Looking across from the Shared Support Centre on a dreary rain soaked morning in Stoke, there can be only one way to cheer up your morning, with the well known local delicacy of Staffordshire Oatcakes.

This dish has a deep heritage within Stoke-On-Trent and is a firm favourite both in and out of the city. With a number of different fillings, oatcakes are simple to make and a delicious quick meal to make from oatmeal and flour.

Oatcakes can be filled with a number of different fillings, if you don’t like mushrooms and bacon, try them with sausage or beans, yum!

Ingredients to make 12

• 225g/8oz fine oatmeal
• 100g/3½oz wholemeal flour
• 100g/3½oz plain flour
• 1 tsp quick-action yeast
• pinch salt
• 825ml/1 pint 9¾fl oz water
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 12 tsp vegetable oil
• 24 rashers streaky bacon
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 150g/5¼oz chestnut mushrooms, cut in half
• 300g/10½oz mature cheddar cheese, grated

Lindley continues to support local communities throughout the country.

Lindley has recently teamed up with local Yorkshire charity ‘Sheffield Younger Carers’ to support the Young Carers Eat & Greet Event with The Sheffield College.

The charity provides support to children and young people aged 8-21 who are living in Sheffield and care for someone at home, usually a family member, with a physical or mental illness or disability.

These individuals are known as ‘young carers’ and are supported by the charity through one to one support, group activities, respite holidays and support with education, employment and training.

The event was designed to provide young carers with the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn valuable cooking skills; the dishes cooked were sampled by local councillors and other key figures from the public sector.

By providing branded aprons to each of the young carers, Lindley has provided them with a lasting reminder of the fabulous event.

Happy Shrove Tuesday! We hope you’re all using up your spare eggs, milk and sugar to make delicious pancakes.

As one of England’s favourite traditions, we’ll be looking at how to make beautiful baby buttermilk pancakes, with sticky bananas and Brazil nuts.

You’ll need:

• 175g plain flour
• ½ tsp fine sea salt
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• Seeds scraped from 1 vanilla pod
• 2 eggs , separated
• 25g butter , melted and cooled
• 200ml buttermilk
• 100ml milk
• Sunflower oil , for frying
• 140g caster sugar
• 100g Brazil nuts , very roughly chopped
• 2 ripe bananas , thickly sliced into chunks
• 200ml maple syrup , plus extra on the side
• Natural yogurt or crème fraîche (optional)

1. Place the flour, salt,baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, sugar and vanilla seeds in a food processor and pulse briefly to blend. Add the egg yolks, butter, buttermilk and milk, then whizz to a smooth batter, scraping down the sides of the bowl once or twice. Whisk the egg whites in another bowl to soft, floppy peaks, then fold into the batter.
2. Heat a heavy-bottomed frying pan until you can feel a good heat rising, then lightly oil the pan. Using a small ladle, pour in the batter to make pancakes about 10cm in diameter. Cook for about 1 min until the tops are set and little holes appear in the surface. Flip the pancakes over, brown lightly on the other side, then transfer to a tea towel placed on a wire rack and keep warm in a low oven. Repeat with the remaining batter, stacking the pancakes as they are cooked.
3. To serve, pour the sugar into a mixing bowl and toss the Brazil nuts and bananas through it. Tip into a pan, heat through to melt the sugar, then toss together as everything begins to caramelise. When the nuts and bananas are golden brown, remove from the heat and stir in the maple syrup. Arrange the pancakes on a serving dish and spoon over the nut and banana mix, then serve with extra syrup and a dollop of yogurt or crème fraîche.

There are many more flavours to choose from, both sweet and savoury, this is our personal favourite!

And after stuffing ourselves with these pancakes today, we think it’s probably wise to give them up for lent!

Happy New Year to everyone from The Lindley Group, we hope you’ve all had a fantastic Christmas.

Since the festive period has ended, why not have a new years resolution of reducing waste this year?

To help with this, the SRA has developed Christmas leftovers menu ideas, to help to get rid of your remaining festive feast food!

For all your remaining Brussels sprouts and Christmas nuts this Christmas, why not try Caramelized Tofu.

Ingredients

• 200g extra-firm tofu cut into thin
• 1-inch segments (see photo)
• A couple pinches of fine-grain sea salt
• A couple splashes of olive or vegetable oil
• 2 medium cloves garlic, crushed
• 1/3 cup Christmas nuts (any of pecans/walnuts/hazelnuts/etc), toasted and chopped
• 3 tablespoons fine-grain natural cane sugar or brown sugar
• 1/4 cup coriander (leaves), chopped
• 300g brussels sprouts, washed and cut into thins strips (or whizz briefly in a food processor)
• To serve – a dollop of cottage cheese (optional)

Method

1. Cook the tofu strips in large hot frying pan with a bit of salt and a splash of oil.
2. Saute until slightly golden, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic and pecans, and cook for another minute. – Stir in sugar. Cook for another couple of minutes.
3. Remove from heat and stir in coriander.
4. Scrape the tofu out onto a plate and set aside while you cook the brussels sprouts.
5. In the same pan (no need to wash), add a touch more oil, another pinch of salt, and turn the heat up to medium-high. When the pan is nice and hot stir in the shredded brussels sprouts.
6. Cook for 2 – 3 minutes, stirring a couple times (but not too often) until you get some golden bits, and the rest of the sprouts are bright and delicious.
7. Mix everything together.
8. Sprinkle with a dash of lemon juice

Recently we announced a new CSR incentive of using waste coffee grounds from our sites. The aim was to reduce waste and inform customers how to use the grounds in their gardens.

We’re pleased to say that this scheme has been successful at various sites around the UK, with customers (and staff) taking coffee beans away to be reused.

Unsurprisingly our site at Starbucks in Derby has commented on the popularity of this incentive. While others due to demand have requested additional stickers in order to continue to bag more coffee grounds.

Be sure to lookout for our promotional posters at our sites, help reduce waste and support the coffee ground initiative!

Christmas fever is starting to be felt all around the UK, and at Lindley it’s no different!

Up and down the country we have a selection of new delicious Christmas Menu’s, and a number of party venues and events being held.

Brace the elements this year at the Ashton Gate Stadium, with a themed Christmas ‘Fire and Ice’ party
www.ashtongatestadium.co.uk/christmas

Dine with an Ex-England legend at the New York Stadium, and enjoy a Sportsmans’  Dinner and festive four course meal in the presence of Paul Gascoigne
www.newyorkstadium.net/events/complete-party-disco-night

Or, enjoy a groovy Christmas evening at the Deepdale Stadium and dance the night away at a themed 70′s and 80′s disco party night!
www.prestonnorthendstadium.co.uk/events/70s-and-80s-disco-party-night-december-1st

Now that you’ve sampled some of our Christmas delights on offer, be sure to take a look at all of our sites Christmas events;

Hillsborough Stadium

Empress Grill

Malvern Theatres Bistro

Warrington Conference Centre

County Conference

Essex Cricket Venue

Heathcotes Outside

Priestfield Stadium

Following last weeks update, we have more great news to share with you;

•  We’re pleased to announce that we have partnered with Wakefield Trinity Wildcats, to provide catering for all their non-match-day and match-day events!

• More Cycling action this month from Team TLG; they have raised £761 for the Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centre charity. A big thank you to Billie O’Neill, Andy O’Neill, Gary Bates, his daughter Megan, Gayle Ogilvie and Debbie Laurimar for all their efforts.

• We are now a member of the Good Egg Award, whereby we only use free range eggs in our cooking.

• We have recently released a new CSR incentive for our sites that have waste coffee grounds from fresh coffee. The aim is to reduce waste, and we have produced stickers that go onto the coffee bags to seal them and inform customers how to use the grounds in their gardens.

• All our hospitality and heritage sites in Yorkshire have recently become members of Deliciously Yorkshire since September. This is a non-profit organisation that supports local businesses to promote Yorkshire produce.
• We’re pleased to announce that the Lindley brands, Frank’s New York Street Dogs, Henry’s Chicken, FGB, Pie & Mash Co & Ice Bar have all been added to Leicester Tigers kiosks to improve the match day experience.

As always, we’ve got more jobs available!

Watch this space for more Lindley updates! And be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.