Cooking

I go away on holiday tomorrow, cue manic baking to make yummy things to eat while we're away. I've made a batch of the cookies I've talked about before here, and also tried a new recipe for Oatie biscuits from Natalie at the Yarn Yard
I'm not going to repeat the recipe here as part of the fun is how Natalie has written it out. However I will share a quick picture, and say that they're yummy.



Todays to do list is as follows- Go shopping for food to eat on holiday, call in at the club kit store to borrow a couple of things, go pick up contact lens's (is that how you pluralize lens?), pay cheques in at the bank, place electronics on charge that are coming with me, pack, and plan the route we're taking to drive there.

Not much then, had best get up and get on with it!

I'm probably the last to know about this

but what the heck!
I've just been pointed towards a site called Post secret. From what I can tell it's an address where you send in a captioned postcard admitting your secret to someone anonymously and the card is then loaded on to a blog. Some of these cards are funny secrets, I particularly liked "I steal new rolls of loo paper from hotel rooms when I wipe at home I relive the memories of being with my married lover"
Some however are really sad " A few years ago I thought"Maybe if I get sick I'll know who my real friends are" then I got cancer"


However this one made me smile


I'm off to make banana muffins then I'm going to the park with friends. Have a lovely sunday.

Fix-it-Friday

After a weeks break I am back with fix-it-friday. This Friday I'm going to share the video I created on Monday (instead of going to a lecture), that was aimed at making people vote for me and Lana caterers on the committee of the High PEak Club, despite the fact that I graduate next year, and will have managed 4 years at university without being on committee I've managed it just as I am no longer a student!

Anyway here is a video on how to make a mountain cake! (Be warned if you are easily offended I'd maybe give this a miss, it's not extremely offensive, but a cocktail stick did get a little misplaced!)


(Sorry, google video has decided to disable it (copyright?????) , it takes ages to dispute it (and it might be breaking copyright, who knows??) so I'm trying to upload a youtube version and we'll see if that one stays up.

Some food

As I'm currently just cooking for myself I'm finding more and more that I can't be bothered to cook. When it's just for you, and you've already filled your small freezer with leftovers it's often hard to get motivated when you're tired. However today I made a concerted effort and cooked my ever reliable (apart when I forget they're in the oven) chocolate chip cookies, and a recipe for pizza I'd seen on a cooking programme this morning.
The cookies were wonderful, the pizza a real disappointment, so much so I'm not even going to share the recipe. The dough itself was good, though I should have added more salt, but I should have trusted my instincts on the topping. the recipe just recommended that you drain a can of chopped tomatoes, however as I'd suspected this was really acidic and had none of the mellow tomato flavour I like on pizza. It was then topped by a ball of mozzarella, which I always find a little bland on it's own, but again I trusted the recipe, and guess what, there was nowhere near enough cheese and it just wasn't cheesy enough!
I've got half the dough in the freezer so next time I will trust my instincts and will make a cooked tomato sauce, and use cheddar as well as mozzarella.

Apart from that the leaf count is up to 32, so only 16 to go until I can look forward to ironing them all and sewing them together!

I've also got to work on applying for jobs, and crikey it's hard work talking yourself up for 3 pages in an application letter!

itching my way through the day

The midge bites, yep still itch, they have resisted zirtek, piriton and every anti intching, anti allergic reaction cream in my Mum's pharmacy/first aid kit (quick question, if anybody wants to answer, what html do I need to type to get words striked through?)
However I am being strong,and somehow have not scratched to the point of drawing blood, given everyone (apart from Lex), who I have shown these bites to has winced I think this is very impressive.
As well as being as looking like a walking dot to dot puzzle I also had to go the dentists, 3 more fillings, if I carry on this way I will have no teeth left. i will hasten to add that my dentist assures me I brush my teeth correctly, but I just have bad teeth, food gets stuck in the gaps between them, and I have many many crevices for nasty things to happen. So yet again I have a sore mouth, however in comparison to getting a root canal done it was a walk in the park. So for this year I reckon I'm on a root canal, and maybe 4 ordinary fillings, a polish, and 4 x-rays, the bil, (thank god I have a NHS dentist), less than £150, wooo tits!
More food has been cooked, like last year, I'm off to chatsworth country fair to help with the mountain rescue fundraising tomorrow, have I packed no, but I do know the location of my wellies, and more importantly I have cake!
Currently looking at the living room, and deciding if I need to clean, or if I should just chuck the throws back on the sofa and blow it. I think the latter option may win, I have changed the bed however, and while I may not have prepared tea I at least know what I will cook. Excuse me while I go for a good scratch.

cooking, cleaning and getting all domestic

I've been at work all week, which for me is something on an event, me thinks I will have a shock in September when i actually start my teacher training!
Anyway so far today I've been busy sorting out the house and making it look more like a home and less like a jumble sale, I'm ignoring the spare room, that's Lex's man room, and if he wants to have all his clothes piled on the floor that's his look out, he's learnt the hard way that if the dirty ones don't make it to the wash basket then they don't get clean!
Next on the schedule is using the still broken (reported to landlord over a month ago, still waiting for it to be fixed), hoover to remove the I'm not quite sure things off the floor, and then to make more mess by cooking.

On the menu tonight, tarte tatin, lamb with chorizo and butter beans, the recipe says halibut, but I watched the recipe on saturday kitchen this morning and apparently it's good with lamb to, and some unknown cake or biscuit, I've yet to make my mind up!
That should keep me amused nicely I think, now if only the radio in the kitchen had longwave radio so i could have the cricket on!
Edited nearly 2 days later after I noticed that my post title had no relevance to what I'd actually written, isn't amazing how your brain can go off track so easily!

What's going to happen next?

Well so far today there have been 2 mini dramas....
First up I noticed that the date for my invitation to have my Queens Guide Award presented by the Countess of Wessex, and the date on the letter don't match! Seeing as how my Mum has only just booked the train tickets, deciding the extra cost was worth reduced hassle getting the date wrong would be a disaster! Luckily I'd got it right, so that was one panic over.
Second was the discovery that our freezer is broken, now I rely on the freezer big style, I bulk by and I cook and freeze lots of stuff for later consumption. For once I wasn't left cursing our landlord, he came round immediately and went straight to buy us a new one, we should receive it tomorrow. Still have to do something with all the food, but I'm brave, everything can go in Lexs freezer tonight, and to be honest I don't think a refrozen naan bread and pizza are going to kill me, and all the meat is still frozen.

Does leave me wondering what's left, in case you were wondering my cold is better, my blood pressure on the other hand!

Eating meat...

Well do you, don't you?
Personally I do, and think I would have no problem killing my own meat. There's a really good programme on BBC3 right now (long live the BBC!) tracking meat animals from rearing, slaughter, butchering, and finally cooking. It's a real education, I've always been brought up to be quite in touch about where my food comes from, but some peoples knowledge is shocking.
The footage of the animals being killed will shock some people, but personally I don't have a problem with it. This sounds morbid but I would rather get a quick electrocution, then not feel anything and bleed out, rather than die a slow degrading death like we make some people do.
On that cheery note, I went to bed, then had to come back and edit this morning as the spelling was atrocious!

something for him... and something for me

Well it's Friday and as usual i have no lectures. In order to use this time wisely it's usually necessary to spend part of the time cooking. Now Lex describes my every day cooking as basic, but functional, and filling. I think that's meant to be a compliment. My baking on the other hand he actually admits to liking.
I have a real love of food blogs, some people out there write about food so beautifully, and create the most wonderful food. Just recently I found a load more blogs, including the one I took todays recipes from.
For Lex we have a chocolate blondie. The theory behind these is they're meant to be like a brownie, but with a plain style dough, and be kind of like a gooey cookie, but as a tray bake. I've only had a small piece and it tasted ok, but I had a really hard time getting it to cook, it was meant to take 25 minutes, mine were in for at least 45, I think this may be to do with our rubbish student oven though. Anyway here's the recipe, I'll let you know Lex's verdict later!

Chocolate Chunk Blondies
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sugar (half brown, half white)
1 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups chocolate chunks

Preheat oven to 375F. Line a 9x13 inch baking pan with foil or parchment paper.
Stir together flour, baking soda and salt.
Cream butter and sugar by hand or with an electric mixer. Add in eggs one at a time until incorporated. Stir in vanilla.
Add flour mixture to butter mixture in 2 additions, then add your chocolate/butterscotch chips and stir until batter is smooth. Spread evenly into your prepared pan.
Bake 20-25 minutes, until the edges are golden brown (A slightly longer baking time will produce a slightly more cakelike cookie). A tester should come out clean, if you use one.
Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then lift out onto a rack for further cooling. Cut bars as desired.

Now I also made something from me, again from the Baking Sheet blog. These are far more to my taste, and are really really good, and would be even better if I hadn't left them in the oven for slightly too long, oops!

Sour Cream Lemon Shortbread Bars

Crust

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar

2 tsp lemon zest

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup butter, chilled and cut into several pieces



Lemon Topping

3 large eggs, room temperature

1 1/2 cups sugar

6 tbsp sour cream

3 tbsp all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup lemon juice

Zest of 2 lemons (1 generous tbsp)

Preheat oven to 350F.
In the bowl of a food processor, whizz together the flour, sugar lemon zest and salt. Add in butter and pulse until mixture reaches a crumbly, sandy (with some pea-sized chunks of butter remaining) pieces. Press evenly into the Baker's Edge pan (or 9"x13" pan) bake for 16-19 minutes, until just slightly golden at the corners.

While the crust is baking, beat together the remaining ingredients until smooth. When the crust comes out of the oven, pour in the lemon filling while it is hot, then return pan to the oven.
Bake for 25 minutes, until set and slightly browned at the corners.
Set pan on a wire rack to cool completely.
Makes 16 large bars.

All the wonderful food bloggers produce wonderful pictures to show you how gorgeous what they made looks. However my camera is broken, and the web cam built in to my macbook doesn't really take good pictures due to having no flash/appropriate focus etc. And also, I'll be honest here, I don't seem to be able to produce food that looks as good as it tastes, so a photo is actually likely to put you off making something that's actually really good!

Baking keeps me sane

Lots of cake making has gone on over the past few days, I've made cakes for people to take up to Scotland with them, and then a cake so Lex wouldn't get jealous. Today saw me making cookies instead. I'll fully admit to stealing the recipe from this wonderful site but I did make a few changes to it which I think makes it much nicer!

Chocolate Chip Cookies
Yields approx 17.
300g plain (all-purpose) flour

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
1 teaspoon fine salt

170g unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

215g light brown sugar

120g granulated white sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

300g milk chocolate chips

Sift together flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Set aside.
Stir together melted butter, brown sugar, sugar and vanilla. Add egg, then the yolk. Beat well to ensure that egg is evenly distributed. Stir in dry ingredients, then fold in chocolate chips until incorporated. It will look as if there are too many chocolate chips but the dough will be able to hold them all. Cover with clingfilm and chill dough until firm. At least 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 190C/Gas Mark 5.
Bake in preheated oven for approximately 10-12 minutes or only until the edges begin to turn golden. (They'll look and feel underdone but they're ready.) Cool on the sheet for 1 minute and remove with a wide spatula to a cooling rack. Cool thoroughly and enjoy!

Now I leave out the salt, as I don't find I miss it when it's not there, and this way I can think I'm being healthy! I also don't use that much Vanilla, just a capful of the proper stuff (not yucky essence, it has to extract) is plenty for me. I'm also not a choc chip fan. After all one can never have too much chocolate, so silly little chips just aren't satisfactory. I need choc chunks! My personal method for this is to shove the chocolate in a carrier bag and hit away with a rolling pin until I think the chunks are the right size (usually about half a square). To shape the dough I actually roll a big sausage in cling film, and then stick it in the freezer so it goes really solid, if I'm not impatient and I have a sharp knife I actually just slice this roll up. Today I wasn't, but you can still try to cut a disk a centimeter wide, then roll the squashed disc in to a ball, and plonk it on the baking sheet.

et Voila, how to keep one cookie monster (aka Lex) happy!

I feel sick!

Well to make up for the bad girlfriend status I have acquired over the past few weeks I've been busy cooking today. Nothing like a big plate of food to make Lex feel a bit more cheerful! The only problem is that I have to cook all the nice things and I then eat them, not so good for my training diet in preparation for climbing in Sardinia at Easter!

Today saw me baking 2 batches of cookies, and omg I now feel so ill. I've eaten far too much mixture, bits that have broken off, and maybe a couple of cookies just to check they tasted ok!
I would have taken a photo but to be honest they aren't photogenic, though they are damn tasty, and my camera is broken, bugger!

We have a home!

Well after the tears and frustration of last week we have finally sorted out a flat. It's not been easy and has led to lots of nervous waitng but we are finally done. It's in the same block of flats and owned by the same landlord as the one we just lost out on. even Lex has secretly admitted to being quite excited and looking forward to July. We've even found a friend who says we can out our stuff in his garage if we can't move in 5 days early!
Revision is also going quite well, though I've reached the point where I'm not sure what to learn, I think a few latin names and some facts and figure might be on order.
Climbing is going well, though after yesterdays session I ache.
List of things to do today
Revise
Sort out my Rainbow overnight
Find out where my new Rainbows were when they didn't turn up to the meeting
Sort out next weeks Rainbow meeting
Make some Leek and Potato soup for tea

I think that will keep me busy for today!

Bugger

I've spent all day making some delicous looking rosemary foccacia, which I found on my new favourite website, http://www.aspoonfulofsugar.net
Unfortunately I mucked up, my hand slipped while adding the salt, I thought I'd persevere and see if it was edible, but I have to report that it really wasn't! I thought I was going to have a lovely tea with my favourite tomato salad, just tomato slices, salt, pepper, and my secret ingredient sugar! All mixed up and left to stew in the lovely juice.
It looked fab though, I'll definitely try again, maybe tomorrow in fact as I still have a mountain of rosemary left thanks to Just Naturals generously sized packs!
I seem to be in a culinary mood at the momment, I made an apparently delicous plum tart the other day with some over ripe plums, I got 1 slice and Lex promptly demolished the rest despite informing me it looked yuk!
I also seem to be on a banoffe pie streak at the momment! However I never have any digestive biscuits in so mine have a twist, the base is made of lovely coconuty nice biscuits, apparently they add a lovely twist according to my willing tasters!