from thickening as much as it could, all of the times I have tried it the soup has been quite brothy, however the rice and chicken give it substance and texture.

I love lemony chicken, I love rice and I love a soup dish that only takes fifteen minutes in the microwave. This is awesome. I came down with a severe throat infection not too long after trying this for the first time and this soup was a lifesaver.

Greek Egg-Lemon Soup for the Microwave
by JackieOhNo! on Recipezaar

4 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup long grain rice, rinsed and drained
2 large egg yolks
juice of 1 lemon
salt and pepper
2 tbs fresh mint

Place broth and rice in 2-quart microwave-safe casserole. Cover tightly and microwave on High until rice is cooked, about 15 minutes.

Whisk egg yolks and lemon juice in medium bowl until blended. Gradually whisk 1 cup hot broth from casserole into egg mixture, then return to casserole and stir to blend. Microwave covered on High until heated through, 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper.

Ladle soup into serving bowls. Garnish with mint and lemon slices; serve hot.

Hot Cross Muffins

Well, my laziness means that this post is quite delayed so welcome to Easter in July (not Christmas in July)! Who doesn't love hot cross buns at Easter? For reasons that I can't quite remember we missed out on buying any this year and Easter Sunday just didn't have the same feel to it.

Then I read this (luckily well timed) post on Cook (Almost) Anything At Least Once where Haalo made these fabulous Hot Cross Muffins. Muffins could be made on Easter Sunday.

I don't like dried fruit in buns or muffins, so I replaced it with chocolate chips. My icing sugar mixture wasn't thick enough so the crosses didn't really maintain their form.

They were fabulously tasty though, a very worthwhile replacement for the traditional hot cross bun.

Healthy and filling breakfast

I was flipping through one of the Woman's Weekly Cookbooks at the supermarket checkout one day and this simple breakfast of rye toast, corn kernals, cottage cheese and baby spinach caught my eye. I hate breakfast food normally, but I love corn, I love cheese and I love baby spinach, so maybe I might like this??

Maybe yes, this is a fantastic breakfast, wholesome and filling. Easy too, take a little tin of baby corn kernels, drain and heat in the microwave for maybe 30 seconds. Stir through a tablespoon of cottage cheese and a small handful of baby spinach and serve on some rye toast with a sprinkling of salt and pepper.

Pastitsio

My exploration with Greek food continues with this beautiful Pastitsio. It was a stunner of a dish, absolutely amazing. It had a deeper, more meatier taste than an Italian lasagne and I really don't think I'd ever choose to make a lasagne over this ever again.

The process is quite involved, I haven't worked out how to make it without using a sinkful of pots and dishes. It's also not exactly a healthy dish, there's a lot of cheese and butter but it is so worth it.

The mince mix is fabulous. I love the flavours. Despite the bechamel and cheese, I think the mince is the star of this dish and everything else just makes it all the more wonderful.

This recipe makes tonnes. We got two huge casserole dishes out of it which meant we froze a lot. Luckily, it freezes well and defrosts easily. Now, not only is it an amazingly impressive dish on baking day but it also turns into an no fuss weeknight dinner out of the freezer. I can't rave about this recipe enough. It's so good it's even better than the pastitsio I tried at the Greek Festival last week.

I couldn't get my hands on any Greek cheese the first time I made this, and I had run out of parmesan so I (not very authentically) used some grated mozzarella we had leftover from a pizza night. The second time I made this I used a mix of Kefalograviera and parmesan. I think the saltiness of the cheeses in the second batch really added to the depth and flavour. The recipe tells you to coat the cooked pasta in a melted butter/milk/egg and cheese mix however I didn't feel that it added to the finished dish the first time. I just had a milky fatty gluggy mess left in my bowl and some wet pasta. I don't know what I did wrong. The second time I used the pasta mix in another Pastitsio recipe by Kittencal on Recipezaar, which use more butter and eggs but no milk. I cut back on the number of eggs and found that it worked a lot better. I felt it clung to the pasta and there was hardly any mix left in the bowl after I used the pasta.

Even with my tweaks and changes, both times this recipe has turned out an amazing result. It's one of my favourite dishes.


Pastitsio
from evelyn/athens on Recipezaar

Meat sauce

enough olive oil, to just coat the bottom of a large pot
2 large onions, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1kg lean ground beef
2 450g cans diced tomatoes with juice
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup red wine
1 cinnamon stick, broken in two

Pasta

450g penne or rigatoni pasta
3 tablespoons melted butter
2 cups whole milk
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup grated kefalotiri or romano cheese or parmesan cheese

Bechamel Sauce

6 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup flour
4 cups milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
3 eggs
225g grated kefalotiri or romano cheese or parmesan cheese, divided

For the meat sauce, put some olive oil in a large pot; saute onion until lightly browned; add garlic; add meat and cook until brown, crumbling with a fork; add remaining meat sauce ingredients to skillet; mix well; cover and simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally, until quite thick; let mixture cool; remove and discard cinnamon stick and bay leaf.

Prepare pasta by boiling until al dente in plenty of boiling, salted water; drain and place pasta in a large bowl; add butter, milk, eggs and 1/2 cup cheese; gently stir to coat; set aside.

To prepare bechamel sauce, melt butter over medium heat in a saucepan; stir in flour until smooth, cook, whisking for 2 minutes; gradually add milk, stirring, until thickened; lower heat; add salt, pepper and nutmeg; remove from heat.

In medium-sized bowl, beat 3 eggs; slowly add hot cream sauce to eggs; stir thoroughly so eggs don't curdle.

Preheat oven to 180°C and butter or oil (with olive oil) a large baking pan.

Empty 1/2 of the penne mixture over bottom of pan; cover evenly with all of meat sauce; sprinkle 1/3 of the cheese over meat sauce; add remaining penne mixture, spreading evenly; sprinkle another 1/3 of the cheese over top; pour bechamel sauce evenly over entire casserole; top with remaining cheese.

Bake until bechamel sauce sets and has golden-brown patches across top, approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour; cool at least 20 minutes before cutting into pieces for serving.

Freezer Notes: Once the baked pastitsio has completely cooked, cut serving-size pieces, double-wrap in foil and freeze. Defrost in the usual manner and reheat in microwave (or oven).

5 Minute Artisan Bread

I love bread. I especially love artisan breads and adore a fresh baked loaf. Unfortunately, D doesn't share my passionate love for bread and there is only so much bread I can eat so I don't often get to indulge.

I have often wanted to try baking my own bread, but yeast and I don't always get on very well and I am not confident in my kneading abilities so I've been a bit too scared to try it. I've tried an America's Test Kitchen almost no-knead recipe and that turned out quite well, but it was a very open crumb and I wished for something denser.

I came across this intriguing recipe while browsing through Recipezaar and couldn't put it out of my mind. I did some investigating and realised that so many bloggers have tried this and raved about it and the authors themselves have a fantastic website with lots of recipes to get you started.

I loved the story of how Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François worked to make this recipe something everyone could do to have fabulous bread at home whenever they wanted, in just 5 minutes. Plus, they have adapted this fantastic technique to so many recipes and I want to try them all.

There may be hundreds of recipes to try, but the first recipe to start with is the Master Recipe. I dug out a big plastic container and set to.

It's so easy, simply mix your lukewarm water with the yeast and salt, then add the flour and mix until there are no dry floury bits. Let it rise at room temperature for two hours and then store it in the fridge for up to two weeks and you can just cut off a portion of the dough whenever you want to bake it.


My dough rose quite substantially and in fact grew out of its container, so next time I halved the recipe until I got a bigger bucket.

It was so easy, it is fantastic. Unfortunately, when reading all of the articles and they all said that you should make the master recipe as written first and master it before branching off and trying others, I didn't pay enough attention. I once made some fabulous semolina bread rolls which even used a starter and I remember them fondly, even though every time I've tried to make them since they have not turned out well at all. So I thought I'd be clever and go half flour, half semolina. Next time I try this, I will increase the salt as it ended up being quite bland. It also turned out very very dense and chewy. I now know it was most likely because I didn't cook it enough.

Even though this particular batch didn't turn out as good as I hoped, I have since become an Artisan Bread in Five convert. Stay tuned for further posts!!

Since I butchered the recipe so badly I'm not going to post what I did, but please go to Jeff and Zoe's wonderful website for fantastic recipes or buy the book, it's amazing!

Thai Beef Salad

I love a good Thai Beef Salad. I love the gorgeous Thai flavours against the crispness of the leaves and meatiness of steak. I learned how to make an authentic Yum Nua when I took a Thai cooking class last year, but somehow I've managed to misplace my recipe and notes. I must try looking for them again...

Anyway, I love Thai Beef Salad. I recently expanded my Donna Hay recipe book collection and bought Modern Classics 1 and saw her simple recipe. I couldn't resist trying it out.

I loved it. The flavours were nicely melded together and were very smooth. It was a nice balance with the fish sauce and the lime, and neither flavour overpowered the other. Some salads that I have tasted had stronger flavours which I don't always like and I do tend to mute my flavours a little bit when making the salad especially since D doesn't like fish sauce.

It was a nice simple recipe, very easy to pull together. It's now my go-to beef salad recipe until I find my Yum Nua recipe!

Thai Beef Salad
from Modern Classics Book 1 by Donna Hay

650g rump steak
150g salad greens
2 small red onions, finely sliced
10 kaffir lime leaves, shredded
3 large mild chillies, seeded and shredded
2/3 cup coriander leaves
2/3 cup mint leaves
2/3 cup basil leaves (I omitted the basil)

Dressing

1 tsp soy sauce
2 tbs fish sauce
2 tbs lime juice
2 tbs brown sugar or palm sugar (I used brown sugar, I didn't like it as much using palm)

Cook the steak to your liking and set aside to rest. After resting, slice thinly.

Combine the salad greens, onions, kaffir lime leaves, chilli, coriander, mint and basil in a bowl and toss lightly.

Combine the dressing ingredients in a small bowl. Add the sliced steak to the salad greens and pour over dressing. Serve.

Sometimes I like to add the chillies to the dressing and sometimes I will marinate the cooked steak strips in some of the dressing to really get the flavour. If I'm taking the salad for lunch, I will put the steak, salad and dressing in separate containers and combine just before serving.

Paniyiri 2009

The Paniyiri Greek Festival was on this weekend in Brisbane and we went along for a great afternoon of fun, food and Greek beer.


I'm really into Greek food at the moment so I was very excited to go. My goal was to try something from every food stall. I didn't meet my goal, but I gave it a good go :)

First up was a chicken slouvaki and some fried Haloumi from the Parish of St Paraskevi stall. Unfortunately, this was at about 3:15pm and both D and I had missed lunch, so we ate these before I realised that I wanted to take photos. It's a shame, because the chicken slouvaki was the best slouvlaki I tasted there.



Honey puffs and Baclava from the Women's Auxiliary of St George. Honey puffs are always awesome, but the baclava was fantastic. Flaky filo, tasty nutty inside and a gorgeous honey syrup drizzle. It was awesome.


Pastitsio from the Dormition of the Theotokos. I was disappointed with this - the pastitsio I make is much nicer than this.


Calamari and Greek Rissoles from Colossus. D and his friend loved the name of this stand. The calamari was nicely cooked but the rissoles were a little dry. Are they supposed to be eaten with something?


Next up was another plate of honey puffs from the Cretan Association of Queensland, who claim to have Brisbane's best honey puffs - made with real honey!! I asked our group what the other honey puffs were made from and no one knew. Fake honey? There was a slight wait on honey puffs at this stand, but our plate was the first one out of the fryer. They were awesome and crispy and dripping in honey. We aren't sure if they really are Brisbane's best or we were just lucky in our timing, but they were the best honey puffs we had.


Mythos Greek beer. D had quite a few of these, despite being very sick and on strong cold medication. He bought me a glass of Imiglykos white wine, which I really liked. We are going to try and find some for me to drink at home.


We were told that best place for octopus was the Cypriot and we saw heaps of people with plates of octopus, so we decided to give it a go. I hated it. I didn't like the taste or the texture, I really did not enjoy it at all. I'm glad I tried it, but goodness it was awful. I don't think I'm cultured enough to enjoy octopus!!


Also from the Cypriot was a chicken slouvaki and lamb slouvaki. The lamb tasted nice but was quite dry. The chicken had a strange coating on it that tasted odd, I didn't like it nearly as much as the one from Parish of St Paraskevi.

I wished I had eaten more haloumi and tried some souvlaki in a pita. One stall had lamb on a spit, I wished I'd had some of that. I wished I'd had some spanakopita and some cheese triangles. I said this to D and he said that he'd bring me back next year. Yay.


After lots of food we had some coffee and watched the Zorba competition. I amused myself doing the Zorba dance turning around in circles by myself, because it was freezing!!!!

We finished off the night with some Greek coffee which D didn't really like, but I loved. It was so smooth - not bitter at all. If all coffee tasted like that I'd drink it all the time.

It was a fantastic afternoon of good food and fun. We went with a great group of friends and had an awesome time. We also kept seeing Geni from Masterchef, which is my coolest reality show contestant sighting so far. Can't wait for next year.

Breakfast Bearclaws Revisited

I'm a terrible breakfast eater. I hate cereal and can only eat so much toast, so I often boycott breakfast foods all together and eat lunch/dinner foods for breakfast. However, lately we have been very good with our dinner portion sizes and have been leftover-free, so I've been at a loose end for breakfast. I first made these two years ago and adored them, but then I forgot about the recipe and never made them again.

On a little trip through my old posts, I can across the post and thought that I must make them again. These cookies are very very substantial and they taste fantastic. It's much healthier than a sweet muffin for breakfast and they keep me nice and full until lunch.

This recipe makes lots of cookies, especially since I make mine fairly small. I bagged up a lot of them and threw them in the freezer and they froze and defrosted really well.

I took some of them to work and they were a hit with my workmates too.

Breakfast Bearclaw Cookies
from The Girl Can't Cook by Cinda Chavich

2 cups softened unsalted butter
2 cups brown sugar
4 large eggs
3/4 cup natural yoghurt or buttermilk (I have tried both but like the texture of the ones with yogurt better)
2 cups plain flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup wheat bran
1 tbs baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
4 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup sunflower seeds
3/4 cup sliced almonds (I like using slivered almonds)

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius.

Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time. Finally add the yogurt and beat well. I use my hand held electric mixer and a very large bowl because the mixture is too large for my stand mixer.

In a seperate bowl, combine all the dry ingredients except for the chocolate chips, seeds and almonds. Add these to the wet ingredients and combine well. Finally, stir through the chocolate chips, seeds and almonds.

Line a tray with baking paper and place small scoops of the cookie dough one the tray. I use about 2 tbs of dough for each cookie and fit about 12 cookies on a tray. They do spread a little bit. Flatten the cookies slightly and bake them for about 12 minutes. My oven runs a little cool but I like my cookies soft so I tend to err on the side of underbaking. The recipe suggests cooking for 12-15 minutes.