FRUITY CHOCOLATE WEDGES

This nut, fruit, chocolate and biscuit treat is my take on tiffin. It is a perfect after-dinner treat if served as a thin wedge as the dark chocolate isn’t sweet – the sweetness comes from the raisins, nuts and honey.

Being made from dark chocolate containing polyphenols it has mood-lifting properties. The minerals in walnuts, pecans and raisins contain antioxidants as well as Omega-3.

These treats are also good ones for sales as they are quick and easy to make and extremely popular. They can be bagged up and kept in the fridge until needed.

Serves 6 large or 8 small wedges

What you will need

A 20cm round spring-form cake tin, or brownie tin, greased.

A plastic bag, a twist to tie the bag and a rolling pin to ‘bash’ the biscuits into small crumbs.

Ingredients

250g dark 70% cocoa chocolate

55g unsalted butter, diced into cm cubes

2 tablespoons of clear honey

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

100g raisins

50g walnuts or pecans broken into small pieces

230g digestive biscuits

Method

1 Place the biscuits in a plastic bag, seal with a twist tie and use the rolling pin to crush the biscuits into small crumbs, set aside.

2 Place 200g of the chocolate in a microwaveable bowl with the butter and microwave on low heat for 3 one-minute bursts, taking out and stirring after each minute.

3 When the butter and chocolate are melted add the honey and vanilla extract and stir well. Stir in the raisins and nuts.

4 Stir in the biscuit crumbs, combine well, pour into the cake tin or brownie tin and press down evenly and firmly.

5 Place in the fridge to set and after about an hour it is ready to be spread with a thin layer of the remaining chocolate. Melt the chocolate in the microwave for 3 one-minute bursts on a low setting. When melted spread evenly over the tiffin.

6 Allow to set thoroughly before cutting into wedges if using a baking tin or squares if using a brownie tin.

These are best kept in the fridge but brought out at least 15 minutes before serving to allow them to come to room temperature when they will taste their best.

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Meet The Team

How To Eat Well Now

Ash Sinfield, Teals

When we were dreaming up Teals, we thought about food a lot. We thought about it at home over our teenagers’ rushed school-day breakfasts, we thought about it through our working lunches, and we thought about it over dinner at the end of the day. Partly because we love good food (who doesn’t?) but mostly because we really wanted to get it right - for our guests and for the planet. How could we best support the farmers and producers around us? What mattered to our communities? What would our guests want to eat?

Good food sits at the heart of the Teals mission, in the same way that it sits at the heart of the farmland we stand on. Food craftsmanship is all around us here, from names that are known across the country such as Montgomery cheese to those equally passionate folk at King Brain organic cider and soft drinks around the corner, producing small batch drinks from spring water and the seasonal produce of their land.

How we eat: what, where and who with, has been at the top of the human agenda since our very beginnings. So what does it mean to eat well now?

It’s been interesting to track the food fashions and passions of this young century. Food trends move more slowly than in other areas of culture. Remember sun-dried tomatoes and extra virgin olive oil? Then Middle Eastern food? Then cupcakes? The rising popularity of cooking shows turned food into entertainment but alongside, our nation turned towards the convenience and irresistible draw of ultra-processed foods (high salt, sugar and fatty ‘foods’ which no longer resemble real ingredients but have been processed and trialled to light up our pleasure sensors). Rates of obesity and other diet-related diseases sky-rocketed, resulting in a £6bn annual load to the NHS, as well as countless stories of human tragedy. Ironically, at the same time the expansion of the internet and social media took celebrities and their diet secrets off the magazine page and into our kitchens. At first, the focus was on ‘superfoods’ from blueberries, to pomegranate, almonds, avocado, goji berries and quinoa.

These food fashions bore no relation to the environment, the seasons, the soil, land-use or water management. So when the Eat-Lancet Commission on food, planet and health, researched and written by scientists from 16 countries, released its findings in 2019, the world drew a collective gasp of breath. Only by radically changing our diets and farming practices could we feed a projected 10bn people without depleting nature’s resources beyond the point of no return. We needed to drastically reduce our reliance on cheaply farmed, grain-fed beef and dairy, whilst at the same time increasing our consumption of plant foods.

Alongside, health science has developed at pace. Tim Spector’s (the scientist behind the Zoe study, the largest ever study of our gut health, who became famous during the pandemic for turning his resources to tracking and managing Covid data) new book, Food for Life, pulls together a decade of research and comes back with some fascinating answers. We are made up of as many bacteria as we are of cells. Called our ‘microbiome’, they look after our immune system, as well as contribute to weight management, energy and other good health factors. How we feed ourselves (and particularly our children as they develop their own individual microbiomes) is crucial in establishing our long-term health. Spector’s Zoe study came broadly to the conclusion that good health lies in a diverse plant-led diet. The key is to eat a wide range of dark-coloured and bitter plants which contain the greatest concentration of polyphenols, which are a plant’s own defence mechanisms.

Research into these two health systems - of the planet and our own - is now aligned. What is good for us has been found to be good for the planet. So we have choices to make. In choosing health, we need to turn towards a wide range of vegetables, fruit and pulses and reduce our reliance on cheap meat and dairy. Our greatest power sits in how we shop. Changing what we buy and where we buy it.

Living in this glorious part of the world, close to nature and good farming practices, makes this easier for us than for so many. Supermarkets are hugely wasteful, not just in the food that they throw away, but in the demands for visually perfect produce: many smaller producers have to grow three times the volume of a supermarket contract in order to supply enough of the vegetable that looks good on the shelf. We, at Teals, would really like to help, and we believe that together we can make a difference. So below, we have distilled our own 5 top rules for eating better - for us and for the planet. We’d love to know your thoughts and ideas. Do get in touch with us hello@teals.co.uk or come in for a chat. teals.co.uk

• Put plants at the centre of your meal - Think ‘4 veg and a fistful of protein’ rather than ‘meat and two’, and buy fruit and veg in season, where possible from local providers or direct sales such as farmers’ markets. Aim for 30+ different plant foods a week - as this includes grains and spices, it’s actually not too hard!

• Regulate your red meat consumption - Replace cheap, grain-fed meat with grass-fed, locally reared. Instead of 200g of meat as a portion, think of 150g. Instead, eat a greater variety of pulses and legumes - they fix nitrogen into the soil, as well as provide protein.

• Avoid ultra-processed foods - Treat children’s diets carefully and teach them about real food.

• Waste less - Be wary of ‘best before’ and ‘use by’ dates which are standardised. Use your eyes and nose. Think again about what you ditch - Secondary parts of vegetables are delicious, too: chop broccoli stalks for crudités; roast cauliflower leaves and potato peelings. Buy smaller amounts more often, make soups, ferments and smoothies with leftovers, and compost everything else.

• Reduce your packaging - Shop where food is not needlessly wrapped in single-use plastic.