Happy Birthday Granny...

It was my Granny's birthday in December so I made a little card with some watercolour paint and I also sent her some of her favourite homemade ginger biscuits for a tasty birthday treat!

Log Cabin Cake...

My lovely friend Jen turns 22 on the 6th of January and it's become quite a tradition that she comes to my house on Christmas Eve Eve for lunch as a "pre-birthday" celebration. As I can't always spend the day with Jen on her birthday, I like to make her a special cake and this year was no exception! Last year saw the creation of a cheeky cat but my architectural cake skills have advanced since then so this year's challenge was a chocolate log cabin! Complete with tiled roof and our family christmas decorations. I think we were both pretty chuffed with the results!!!

Christmas Craft Fair...

A few of us at University decided to have a little Christmas Craft Fair to sell some of things we make in our spare time. I shared a stall with my friend Jen and we sold a range of festive goodies!

Gwyneth Paltrow - Notes from my Kitchen Table...

This summer whilst browsing the cookery section in my local library (as I do very often!) I came across a new cook book by Gwyneth Paltrow. I'm always a little dubious when it comes to cookery books by celebrities seeing as these days just about everyone has one! However, after a little flick through I thought I would take it home. There are some lovely recipes in there and it's nice to read a bit about where her influences come from too. The first thing that caught my eye was the recipe for Fish Tacos. It sounded really different and really delicious. So, after a quick jaunt to the shops for ingredients, I set about making the tasty feast for dinner.

I have to say that I varied the recipe slightly. So, we ended up, with battered haddock, corn tortillas, chopped gem lettuce (instead of salted cabbage), diced tomatoes (instead of salsa), lime mayo and fresh guacamole. The results were amazing and thoroughly enjoyed by my mum and I. Can't wait to make some more things out of there!

Green fingers...Tasty Veg...

I posted a while ago that me and my mum had decided to grow our own vegetables this summer and so we planted the seeds and awaited the arrival of tasty produce. We've had tons of courgettes and potatoes and they've been absolutely delicious! We even had a couple of strawberries when we've managed to get there before the birds! Well worth it though. Roll on the lettuces and broccoli!

Wotsit Babies...

The other day my mum was enjoying a bag of delicious wotsits, like she does most weeks and as she reached the bottom of the bag she found something quite alarming! Fair enough in most bags of crisps you get mishapen and odd shaped crisps but not 10! Amongst the standard sized beauties were 10 teeny weeny wotsits! Now you don't see that every day! If only SMTV:Live was still on!

Little Green Gems...

The courgettes don't seem to be the only things springing to life! I noticed this morning that there are a few strawberries starting to grow on our strawberry plant. It's so amazing seeing all these wonderful plants grow and to think in a month or two's time we'll be eating the produce!

Spud you like...

I finally got round to buying some buckets for my spuds and with some help from the mother, we've now planted our potatoes. It's just a matter of waiting now for the shoots to sprout! Jacket Potatoes here we come!

Grow my pretty's GROW!

Well, it's only been a couple of weeks but my courgette plants are growing like crazy! It's so exciting! I know it'll be a while before I actually see the vegetables but I just can't get over how fast they've sprung up! Let's hope they continue like this and don't get eaten by naughty slugs or cheeky birds!

Gluey Fingers turn into Green Fingers?...

This summer I have decided that I want to grow some fruit and veg. As a child I used to love planting seeds and seeing them grow into something amazing. I felt all nostalgic the other day when I thought back to when I was a child and I went to my grandparents every Saturday. My Grandad was a keen gardner and I used to love exploring the wonders of my Grandparents' back garden. Afternoons spent picking bowls and bowls of raspberries, gooseberries and blackberries and shaking the apples off all their trees. I was too little to cut up the rhubarb but I would follow my Grandad down to the very bottom of the garden and watch as he cut off long pieces ready to be made into a crumble or pie by my Granny. He can't garden as much now and the raspberry bushes are gone as they were too much for him to look after. But it is time to get my own green fingers out and sow some seeds once again.

Me and my mum took a trip to Homebase and came back well equipped. We bought and planted some strawberry plants into a special strawberry plant pot and I planted some courgette seeds in little pots to start them off. We are also going to plant some potatoes and hopefully some carrots too. Maybe I'll be the one making the pies this time round. We'll see!

Biggest strawberries ever...

As the sun starts to come out it's slowly feeling more and more like summer. Yey! So last weekend I decided to treat myself to a punnet of strawberries from the local market. They were absolutely delicious! Not only that but two of them were HUGE! I had the photo up on my computer to put on my blog to show these beauties but when I came back, it had been defaced by a certain Stephen Arthur thank you very much! But I thought I'd put his version on here! The strawberry on the right is a normal sized strawberry and the the ones on the left were the two beasts! Nom nom nom! Summer is here!

The BEST cookies I have ever had!

I have made a lot of cookies in my time and hadn't found a recipe that hit the spot until recently. This recipe by Dan Lepard is one of the best I've ever made. Really easy and even better...really tasty! (ABOVE) I served one with strawberries and a teeny bit of whipped cream (done by hand, boy did I feel it!) the perfect indulgence!

Ingredients:

125g unsalted butter, softened
225g light soft brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 medium egg
25g cocoa
¾ tsp ground cinnamon
175g plain flour
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
200g milk or dark chocolate, chopped roughly into big chunks
150g brazil nuts, cut into quarters

Method:

Put the butter, sugar and vanilla in a bowl and beat until smooth. Beat in the egg, then stir in the cocoa and cinnamon. Add the flour and soda, work until combined, then mix in the chocolate and nuts; I use my hands because I find it easier to scrunch up the dough and get the mixture really even. Pinch off nuggets of dough the size of a ping-pong ball (for regular cookies) or unshelled hazelnut (for mini ones), and roll between your palms until smooth. Cover a baking tray with nonstick paper and place the soon-to-be cookies on it 3-4cm apart. Heat the oven to 180C (160C fan-assisted)/350F/gas mark 4 and bake for eight to 10 minutes (for mini cookies) or 12-14 minutes (for regular ones). Leave to cool on the tray for a few minutes, then transfer to a rack with a spatula. Once cold, store in an airtight container.

A week of culinary delights...

I don't know what's got into me this week but I seem to have spent a lot of it in the kitchen! Maybe it's because I'm going back to Uni this weekend where funds and time is limited to whip up propa bo food! I love cooking but don't do as much of it at Uni because it's difficult cooking for one plus I don't have as much time to labour over slow roasted stews and beastly sponge cakes.

So this week I've made apple and cinnamon muffins, ginger biscuits, sticky toffee pudding (which was to die for!), carrot and coriander soup and last nights tea which was homemade burgers and chips which, if I say so myself were AMAZING! So much better than bought in my opinion! And the best thing is I have popped the majority of this in the freezer for my mum so she's got some meals and treats for the next month. So, she doesn't have to come home and spend ages cooking herself tea. Sorted!

The burgers were from a brilliant recipe by Jamie Oliver in his Ministry of Food cookbook but it can also be found on his website...

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/beef-recipes/a-cracking-burger

as for the chips well they were a bit of an experiment putting together quite tips and recipes I'd read but here's the gist of it (I know it's a very lengthy process but trust me it's so worth it if you have the time!)...

1. Cut up a few potatoes into chip shaped pieces roughly the same size so they will cook in the same amount of time.

2. Put the potato pieces in a bowl of cold water and put in the fridge overnight. This gets rid of a lot of the starch.

3. The next day give the potatoes a good rinse in fresh cold water and drain off.

4. Plunge your chips into a saucepan of boiling water and then simmer very gently until the point of a knife will penetrate the chips easily.

5. Using a slotted spoon, remove the chips from the pan and lay them out on a tray. Let them cool down completely.

6. Add some oil to a frying pan and lightly fry the chips. Don't have the high too high and remove the chips as soon as they start to brown off.

7. Let the chips cool down completely again and then put in the fridge.

8. When it's time for tea, place your chips on a baking tray and put in the oven on gas mark 6/7 and cook until they are golden brown and crispy.

9. Sprinkle a bit of salt over them and serve!

Jen's Birthday...Christmas Eve Eve!

Well the festive season continues and today is Christmas Eve Eve only 2 days to go until the man in red comes and I don't mean the postman! Although I suppose technically santa does deliver! Anyway, it's Jen's Birthday in a couple of weeks and I wanted to do something for her birthday early on so I thought what's better than a mini party. The usual suspects were there, cocktail sausages, mini sandwiches, little slices of pizza, cheesy poofs and of course that childhood favourite...a cheese and pineapple hedgehog! These treats aside I've always wanted to make a novelty cake and seeing as Jen loves cats I saw this as a challenge...

I made two round chocolate cakes and cute them into a body shape and a head shape. Then with the leftover pieces I cut out four legs, a tail and a couple of ears and "glued" them into place with icing! Next, I used plain and chocolate buttercream to cover his body in stripes. Then it was time to decorate! I used milk and white chocolate buttons on the body and then for the face I used chocolate buttons for the eyes and I cut liquorice into thin slices for whiskers. Finally for the nose and the toes on the paws I cut malteasers into halves and stuck them on with a little bit of buttercream. And hey prendo the cat cake was finished. I have to say I'm pretty chuffed with the outcome not bad for my first novelty cake. Jen always goes above and beyond for people so this was my way (although small!) of saying thank you. Much love Jenbobs.