Not a great quality photo, I grant you, but I did’t have much time to come upstairs and get my proper camera

it’s been a busy day doing not much of consequence really. I have ironed and then walked the dogs in the frost-melting winter sunshine. I made my regular expedition to the cash and carry in order to replenish the Saturday Morning Music School tuck shop. Apparently, supplies were desperately low. They weren’t.

And tonight we had a meeting with our architect and builder to go through the process of snagging and remedial work inevitable with any building project. One cannot welcome anyone into one’s house without feeding them so I thought I’d make some of these little beauties. (For some reason, our architect makes me think of goats’ cheese and olives and herbal tea.) They’re muffins that don’t feel as sinful to eat as their sugar-laden sisters.

I’ve done this sort of thing before but I was clearly in a Devil-may-care cavalier (is that, perhaps, an oxymoron?) mood with the recipes this evening. I’ve been fasting today and that always makes me tired and grumpy, so I wanted something I could throw together without become involved in any intricacies. I looked up “Savoury Muffins” on the Internet and was presented with cheesy creations and courgette concoctions. Using those as a sort of launchpad, I literally threw these together, first mixing togather the dry ingredients and then dolloping the wet in a well in the centre, in the way one would make a pancake batter.

Ingredients

• 200g of plain flour (I used 00 pasta flour for preference)
• 50g wholemeal flour
• 35g oats (for a bit of nutty bite)
• 2 tsps baking powder
• 1tsp salt
• 1tsp chilli powder (how piquant!)
• a couple of teaspoons of dried oregano

To which I added:

• 1 packet goat’s cheese (it’s about 200g) crumbled
• 1 tub of Greek yoghurt
• about 2/3 of a tub of garlicky, herby green olives, chopped
• 1 egg
• 3tbls olive oil
• some milk in order to make the mixture into a paste-like batter rather than a dough.

I cracked open the mini muffin silicone tins – I like the newer ones with a metal frame – that I bought last year. They don’t have to be greased so you just chuck in a heaped teaspoonful of the mixture and then throw them into your pre-heated 220℃ oven for about 15 minutes. OK. Maybe don’t throw them.

I think they’re best served warm – it doesn’t take these mini bites long to cool – but as you can see I made two trays so I’m freezing half of them. I think they might come in handy defrosted and warmed and served as a canapé with a glass of Frontignan. We shall see.