Pancake Tuesday

In need of a pancake recipe for tomorrow? Try out either French Crepes



or a stack o American pancakes!



Or maybe you could use Nigella's pancake mix.... we love this one for it's convenience and ease of use

Instant Pancake Mix(From Nigella Express)
600g flour
3 tbsp baking powder
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp salt
40g vanilla/caster sugar

Recipe
Mix everything together and store in an airtight container

When you want some pancakes whisk together....
150g pancake mix, 1 egg, 250ml milk, t tsbp melted butter

Heat your pan with no oil, spoon batter onto pan to cook. When bubbles appear on the surface flip them over to cook until golden on each side.

Nigella makes 15 pancakes about 8cm in diameter from this mix, but we like nice big pancakes and get 6 or 7 big ones out of it.



Happy pancake day!

Creamy pasta with mushroom and bacon

When the cat's away the mice will play... apparently!

Regular readers of this blog will know my husband is a rather fussy creature when it comes to food. So when he tells me he won't be home for dinner or won't need dinner made for him I get rather excited thinking about what I can have that's usually off the menu when he is around.

Today was one of those fun days. I had all sorts of ideas about toad in the hole, chicken and broccoli bake, baked fish, sticky chicken wings and so so sooooo much more. The dentist interrupted most of these plans by numbing my mouth in order to work on a tooth that has been keeping me up the past 4 nights - I can't complain really because my tooth feels so much better already! I had a flick through a Christmas present again, Tana Ramsay's Real Family Food, and spotted her pasta with mushrooms and bacon recipe and decided that was the way forward - easy for the slightly gummy eater to enjoy

This was a great dish, also quick and easy to throw together for a weeknight meal - it's a pity the hubster won't like it! While I was making it I wondered was it like the Spaghetti Carbonara and while similar this recipe was much simpler in preparation but had better flavour.



Creamy pasta with mushroom and bacon
Based on Tana Ramsay's recipe from Real Family Food

Serves 2

Ingredients
2 tbsp olive oil
8 rashers of streaky back unsmoked smoked bacon, cut into 1" pieces
1 medium onion finely diced
1 garlic clove minced (or cheat like me with 1/2 tsp of "easy garlic" - jar of pre minced garlic)
250g mushrooms, diced or sliced
100ml white wine
100g dry spaghetti per person (or your pasta of choice)
200ml single double cream
25g flat leaf parsley, finely chopped (I subbed this for some dried parsley but think fresh would be better)
grated parmesan to serve


Recipe
1. Put a saucepan of water on to boil for the pasta and follow packet instructions.
2. Heat the oil in a pan, then fry the bacon pieces. After a couple of minutes add the onion and garlic and fry until the onion starts to colour.
3. Stir in the mushrooms and cook for 2 minutes, then add the wine and simmer until almost evaporated.
4. Add the cream and gently simmer for 3-4 minutes.
5. Drain the pasta and return to the saucepan. Mix in the sauce and parsley, then serve with grated parmesan on top.



In other news, the Irish Blog Awards 2010 have now opened nominations and will be closing them on 5th February, so get in there and get voting regardless of whether you're in Ireland or not!

Monthly Triplet: Basic Lemon Curd

This is my 2nd of 3 recipes bookmarked for February. In my last post for February's monthly triplet (which I've just decided is the name for this'feature') I mentioned how there weren't many recipes in February's magazines that I wanted to try out, but there were 2 recipes, which doesn't work well for a 3 recipe feature but here is the first of the 2 magazine recipes - Basic Lemon Curd.

I've never really had much lemon curd but I've spotted another recipe I'd love to make which requires lemon curd so I thought why not try and make it too.

I didn't take a photo of it cos it's lemon curd, how exciting a photo are you going to get? But if you really want to see photos of lemon curd check out the Google Image search for "lemon curd".

Basic Lemon Curd
Source: Easy Food Magazine, February 2009, p 62

Makes about 500ml

Ingredients
125g butter
Juice of 4 large lemons
250g caster sugar
4 eggs

Recipe
1. Melt the butter, lemon juice, and sugar in a saucepan over a low heat. Take off the heat and set to the side.
2. In a bowl whisk the eggs until mixed together.
3. Pour half of the lemon/sugar/butter mix in with the eggs and whisk until smooth.
4. Pour the egg mixture back into the saucepan with the lemon mixture. Bring this to the boil, stirring continuously, the reduce the heat and gently simmer until the mixture is thick and glossy.
5. Pour into sterile jar or container and leave to cool before covering and refrigerating.

Red Velvet Cake

Red Velvet Cake has been one I've read loads about on various blogs and have been meaning to try making for the longest time, so when Sio at Cake Creations and I decided to meet up to bake some stuff together we ended up making the Daring Baker's flourless chocolate cake and this red velvet cake using a recipe on Equal Opportunity Kitchen. Thank you Sio for coming and making this with me. (You can read Sio's write up on the cake here and see some of the step by step pictures too)

This was fun to make but awkward for trying to keep the red food dye off everything - I unfortunately have a red stain on my nice wood chopping board now. We ended up making 3 layers from the huge amount of batter which worked out ok cos there's a huge amount of cream cheese frosting in this one too, however there was a little problem with the frosting in that we added almost triple the icing sugar to thicken it up (probably because the butter was too soft at the start) and it was still rather runny, which ended up making this a self icing cake:



Red Velvet Cake
Source: Equal Opportunity Dinner who sourced it from More From Magnolia by Allysa Torey

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp white vinegar
3 large eggs
1 (1-ounce) bottle liquid red food colouring (tasteless variety)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk

Recipe
1. Beat butter at medium speed with stand mixer (paddle attachment) or electric mixer until fluffy.
2. Gradually add sugar, vanilla and vinegar, beating well.
3. Add eggs, 1 at a time beating until blended after each addition.
4. Add food colouring, beating until combined.
5. Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Add to butter mixture alternately with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat at low speed until blended after each addition.
6. Pour into 2 greased and floured 9 inch round cakepans.
7. Bake at 350F for 20 - 22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks for 5 minutes; remove from pans and cool on wire racks.



Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients
1 (8 oz) package cream cheese at room temperature
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 (16 oz) package powdered sugar (2 cups) but we used almost 6 cups
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (if you want your icing to stay pure white use clear vanilla extract)
1 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Recipe
Beat cream cheese and butter until creamy; gradually add sugar and vanilla, beating well.



Layer the cakes and frosting then cover the tops and sides with frosting and decorate.

This is my entry to Bookmarked Recipes for next Monday's round up. Check out this week's round up now!

Soy Honey Cocktail Sausages

Last Sunday was a manic day. to start with little Stewie (our wee dog) had to get taken to the vet - he had a run in with a tree at the park the day before. After that I had to rush to church then to the shop to pick up some bits for the afternoon. Shortly after getting lunch we had to go pick up a drugged up Stewie from the vet and then straight after that I had to get back down to church for a band rehearsal for our youth service so I was kept busy at the rehearsal, then the service and then we had our youth group meet after that too!!!!! What a day of running here there and everywhere, and in the middle of that I had to make dinner for our band! So I had some cocktail sausages, oven chips and a Nigella recipe to use.

Unfortunately after making them I only got to have one but it was so good I've bought in some more cocktail sausages with the plan of having them all to myself! And I also wasn't able to get a photo because they were all scoffed so quickly so I'll add a photo when I remake this one.

And here's a photo of the second batch.... still sooooo good! And with perfectly well again Stewie craving over them in the background!



Soy Honey Cocktail Sausages
Nigella Express by Nigella Lawson, p322
Ingredients
1kg (75) cocktail sausages (I had a pack of 60)
2 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
125ml honey

Recipe
1. Preheat oven to 220˚C. Separate sausages if linked and spread over a roasting tin
2. Mix together the honey, soy sauce and sesame oil. Pour over the sausages and mix well to cover.
3. Roast for 25 minutes and turn half way through.

I'm sending this to Giz and Psychgrad for the Tried,Tested and True 3 event.



I'm also sending this into the blog event I started and still run with the help of some excellent guest hosts every week - Bookmarked Recipes. This week Maggie from Doghill Kitchen is hosting.

Thai Chicken Noodle Soup

I had decided that in an effort to make more of the recipes I bookmark that I should do 3 recipes a month from the food magazines I buy. I've done one better and made a fourth - Thai Chicken Noodle Soup



Thai Chicken Noodle Soup
Easy Food Magazine, January 2009, p37
Serves 2

Ingredients
200g chicken breast, diced
1/2 tsp cornflour
2 tbsp oil
1 tbsp red curry paste
1 tsp ginger, grated
120ml chicken stock
400ml coconut milk
1/2 lime, juice
1 tsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce
300g straight to wok noodles
2 spring onions, finely sliced
fresh coriander, to garnish

Recipe
1. Mix the chicken and cornflour.
2. Heat the oil in a pot and gently fry the curry paste and ginger for 1 minute.
3. Add the chicken and fry til browned.
4. Add the stock and simmer for 3 minutes.
5. Add the coconut milk, lime juice, oyster sauce and soy sauce.
6. Cook the noodles in a pan for a minute or two then stir into the soup.
7. Serve the soup topped with spring onions and coriander.

Maple Syrup and Mustard Chicken

As part of my effort to make at least 3 of the recipes I bookmark in food mags each month this is recipe 2 for January.... maple syrup and mustard chicken.

This was so tasty and VERY easy. I'll definitely be doing this again.



Maple Syrup and Mustard Chicken
Sourced from Easy Food Magazine Jan 09 p 21
Serves 2

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts
4 bacon rashers
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 tsbp wholegrain mustard

Recipe
1. Preheat oven to 190˚C. Mix the maple syrup and mustard together.
2. Wrap each chicken breast with 2 rashers of bacon - one across the width and one lengthways.
3. Place the chicken breasts on a roasting tray and cover by brushing with the maple syrup/mustard mix.
4. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes then serve.


This is my entry for this week's bookmarked recipes.

Fragrant Asian Chicken Curry

I regularly fold pages over in my Easy Food magazines, but so often forget about the recipes. I'm trying to make a bit of a resolution to make at least 3 of the recipes from the magazine for the month that it has been published.

The first one I've made from the January 09 issue is "Fragrant Asian Chicken Curry". It was an easy recipe to put together, with lots of different flavours in it. I couldn't help but add in some of my own additions to the recipe too.



Fragrant Asian Chicken Curry
Easy Food Magazine, January 2009, p 43
Serves 4

Ingredients
1 tbsp oil
1" fresh ginger, peeled and grated
2 red chilis, deseeded and finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 shallots, finely diced
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp tumeric
1 tsp hot curry powder my addition to the recipe
4 chicken drumsticks (I used diced chicken breast and reduced the simmering time)
1/2 tin coconut milk
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tbsp fish sauce my addition to the recipe

Recipe
1. Heat the oil in a pan and sauté the ginger, chili, garlic and shallots for 3 minutes
2. Stir in the ground spices and sauté for 1-2 minutes
3. Add the chicken and fry for 5-8 minutes until sealed, stirring to coat in the spices
4. Pour the coconut milk in with the lemon juice and fish sauce. Simmer until the liquid has thickened.
5. Season, garnish with fresh coriander and serve with noodles or rice.

Cookalong 2

After taking park in one of Gordon Ramsey's Cookalong a few weeks ago I couldn't help but join in again. The theme for this cookalong was the 70s featuring Prawn Cocktail, Steak Diane and Mandarin Cheesecake. I only made the steak diane this time but have all the ingredients ready for making the mandarin cheesecake over the next few days so keep an eye out for a post on that too.



I don't drink Brandy so I didn't want to buy a bottle for this recipe, instead I used some white wine.



I'm using this as my bookmarked recipe for this week seeing as I bookmarked it 2 weeks ago when Gordon announced this week's menu.

Cookie Dough Dessert

Just over a week ago an old friend and I went to Pizza Hut then to the cinema for a night out (the kind of nights we used to do when we were at school) and we had a great dessert. A little round pan with cookie dough all baked slightly with a nice big blob of ice cream on top and chocolate sauce drizzled all over. It was so good and it made me want to try making it myself. So this is kind of a double bookmarked recipe because I used this idea but used a cookie dough recipe I've had bookmarked for a little while from The Goddess's Kitchen. I used Maria's recipe (which she originally found in The Good Cookie by Tish Boyle) for the dough (leaving out the walnuts), but baked the dough altogether in an ovenproof dish then served up some slices with ice cream. Really tasty treat! Crisp cookie dough on top and all soft and gooey in the middle. Loved it!



Cookie Dough Dessert

6-8

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
1 cup of firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
10 ounces bittersweet chocolate, cut into 1/4 inch pieces (I used chocolate drops - a mix of milk and plain chocolate)

Recipe
1. Preheat oven to 350˚F/160˚C.
2. Grease a 8"x 8" oven dish
3. Whisk together the flour, salt and baking soda in a bowl and set to the side.
4. In a separate larger bowl, whisk the melted butter and sugar then add in the eggs one by one, then the vanilla until well blended.
5. Stir in the flour mix with a wooden spoon then add in the chocolate chips.
6. Spread into the oven dish and bake for 8-10 minutes.
7. Divide into portions and serve with ice cream and chocolate sauce.

New and improved Malteser Bun Traybake

I made malteser buns a while ago and although I loved them I really wanted more biscuity base to it. So I've fiddled and here's the results and recipe - I'm really loving this version better.



Malteser Bun Traybake

Ingredients
400g milk chocolate
200g unsalted butter
4 tbsp golden syrup
250g digestive biscuits (I actually had about 200g digestives in my cupboard then added some rich tea to add a bit more bulk)
175g maltesers
250g white chocolate
50g unsalted butter
1 tbsp golden syrup
75g maltesers, crushed

Recipe
1. Blend the digestive biscuits to make fine crumbs
2. Set up a double boiler and melt together the milk chocolate, 200g butter and 4 tbsp golden syrup.
3. Mix in the crushed biscuit and maltesers and stir well
4. Spread out the mixture in a swiss roll pan and compact the mixture in the pan. (it can be helpful to place this in the fridge until you have your topping ready)
5. Wash out the bowl on the double boiler and dry, then set up the double boiler again. Melt together the white chocolate, 50g butter and 1 tbsp golden syrup.
6. Pour the white chocolate over the top of the compacted biscuit mix and spread evenly.
7. Pour on the crushed maltesers and spread over the top pushing gently into the melted chocolate.
8. Leave to firm up in the fridge for a couple of hours then slice into portions.

Monthly Mingle: Sweet pepper and cheese stuffed mushroom

I love Meeta's Monthly Mingle, it's always a fun event to take part in and is always has a great round up of food to try out in your everyday cooking/baking. This month it is being hosted by Mansi from Fun and Food with the theme "Appetisers and hors d'ouevres" where everything submitted has to be vegetarian. This was a difficult one to get done in my house seeing as I try to cook the same thing for both me and my carnivore hubby. It turned out he wanted hard shell tacos for dinner one night and I'm not that keen on them and wasn't very hungry myself anyways so I ended up making this for myself. Quick and easy to throw together and very tasty, however maybe not mini like Mansi was suggesting, but I'm sure you could use smaller mushrooms and divide out the filling.

I present a dish that I threw together based on what I had in my fridge:



Sweet pepper and cheese mushroom

Makes 1

Ingredients
1 large open mushroom
1/2 red bell pepper, cut into chunks
1 scallion/spring onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic
2 tsp light mayonnaise
1/2 slice of bread
1/4 tsp chili pepper flakes
handful of grated cheese
olive oil

Recipe
1. Place the bell pepper, scallion, garlic, mayo, bread and chili flakes into a small blender and bland until smooth and well mixed.
2. Preheat oven to 170˚C.
3. Place the mushroom with the top side down on a baking tray and drizzle over some olive oil, the place the sweet pepper mix in the mushroom.
4. Place in the oven for 5-6 minutes. Remove and top with cheese, then put it back in the oven for 8-10 minutes.

RFJ 4: Almond coated duck salad with raspberry lime dressing

When the ingredients were announced for the Royal Foodie Joust (picked by the lovely Elle at Elle's New England Kitchen) I decided I wanted to do something savoury - there are lots of sweet things that can be done with raspberries, lime and almond and don't get me wrong I love than in sweet things but I wanted to challenge myself. I thought and thought and finally came up with this dish:



Almond coated duck salad with raspberry lime dressing

Serves 4

Ingredients
12 mini duck breast fillets
200g ground almond
150g frozen raspberries
Juice from half a lime
1/4 cup sugar
pinch of black pepper
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
handful of salad leaves
zest of half a lime

Recipe
1. Roll the mini duck fillets in the ground almond until well coated.
2. Heat a little oil in a frying pan and fry the duck on each side for 2-3 minutes.
3. Transfer to a baking tray and cook in the oven for 15 minutes at 180˚C
4. Place the raspberries, lime juice, sugar, black pepper and balsamic vinegar in an microwave safe dish and microwave on full power for 5 minutes, stirring half way through.
5. Strain the raspberry dressing through a sieve and discard the seeds and pulp that is left (or in true leftover style save it for another recipe!!!!)
6. Serve the duck fillets on top of the salad leaves. Pour over the dressing and sprinkle the lime zest on top.

Baked Apples for Tastes to Remember

I'm getting this entry in by the skin of my teeth, because today is the cut off for entry's to Sarah from Homemade's food blog event - Tastes to Remember. I've been craving these recently and especially after seeing the fun Dharm has been having with his kids I decided that this really was what I wanted to share with you all. I am a very lucky girl because not only is my Mum an awesome cook, so is my Dad, he would have cooked a lot of our weeknight meals during my teenage years. He loved to experiment and throw in a little of this and a little of that which made it fun to watch but what made it funner was that he'd sometimes do some crazy dancing and singing while he was at it. Aaaanyways I digress, occasionally Dad would ask us if we wanted some dessert and very often he had these in mind - Baked Apples. I love these bad boys! Everytime I have one I picture myself sitting at the dinner table with Mum, Dad and my sister again.

I like doing these with a little cinnamon sometimes, or with dried apricots or fresh strawberries but this one recipe is true to the original.



Baked Apples

Serves 1

Ingredients
1 Apple i used Golden Delicious
Handful of Raisins
Scoop of ice cream for serving.

Recipe
1. Preheat oven to 160˚C
2. Core apple, place on baking tray and fill the inside with raisins.
3. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes

Delish!

Chocolate melting moments

This week for my Bookmarked Recipes event I've made some chocolate melting moments from the Christmas 2007 edition of Easy Food magazine (I know I said I'd make something from a different source but these were calling me!!! Next week I promise!) I had just bought an icing kit and I was keen to try it out, but found I needed to add some extra butter to the mix to make it go through the kit.

They were delicious little treats that didn't last too long because they were all scoffed in no time! Incredibly easy to make and put together.



Chocolate melting moments

Makes 28

Ingredients
125g butter , diced (I added in an extra 25-30g)
2 tbsp icing sugar
110g plain flour
2 tbsp cornflour
1 tsbp cocoa
100g chocolate spread (I used nutella)

Recipe
1. Preheat the oven to 180˚C
2. Cream the butter and icing sugar together until light and fluffy. Sieve in theplain flour, cornflour and cocoa, then gently fold them into the mixture.
3. Spoon the mixture into a piping bag with a 5mm fluted nozzle. Pipe onto a lightly greased baking tray, leaving space for the little biscuits to spread a little when baking.
4. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes.
5. Remove from the oven and leave to stand for 5-10 minutes. Sandwich the biscuits together with the chocolate spread.
6. Store in an airtight container.

Drysdale Swede Test

I mentioned in my review of Enjoy the Taste of Scotland that RK Drysdale (a supplier of brussel sprouts and swedes) were looking for people to test a prototype product for them and sent me home with one. It was a peeled swede in a sealed plastic bag where there were 2 "recipes" they asked you to pick from then report back what you thought. The choices were:

1. Microwave in the sealed bag for 8 minutes (at 800W), then mash adding butter, salt and pepper.
2. Microwave in the sealed bag for 5 minutes (at 800W). Remove from the bag and slice into 5mm slices and place on an oven tray. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with garlic salt. Roast in the oven at 220˚C and roast for 15 minutes.

I went for option 2, which was very tasty however there were a few flaws in the "product" which I've fed back to Drysdale. The bag had ripped as I lifted it out of the fridge for use, I thought the bag was really way too hot to handle when removed from the microwave, and it had burst in another place when in the microwave. Also the swede was really too hot to handle for slicing and I had to hold it with some kitchen roll to keep from burning my fingers - I'm sure if it was microwaved for a shorter length of time that it would be cooked through enough to make slicing easy, reduce the possibility of burnt fingers and it would also roast well too being slightly crispier.



In hindsight perhaps using the first method would have been easier. Well we live and learn.

I thought this was a great concept and would help many busy families to prepare healthier meals and have more variety in their diets so I really hope they will be able to improve the product and soon be able to sell it to the public because swede is an under appreciated vegetable.

Creamy Old Fashioned Toffee

After announcing the new blog event, Bookmarked Recipes where people blog one of those recipes they've had bookmarked for a while, I was trying to find a recipe to do quickly and easily. I ended up not getting it done until tonight what with being away celebrating our First Anniversary Celebrations. We arrived back today and I read through my pile of magazines. I found a recipe for creamy old fashioned toffee in Easy Food Magazine (February 2008) and noticing that I had all the ingredients to hand I decided this was the way to go. I had bookmarked this thinking of my attempts at making English toffee to Rob's liking. Unfortunately it's not the toffee he's thinking of and isn't really that creamy like the name suggests, but it's a good crunchy toffee and fun for sucking.



Creamy old-fashioned toffee

Ingredients
190g Butter
315g soft brown sugar
190g golden syrup
190g condensed milk

Recipe
1. Add all the ingredients to a saucepan on a low heat until the sugar dissolves.
2. Turn up the heat and stir continuously until it reaches the crack stage (see here for tips) or if you have a candy thermometer the temperature should be 150˚C.
3. Pour into a greased 15cm loaf tin. Leave to cool until just firm and cut into squares. Or leave to cool until hard then bash with a rolling pin to get rough shapes.

Magazine Mondays 1: Lemon and Garlic Chicken with Rice.

I mentioned in my last post about starting a few new "blog features" including the Weekly Look at the Cook Book and now I'm introducing another. I'm fed up with buying cooking magazines, folding over pages while saying to myself "can't wait to try that one" and then never actually making it. I've decided to make a bit of a feature on the blog called "Magazine Mondays" where I'll share the results of a recipe from one of the magazines each Monday.

Today's recipe is taken from the March 2008 issue of Easy Food. I had to half the recipe seeing as the original was meant for 4 and there is only 2 of us... yes we can eat a lot but not that much. It was delicious and fantastically simple to put together, thought needed a little more time in the oven than the magazine had said (I've edited that in the recipe below already)



Lemon and Garlic Chicken with Rice.

Serves 2

Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
2 chicken breasts, skinned and cut into 2 or 3
1/2 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
200g cooked brown rice
2 tbsp lemon juice
375ml chicken stock
1/2 lemon quartered
1/2 cup of cooked peas
salt and pepper
freshly chopped parsley to garnish

Recipe
1. Preheat oven to 180˚C.
2. Heat the oil on a large frying pan. Put the chicken in the pan and cook for 4 mins on each side until lightly browned. Remove the chicken and set to the side.
3. Cook the onion and garlic in the pan for 3 or 4 minutes.
4. Place the onion, garlic, chicken,brown rice, lemon juice, chicken stock and lemon quarters into a deep oven dish and bake for 30 minutes.
3. Remove the dish from the oven. Add the peas , season and garnish with parsley.

Pineapple upside down cake

A few days ago I decided that I really needed to bake something and I had some pineapple that needed used up after making the pizza so decided to make a favourite: Pineapple upside down cake.

I'm dedicating this to Dell from Cooking and the City seeing as she celebrated her birthday the day it was made! Hope you had a great day!



Pineapple upside down cake
Recipe sourced from "The Classic 1000 Beginner's Recipes" cook book

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter or margarine
2 tbsp light brown sugar
8oz can of pineapple slices
4 or 5 glace cherries, halved
1/2 cup/100g caster sugar
1 cup/100g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs

Recipe
1. Preheat oven to 190˚C
2. Grease the sides and base of an 8" flan dish with 1tsbp of the butter/margarine spreading it thickly on the base.
3. Sprinkle with the brown sugar, then add 1 tbsp of the juice from the tin of pineapple.
4. Lay the pineapple rings in the base, then place the cherries cut sides up in the centres of the rings and in other gaps made by the rings.
5. Put the remaining butter/margarine, in a large bowl with the caster sugar, flour, baking powder and eggs and beat until smooth with a wooden spoon or electric beater. Then spread the mix over the pineapple.
6. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes or until the mixture is risen and golden and a skewer comes out clean when withdrawn from the cake. Cool slightly, loosen the edge and turn out onto a serving dish.


Happy Birthday Dell!

Sweet pepper pasta sauce

I love Dolmio's sweet pepper pasta sauce, it's my absolute favourite in the range... it's a handy thing to have in the cupboard for when I'm in a rush and just cooking for myself. Last time I made it I held onto the ingredients label and decided to recreate it for myself, so here's my sweet pepper sauce recipe, that I served with fusilli pasta and added some chopped, cooked pork sausage and grated mozzarella cheese and served alongside a mini wholewheat garlic bread that I found in the supermarket today! (I was rather excited about this find because a whole garlic bread baguette is a little too much and usually ends up going to waste!!!!)

Anyways it turned out to be delicious, might need a little more red pepper in future, but I think that's a personal preference.



Ruth's sweet pepper pasta sauce

Makes enough sauce for 2

Ingredients
1 red pepper, cut into 4 flat slices
1 yellow pepper, cut into 4 flat slices
1 red onion, cut into quarters
4 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
Olive oil
1 tbsp dried basil
1 tsp chili flakes
1 x 400g tin of peeled plum tomatoes

Recipe
1. Pre heat the oven to 180˚C. Lay the peppers and onion onto a baking tray and drizzle olive oil over the top. Roast the peppers and onion for 15 minutes.
2. Drizzle a little oil into a sauce pan. Turn the heat on to medium. Add the garlic, basil and chili flakes, and cook for 2 minutes.
3. Add the peeled plum tomatoes, the roasted peppers and onions.
4. Turn on your hand mixer and break down the veggies into a sauce, but not too much: you still want a few chunks - about 60-90 seconds should do it.
5. Allow to simmer for 5 minutes then mix with your cooked pasta.

(Sausage and cheese optional - but recommended for that extra dimension to the dish)



I'm entering this to Presto Pasta nights