This is My Blog.

Baileys & Chocolate Chip Cookies!

2012-01-13T22:34:00.001Z

Exams are finished, over and done with. Lectures don't start until the 30th of February. I genuinely have no idea what I am going to do with myself...
Struggling to get out of study-mode.

Final year exams weren't as difficult as I was expecting. Which has me feeling far more excited about the thought of doing a postgrad. To celebrate, I decided I wanted cookies.

I have two cookie recipes that I adore.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies

White Chocolate and Cranberry cookies

Both are very simple to follow and take minimal prep. Not particularly challenging. Although are any cookie recipes anyway difficult?

Anyone know of any cookie related baking challenges?

I did attempt Oreo Stuffed Cookies back when they were doing the rounds of the blogsphere but they were more novelty value than anything else for me. Just that bit too heavy to make again.

After a search through tastespotting for ideas, I concluded that the scale of cookie baking difficulty must start at simply buying a pack of cookie dough and end at Heston Bluementhal.

If you don't know who that is, you do not watch enough cooking programs or read enough about food. He's probably the world's best own molecular gastronomist and quite possibly the only self-taught molecular gastronomist.

Molecular gastronomy is a food science, combining ideas from physics and chemistry into bizarre sounding experiments with food.

He is most recognisable from his BBC series "In Search for Perfection" starring such recipes as fish and chips, bangers and mash and other British classics. The ingredients list for the fish and chips include: Soda siphon with 3 carbon dioxide cylinders, liquid from the jar of pickled onions (for a chip shop aroma) and vodka!

He has a new series out on channel 4 which I haven't got around to watching yet. It promises to be more practical to re-produce the recipes than his earlier series.

As I do not own any of his cookbooks (yet) this recipe comes from LondonBakes.

That cookies are still just cookies, this should be a nice introduction into the Heston style of cooking.

Ingredients

For the chocolate chips

10 g golden syrup

50 ml double cream

20 ml baileys

65 g dark chocolate

Sea salt

For the cookie dough

230 g plain all purpose flour

1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

2.5 g sea salt

1/4 tsp instant coffee

115 g cold butter

260 g caster sugar

1 large egg

20 ml baileys

10 g vanilla bean paste (1 tsp vanilla extract)

Method

To make the chocolate chips

Bring the syrup and cream to a simmer together.
Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pot of boiling water.
Pour the baileys into the hot cream, season with salt.
Combine this mixture 1/3 at a time into the chocolate.
Leave to cool for a few minutes.
Pour onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
(I lined a Chinese takeaway box with tin foil, as I had no grease proof paper and my freezer isn't large enough to fit my baking tray)

Freeze until solid. Should take about four hours.

To make the cookie dough

Cream the butter and the sugar together.
Add the baileys, vanilla and egg.
Sieve the dry ingredients together.
Mix the dry into the wet.
Work the dough for 3-4 minutes.
Add the chocolate chips straight from the freezer.
Scoop the dough into balls, flatten and lay out on baking tray.

The cookie dough tastes amazing..

Bake at 170 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

Mine didn't turn out too pretty...

I think I may have been a bit heavy handed on the Baileys...

Or the oven was too hot. Might buy an oven thermometer.

Still they taste like chocolate Baileys!

Just means I need to re-try this recipe...

New Year's Resolutions

2012-01-01T09:00:00.000Z

That time of year again. When everybody decides this year will be better than last year.
Did you stick to your resolutions last year?

I can hardly remember what mine even were... Although one of the joys of being a blogger is the ability to just scroll back to this time last year and see that, no, no I didn't really manage to keep those.
Well I do have less stuff than this time last year and have managed to stop buying random stuff I don't need, more because majority of my money goes on food than any self-discipline.

So this year's, clearly I will keep!

The Usuals

Get back to 56 kg
Become domestic goddess
Pass exams

The Random Challenge Ones

Complete Jillain Michael's 6 week abs
Pay more attention to which foods are in season
Stop buying shoes and stock wardrobe with clothes I actually like wearing
Post more about physics

The Fun Ones

Re-read The Hobbit before the movie comes out
Perfect more deserts
Come up with plan for next year

Basic Shortcrust Pastry

2011-12-28T13:00:00.000Z

One of the many humming and hahing discussions over whether or not to cook a full turkey for Christmas is usually what will we do with the leftovers?

St. Stephen's day everybody is fairly happy with the exact same dinner again.

The third day is starting to push it.

So onto BBC good food website to flick through the recommended Christmas leftovers dinners.

Settled on a Christmas leftovers pie

Mine came out looking like:

Although I needed to use far more water than the recipe suggested... I turned it into a Christmas leftovers pie!

So the filling is just fried up onions and mushrooms, with all the leftover meat piled on top, covered in leftover gravy and topped up with wine.
Baked in the oven for an extra ten minutes.

According to the people of r/baking, the goal in making pastry is to use as little water as possible. So next time round I will try use the minimum.

Mixed Berry Chocolate Macaron Trifle

2011-12-27T13:25:00.000Z

This was our Christmas day desert.

I had considered making Tiramisu, but we were very glad to have something relatively light to finish on after the feast that was dinner.
You aren't really celebrating if there isn't three courses. Fact.

The jelly is cranberry with strawberries floating it in. On top of that is a chocolate and hazelnut macaron which were filled with my own Nutella. All topped with whipped cream cranberries, blueberries and a sprinkling of coco powder.

It was my first time using the sheets of gelatin to make jelly. This was far easier than I expected.

Cranberry Jelly

Ingredients

2 pints of cranberry juice drink

1 packet of sheets of gelatin

Method

There will be instructions on the packet, but I thought this was even easier than melted the regular already flavoured packs of jelly. So worth noting.

Heat the juice in a pan.

Soak the gelatin sheets in cold water as the juice is heating.

Once the juice is starting to simmer, reduce the heat.

Stir in the gelatin.

It should dissolve easily.

Leave to cool.

Once it has cooled to nearly room temperature, pour into your serving dishes and leave in the fridge to set.

The strawberries can be added now as they will float in the jelly so set nicely on the top of the jelly.

Pop a macaron on top of your jelly once it has set, then cover this in whipped cream. I recommend flavouring your whipped cream with 2 tbsps of sugar and the zest of a lemon.

The trifle then needs to be left sit in the fridge for a good few hours before serving. The cream will soak into the macaron so it becomes lovely and moist, quite like a little bite of thick rich cake while still crispy on the outside.

This was such a success I am considering trying to make a coffee macaron tiramisu.

Anyone have any coffee flavoured maracon recipes they'd recommend?

Quantum Physics

2011-12-26T22:00:00.000Z

Part 1 of 3 of our physics of atoms and quanta module. There is such an off-putting amount of slides for this one exam, pretending it's actually 3 exams is the only way to go.

The exam is on the 6th, so ideally all the material should be covered by the 30th if I actually follow the study tips I did out last year.

I ask you, people of the interweb, to make me study.

Quantum theory isn't the easiest topic to write about, it tends to be quite math-heavy. I did attempt somewhat of an introduction to post last year, focusing on it's development and picturing the particle character of light.

Especially on St. Stephen's day trying to ignore the many Christmas movies...

Chocolate Santa makes for yummy study-subsistence

The most important thing to remember when looking at quantum physics is that our intuition is based around interactions that happen at sizes we can see.

As the scale becomes unimaginable tiny, things get strange. We can no longer directly watch what actually happens in experiments, only measure what we might expect might happen.

Studying Uncertainties

The foundations of quantum physics are based on 6 underlying postulates.

1)
The quantum state of a physical system at a moment in time t is completely characterised by a complex-valued wave function.

What this means is that we can describe any situation we'd like to explore with a mathematical equation based on the physics of waves and optics. This wave function can be used to calculate the probabilities of finding particles within a described volume.
All you really need to know: Particles can act like waves.

2)
To every observable physical quantity A, which is a function of the position coordinates and the momentum components of the particles in the system, there is a corresponding quantum operator. This operator is Hermitian and is called an observable.

An operator is just a mathematical tool. An observable is simply a measurable quantity. Say for example the position of a particle. So this just states that for every quantity of you are able to measure there exists a particular equation you can apply to your wave function to work it out before hand.
So it's possible to compare theory to experiment.

3)
The only possible result of a measurement of a physical quantity A is one of the eigenvalues a of the corresponding observable A.

All this says is that not everything is fully determinable or you can't always know everything you want to know about the system you are studying even if you spent an infinite amount of time trying to figure it out.
And you must remember all this is in probabilities.

4)
If the measurement of the physical quantity A on the system in state Psi gives a result a(k), the state of the system immediately after the measurement is the eigenstate Psi(k) associated with a(k).

This is somewhat harder to explain. As you can see from these, maths-y terminology tends to be very very specific.
What this means is that even though classically you can take a measurement then a few seconds later take another, in quantum systems things are more complicated. You would have to repeat the measurement on identically prepared systems to get comparable results.

5)
The wave function of a physical system evolves in time according to the equation of motion which is the time-dependent Schrodinger equation.

Quite simply, the Schrodinger equation describes how the system behaves.

What you should take from this:
Quantum physics is odd. Nobody knows why the world of the teeny tiny works like this, all we do know is the experiments that have been run to test quantum mechanics have matched the expected results from theory.

Quantum Mechanics in Action

Pretty odd, right?

Christmas Dinner

2011-12-25T19:54:00.000Z

We're not a house of rigid traditions. The only dish we've had consistently over the years is garlic potatoes. Except for the one Christmas we spent in Florida. Where we had a Chinese for Christmas dinner, while giggling with the waitress over the sheer amount of food being ordered at the table next to us.

That was an experience.

This year we opted for the more traditional turkey and ham.

The ham was boiled in cider for hours and following Jamie Oliver's instructions on his Christmas with Bells On we shoved as much herb butter in under the skin of the bird as would fit. Then preheated the oven to it's highest temperature, covered it in tin foil for the first two hours of cooking and kept majority of the stuffing in a separate roasting dish.

Left resting for nearly two hours covered in tin foil and tea towels it kept lovely and warm.

The garlic potatoes, the stuffing and my favourite red wine of the moment. B&G Pinot Noir. I'm not normally that impressed with red wines but this one was particularly nice. So we stocked up.

There was also roast vegetables, plenty of gravy and cranberry sauce. Got a bit too distracted by all the food to remember to include everything in a picture.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Macarons!

2011-12-25T00:09:00.000Z

It's been absolutely ages since I attempted these. My first attempt tasted right but looked disastrous. My second attempt looked alright but were far too sticky.

Third attempt and I nailed it! (sorta)

You're just going to have to ignore the nail varnish. It was an attempt to look Christmas-y that just didn't quite work out as planned. The shade of green is a bit of a fail.

I say sorta nailed it as even though the one above came out quite well I didn't have a piping bag so was working with two spoons, trying to scoop out even amounts of the very sticky mixture. So mine aren't aren't all the exact same size and the shells aren't perfectly smooth... But I'm pretty happy for a third attempt.

The recipe is still from Make-up and Macaroons and as you can see mine still aren't quite as pretty as hers are.

I did taste macarons from a McDonalds in Geneva last year and these taste practically identical. Even though McDonalds standard is an odd choice for comparison every where else seemed to charge completely insane prices.

I quite like them, they aren't sickly sweet or overly rich. They are soft in the inside with a slight sugared crisp all around the outside.

Hopefully next time if I get my hands on a piping bag these will come out more even. Until then, we can giggle at some of the more random shapes...

Salmon Burgers

2011-12-19T21:03:00.000Z

Second dish for the Christmas holidays. This is very simple and fairly quick. It takes about 15 minutes over all.
A good one for fussy eaters or people who think they don't like fish as there are no potentially over powering flavours.

Serves 3

Ingredients

2 Salmon fillets

6 cream crackers

Juice of one lemon

Rocket

Soy sauce

Wholegrain burger buns or baps

3 tbsp mayo

Dill

Thyme

Parsley

Salt & Pepper

Method

Poach the salmon for 8/9 minutes until just cooked

In a food processor, combine the cream crackers, herbs, tsp soy sauce and half the juice of the lemon

Gently tear the salmon into small pieces once it's cooked

Leave to cool for 2/3 minutes

Mix this together with the cream cracker mix with your hands

The salmon should be moist enough for this to all bind together nicely.

Fry these for 2 minutes each side

While these are frying toast your buns

Combine the mayo with dill and lemon juice

Spread generously over the toasted bun

Top with rocket, add your burger and serve

Home-made Nutella

2011-12-18T21:30:00.000Z

A first attempt at making a home made Christmas present. This was remarkably easy and personally I think much nicer than from a jar Nutella.
I used 90% cocoa chocolate so it is less sweet than regular Nutella. It's quite rich, you would struggle, I imagine, to eat an entire jar of this stuff.

If you want sweeter, more commercial Nutella, try using milk chocolate.

So beautifully dark and nutty.

The little plastic containers were 3 for 1.45 euro in Tesco. I might just tie them up in ribbon and present them as gifts that way.

Personally, I don't think it's worth bothering to cook with chocolate unless you buy good quality chocolate. So this doesn't actually work out cheaper than buying a jar of Nutella... But worth it!

Ingredients

200 g roasted hazelnuts

1 tin condensed milk

200 g 90% good quality chocolate

Drop of warm milk

Method

Using a food processor, smash the hazelnuts as fine as possible.

Melt the chocolate over simmering water.

Take off the heat.

Combine the condensed milk with the hazelnuts.

Pour the condensed milk and hazelnuts into the chocolate.

This should turn into a thick dough like substance.

Slowly add the milk until you have a consistency you want.

Transfer into containers and leave to set.

Pork Tenderloin with Cranberry Wine Sauce

2011-12-17T20:43:00.000Z

First dish of the Christmas holidays. Of course I went for something with cranberries. Anything to have an excuse to bake more cranberry cookies. I may bake some of those tomorrow.

Christmas question:
How long do you leave your Turkey to rest after roasting?

This was a hit. Pork in red wine is always popular, cranberries gave a nice sharp extra something.

Served with creamy mash and carrots in orange.

Ingredients

2 pork tenderloins

3 garlic cloves

1 large handful of cranberries

2 spring onions

1 tbsp white wine vinegar

4 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 large glass pinot noir

Salt & Pepper

Method

In a food processor, combine the cranberries, garlic, spring onions, vinegar, soy sauce and olive oil.

Cover the pork loin in this paste and least to marinade for at least an hour.

Brown these over a medium heat for about ten minutes.

Decant the pan with the wine.

Pour over the pork and cook in a preheated oven at 200 degrees Celsius for half an hour.

Once cooked remove the pork from the sauce.

Throw some extra chopped fresh cranberries into the sauce.

Let the sauce reduce down a bit.

Serve with mash and a glass of red wine.

Christmas Goals!

2011-12-16T14:00:00.000Z

With the amount of study that I need to get done over Christmas, I think a couple of food-related goals might just keep me sane.

Attempt to make bread rolls.
Try churning butter.
Complete a few more Jamie Oliver recipes.
~~Throw together some DIY gifts~~

Options:

Hazelnut Spread

Whiskey, Caramel, Marshmallow and Bacon Bark

Hot Sauce

If I am productive I might get a few physics posts up while revising. Too optimistic? Watch this space!

White Chocolate, Cranberry and Strawberry Rocky Road

2011-12-11T23:49:00.001Z

It's nearly midnight. Hours of somewhat distracted writing later I am no closer to finishing my preliminary reading report.
It is slightly better written than it was yesterday.. and I have a plate of these cookies plus rocky road!

An attempt to Christmas-y up rocky road making it white and adding cranberries. Adding cranberries makes everything Christmas-y right?

So much sweetness. So much NOM.

At a guess I'd say this should serve about four. Even though I could easily polish it off myself...

Ingredients

200 g good quality white chocolate

large handful of strawberries

large handful of cranberries

1/4 red apple

2 cookies

small handful of marshmallows

Method

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water.

I recommend using Lindt Excellent touch of vanilla white chocolate.

Chop up the rest of your ingredients.

Keeping the cookies in small chunks, not crumbs.

Once your chocolate has melted and has cooled a little, stir in the rest of the ingredients.

Pour into small rectangular container lined with cling film.

Leave for about half an hour until it reaches room temperature.

Then chill in the fridge for a few hours until it sets.

Frozen Fruit Smoothie

2011-12-05T10:59:00.001Z

Such a bad idea for breakfast on a freezing cold morning, but oh so nommy.

Begin with a handful of frozen fruit. I have summer berries continuing with the pretending it's not icy out theme.

Throw on top of this, one banana, 2 tbsp natural yoghurt, handful of mixed nuts and a handful of oats. Cover with either milk or juice. Blend well.

Highlight of my evening

2011-11-21T20:07:00.000Z

Meet my neighbour's cat. I actually don't know which neighbour he belongs to.. he wanders into the house any time we have the front door open.

Isn't he cute?

I gave him a little piece of fish and he completely ignored it for this very stale pizza crust, found beside the bin.

He also attempted to dive head first into the box of Cobra.

Pear and Parsnip Soup

2011-11-19T13:20:00.000Z

Weekend Goal: Clear out fridge

Do you ever wonder just how long you could survive on the contents of your kitchen? If you suddenly got snowed in for example. Are you well stocked?

While for me, it's possibly a silly question to ask as as soon as I ran out of milk, so about two days. I would need to venture out no matter how disastrously stormy the weather became.

How long do you think you'd last?

Day 1

Pear and Parsnip Soup

I have two pears left over from the Poached Pears I did last weekend, they are starting to get a bit soft. So are perfect to turn into a soup.

Ingredients

2 large pears

2 large parsnips

4 sticks of celery

1 onion

1 litre of vegetable stock
tsp mint
tsp nutmeg
Salt & Pepper

Method

Soften the vegetables over a median heat in olive oil for 15 minutes.
Season well.
Pour over vegetable stock.
Let simmer for another 15 minutes.

Apple & Cranberry Pancakes with Cinnamon Butter and Syrup

2011-11-17T14:52:00.000Z

This is adapted from GoodFood magazine.

More cranberries! Fun bit of history: Apparently Native Americans were the first people to eat cranberries as a food source. Who introduced them to European settlers hence their abundance in Thanksgiving recipes.

Their season is short, only really available fresh between Oct and Dec. So what better ingredient to make the most of in the lead up to Christmas.

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 cup self-raising flour

1 cup milk

1 egg

Pinch of salt

1 red eating apple

Large handful of chopped cranberries

40 g butter

1 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp caster sugar

Method

Simply combine the softened butter, cinnamon and sugar .

This can be shaped, wrapped in cling film and left in the fridge to reset.

To make the pancakes, take a normal drinking mug.

Fill it with the flour.

Pour this into a large bowl.

Fill the same cup with milk.

Pour this onto the flour.

Whisk well, add an egg and a pinch of salt.

Perfect fluffy pancakes every time!

Throw the cranberries and apple into the pancake batter.

Heat a pan to median to high.

Once the pan is hot enough for butter to immediately melt, pour on your batter.

Cook until the bubbles that form burst but keep their shape.

Flip and cook for 30 seconds to a minute on the other side.

Serve warm with maple syrup and cinnamon butter.

Poached Pears

2011-11-15T18:06:00.000Z

I may have begone counting down the days to Christmas. I have picked up GoodFood's Christmas special and can't wait to try everything. Possibly starting with a chocolate pudding... or cranberry and apple pancakes...

These were very simple and quite delicious. Still firm but lovely and sweet.

Serves 4

Ingredients

4 very firm pears

1 large cup of Amaretto

2 tbsp of brown sugar

Method

Peel and core the pears.

Melt the sugar in the Amaretto over a low heat.

Make sure to use a pot that will just fit the pears.

Add the pears to the pot.

Bring to a low boil.

Cover and simmer for half an hour.

Coating the pears in the sauce regularly.

Remove the pears and reduce down the sauce down for ten minutes.

Add the pears back to the pot, reheat.

Serve warm with plenty of the sauce.

White Chocolate and Cranberry Cookies

2011-11-14T19:49:00.000Z

I am officially 22. Reason enough to bake some cookies! As I still have quite a large box of fresh cranberries in the fridge, I chose white chocolate and cranberry cookies. Do make sure to use a good quality chocolate in these. Absolute waste of calories if they don't taste amazing.

Slightly crispy on the outside, beautifully moist and soft on the inside. These are by far the nicest cookies I have ever made.

Plus a source of Vitamin C. That means they are healthy really, yes?

Ingredients

220 g butter

100 g brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

300 g self raising flour

Large handful of crushed fresh cranberries

100 g good quality white chocolate

Method

Melt the butter and sugar together over a low heat.

Whisk well.

Leave to cool.

Otherwise beat the butter and sugar together with an electric hand whisk.

Add the eggs and whisk gently

Add the vanilla.

Slowly mix in the flour, handful by handful until it is starting to get difficult to stir.

Throw in the cranberries and chocolate

Bake at 160 degrees for 12 minutes.

New Obsession: Cranberries.

2011-11-12T17:50:00.000Z

Why do we ration Christmas-y food for Christmas dinner? Or is it all in my head, day-dreaming about food, that that happens?
At the moment, my blog feed and tastespotting are filling up with posts about preparing for Thanksgiving (24th Nov).

Coupled with falling in love with the Body Shop's Cranberry Joy lip balm.

Haven't quite figured out how to focus...

Christmas tunes appeared to be playing somewhere within the house so I was either going mad or needed to cook up something a bit Christmas-y.

I settled on:

Turkeys Breasts with Cranberry and Apple Stuffing

Serves 2

Ingredients

2 large turkey breasts

1 packet of bacon

1/3 tub of cream cheese

1/2 a starting-to-go-stale large bread roll

1 red apple (I like pink ladys)

1 large handful of fresh cranberries

1 handful of mixed nuts

Drop of cranberry juice

Method

Combine the apple, bread, cranberries, nuts and juice together in a food processor.

Only add enough juice for the mixture to get a little sticky.

Mix in your cream cheese.

Butterfly your turkey breasts.

Fit as much of the stuffing as you possibly can into the meat.

Wrap up with the bacon.

Cover these in tin foil and bake in a preheated oven at 200 degrees C for half an hour.

Remove the foil and continue to bake for another half hour.

Serve with roast root vegetables.

For Christmas-y roast veg, switch your rosemary for cinnamon and orange juice.

New Phone!

2011-11-08T19:35:00.000Z

After a minor disaster of glancing at my phone during a lecture to see my phone making calls at random in my pocket, I really did need to buy a new phone. It had been un-locking itself at random for a while now. Usually just sending the odd blank message except for over the weekend where it sent a friend about 8 exclamation marks and full stops in separate messages.

Somewhat bizarre...

Somewhat my fault for dropping it in tea...

Then managing to drop it in curry...

Although Carphone Warehouse salesperson told me that was the first time they had heard of somebody managing to get a phone curry-logged.
These are the dangers of food blogging... Balancing phone/camera over pots... Trying not to have own shadow in shot... I was bound to drop it eventually..

So I splashed out, with birthday money (I turn 22 on Monday) on this one.

I can't stop playing with it. I should probably be studying.. Or cleaning.. or something sightly more productive than making it scroll up and down...

Far. Too. Easily. Amused.

Anyway! First recipe to include picture taken from new camera is a kitchen goddess in training recipe. Except I already had spring onion in the kitchen so swapped that for the broccoli.

Serves 1

Ingredients

1 fillet of smoked mackerel

(I used a lemon and parsley smoked fillet = NOM)

3 spring onions

1/3 a tub cream cheese

Pasta

Method

Cook your pasta as per packet instructions.

Drain your pasta, keeping a small amount of the cooking water.

Throw in your cream cheese.

Tear your mackerel over the pot while the cheese is melting.

Throw in your spring onions.

Cook until a consistency to your liking.

Check out her blog for a more reasonable looking picture.. I was starving and all of mine came out quite blurry... Phone is a wee bit more sensitive than I am used to.

Why??

2011-11-07T11:23:00.000Z

I never buy Glamour. I find it very preachy even relative to other women's magazines.
I was searching for good food magazine's Christmas addition when I spotted that this month's Glamour came with free Nails Inc polish. I was in the tiny little newsagents / sweet shop in the train station in Limerick so the selection was just "Victoria", a dark cherry nearly black colour or "Basil Street", a what I can only describe as a tanned skin colour.
Three euro for the magazine versus 13/15 euro for the polish normally, sure why not?

Cosmetic Chronicles has done swatches of two of the other choices.

While I am quite impressed with just how shiny it is, I took the picture without a top coat (It's also without a base coat as I couldn't find mine... Ooops). It's hard to fault it, it goes on exactly the colour you'd expect from the bottle. It's just such a bizarre colour to me. It would probably look better if your nails were kept quite short, I keep looking down thinking my nails have disappeared..

Yay or nay to this colour being wear-able?

It has made me very tempted to buy the Nails Inc French Manicure collection...

Rosemary Focaccia

2011-11-03T18:05:00.001Z

Focaccia Al Rosmarino

Sitting in my parents house, somewhat bored with both my brothers gone off elsewhere, I realised we still had some Italian '00' flour in the press. So I took out Catherine Fulvio's "Italian Kitchen" looking for something I might be able to make with the bits and pieces we already had in the kitchen.

Focaccia is a really simple bread to bake. It's a basic Italian flat bread usually topped with herbs or stuffed with mozzarella.

Ingredients

7 g yeast

1 tbsp sugar

450 ml lukewarm water

700 g Italian '00' flour

2 tsp salt

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 large springs of rosemary

Method

Mix the yeast and sugar together with the water.

Leave to become frothy which should take about 5 minutes.

Sieve the flour into a large mixing bowl, add the salt, olive oil and yeast mixture and knead the dough for 7 - 10 minutes.

Leave to rise for 2-3 hours until it has trebled in size.

Once it has risen, knock it back and knead again for another 2 -3 minutes.

Divide in half.

Flatten the dough, and roll it out into a flat bread shape.

Make indentations on top of the dough with a clean finger.

Sprinkle with rosemary and drizzle with olive oil.

Season with some sea salt.

Leave to rise again while you preheat the oven to 230 degrees C

Bake for 5 minutes, then reduce the heat to 200.

Bake for another ten.

Nothing beats freshly baked bread. Nom nom nom.

I Heart Halloween!

2011-11-01T18:42:00.001Z

So many horror movies... So much chocolate... Actually managing to throw some-sort of costume like get up together...

Rocky Road

Although I did manage to get blue dye on the sleeve of my costume. Absolutely no idea how or where the blue came from..

Have not been able to remove random blue stain...

Any domestic goddess' out there with ideas on how I would get it out?

Halloween Recipes!

2011-10-27T22:00:00.000+01:00

Vindaloo

2 Onions

4 cloves of garlic

2 fresh red chillies

Ginger

Coriander

4 ripe tomatoes

Groundnut Oil

Chicken

Vindaloo Curry Paste

6 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tsp runny honey

200 g natural yoghurt

1 lemon

Vindaloo Curry Paste

2 cloves garlic, Ginger, 4 dried red chillies, 1 tbsp turmeric, 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, 3 tbsp groundnut oil, 2 tbsp tomato puree, 2 fresh red chillies, fresh coriander.

To toast: 1 tsp pepper, 4 cloves, 2 tsps coriander seeds, 2 tsps fennel seeds, 1 tsp fenugreek seeds.

Method

Fry the onions, garlic, ginger and coriander stalks on high heat for 10 minutes.

Add your meat and curry paste.

Season well.

Add the tomatoes, vinegar, honey and enough water to cover everything.

Bring to the boil.

Reduce heat and let shimmer for 45 minutes.

Flat Bread

500 g plain flour

1 tsp salt

4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

3.5 tsp yeast

300 ml runny honey

Dried Chillies

Method

Whisk the flour together with the yeast, salt, water, olive oil, and honey.

Knead together for 8-10 minutes.

Leave the dough to rise in an oiled bowl for about an hour or until doubled in size.

At the chillies.

Divide into balls the size of small oranges.

Roll these out into flat bread shapes.

Cook on medium to high heat, for 1-2 minutes each side.

Eye Ball Rocky Road

750 g milk chocolate

1 cup digestive biscuits

Mixed nuts

Marshmallows

Jelly Eye-Balls

Halloween themed sweets

Method

Melt the chocolate.

Mix 2/3 of your chocolate with the biscuits, nuts and marshmallows.

Pour this into lined dish.

Spoon the rest of the chocolate on top and decorate with the eye-balls and Halloween themed sweets.

Creepy Jelly

Green Jelly

Jelly Eye Balls

Make jelly as of packet instructions. Add eye balls.

Update - Food in France

2011-10-23T23:01:00.001+01:00

This is the first time and I imagine the last time, I will ever come home from France weighing less than before.
The food was not terrible. Well the milk was... That was nearly un-drinkable. I would genuinely need to travel home regularly for a tea-fix. The standard appeared to be UHT milk, which is ultra-high temperature milk. This allows the milk to have a shelf life of six to nine months.
Why would anybody need milk to last over six months? Just why? I can vaguely understand it in those tiny little containers you get on planes or on trains... But in the home? I couldn't even find any regular full-fat milk, everything was demi-crème or half-cream milk.

The rest of the food was fine. Nothing nice enough to write home about. Although there was one fish dish that was particularly nice, and of course the bread was amazing. Oddly they serve less vegetables than you'd expect to get here in a typical buffet type meal.
I didn't notice if I was eating much less than I normally would. Meal times were somewhat bizarre. So your body-clock was confused for most of the trip. Lunches, dinners and a mid-night snack were included in the price of the trip. Except lunch was served at 12.. mid day.
It being an observatory, we were awake and working between 7/8 pm and 6/7 am. Waking up for lunch at 12 would mean 4/5 hours sleep. Lunch was three courses. I couldn't even stomach the idea of having a three course lunch for breakfast, never mind actually attempting to wake up in time to eat it.
Although there was an unlimited amount of bread, so you weren't left to go hungry if you didn't arrive down for the lunch-breakfast.
Dinner was at 6. It was left in buffet-like trays in the fridge for us to re-heat ourselves. I've no idea why lunch wasn't served the same way. If we asked for lunch and didn't arrive down for lunch, apparently it got dumped. Bizarre. I never made it down for lunch. Sleep was far more important. Especially without any decent cups of tea.
The mid-night snack was also left for us to take whenever we wanted. These was a fresh slice of pizza one night, a sausage-roll-like-thing except with cheese instead of the sausage part and a packet of really bland crisps they also kept in the fridge.

The dish that was the most French was a plate of reblochon with a plate of pears. I had even predicted that!

The nicest thing served were the grapes. The first night they brought those out they were the freshest grapes I'd ever tasted. Beautiful.

I wouldn't be going back to the Haute-Provence Observatory for the food but the equipment was mind-blowing and all in all it was quite a lot of fun.

Quick Salmon Tikka with Cucumber Yoghurt

2011-10-16T15:21:00.000+01:00

Om! Nom!

I am ridiculously stuffed. This was amazing, and very quick to do. You could take longer and make your own flatbread and your own curry paste but sometimes you're busy or lazy or both.

This can be thrown together in less than 10 minutes.

Serves 2

Ingredients

2 x Naan bread

1 red chilli

1/2 a cucumber

1 lemon

4 tbsp natural yoghurt

mint

2 x Salmon Fillet

1 tbsp of Patak's tandoori curry paste

Method

Preheat your oven, chop up the cucumber and chilli and mix in a bowl with the yoghurt and half of the lemon.

Season with salt, pepper and mint.

Cut the salmon into pieces and coat in the curry paste.

Pop your naans into the oven.

Fry the salmon for 1.5 minutes each side.

The Naan should be nicely warmed by the time the salmon is cooked.

Serve with a side salad and lemon wedges.

Cassiopeia A

2011-10-15T16:25:00.000+01:00

While in France we shall be spending all night gazing into space and attempting to sleep during the day.
Shall bring a box of teabags and hope the coffee is nice...

In particular we are going to be looking at Cassiopeia A or Cas A. First discovered in 1947 by radio astronomers in Cambridge, Cas A is a supernova remnant, formed when a star that was 10 to 15 times the size of our Sun exploded in a supernova.

A supernova is a sudden and explosive collapse of a large star. As you can imagine, this is incredibly bright. So bright that often this explosion will release more energy than our Sun will emit during it's entire lifetime. Remarkably, when Cas A exploded nobody really noticed.

It is expected that the explosion was simply hidden behind masses of interstellar dust so it would have appeared to be a fainter than average star appearing in the night sky to eventually fade away again.

This may have been recorded by an English astronomer John Flamsted. An experienced astronomer, who managed to catalogue over 3000 stars in his lifetime. He catalogued it as a 6th magnitude star which is fainter than average, this was assumed to have been a mistake a number of years later and forgotten about.

Which has left us with a shaky astronomical record of when this explosion occurred.

So that shall be our goal. Gathering more data to calculate when exactly Cas A exploded. This shouldn't be too difficult to do. We need to get some good images of what Cas A looks now and compare them to older images. Quite like this graphic from the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

If you are interested in reading more on this, Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy has gone into greater detail here, here and here.

Going to France!

2011-10-14T22:44:00.000+01:00

Apologies for being such a fail of a blogger lately! I have the somewhat legitimate excuse of being in final year, reading and re-reading quantum notes and preparing to head to the Haute-Provence Observatory in the South-East of France!

We're leaving early Monday morning and I am silly excited! I just love airports, and planes, and flying, and France, and French food... *Drools*.

Think cheese and wine, crepes, cassoulet (a rich stew) , bouillabaisse (a fish soup), chicken with 40 cloves of garlic...
*adds French cookbook to wishlist*

Might make a ratatouille on Sunday... May also download movie...

The observatory is in the Alps-de-Haute-Provence of France so traditionally you'd expect mental amounts of soft cheese per dish. We've been warned quite a remarkable amount of times that the food provided for us during our stay is "something else" and that we should stock up on supplies.
They've even planned a stop in a supermarket.. Meals are included in the price of the trip.. I am incredible curious as to how different the food could possibly be...

I imagine/hope it is more down to a culture shock than bizarre combinations of inedible lumps of food. Given the "typical" Irish affiliation with cheese and cheddar, an un-pasteurised so soft it's nearly sticky reblochon might be too huge a jump for the sleepy palate.

Hopefully I will remember to take a picture or two of the food.

Fingers crossed it is interesting!

Cheat's Apple Tart

2011-10-05T23:26:00.000+01:00

Already October, a month for hot chocolates, apples and pears. Now that the weather has gone back to normal cold, dark and wet, comfort food is a must.

This is student food at it's best. A product of sugar cravings while ridiculously cold one night, raiding the presses for something that might resemble food.

I can't be the only student who keeps sheets of pastry in the freezer, can I?

Ingredients

2 Cooking Apples

2 sheets of pastry

2 Handfuls of sugar

1 egg

Mixed Spice

Cinnamon

4 tbsp of butter

Small handful of mixed nuts

Large Handful of Oats

Method

Butter your baking dish.

Line the dish with one of the sheets of pastry

Peel and chop your apples.

Cook these over a medium heat with the butter.

Season well.

Add the nuts and oats.

Heat through and transfer onto your pastry.

Cover with second sheet.

Brush pastry with beaten egg.

Cut out a cross on the tart to allow stream to escape.

Bake in a pre-heated oven for half an hour.

Quick, simple and so tasty

Potato Gnocchi with Gorgonzola Sauce

2011-09-26T10:58:00.000+01:00

Information over-load. Why ask for a three sentence essay? That has to be the most irritating word limit possible. Mostly because I could easily write 2000+ words on the topic.. Summarising 2000 words into 150 takes a whole lot of staring in space fighting to ignore old English teacher's voice screaming there is no structure!
Done is done. These were so much easier to do.

Incredibly heavy though, I only managed to finish about half this portion. They kept perfectly fine in the fridge over-night so all was good.

Potato Gnocchi

1 kg potatoes

1 egg

300 g strong white flour

Boil the potatoes, peel and mash.

Season with salt and pepper.

Add an egg and half the flour.

Mixing well.

Work this into a dough using the rest of the flour.

Roll out into balls.

Bring a pot of salted water to the boil.

Add the Gnocchi.

Stir gently.

When they are done they will rise to the top.

Gorgonzola Sauce

250 ml cream

100 g Gorgonzola Cheese

2 tbsp Parmesan

Dill

Gently heat the cream until it begins a low boil.

Take off the heat and add the remaining ingredients.

Stir until the sauce has thickened.

Transfer the Gnocchi to the sauce and serve immediately.

Pizza and DVD Night!

2011-09-19T11:30:00.000+01:00

I declare Sunday nights as pizza and DVD night. People should pencil this in for next Sunday!

This is yet another Catherine Fulvio recipe. It is practically the same as the pizza recipe I was already using except she recommends pre baking the base. Which is a wonderful idea that gave me extra crispy pizza edges. I might make a dip to go with them next week.

Updated Recipe:

Pizza Base

1 round tsp of bread yeast (3.5 g)

250 g of strong white flour (Or Italian 00 flour)

150 ml lukewarm water

1/2 tsp of sugar

Pinch sea salt

1 tsp extra virgin olive oil

Mix the yeast and the sugar together with the water.

The water should be hot to touch but far from boiling as too high a temperature will kill the yeast.

Leave this aside until it becomes frothy. This should take about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile whisk the flour together with the salt and olive oil.

Make a well in the centre.

Slowly add the yeast mixture to the flour.

1/3 at a time.

Bring this together as a dough and then knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic.

This should take 5 to 10 minutes by hand.

Place the dough in a well oiled bowl and leave it to rise for at least 2 hours or until doubled in size.

Roll the dough out to the size and shape you want.

I use a plate to cut out a circular shape for mine.

Brush with olive oil.

Place in a preheated oven at 200 degrees for 6 minutes.

Finish with toppings of your choice.

Tonight I did a simple Margherita

And a more interesting Leek, Gorgonzola and Walnut

All the night was missing was cookies and ice cream... Well and maybe a few drinks. So next Sunday, yes?

Also movie suggestions would be awesome. Last night we watched the Rise of the Planet of the Apes. It was really very good. Slightly difficult find a film both me and my brother will manage to watch fully together.

Roast Lemon Chicken with Fennel and Lemon Risotto Stuffing

2011-09-18T13:05:00.001+01:00

Pollo arrosto ripieno di risotto al limone e finocchio

Ciao, for more Italian food.

This was the nicest chicken I have ever tasted. Although I can't find fennel in the supermarkets in Maynooth, oddly enough that was one ingredient I could find easily in Clare.

It's strange the random differences you notice from one side of the country to the other. Another example is that the milk tastes different. Which is a bit mental as it's only about a three hour car journey from one side of Ireland to the other..

I had already chopped off the wings off the chicken to taste it before I realised I hadn't taken a picture yet.

I don't see the recipe online anywhere but the cook book is less than 15 euro (or 12 pound) on amazon.

The jist of the recipe is your standard roast chicken, coated in a herb butter stuffed with a fennel (or leek) risotto, cooked in white wine, lemon juice and chicken stock.

Not on the recipe but what I did was over wet the Arborio rice, cook it until it was starting to look puffy and sprained it. Keeping the liquid to baste the chicken with.

This made the most moist tender chicken I have ever tasted. The meat very nearly fell off the carcass as I was lifting the chicken out of the roasting dish.

I served this with roast vegetables and the rest of the bottle of white wine.

*Dreams of moving to Italy*

Aubergine Parmigiana

2011-09-14T22:10:00.000+01:00

Melanzane alla Parmigiana

Student houses are never as warm and cosy as the family home. Partly as I always forget to pick up fire lighters and coal or anything flammable. Really must order some oil, once I figure out who my house-mate/house-mates are. She/they don't appear to have any food in the house, which is a bit random.

One way to warm up is to wrap yourself in blankets and fantasise about living somewhere much warmer. Say Naples, Southern Italy.

Where right now it's a very lovely, comfortable 25 degrees. Aubergine Parmigiana is one of the most famous dishes (aside from pizza) to come out of the city of Naples. It curves any major cheese cravings without being too heavy or stacked with carbs.

This recipe is from Catherine's Italian Kitchen by Catherine Fulvio. This is the second recipe I have tried from the book, both were amazingly flavourful. I am very tempted to try her version of a Lasagna. Add another Lasagna to my list. We'll see.

You can also find this recipe here.

Smoked Mackerel Pate

2011-09-14T14:01:00.000+01:00

It's my first day properly moved back to Maynooth, I still haven't seen my house-mate. She was asleep when I got home last night, and she had left before I woke up... Keep your fingers crossed for me that she is reasonable sane and somewhat normal.

Plodding on through the "Ministry of Food" I can now move on to the slightest more adventurous / stuff we wouldn't normally cook at home.

I give you smoked mackerel pate on toasted crusty bread with a small side salad. I don't even remember the last time I had smoked mackerel.. but this was beautiful!
Cheap, healthy and fairly low in calories. The entire lunch box (200 g mackerel) is somewhere around the 700 calorie mark.

I used less than a third for lunch. So that's three days of healthy lunches sorted! You'd expect to pay around two euro fifty for about 6 fillets or 200 grams of mackerel.
That is cheaper than spagetti hoops on toast!

All you need to make this: 200 g smoked mackerel, 100 g cream cheese, 2 spring onions, dill, 1 tsp mustard and a drizzle worcestershire sauce.
Although Jamie Oliver uses horseradish sauce.. which I don't like. So I swapped it for dill, mustard and worcestershire sauce.

Simply tear the fish into pieces and combine with the rest of your ingredients. Mash together with a fork. Serve on toasted crusty bread.

Russian Stroganoff

2011-09-11T22:46:00.002+01:00

This kicks the British version's ass. So rich and creamy with so many levels of flavour.

This picture was taken on my Dad's phone, as mine died suddenly as I was attempting to take a picture. Although it did manage to take two videos of the plate before it died somehow. My phone really is on the way out. The screen is getting darker and darker and I can no longer hold phone conversations without going on speaker. The on/off button is also broken. Hanging up is difficult. It's very odd altogether.

I think it may be time to buy a new phone. It's looking like buying a crappy phone and a decent camera will be cheaper than trying to buy a phone with a good camera on it.

Back to food. You want to get the best cut of beef you can afford for this dish. We used fillet steak. So amazing.

Stroganoff

Serves 4

2 large fillet steaks

2 onions

Box of mushrooms

1 garlic clove

Tomato Puree

Apple sauce*

1 tin of tomatoes

Large glass of red wine

Chicken stock

Soy sauce

Nutmeg

Ginger

3 Cloves

Flour

3 tbsp sour cream

3 tbsp double cream

*I recommend making your own apple sauce. It takes minimal effort for such a difference in flavour.

Apple Sauce

2 green eating apples

1 cooking apple

Small handful of sugar

Knob of butter

Cinnamon

Nutmeg

Orange juice

3 Cloves

Peel and core your apples

Place in a pan over a medium heat

Throw everything else into the pan and cook until the apples have softened.

This should take about ten minutes.

Remove the cloves.

Blitz until smooth.

As opposed to the British version of the dish, the base of the original Russian dish is a spiced tomato sauce.

The name of this dish comes from Count Grigory Stroganov, a very rich Russian diplomat. The story goes that the Count's cook came up with this dish when the Count was so old and toothless, he would struggle to chew even a perfectly cooked steak which was his favourite meal.

Yuzhnyi (A Spiced Tomato Sauce)

Begin by softening onions over a medium heat

Season with salt, pepper and white wine vinegar

Once they are softened add the chopped garlic

Fry for another minute

Add 2 tbsp of tomato puree and about 3 full tbsps of the apple sauce

Stir well and cook for another few minutes

Add a tin of tomato, red wine and a chicken stock-pot.

Top up with a cup of water.

Season with nutmeg, ginger, cloves, salt and pepper.

Simmer until reduced by half.

This should take about 15 minutes.

Smells so awesome! I may look out for a Russian cook-book the next time I am in town...

Beef (Use a large pot)

Fry the second onion until softened

Throw in the mushrooms with a knob of butter and cook.

Meanwhile slice your beef into long thin strips.

Remove the mushrooms and onions from the heat.

Add your steak to the pan and cook for 2-3 minutes.

Sprinkle over a good tbsp of flour

Pour the onions and mushrooms back into the pan.

Add the sour cream and double cream

Bring to the boil gently

Pour all your reduced spiced tomato sauce onto the beef

Simmer for 15 minutes until the beef is very tender

Serve with chips (The thinner the better, these were all we had in the freezer)

Southern Fried Chicken

2011-09-10T23:55:00.001+01:00

How healthy am I? First cupcakes, now deep frying.. I will pay, I know.

At least I don't own a deep fat frier in college and am still that bit terrified of them.. So I can't continue to be this bold indefinitely.

If you do own a deep fat frier and don't want to waste any more money on KFC's broiler chickens this recipe is very fast and really easy.

Southern Fried Chicken

Flour

Cajun Seasoning Mix

Paprika

Buttermilk

Eggs

Chicken

Salt & Pepper

You can use either on the bone pieces of chicken or cut fillets into long strips. On the bone is unpopular in Ireland so I use fillets.

Soak the chicken in buttermilk for half an hour.

Add paprika to the milk for the last 5 minutes of soaking.

Mix the flour, seasoning, salt and pepper together.

Beat an egg in a bowl.

Drip the chicken strips into the flour.

Then drip into the egg.

Then drip back into the flour.

Deep fry these for about 5 minutes. Remembering not to overload your deep fat frier.

Serve with chips and salad.

Yes, it is very unhealthy. But no, sadly you cannot reproduce Southern Fried Chicken by pan frying and baking. It just does not give the same texture or flavour.

It is so much more awesome than our local KFC. Say no to dried out, battery farmed chicken and quite miserable chips.. and try this. Nom!

Ferrero Rocher Cupcakes

2011-09-09T23:34:00.001+01:00

I am really struggling to move. After this ridiculous amount of chocolate I could die happy of an insane sugar overdose.
I am now quite tempted to invest in a cute little cupcake stand and start baking regularly. Although I can't really afford to buy a whole new wardrobe if I explode upwards a few dress sizes.
Anyone willing to come over to mine and take away a tray full of baked goodies? Once you leave me a taste and promise to battle the remaining cakes from my clutches, this could work out as quite an awesome arrangement.

Say hello to the Ferrero Rocher Cupcake.

They came out tasting very similar to Ferrero Rochers, except without the crispy wafer. Crumbling some wafer onto the frosting could be really nice. I am between minds on whether you should pipe on a twirling mountain of frosting onto cupcakes to make them look really pretty. I struggle to stomach that amount of sugar in one mouthful. So I am left with less pretty, lightly frosted cupcakes.
You need to taste these before you judge me.

To make these I recommend starting with the filling as it takes a few hours to set fully in the fridge.

Ganache Filling

400 ml double cream

270 g nutella

Warm the cream in a saucepan over a medium heat. Add the nutella slowly until you have an incredibly thick chocolate soup. Let this cool until it has thickened.

I think pictures of melted chocolate only look appealing to chocolate addicts, unless you are watching the lindt advert. Trust me, this smells to die for.

The Cake

300 g self raising flour

150 g unsweetened coco powder

1 tsp baking powder

230 g sour cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp almond extract

225 g butter

400 g sugar

2 eggs

4 tbsp coffee

Cream the butter and sugar together. Once this is well mixed add in the eggs one at a time. Blend well.

Sift together all your dry ingredients.

Combine the sour cream with the vanilla and almond.

Alternate adding the wet ingredients and dry ingredients to your cream and butter mix. Once everything has been blended together, slowly add your coffee. Just enough so the mixture is wet but still sticky.

Transfer into individual cupcake trays and bake in a preheated oven (180 degrees) for 25 minutes.

Buttercream Frosting

225 g butter

270 g nutella

300 g icing sugar

1 tbsp vanilla

8 tbsp double cream

Cream the butter and nutella together until combined. Slowly add your icing sugar (You may not need all of it, taste as you go)

Add the vanilla, and then the cream, tbsp by tbsp until you have a spreadable consistency.

Spread on cool cupcakes.

There you have it, Ferrero Rocher cupcakes.

*Drowns in chocolate*

Packing, Cleaning, Sorting

2011-09-08T20:48:00.000+01:00

Very slowly packing, mostly playing around on facebook... And moving things from one side of the room to the other. Productive day this is not. Although I did find my passport. I was slightly worried I had lost it as I couldn't find it one night when nowhere around here would except my college ID as ID.
Grooveshark playing, plan on being 90% packed by the end of tonight!

Dinner tonight was a beef and Guinness stew. The Guinness wasn't over-powering in the slightest, it simply added a richness to the sauce. Recommend trying this even if you hate Guinness ( as I can't stand it)

Soften 2 onions, 2 sticks of celery and 2 carrots, through in your stewing beef. Lightly brown. Add a tablespoon or so of plain flour, threw in a tin of tomatoes and a can of Guinness. Season with salt, pepper and three bay leaves. Stew, covered in the oven for about three hours. You can remove the lid for the last half an hour to help the sauce to thicken.

Mince and Onion Pie!

2011-09-05T19:22:00.000+01:00

It's lashing rain down here in the west of Ireland. I've survived day 2 of the 30 day shred and I am so sore. So clearly comfort food was needed.
Cue pie.

And over-sized new t-shirt.

To make pie, simple soften 3 onions, 2 carrots and 2 sticks of celery. Add some mince, season with mustard, worchestire sauce, rosemary, salt and pepper. Brown up the mince. Throw in some beef stock. Reduce until thick.

Transfer to pie dish, cover with shortcrust pastry, brush with a beaten egg and bake in a preheated oven for 25 minutes.

Yorkshire Puddings

2011-09-04T17:11:00.000+01:00

I love lazy Sundays. The roast practically cooks itself. Each time we try a roast it seems to come out even nicer. Today the Yorkshire puddings came out absolutely perfect.
They were quite a funny shape last time...

This time I put less batter into the muffin dish. Filling each case to about 1/3 of the way up.

To make these, just spoon the fat from the beef into empty muffin cases. Turn the oven back up to full blast and place the tray back in for about 5 minutes to heat.
The batter needs to be made a good half an hour before the beef comes out of the oven. Whisk together 3 eggs, 285 ml of milk and 115 grams of plain flour, season with a bit of salt sea and leave to sit for half an hour.
Spoon the batter into cases on top of the hot oil. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes for soft on the inside puddings or a full 25 minutes if you want them crispy all the way through.
Just make sure to not open the door once they start baking or they will collapse on you.

Pot-Roast Meatloaf

2011-09-02T04:30:00.000+01:00

Success! My first attempt at meat-loaf was a disaster and a half. The recipe looked weird. I didn't think it could be that bad, but wow it really was one of the weirdest things I had ever tasted.

This one was so much nicer. The meat was moist and flavourful. The sauce was rich while still being fairly healthy.

The meatloaf was simple, just fry up some onions, season them well with cumin, coriander, white wine vinegar, salt and pepper.

Once the onions have cooled, combine them together with your mince, a good few cream crackers, oregano, mustard and one egg.

Bake this in the oven for half an hour while you make your sauce. Brown up some more onions, add garlic and chillies, season with paprika, salt and pepper.

Add Worcestershire sauce, chickpeas, 2 tins of tomatoes and balsamic vinegar. Let reduce.

Cover the meatloaf in bacon and pour the sauce over the meatloaf once it has been roasting for half an hour. Place back in the oven for 15 minutes. Serve with chopped salad.

Spanish-Style Griddled Steak

2011-09-01T14:26:00.000+01:00

This I cooked about a week ago. I have a bit of a back log at the moment, of recipes mostly that I was un-impressed with how the pictures turned out.
I could re-cook the dishes.. and then try take nicer pictures.. but perfection is about the journey, right?

It's sirloin steak cooked in a pan with peppers and chillies. Once the piece of meat is a dark red colour from a butchers, you don't need to marinade it. You can't really judge by colour in a supermarket, however way they are packaged you can find a beautiful looking tasteless tough piece of meat and then you can just get lucky... Judge by best before date if you must buy from Tesco.
Once the steaks are cooked (2 and a half to 3 minutes each side) leave them to rest for 5 minutes. Throw some crème fraiche into the pan after you've turned off the heat. Season with paprika and spoon onto the steaks.

I served these with red split lentils, cherry tomatoes and red onion. There was lentils left over from the Rogan Josh. I had assumed they would taste like nothing.. purely because you find them in the "health foods" section of Dunnes...

They're not bad at all. Except that they go cold awfully fast lol. These were simply boiled for ten minutes, drained and throw together with the tomatoes and onions.

Might try more curries or stews with lentils this winter.

Anyone regularly cook with lentils? What do you do with them?

Strawberry Lemonade

2011-08-29T14:32:00.000+01:00

This is still a work in progress. It's too strong a flavour to serve it up as lemonade yet. But I don't want to simply add loads of sugar. Strawberry and apple might be a flavour combination that will work without a bucket of sugar. Or maybe strawberry and lime.
My first attempt was plain lemonade.

It was remarkably refreshing, but difficult to drink a lot of. Too close to tasting like lemon juice, not enough like lemonade. Not as disgusting as that sounds though. Think club lemon without the sweet after taste or bubbles.

After making the bruschetta we had a bowl of leftover strawberries in balsamic vinegar. So I thought I'd attempt lemonade again. The strawberries did make it much more drinkable but there was still something missing...

To make the lemonade, I squeezed the juice of one lemon into a pot. Then topped it up with boiling water. Threw in 4 bags of green tea, the bowl of strawberries and a tablespoon of honey.

This is yummy ice cold, but with room for improvement.

Anyone else make lemonade? Any other ideas for sweetening this without adding sugar?

The Necessities

2011-08-27T01:54:00.000+01:00

My brother has got accepted at the same University as me. So we have to head up to find him accommodation. This means I have a lift and an empty boot to cart a pile of stuff to college.
So what do I pack?

I had such an insane amount of stuff coming home. It took two car trips. Now I've filled two suitcases and am sitting around trying to think what else do I need to bring with me?
While clearly shoes have too high a sentimental value to move without me and I need another suitcase or so worth of clothes to stayed dressed while home... There are minimal books I really need to bring up with me and then I am just left with the household basics like sheets and towels and blankets...

I may have managed to properly de-clutter...

No one is more shocked by this than me. I am unsure where all my stuff went. As many bags of useless junk I have bought to charity shops over the summer I really should not be shocked to have less stuff... Now I really feel a need to go shopping.

Must not become crazy cat lady... Must. Not...

Distraction!

Perfectly round home-made pizza bases. I cheated. Placed a plate over the dough and cut out the shape. Someday maybe I'll manage to roll them out and do the throw them in the air thing and have them magically appear round... Maybe...
These got stuck to the plates as I forgot to flour the plates. They then lost their perfectly round shape somewhat being pulled off of the plate.
Baby steps.

This is also the only picture I actually took of the party food. Next goal: Cook food in bulk and actually take a few pictures.

Chicken and Leek Stroganoff

2011-08-24T12:49:00.000+01:00

Do you think in 50 to 100 years from now it's possible we could lose all the traditional menus from individual countries and just end up with a giant mish mash of foods?

Or will the classics always be classics?

Jamie Oliver calls this a cross between a French fricassee and a Russian stroganoff. I would have just called it a British style stroganoff...

The authentic Russian dish would have a red wine and tomato based sauce served with sour cream. While a fricassee is a cooking term that means to chop up poultry and fry in gravy.

It's a very quick dish, begin with a pan over high heat with a lug of olive oil and a knob of butter. Throw in the chopped leeks with a glass of white wine and a bit of water. Season.

Let this bubble away for a good 5 minutes covered loosely with a piece of foil. Then add your parsley, chicken, cream and mushrooms.

Simmer for 10 minutes. Serve with basmati rice and lemon wedges.

I threw together a chopped green salad to go with it in an attempt to look healthy and add some colour to the table...

It's simply 4 spring onions, 1/3 of a cucumber, 1 avocado and half a packet of Italian style salad leaves. The dressing is 6 tables of extra virgin olive oil, 1 tablespoon of white wine vinegar and a teaspoon of English mustard. Seasoned with salt and pepper.

Scrambled Eggs

2011-08-23T20:36:00.000+01:00

I don't know how anyone skips breakfast. I can take or leave sandwiches or other lunch-y foods but I adore breakfast foods.
Could start having two breakfasts and skip on the lunch food...

Actually I don't think I have a single lunch recipe on here...

Anyway, scrambled eggs are one of those odd dishes that are incredibly easy to do but are nearly always done wrong. Over-cooked to nearly chewy, over-seasoned to no longer taste like eggs, cooked too quickly to a solid lump etc.

The trick: Medium to low heat, cooked slowly and taken off the pan before they are fully cooked as they will continue to cook on your toast. Season lightly with salt and pepper.

Spaghetti and Meatballs

2011-08-21T20:23:00.001+01:00

An Italian-American classic, even though traditionally Italians eat both meatballs and spaghetti they would serve them as separate courses not loaded on top of one another.

This recipe combines Jamie Oliver's recipe and my own. The cream crackers are nicer to work with than breadcrumbs and I quite like the onions in the sauce instead of inside in the balls.

I served this with the bacon plus bread, it was nice but a bit too heavy to go with a meal. That bread is a bit more cake-like than bread-like, best served on it's own with some butter.

** Searches for a better bread recipe **

- shall try this one, or this one that looks a bit easier.

Ingredients

Meatballs

500 g round steak mince

8 cream crackers

1 heaped teaspoon good English mustard

Rosemary, Basil & Oregano

1 egg

Sauce

1 large glass of red wine

1 medium onion

Basil

1 red chilli

2 cloves of garlic

2 tins of tomatoes

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Method

Crush the cream crackers in a food processor with your herbs

Add this to a bowl with the meat and mustard

Crack in an egg and season with salt & pepper

Scrunch this up with your hands until mixed well

Roll these into meatballs.

Drizzle these in olive oil and leave in the fridge overnight

To make the sauce, fry the chopped onion in olive oil on the bottom of the pot

When browned, add your garlic and chilli

Once the garlic has started to colour, throw in the tins of tomatoes and balsamic vinegar

Meanwhile, fry the meatballs in olive oil in a frying pan (I had two going at once)

You want these to be fried until cooked through

Once they are add them to the sauce

When they are in the sauce, turn on your pasta.

Once the pasta is cooked, serve with garlic bread.

Beef Rogan Josh

2011-08-17T00:55:00.001+01:00

I may never order an Indian takeaway again. With a chicken tikka masala, vegetable jalfrezi, thai green curry, chicken korma and aloo gobhi under my belt I could throw a curry night!
This was far nicer than any Rogan Josh I've ordered from a takeaway. I attempted my own flat breads using this recipe. They were amazing!

I served this with lemon, ginger and turmeric rice. I like to use wholegrain rice, while I do like the flavour of it, it can be a bit too..nutty or something plain. So much so that it over powers the main dish without adding anything extra.. if I am making any sense at all?

You cook the rice as you normally would, then toss it into a frying pan of hot olive oil. Throw in some lemon zest, a bit of ginger, 1 heaped teaspoon of turmeric and the juice of the lemon. Stir until it is a golden yellow colour. Season with salt and pepper.

I think it looks quite pretty and completely hides the fact the rice is wholegrain!

The beef is two sirloin steaks we asked the butcher to chop up for us. (Tip from mum) This really is so much nicer than buying the ready diced stewing beef.

To make the curry, start by softening 2 onions in a large pan with a good lot of olive oil, 1 red chilli, thumb-sized piece of ginger, coriander leaf and 4 bay leaves.

Throw in the beef, salt and pepper and fry until lightly browned. Add 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, cook for 2 minutes. Then throw in your curry paste, beef stockpot and tin of tomatoes.

Curry Paste: 2 cloves of garlic, 1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, 75 g of roasted peppers from a jar, 1 tablespoon paprika, 1 teaspoon smoked paprika, 2 teaspoons garam masala, 1 teaspoon turmeric, 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, 2 tablespoons groundnut oil, 2 tablespoons tomato puree, 1 red chilli, small bunch coriander. Toast: 2 teaspoons cumin seeds, 2 teaspoons coriander seeds, 1 teaspoon black peppercorns.

To make the curry paste, toast the seeds in a dry frying pan for a few minutes, then pop everything into a food processor.

Or buy a jar of Patak's rogan josh curry paste.

It should look something like this. You now want to stir in two good handfuls of red lentils and top it up with boiling water. Just until everything is covered. Pop the lid on and let simmer for about an hour. Checking regularly. Top it up with water if it begins to stick to the pan or dry out.

The flat breads were easier to do than I expected. All you need is 500 g of plain flour, 7 g bread yeast, bit of salt, olive oil and honey.
Mix the yeast with 300 ml of warm water, stir this into the flour with the rest of the ingredients. Knead for a good 5 minutes then leave in an oiled bowl for about an hour to prove.

Once it has proved, divide up in balls about the size of small oranges. Then attempt to roll them out as flat as you can. Cook by frying over a high heat for 1-2 minutes on each side.
I even remembered to warm the plates for dinner! On a roll tonight even if it is nearly one o clock in the morning and I am blogging...
I got distracted watching Despicable Me.. if you haven't seen this, go rent it! It's brilliant!

Sunday Roast - Lamb

2011-08-16T22:16:00.000+01:00

I've really gotten into the idea of doing a Sunday roast.. The beef worked very well. I'll miss these once college starts. The piece of lamb we got from the butcher was so so to be honest but it still made a decent dinner plus roast veg are always awesome and the gravy was amazing!

His method involves heating the oven to about 240 degree C which is actually the highest our oven will go to. Then plonking the meat on top of chopped, un-pealed vegetables, garlic and herbs.

Drizzle the whole lot in olive oil and place in the oven. As soon as it is in, turn the oven down to 200 degrees C.

I possibly should have chopped off the funny looking bit for appearances but there is a nice chunk of fat on that bit and I'm not going to sacrifice the gravy for the sake of a picture...
This amount of lamb (approx 1.5 kg) will take 1 hour 20 minutes to cook until nicely pink in the middle.

Do remember to let it rest a while before serving.

The vegetables the lamb is sitting on need to be turned into gravy once the lamb is cooked. It tastes too amazing to not do it.
The veg are: 2 onions, 2 carrots and 2 sticks of celery, along with one bulb of garlic.

After removing about 90% of the hot fat from the tray, I transfer the vegetables and meat juices to a small pot, he says to place the baking tray onto the hob... I really can't picture a hob that would fit my tray on top... I wonder is his oven huge...

Anyway, a small pot works fine! You want to cover these in a good tablespoon of plain flour, then mashed them up well with a glass of red wine.

Again, it's just not at all pretty... but if you could smell it, your mouth would be watering right now. All you have to do now it strain it and while the leftover bits are still in the strainer pour hot stock throw it to catch all the flavour.

I also made a mint sauce, which was incredibly easy to do. Simply dissolve 20 g of sugar in 100 ml of water, pour this over chopped mint, add two tablespoons of red wine vinegar and season with salt and pepper.

And then of course the roast vegetables. It's so easy to time this dinner. My biggest downfall when making curries or stews is completely forgetting I need to put on the rice or potatoes...

Once you have placed the lamb into the oven you have plenty of time to start preparing these. You want a whole load of potatoes, 6 carrots and 6 parsnips.

Peel everything, and cut up into the shape or size you want. Throw the carrots and potatoes into boiling salted water for 5 minutes, then add the parsnips for another 4 minutes. Drain and allow to dry in a colander. Give it all a good shake before transferring these to the baking tray to try fluff up the potatoes a bit.

Roast these in the oven for an hour with olive oil, 6 cloves of garlic, 3 sprigs of rosemary, salt and pepper. Making sure that they are all spread out so they roast not steam.

And there you have it, one lovely roast dinner. I have done a roast pork but still haven't got around to writing it up. If I can talk people into sitting down for a roast chicken I'll have completed the roast dinners section in "The Ministry of Food".

Goals - Update

2011-08-16T10:00:00.073+01:00

Becoming More Organised

Getting there, slowly but surely. Must. Not. Become. Crazy. Cat. Lady. I did really genuinely appear to be on the way there. More than a bit worrying.
Last goal list.

General

Organise Room - I've managed to clear out my book shelfs!

For perspective I managed to fill two bags with the books I didn't put back on these shelfs...

How do I have this much stuff?

I've also gathered up all the teddies I still have in my bedroom. I really don't know why they are all still here. I clearly have never given any away ever. Some aren't even mine =/

I never went through a hello kitty phase, where did that one come from? Anyone missing a teddy?

A wee bit creepy? I've popped them into the attic until I can figure out which are definitely mine and take these to a charity shop.

Well I've kept one... He's cute and the top of the wardrobe looked awfully bare with nothing there. Must print a picture to fit in photo-frame...

2. Start waking up earlier.

Career

Revise.
Buy new notebooks and pens.

Health & Fitness

Get back into the habit of drinking two litres of water a day.
Complete C25K.
Make soup more regularly.

Cooking

Cook through Jamie Oliver's "Ministry of Food".
Work on presentation.

I believe I am getting a bit better, still far from tastespotting standards but maybe a step closer.

Not a very organised month... Looking forward to starting college and having a proper routine of some sort.

A Very Simple Curry

2011-08-14T10:00:00.000+01:00

I never thought it was possible to whip up a curry this fast. It's much creamier and lighter than a Supermacs curry...

*Begins search for thick more junk food like curry*

Begin by adding a good dash of olive oil to a hot pan, mix in three tablespoons of curry powder, throw in 6 chopped spring onions, tip in a tin of coconut milk and cook for 2 to 3 minutes.

Season with salt, pepper and coriander leaf.

I added 2 tablespoons of flour and let it reduce down a bit. It didn't quite reach dipping sauce consistency... but the flavour was nice.

This would be better served over chicken and rice.

Pea and Mint Soup

2011-08-13T10:00:00.002+01:00

This is a flavour combination I had never tried before. I wasn't sure what to expect but it really worked. Might even be nice cold.

2 carrots, 2 onions, 2 sticks of celery, 2 cloves of garlic all thrown into a wok or large pan with a splash of olive oil and seasoned.

Softened for ten minutes.

Then transferred to a pot with your frozen peas and vegetable stock. Simmer for 20 minutes. Season with mint, salt and pepper. Simples.

Rough Calorie Count: 50 kcal a portion

Fish Pie

2011-08-12T12:05:00.000+01:00

The selection of fish on offer around here tends to be quite random. One day there are loads of options, the next day there will be smoked salmon and nothing else. I've yet to see any sort of pattern to when there will be fish.
I was searching for the frozen bags of mixed fish for this one but there was literally no frozen fish apart from fish fingers or breaded cod.

So my only option was smoked coley which is similar to cod. This would be nicer with a decent mix of different types of fish.

Line the bottom of an oven dish with the fish, grated carrots and frozen peas. Season well with salt, pepper, lemon juice and fish sauce.

Top with mashed potatoes and bake in the oven for 20 minutes at 200 degrees C. This goes oddly well with a bit of ketchup on the side.

Chicken and White Wine Stew

2011-08-11T12:38:00.002+01:00

Lashing rain and dropping temperatures calls for comfort food.

A basic stew is as easy as they come. All you need is a decent casserole dish.

Firstly, soften 2 carrots, 2 sticks of celery and 2 onions in a dash of olive oil for ten minutes.

Place these vegetables with a tablespoon of flour, chicken fillets, one tin of tomatoes and a glass of white wine into the casserole dish.

Season with salt, pepper and thyme.

Cook for an hour and a half at 200 degrees C.

Constructive Criticism

2011-08-10T19:05:00.000+01:00

What makes criticism, constructive criticism?

Are good intentions enough?

I don't think so, it's not difficult to say things nicely or politely. It's much harder to brush off comments that feel like insults simply by assuming the person had good intentions.

"You look like crap today"

"You're boring"

"Your food doesn't look appealing"

Even meant with the best of intentions these are not the slightest bit constructive. Maybe they meant I'd look more put together with a bit of mascara or I'd be "cooler" in their eyes if I'd remember the names of the people I no longer talk to so we could gossip on whether or not they are pregnant...

A plate of paste may not be the prettiest of dishes. It was fresh and flavourful, served with garlic bread straight out of the oven.

Broccoli and Pesto Pasta

Cook the broccoli along with the pasta, in the last three minutes of cooking time throw in some potato shavings.

Drain well, then return to pot.

Mix in pesto and parmesan cheese.

I made my own pesto for this. I wish you could transfer smells across the blogosphere.

Chopped Pesto

Place a large handful of basil leaves, a handful of pine nuts, one clove of garlic, a large handful of parmesan cheese, extra virgin olive oil, juice of 1/2 a lemon, sea salt and pepper into a food processor.

Blitz until you have a paste.

Not all that pretty inside in the processor? I don't own a little white bowl I could transfer it to simply to take a picture...

Your angles are wrong /= constructive criticism

This angle would look better = constructive criticism

Your food is too posh /= constructive criticism

I rather simple flavours = your taste

Parsnip and Ginger Soup

2011-08-10T12:38:00.001+01:00

I love knowing exactly what has gone into the food I serve. Even if the packet promises it contains 2 of your 5 a day do you trust it?

2 carrots, 2 onions, 2 sticks of celery, 6 parsnips, chunk of ginger, 2 cloves of garlic all thrown into a wok or large pan with a splash of olive oil and seasoned.

Softened for ten minutes.

Transfer to a pot and cover with vegetable stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes.

I wonder is it worth it to prepare your own vegetable stock?

I don't know where I would store it if I did start doing that...

New Hair!

2011-08-09T19:14:00.000+01:00

I am fairly sure I was about four the last time I had my hair this short. My head feels so light! My hair had gotten ridiculously long, though me changing my hair at all is usually simply move fringe a bit, change colour slightly. Big change is a bit Aaaah!

But it sits into a simple ponytail much more neatly.

I am really happy with it. No more waiting an age for it to dry =D

Cake Pops

2011-08-09T12:19:00.006+01:00

These are popping up all over the food blogosphere. After the Kitchen Goddess (In training) made them sound so easy I decided I had to try them.
These are one of the most adorable food trends I have ever seen. My last two attempts at macarons were not pretty. I may have to have another go at those...

They appear to come in three levels of difficulty...

Picture is from: here.

Goal: Perfect these by December 5th.

The No-Bake Cake Pop. - simply crush oreo cookies with cream cheese, roll into balls, add lollipop stick and leave to set in the fridge, once they have set dip in melted chocolate and decorate, place back in the fridge for the chocolate to harden.
The Cake Pop. - break up a somewhat stale cake into crumbs, add ganache or frosting, roll into balls, add lollipop stick, refrigerate, dip in melted chocolate, decorate and place back in the fridge.
The Cheesecake Pop - attempting to make a cake pop out of a cheesecake, this sounds awfully sticky.

I decided to try my hand at regular cake pops first. I chose the mega chocolate fudge cake as I imagined it would be sticky enough on its own to roll into balls. Which it was.

Also meant we got to eat half a mega chocolate fudge cake. Win!

They rolled into balls quite well. I left them to set in the fridge for a few hours, then attempted to cover them in melted chocolate...

That didn't quite work... The cake started to go soft as soon as the chocolate hit them, making the majority of them lose their shape.

I threw three into the freezer before coating with chocolate to see if they would fair any better. Those ones held their shape and the chocolate hardened as soon as it hit the frozen cake.

(I didn't have any lollipop sticks.. but found some cocktail sticks)

Only problem is with freezing a cake, you'd expect it to expand and form ice crystals in the middle. Not chunks of ice or anything, just enough that even after the cake pops have been placed into the fridge for the chocolate to set you're left with a somewhat diluted flavour and the cake has dried out a bit.

Sure enough when I compared the cake pops this is what I got.

The frozen cake is no where near as moist as the refrigerated cake. The refrigerated cake is not as pretty as the frozen cake.

Can I really sacrifice taste for the sake of presentation?

I think no. So back to the drawing board I go...

Homemade Pizza

2011-08-08T16:56:00.000+01:00

I do feel I need to warn you. If you start making your own pizzas, you will never go back. You will never feel satisfied with a frozen or takeaway pizza again.
Frozen are tasteless compared and takeaway are often far too greasy with cheap stringy excuses for cheese.

Making your own pizza from scratch is remarkably easy to do, it just takes patience and planning. You need to let the dough rise. It will taste similar to frozen bland pizzas if you don't.
Past attempts at pizza have been imperfect and a bit messy looking but have always come out tasting much nicer than anything you could buy frozen.

This time I have combined the old recipe with a new blogger's instructions. So this time using plain cream flour instead of strong bread flour, shall be interesting to see if that makes a difference. Plus leaving the dough to prove overnight.

"Because it makes it way, way tastier. Allowing the dough to prove in the fridge overnight is known as using a long autolyse and it allows the water in the dough to break the natural sugars in the flour down more completely, giving a much more complex taste than a shorter, warmer process would. Try them both and see. Believe me, you'll go back to the overnight method."

So here is my updated recipe:

Pizza Base

7 g bread yeast

350 g of flour

pinch of salt

water

Pour the yeast into a glass(500ml ish), and a drop of milk. Whisk with fork.

Fill glass up to 1/2 with cold water.

Then top up until nearly full with water from a kettle off the boil for a few minutes.

This gives a warm yeast mixture.

Leave to stand for 5 minutes.

Too hot a temperature kills yeast.

Too cold a temperature slows it down so dough won't rise.

(Should be lighter in colour as I completely forgot to add milk)

Meanwhile add your flour and salt to the largest bowl you own.

Make a well in the middle.

Pour in about 1/3 of your yeast mixture.

Mix together with a fork, starting with the middle working outwards.

Slowly add more yeast mixture when needed.

Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic.

(Recommend keeping the dough in the door while kneading, saves on cleaning)

Separate the dough into two.

Leave both to prove in a covered, oiled bowl in the fridge overnight

Once the dough has proved, roll out into a pizza shape.

I can never quite get it into a proper circle... but it gets closer each time.

To make the tomato sauce simply reduce down and season.
Top pizza with whatever you happen to have.

Remembering to dry the mozzarella to avoid puddles of cheese water.

Bake in a preheated oven at 200 degrees for 20 minutes.

A pizza stone and an incredibly hot oven will apparently give you a much more amazing pizza.

This recipe is very practical as I can throw on some chicken along side it for anyone not interested in pizza.

*Dreams of owning my own house with an outdoor pizza oven*

Party Food?

2011-08-06T17:42:00.000+01:00

** Searches the internet for party food **

What makes for good party food?

Something easy to eat, simple to serve and somewhat stylish but fun so you look like you know what you are doing...

Hit the name of the dish for a link to the recipes.

Pizza?

http://ruminationsrugbyruination.blogspot.com/

Cupcakes?

http://brownsugarbee.blogspot.com/

Potato nibbles?

http://www.folkmann.ca/

Chicken Wings?

http://appetiteforchina.com/

Salmon Rolls?

Chocolate Strawberries?

Cake pops?

http://www.plaingourmet.com/

We will be celebrating my brother's grad, I think mostly because the neighbours were promised we will...

So what are your party food must haves?

Any tips if you've attempted any of these before?

Or any suggestions instead of these choices?

I shall be trying out the recipes before hand, half to practice, half as an excuse to eat party food... Noms.

Hmmm

2011-08-05T21:41:00.000+01:00

Begins marking ticks in the to-do check list for the next academic year. The big ones like accommodation have been sorted... The fun ones like notebook and pen shopping are still to do.
Does everyone else feel the need for all new notebooks for each new semester?

Also really need to get around to cutting my hair... The length is impractical at this stage. It's still wet but you get the idea.

Thinking this short...

I haven't had mine that short since I was about 5 or 6... It'd be soo much faster to dry... and it'll sit into a neater ponytail... and I really need a change.

New Obsession...

2011-08-01T23:03:00.000+01:00

The Good Wife...

I've now seen every episode in season 1 and 2.

Strong female characters... men in suits... what's not to love?

The wardrobe is nearly enough to make you want to be a lawyer... Nearly...

Or just... work in an office somewhere.

Everyone cross their fingers that RTE will show season 3 in September when it's released.

Why is it hard..?

2011-07-31T16:28:00.000+01:00

To do the things that should be easy...

Like continuing to talk until things have been resolved.

Or having enough ash trays so no butts end up soaking in the ends of a beer can.

Or stopping self from eating all the cookie dough before baking.

All three make me feel a bit ill.

So many bottles...

2011-07-30T16:36:00.000+01:00

So much drink...

Tea cures all.

Burgers!

2011-07-26T18:42:00.000+01:00

Did you know the burger originates from Mongolia? Some time during the 12th century... Random info for the day.

My old recipe for burger buns called for strong white flour. I'd never questioned it. I left it out this time, and simply used plain cream flour instead.

I started by making the dough

7 g of bread yeast

3 and a half cups of plain cream flour

1 large egg

milk

teaspoon of salt

To make the dough, I mixed the yeast with a tablespoon of milk, filled the glass to half way with boiling water and then topped up with more milk.

I find that keeps it at a warm enough temperate for the yeast to active without killing it.

Mix all the ingredients together and knead it all together.

Then the dough sit and rise for at least an hour

Bake in the oven at 200 degrees C for 15 minutes

I expected these to rise more in the oven. So they were a bit smaller than I would have liked but they tasted amazing.

While the dough was rising, I made the potato wedges. This is the first time I have managed to get potato wedges looking like potato wedges. Topping them in half, then into thirds appears to work.

I peeled these as the skins were very covered in mud.

Wedge shaped wedges! I boiled these for ten minutes then let them steam dry

Seasoned with salt, pepper parsley, cayenne chilli powder and paprika.

Then baked in the oven for 40 minutes.

I threw on some peppers for some veggies.

The burger recipe is Jamie Oliver's and can be found here.

Go Karting Was Painful

2011-07-26T12:33:00.000+01:00

I am in bits this morning, I feel so bruised. While I drove like a little old woman, spending half the time pulling in to the side to let people pass me out, everyone else raced around the track. I can't imagine how they feel this morning...
The whole thing was kind of ruined by one guy who acted like it was bumper cars. It was terrifying enough going around the track and trying not to crash into the borders, without having to watch out will somebody ram into the back of you.

He pushed me around half the track I think at one stage, there's no wing mirrors and it's difficult to look behind you when you feel you have lost control of the car.
I don't know if I would consider going again. It's definitely not something I would organise... Might sit it out if anyone who priorities winning over not injuring everybody is joining us.
He didn't even win in the end.

Favourite Recipes So Far

One Cup Pancakes

Leek and Potato Soup

Fruit Scones

Chorizo and Sweet Potato Soup

I do have a thing for comfort food... But Jamie Oliver really does do the basics incredibly well... Hmm might go make some more pancakes...

Parents have left for Norway...

2011-07-25T16:10:00.000+01:00

Family home... No parents for a week... So my brother started cleaning and I started baking...
We'd make for awfully boring reality TV.

Gathered ingredients in the now spotless kitchen. Even had black and green's chocolate...

Black and green's is my favourite chocolate to bake with. Normally in cookies they end up as ripples of chocolate throughout.

I kept this amount of cookie dough for eating raw. It is so tasty. Good thing I did... As they went in looking perfect and came out...

They just flopped... Well the chocolate melted before the cookies even started to cook... So there is cookie bits in a mess of melted semi cooked chocolate... Taste nice, just aren't quite cookies...

Roast Beef

2011-07-24T17:01:00.000+01:00

We rarely do a Sunday roast. It tends to be chicken and chips.. anything that won't take the chef away from the match for too long.
Fortunately I have taken over the kitchen... Nom nom. I can see why people might look forward to a Sunday.

The trick for the beef appears to be to turn the oven up to it's highest temperature to preheat and then turn it down to 200 degrees C as soon as you pop the meat in.

And to sit the beef on top of a pile of unpeeled vegetables. Which do help to make an amazing gravy after the beef has cooked.

I scooped out about a tablespoon of the oily beefy goodness for each yorkshire pudding. Then mashed up the veg, added wine and beef stock and reduced into a gravy.

These are a work-in-progress. This was my second ever attempt. I may need a proper muffin sized baking tray to get them to rise into a reasonable looking shape. They taste really nice just could do with being a bit crispy on the outside...

Giant chuck of meat

Served with homemade yorkshire puddings

With yummy roast veg.

Chorizo and Sweet Potato Soup

2011-07-23T21:57:00.000+01:00

Mmm soup. Recipe number 36. Simple, quick and delicious. What more could you ask for in a supper?

Chop up all the vegetables, 2 cloves of garlic and the chorizo .

2 carrots, 2 sticks of celery, 2 onions, one large sweet potato

Season with salt, pepper, parsley and 1 heaped teaspoon of curry powder

Soften for ten minutes in a large pan. Then transfer to a pot, pour over enough vegetable stock to cover and simmer for another ten minutes or until the sweet potato is cooked.

Blend until smooth. I rather a hand held blender than one where you have to physically transfer the soup into a container as it is much faster.

Tip: Hold a tea towel around the edges of the pot to save yourself getting splattered with boiling hot soup. Or leave it cool... I tend to be hungry and impatient.

Optional: Sprinkle over with chopped red chilli before serving.

Help - Does This Work?

2011-07-22T23:48:00.000+01:00

I stumbled across Picnik yesterday, an online photo editing app. I've been playing around with it a bit and all it has told me is that I have a terrible eye as I can't see any real difference when moving the sharpness scroll bar thing, moving the contrast one makes everything look strange... But auto-fix makes it look clearly different, like suddenly my lighting is somewhat normal...

So before editing:

After editing:

This looks much better as it's brighter? It doesn't look odd or fake?

Before editing:

After editing:

Not as big a difference in this one?

Before editing:

After editing:

Can anyone see a difference in these two?

*searches for terrible picture*

Anyone see a huge difference between the different pictures? Worth hitting the auto-correct button?

Olde Sweet Shoppe

2011-07-21T22:07:00.000+01:00

After searching the city for an O'Sullivan's bookshop which nobody has heard of and I am now suspecting does not exist, we stumbled on this little sweet shop.

I have looked around the place before... been very tempted but today was the first time I actually made a purchase.

AMAZING.

Anyone else have one of these shops near them? Recommend any other flavours? There aren't words to describe how epic this chocolate was.

Be nice to me and I'll post you some.

*Builds lair out of chocolate*

Leek and Potato Soup

2011-07-20T17:34:00.000+01:00

This was the very first soup I made. It's still the most comforting soup I have ever tasted. The waxier the potato, the thicker and creamier the soup will be.

This is recipe number 35 from Jamie Oliver's "Ministry of Food".

Such a warming lunch or quick snack and creamy enough to feel indulgent. Handy to have in the fridge to talk self out of snacking on mars bars.

Two carrots, peeled and chopped

Two onions, chopped

400 g of leeks plus 2 cloves of garlic

Softened for ten minutes in a large pan

Potatoes, peeled, chopped up thin, along with the veg and veg stock

Cooked, blended and ready to serve after 20 minutes

Dark Chocolate and Seville Orange Marmalade Porridge

2011-07-20T09:30:00.001+01:00

Recipe 34 from Jamie Oliver's "Ministry of Food". Made entirely to just tick another off my list... I really don't like the combination of chocolate and orange.

Made simply with grated dark chocolate and marmalade.

Roast Pork with Spinach and Spring Onions

2011-07-19T21:01:00.001+01:00

Is deciding what to make for dinner a stressful battle in any other house? It is rare to get an answer to what would you like to have for dinner.
Handing people a cookbook to pick something from, preferably something new out of the 120 or so recipes left, you'd think I'd just asked them to sit an exam.

Today was even more difficult than usual. The next cookbook I attempt to work my way through I might work from page 1 until the last page and just get rid of free choice altogether.

We ended up buying a new food magazine in the shops just to narrow down the choices at random. Browsing through Delicious magazine we decided on roast pork.

I'm not sure what is up with the picture. My phone's lens must have been dirty. Ignore the bottom half of the picture...

We had got a particularly lovely cut of pork from the butchers. It was simple to cook.

Score the skin and rub with sea salt

Leave to rest in the fridge of 1-2 hours

Preheat oven to 220 C

Rub the meat with olive oil

Roast for 30 minutes on the high heat

Then turn the temperature down to 190 C

Cook for another 50 minutes

Leave to rest

Serve with mashed potato, spinach and spring onion.

Travelling By Train..

2011-07-18T23:26:00.000+01:00

Some incidents in life just leave you wondering are you the insane one or could it really be everybody else...
The last few train journeys I have taken have given me the clear impression that quietly reading a book is simply not the done thing any more.

As clearly head in a book means start a conversation with me, then continue to force small talk when neither of us has anything else left to say and the conversation turns to you asking me a series of random questions.

Do you drink?
Do you live in Limerick?
Have you got the paper?
What you reading?

Why? Why force a conversation when it has well and truly died? Take my spare book and hush up. There are only so many questions I will answer before you start to sound like a would-be stalker.

My very last train journey was the oddest yet.

1st weird incident:

Somebody two or three chairs behind me was playing pirate shanties. Proper yo ho ho and a bottle of rum pirate shanties. Continuously for at least half an hour.

2nd weird incident:

There was a nun a few seats ahead of me, chatting away to a elderly woman in an luminous pink outfit. Think My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding type of pink outfit. Next to a genuine looking nun.

3rd weird incident:

Once the pirate shanties stopped, a man somewhere behind me got a phone call... It was seemingly his first time on the newer trains...

Hello?
I can't hear you too well.. I'm on a train.
I CAN'T HEAR YOU.
I AM ON A TRAIN.
NO. A TRAIN!
It's a new train. It's actually really nice.
Yeah.. the toilets are huge.
Nah I didn't use them but I seen them. The doors slide.
THE DOORS SLIDE.
THEY SLIDE.
NO I HAVEN'T USED THE TOILET YET.
I HAVEN'T PEED YET.
I HAVEN'T HAD TO PEE.
I just didn't have to go yet.
I DIDN'T HAVE TO GO YET.
But they look nice.

Clearly an important conversation worth roaring across a train for. Couldn't possibly have carried this out through text. Clearly.

4th weird incident:

I went to the bathroom in the station to fix curls and change shoes in some comfort. A woman barged in, skipped the queue and proceeded to bang on all the cubical doors screaming

GET OUT. GET OUT. I NEED TO PEE. HURRY UP. NOW NOW.

Nobody appeared to pay any attention to her... Then she started asking how to get to Mountjoy...

At least I did manage to have a perfectly nice weekend in Dublin in between crazy train journeys.

On the home journey a group of six sat at the two tables in front of me. They were loud getting on. I should have known it was going to be a long journey. I should have moved...
Would it have been terribly rude to change seats after they sat down?

They spent the entire journey conversing really loudly about nothing in particular. Think price of pretzels on a train versus on a ferry...

Then the conductor/recording didn't call out Limerick Junction as one of the coming stops.

Panic ensued.

Followed by about an hour of we're on the wrong train... Ask somebody... No he would have called it if it was going to stop.. You get the idea.
I attempted to get a word in a few times but I am not loud enough to make it in over the panic.

I miss the days of peaceful carriages, people reading the newspaper or typing away on laptops.
Where have all the business men gone?

Goals - One Month In

2011-07-16T10:00:00.005+01:00

Becoming More Organised

Shopping lists, mental check lists, to-do lists and now long list of module choices for next year. Everything is less over-whelming in list form.

Original list of goals.

General

Organise room. - Half way there, literally have no more space to put things away until I get rid of more stuff.
Start waking up earlier.
~~Bag any shoes I no longer wear.~~
~~Go through all the beauty products I have collected~~.

No idea why I have this amount of stuff... Or well still have this amount of stuff lying about my room. I found my very first handbag along with a teddy bear shaped lip balm. Clearly I am a hoarder and should work on this before I wake up someday with 12 cats and no space to move.

Career

Revise.
Complete degree.

I passed! Every exam! Was genuinely quite shocked. So have been flicking through the possible module options for next year, attempting to decide which look the most interesting.

Cooking

Complete Jamie Oliver's "Ministry of Food" - Over 30 recipes completed.
Work on presentation.

This has been fun, introduced family to butter-squash, perfected American style pancakes and my parents would rather have his Indian curries than ordering a take-away. Win!

Health & Fitness

Complete Couch to 5 K running plan - I'm on week 4.
Reach goal weight.

Determined to actually finish this program. Working on it.

Books

Read something astrophysics related.

Finished "The Beauty Myth" by Naomi Wolf. Still formulating her points in my head. It begins somewhat anti-men until you realise she doesn't mean men, she means the beauty industry.. just refers to the heads of the beauty industry as men. They might all be men. The majority of them are quite likely to be men given that the top CEOs etc etc of most industries tend to be male but she would do well to re-phase pieces.

Wishlist

Hasn't changed.

Overall I am not doing too badly so far.

Will. Become. Organised.

Pasta Al Pangrattato

2011-07-14T16:41:00.000+01:00

Recipe number 33 from Jamie Oliver's "Ministry of Food".

Recipe.

Apologies for the clearly out of focus picture.

Pangrattato appears to simply be the Italian for breadcrumbs. It generally means crispy stale breadcrumbs with garlic and herbs.

If I was making this again I would definitely swap the anchovies for tuna. Personally I think the anchovies give it far too strong a salty favour.

Baked Cod Wrapped In Bacon With Rosemary

2011-07-11T15:13:00.000+01:00

Recipe number 32 from Jamie Oliver's "Ministry of Food".

Recipe: Season cod with salt, pepper and rosemary, wrap in bacon. Drizzle with olive oil. Bake in a pre-heated oven for 10 to 12 minutes.

Serve with new potatoes.

Aloo Gobhi

2011-07-11T14:57:00.000+01:00

Recipe number 31 from Jamie Oliver's "Ministry of Food".

Recipe.

If you haven't realised already I love potatoes. This is a potato and cauliflower curry. So very easy to make and I now have a container full of it in the food for snack food. Nom nom nom.

It appears to be an Indian/Pakistani according to wiki. I wonder do they completely share a cuisine or are there many dishes that are entirely Indian or Pakistani in origin?

Chicken Korma

2011-07-11T14:37:00.000+01:00

Recipe number 30 from Jamie Oliver's "Ministry of Food".

This was lovely and mild. A perfect introduction to curries for children or for people who have managed to grow up never tasting one.

Although if I was doing this again I would leave the chicken fillets whole. Then maybe chop them up once the whole thing is fully cooked.

Recipe.

Personally I'd feel like cheating using the curry paste from a jar. I had never realised they were so easy to make.

Korma Paste: 2 cloves of garlic, a thumb-sized piece of fresh root ginger, 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, 1 teaspoon garam masala, 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, 2 tablespoons groundnut oil, 1 tablespoon tomato purée, 2 fresh green chillies, 3 tablespoons desiccated coconut, 2 tablespoons ground almonds, a small bunch of fresh coriander. Toasted: 2 teaspoons cumin seeds, 1 teaspoon coriander seeds.

Pop it all in a food processor. And done!