Random Likings

It's been a while since I've done one of these, primarily since I am primarily writing about flowers and weddings and haven't been doing the random research that I used to. Anyway... here are some random likings I have been sitting on for a while

1. Celebrities reading mean tweets on Jimmy Kimmel
This is the sixth installment of this very funny feature and worth finding 1-5 on YouTube

2. Great British Sewing Bee Series 2
I LOVED the Great British Sewing Bee and am so excited that series 2 is finally starting on BBC Two on Tuesday 18 Feb. It's about the only reality show I can stomach and, no, it's not just because Patrick is such a fox.

3. Cardiff Children's Lit Fest 8-13 April 2014

I love this festival. We went to a few of the events last year (most notably Tin Tin and Asterix drawing) and this year's line-up looks at least as interesting. I have my eye on Dennis the Menace vs Horrid Henry and the Murderous Maths. I think it's great for kids to see that authors are actual people and find out about what goes into creating their favourite characters and stories.


4. This Self Saucing Chocolate Pudding Recipe

It may be hard to believe now, but it won't be too long before we'll have to put away the comforting winter puddings. Before that happens, make sure you make this self saucing chocolate pudding. It's simple and delicious and you probably already have the ingredients in your cupboard.


5. Starfish Ring
Even though I can't say "starfish" without a little part of me sniggering, I really like this ring from Trinkettes

Pumpkin Arancini Recipe

One of the dishes we cooked in the Food Academy at the Abergavenny Food Festival was Spiced Pumpkin Arancini. The reason I love this recipe is because it's easy, incredibly filling and cheap. The Food Academy was sponsored by Organic Centre Wales so we had great quality organic ingredients, but you could certainly make it using supermarket brands and still enjoy a delicious meal. I've never made arancini before but growing up in Australia meant I had a copy of the Woman's Weekly Italian Cookbook (all households are required by law to have at least one Australian Woman's Weekly cookbook) which featured a recipe for suppli that is very similar. Basically both are fried rice balls with some sort of stuffing in the centre.

Don't be be put of by the length of the ingredients list from the recipe supplied by Organic Centre Wales. It's actually pretty simple even if it's not that fast.

Ingredients:
50g unsalted organic butter
450g arborio rice
splash of organic white wine
2 litres of warm organic vegetable stock (I used chicken)
1 small organic pumpkin 100g organic peas
125g freshly grated Y Fenni cheese (a gorgeous blend of cheddar with mustard seed and beer) I used mozzarella 
salt and pepper to season
organic plain flour for dusting
1 organic egg, beaten
100g organic breadcrumbs
1 litre vegetable oil for frying

Method
1. Chop pumpkin in half, deseed and slice into wedges. Rub with a little oil and roast for around an hour until flesh is soft. Cool, then scoop out flesh and put aside 2. Melt butter in heavy based saucepan. Add rice and cook 2-3 minutes on low, stirring occasionally so it doesn't stick or colour. When it starts to go translucent around the edges add wine and cook for a further minute. 3. Add ladle full of warm stock and stir gently until absorbed. Add another ladle full and stir... repeat until all stock has been absorbed and the rice is cooked. Stir in roasted pumpkin, peas, and grated cheese.

While the recipe here calls to add grated cheese here, I chopped my mozzarella into cubes to add to the centre of the ball. You could skip the filling and add grated Parmesan and/or cheddar at this point.

2. spread the risotto on a tray and leave to cool.

3. Shape rice into orange sized balls, roll in flour, egg and breadcrumbs (I always egg and breadcrumb twice for a nice crunch) then shallow fry until golden. Drain cooked arancini on paper towels and serve with salad.

Needless to say, my fussy kids weren't impressed but my husband was and cleaned his plate. 

Crockpot Chocolate Cake Recipe

In a recent Meal Planning Monday Post (The Slow Cooker Special) I lamented that I had never used my beloved slow cooker for making either cake or risotto. I rectified one of these on the weekend by making chocolate cake in it. I used this recipe from allrecipes.com which requires:

2 Cups white sugar
1 3/4 Cups flour (I used SR but you could use Plain and add the rising agent)
3/4 Cup unsweetened cocoa powder (what, you mean just 2 Cups of sugar is enough?!)
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 Cup milk
1/2 Cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 Cup boiling water

Grease your ceramic bowl and put in slow cooker. Turn on low. Mix dry ingredients. Mix wet ingredients. Combine. Pour into ceramic bowl. It should look like this:

Cook on low until there are no wet puddles of batter on the top and it's starting to come away for the sides slightly (recommended time 3 hours) then allow to cool for 30 minutes before turning out.

Checking my cake after 2 hours I found the batter wasn't more than luke warm so I cranked that sucker up to high and promptly got distracted doing something else. Coming back to it an hour later I found that it was definitely cooked and starting to burn on the bottom. Don't do that.

The cake itself was alright. It looked incredibly dark - almost black (no that wasn't the burnt bit!) and was quite moist and fudgy in texture. I don't think I'd use it as a normal cake, but as something in between cake and pudding for dessert it was lovely. It had started to stick so I couldn't turn it out but that wasn't a problem because cake's don't last long in this house and it was gone in under two days.

I don't know if I'd bother using my slow cooker for a cake again. Not only does it takes ages and doesn't seem to yield a better result than using the oven, I got fed up of the kids asking if it was ready yet. 

Do you use your slow cooker for cakes? If so, post a link to your favourite recipe and I will keep an open mind. It is cake, after all!

Yes, that's squirty cream

Meal Planning Monday - 25 March 2013

Welcome to another Monday. I actually have my shit together this week, doubly impressive since it is school holidays here and we've started with one stomach bug (5 year old) and a packed schedule that hasn't allowed sufficient time for sleep (10 year old). Let's hope things calm down soon!

This week we are eating:

roasted chicken breast with garlic mushrooms

beef casserole and dumplings

meatloaf

pork schnitzel and ratatouille

brekkie for dinner (or brinner, as I've seen it called)

baked fajitas

leftovers

I have no plans to bake this week. In preparation for Sunday's choc-fest and next week's visit to Cadbury's World I aim to fill the kids with as much fruit and veg as I can. 

If you're looking for more inspiration check out Mrs M's linky and don't forget the Shared Family Favourites Pinterest board. Just leave me a message if you want to be able to contribute.

Have a sensational week everyone, and Happy Easter!

Sweet Potato, Pancetta & Goat's Cheese Frittata

This is one of those meals that was created from what I had on hand. It's really tasty and easy, though it does have a little bit of cooking time as you have to pre-cook the potatoes (unless you have leftovers). I often make Fridge Frittata as a way of using up vegetable just about to turn, or left over meat and sausages, but this one was so nice I have made it a proper recipe.

Sweet Potato, Pancetta & Goat's Cheese Frittata - serves 4-6

Ingredients
200g potatoes
1-2 sweet potatoes
1 roll soft goat's cheese
180g pancetta
1 onion
6 eggs
seasoning

Method
Peel and chop potato and sweet potato into large chunks. Boil until tender. Heat some olive oil in a pan. Fry onion and pancetta until cooked. Remove from heat and add cooked potato and sweet potato. Whisk and season egg (sometimes I add a little milk if I need the egg to go further). Pour egg over mixture in pan. Crumble over goat's cheese. Return to low heat for around 5-10 mins until it's almost set, then put under grill for 5-10mins until golden and puffy. If you don't have a pan that can go in the oven, transfer cooked onion and pancetta into a baking dish and add the ingredients to that, before baking in a 200C oven until golden and puffy.

Serve with salad.

It's also nice cold, and ideal for picnics.

Condensed Milk Ice-Cream

If you're not already aware of my love of condensed milk, let me tell you that I absolutey adore it. It's been a life-long affair - though normally a long distance one as I am well aware of how bad it is for me. Absence definitely makes the heart grow fonder and I relish its silky sweetness when we get together.

When I saw this recipe on Tifsong I knew I had to make it. I'm an occasional ice-cream eater. I enjoy it as a treat but it's normally something I can take or leave. This one called to me for its simplicity, but mainly due to it the condensed milk. You don't need an ice cream maker. I don't have one.

• 1 tin condensed milk
• 1 large pot double cream (I used 2 small pots of Weight Watchers reduced fat stuff and it was still lovely and creamy)
• 1tsp vanilla

Mix and freeze for several hours. Take out and give it a good whisk, then return until frozen. I added choc chips and chopped marshmallows at this point to make it like Rocky Road. It's best to leave any additions until this point as most things will just sink if you add them before its semi-freddo (get me and my culinary terms).

That's it. Simple and delicious.

Cupcake Heaven

This recipe combines 2 of my favourite things: sweetened condensed milk and cake. Well, strictly speaking the  condensed milk is combined with a couple of other things to get the cake, but it's CAKE so let's not be picky about the whys and wherefores.

Condensed Milk Cupcakes

(makes 12)

125g self raising flour (or 125g plain flour with 1.5tsp baking powder)

250g sweetened condensed milk

85g margarine or soft butter

1 egg

0.5tsp vanilla extract

Combine all ingredients in a bowl with electric mixer (unless you have arms like Popeye) for 2-3 mins until fluffy. Spoon into cupcake cases and bake 180C / Gas Mark 4 for 15-18 mins. 

Allow to cool, then ice. I was feeling a little experimental tonight so I made my icing with icing sugar, leftover condensed milk, half a packet of raspberry jelly crystals and some red food colouring. 

I tried taking a photo to show you how soft and pale and fluffy the insides of these cakes are, but my crappy photography skills wouldn't allow it. Just trust me when I say that it is definitely worth giving these a go.

This recipe is well worth sharing so if you like it, be sure to make yourself really popular by passing it on.

Jaffa Cake Brownies

Hello and Happy Christmas. I have not blogged in ages as, well, it's been Christmas and sometimes (only sometimes) real life takes priority. So here we are: post Christmas but not post Christmas food. I thought I was restrained this year but I still seem to have a lot of food in my kitchen. My husband asked me to bake him something to take for him and his friends to eat after their bike ride tomorrow, so I took the opportunity to experiment a little with the hope of clearing some of if out of my house before it settled on my hips.

I bought one of those massive tubes of Jaffa Cakes. 5 packets of 12 cakes = 60 biscuits glaring at me in a fit of uneaten pique (along with the clementines going soft in the largely ignored fruitbowl). I refuse to be looked at in such a way by anything without eyes, so they had to go.

I am too lazy to halve my favourite chocolate cake recipe so this makes 2 batches.

 My favourite chocolate cake recipe

185g butter (or Stork, which I usually use for baking)
2tsp vanilla (oops, I forgot that)
1.5C sugar
2C SR flour
1/4C clementine juice (about 4 fruits)
3/4C water
3 eggs
2/3C cocoa

1. Preheat oven to gas mark 4 or 180C.

2. Prepare brownie tin by greasing and lining it with baking paper. Put a layer of Jaffa Cakes cake side down.

3. Put all the ingredients in a mixing bowl. Add the butter first, then the cocoa 2nd, unless you want your kitchen to be covered in cocoa dust. Mix until it's all the same colour (I use a hand mixer on high for 2-3 mins) and nice and smooth.

4. Pour half the mixture evenly over the Jaffa Cakes and bake on the middle shelf until cake springs back when touched (around 20mins in a normal oven, or whenever my temperamental oven feels like it.

5. leave to cool in pan and then lift out on the paper. I cut mine on the paper then lifted them up rather than avoid any faffy turning out and turning them back over.

 these were too big, so I cut them in half again after taking the photo.

The end result are lovely. The Jaffa Cake jam bit didn't melt at all so is still visible, and the dark chocolate on them added a nice richness to the brownies. I was very impressed. The 2nd batch were made with the cake mixture first and the Jaffa Cakes added to the top for no reason other than I was also trying to cook dinner and forgot to put them in first. They weren't as good because the cake part of the Jaffa Cake was on top so they went crunchy and I didn't like the texture as much.

It's my favourite use of leftovers so far.