Cookie Monster Cake

This is the cake I made for DD's birthday.

Christmas food

Ok, so life is getting in the way of blogging & really there was no chance I was going to remember to blog about Christmas dinner.

However, we do currently have a house full of all our favourite foods including masses of turkey!

Yesterday we ate an enormous roast dinner and today we had probably my favourite thing - leftovers!

Specifically cold turkey, chips & honey coated bacon & sausages (which I forgot to cook yesterday!). It was delicious

We're now looking forward to a big family day on Friday with a rolling buffer provided by yours truly - the centrepiece of which will be my now legendary slow roast pork.

Hopefully I'll get round to posting more about but who knows!

Merry Christmas!

Superman cake!

This is the birthday cake I made for my 3yo nephew

He loved it & I'm very proud of it

Green Thai Curry

A while ago, on Twitter, my lovely friend Lily posted a link to this recipe

I tried it at the weekend and it was delicious

Light, fragrant and tasty and just as easy to prepare as Lily said!

This is definitely a keeper!!

Veggie meals

Hello!

I'm back. Sorry I've been so busy blogging has fallen by the wayside a bit

Anyway, just a quick update for you

After a request from DD we are now eating at least one vegetarian meal a week (as well as fish on Fridays). I still need to spend some time going through and looking at recipes to make sure that vegetarian doesn't just mean cheese and pastry!!

In the meantime we have tried Linda McCartney's Deep Country Pies which were lovely and Sainsburys Cheese and Onion crispbakes which we all liked

So... We're trying but I want to make more effort to cook veggie from scratch. Any recipes or hints would be gratefully received!

70th Birthday Cake

Here's the cake I made for my Mum's husband's 70th birthday this week

Six months to make & the 50-odd guests demolished it in five minutes!!

Test Match Special

This is an old family favourite of Corned Beef Hash & Rice Pudding

It was named Test Match Special by my Grandfather as he could get it all ready & in the oven at 11am so he could watch the cricket & when the teams went into lunch at 1pm it would be ready!!

It feels like a cheat to describe such a simple recipe but here goes

Cook some potatoes, then mash them & add a tin of corned beef I add a little grated cheese as well. Put it into an ovenproof dish

Now for the rice pudding. In a ovenproof bowl I put 2 tablespoons of pudding rice, 2 tablespoons of caster sugar, 1 pint of full cream milk & a dash of vanilla extract

Put both dishes in the oven (rice pudding underneath) and cook for 2 hours at gas mark 3 (170C)

Eat
Enjoy

Beef with pasta & blue cheese

This is one of my left overs meals.

It's very simple & very tasty!

All I do is make a cheese sauce using double cream & whichever blue cheese is on offer (this time it was Shropshire Blue) with a bit of strong Cheddar thrown in!

I then add some of the cold leftover beef to the sauce to warm it through & cook the pasta

Then add the pasta to the sauce & the beef and serve!

Roast Beef & leftovers

Oh well I'm getting a bit behind with blogging & I keep forgetting to take photos!

Never mind though so here we go again. Whenever we have a Sunday Roast I use the leftovers to make dinner for the rest of the week

This week we had a beef joint so this was my menu plan

Sunday - roast beef & all the trimmings
Monday - cow in a hole (like toad but using beef not sausages)
Tuesday - beef with pasta in a creamy blue cheese sauce
Wednesday - for speed's sake it was pasties & mashed potatoes
Thursday - beef stir fry with honey & soy sauce
Friday - breaded haddock, mash & peas

I'll post some recipes & pictures later (where I remembered to take them that is!)

Saturday Lunch

Bacon

Brie

Baguette

That is all

Eat

Enjoy

Created by my gorgeous Husband

Home made meatballs

I made meatballs for dinner yesterday.  I use Nigella's recipe from Nigella Bites for these but replaced the beef/pork with turkey.

I also find that adding garlic to the meatballs is overpowering so I just leave it out.

Ingredients

500g minced turkey
3 tablespons of semolina
2 tablespoons of grated parmesan
1 egg
pinch of salt
good grind of black pepper

Method

• Bung all ingredients in a bowl and mix together
• Form the meatballs by rolling small amounts of the mix in your hands (approx 1 teaspoon but don't measure)
• Place the meatballs on a plate or baking tray lined with cling film and chill in fridge for at least 30 minutes before cooking.
• I cook these by adding them to the tomato sauce which is cooking on the hob - partially cover with a lid and leave to simmer for at least 20 minutes - don't stir as this will make the meatballs break up
• After 20 minutes I check if the meatballs are cooked by cutting one open
• Eat
• Enjoy

I use my homemade tomato sauce to cook these

I found that making this quantity gave me 97 meatballs so I cooked 33 (11 each!) for dinner last night and froze the rest in two separate batches so I have some ready for next time.

I served them with rice and very nice they were too!

My Tomato Sauce

I use this tomato sauce as the basis for a lot of dishes - especially spag bol, meatballs and lasagne.

Ingredients

1 tin/pack/jar of chopped tomatoes
Splash of milk or double cream
Splash of soy sauce
Splash of red wine
Pinch of salt
Pinch of sugar
Herbs (basil, oregano, parsley etc) to taste
Few crushed dried chillis if you like

Method

• I whizz the tomatoes through my magic bullet to make a smoother base (like passata but a lot cheaper!)
• Pour this in a pan and heat gently
• Add other ingredients to taste
• I like my sauces quite thick so I let it reduce quite a lot
• Eat 
• Enjoy

You can make the sauce and then add the meat (as I do for meatballs and cook the meatballs in the sauce) or put the meat in first and then add the sauce (as I do for spage bol)

Birthday Cake

This is the cake that yesterday's sugar roses were for

It's my Gran's birthday next week & we're having a little gathering for her & I am providing the cake

I am very pleased with how it has turned out. It's a Victoria Sponge under the icing

Not exactly Jane Asher...

But not bad for my first attempt at sugar roses

I'm very pleased with how they have turned out

Finished cake will be posted tomorrow

Chicken Disaster

Well just to prove not all my ideas work - tonight's meal went a bit wrong

Started off fine - frying the chicken breasts in olive oil & a little butter, then added a splash of white wine - still fine, then a drizzle of honey & some double cream - still fine - all things I've done before and have worked perfectly into a lovely creamy sauce.

Taste test, needs a little something so I go for one of my usual fail safes - a dash of soy sauce. So far so good...

Put the rice on & leave the sauce to reduce.

That's where it all went wrong.

Left it a bit too long & it caramelised a bit too much!!

Ok.

Yes.

I mean burnt

Bother.

I tried everything I could think of to rescue the sauce but in the end had to give up & just have the chicken with rice & no sauce

It was ok but not as good as it should have been

Update & weekly menu

Oh dear, I've been a bit rubbish at this blogging malarkey for a week or so.

Hoping to get back into the swing of things soon - got a birthday cake to make this week so that will get posted

Can't promise to post every day this week but here is our planned menu.

Daughter is staying with Grandparents again so just meals for two

Sunday - out for lunch when we met Grandparents so nothing planned

Monday - Bacon & Spinach pasta

Tuesday - something with chicken but I don't know what yet!

Wednesday - non starter as Husband has late meeting & it's rehearsal night

Thursday - Baked potatoes & sausages (weather permitting)

Friday - possible pay day treat

Ok - so it's a bit haphazard but that's the general plan

Back soon

Meatballs with tomato sauce & rice

This recipe uses my all purpose tomato sauce which I use for everything - bolognese, lasagne & this meatball dish.

I'm going to blog the sauce recipe separately - so watch this space!

Anyway - I often make my own meatballs but these are Asda's sweet chilli beef meatballs which I love

Once the sauce is ready I add the meatballs & let them cook in the sauce for about 20 minutes - as they cook they infuse the sauce with some of the chilli flavour

Serve with rice & enjoy

Top with grated cheese if you like

Spinach and Bacon Pasta

This is a delicious & very quick dish

All I do is cut up some bacon into small pieces & fry it in a little olive oil while boiling water to cook the pasta

I usually use fresh pasta as it cooks quicker but dried works just as well!

Once the bacon is cooked and the pasta is cooking (depending on whether fresh or dried) I add a bag of baby spinach to the bacon and wilt it

Then add some grated Parmesan, Grana Padano or Cheddar (personal choice - all work well) to the bacon and spinach mix

Drain the pasta once cooked then toss the bacon and spinach with the pasta and serve

I find it doesn't need any salt but a little black pepper is very nice. Add more grated cheese on top if you like

Saturday night treat

DD is away on a sleepover tonight & Husband cooked one of my favourite meals for me

Steak & chips with corn on the cob

Yummy.

Leftover slow roast pork

Using the leftover pork from the weekend & the left over gravy I made individual pies for us all

I really like making individual portions of things - I think it makes meals seem a bit more special!

All I did was warm the shredded pork in a pan, add the gravy & warm through

I then added a splash of double cream & some soy sauce.

Whilst this was simmering I rolled out a piece of puff pastry & cut it to fit my pie dishes

I then split the meat & sauce between the three dishes, topped with pastry, brushed with milk, added a couple of air holes & decorated with Russian Doll cookie cutter pastry shapes

The pies then went in the oven at 200C for 30 minutes

I served this with mashed potatoes (should have peas too but I'd run out from frozen peas!)