Tonight's evening meal was another Pinterest find, that I tried, liked and will be trying again. Unfortunately I'd run out of chilli flakes so I had to leave them out. However, it was another quick & tasty meal to add to my favourites.
Today was the day my oldest nephew turned 19 and made me feel really old. Today was also the day I tried making chocolate bark for the first time. Right now, you're probably thinking 'What on earth is chocolate bark?'. Well this is another thing that Pinterest has taught me. I first came across bark when I repinned a photo (below) of some that had been shared by a friend.
So today I set about making this delicious looking treat as a present for my nephew's birthday. Unfortunately the bark in the photo above was made with limited edition M&Ms only available in America. After searching the net for other ideas, I decided I'd invent my own combinations.
Basically, bark is melted chocolate spread across baking paper and topped with whatever you choose. This can be other chocolates, sweets, dried fruits or nuts. You then put it in the fridge for an hour and then break or slice into pieces. Mine has turned out a bit thicker than the above as I wasn't entirely sure how much chocolate to use for each one.
1) White chocolate, strawberry flavour buttons & Coco pops
Tesco have just started stocking these strawberry buttons made by Silver Spoon.
I started by melting white chocolate, and once that was set I poured the melted strawberry buttons over the top.
I then topped this with Coco Pops
2) Cookies & Cream
For this one I melted white chocolate, stirred in broken up Oreo cookies, spread into the tin and then topped with more broken up Oreo cookies.
3) M&Ms
This one is the one I could improve on. For this I melted milk chocolate and topped with M&Ms. In hindsight I feel it would have worked better if I'd stirred the M&Ms in rather than using them as a topping.
4) Swirled
To make this I melted milk chocolate and immediately topped it with melted white chocolate and then swirled the 2 chocolates together. I then topped with Galaxy caramel bites.
These were really simple to make and have loads of topping options. I will be definitely be making these again. Thank you Pinterest.
I've been wanting to try these since seeing them on Pinterest last week. After being lazy and deciding not to cook the beef we'd bought for Sunday dinner, I decided to try these out.
I used a 4 hole Yorkshire pudding tin, and didn't have a cutter big enough to cut the circles, so just trimmed the crusts off and cut each slice in half.
To save on washing up I melted butter in the tin on the hob, and buttered each slice of bread before putting them in the tin.
Here are mine
As you can see, the eggs are a bit overdone. The recipe says to cook for 20-25 mins.
They still tasted good, although next time I'll be putting them in for 15.
Last week I discovered Pinterest, an online pin board where you can create boards of ideas and share them with other people. It didn't take me long to start getting addicted to pinning, and I've started to build up a good collection of recipes and craft ideas I would like to try out. I decided this would be a perfect blog opportunity.
So yesterday I made chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake bars which were originally pinned from the blog 'My Baking Addiction'. As this is a US recipe I had to work out my quantities first. Luckily we were bought some measuring cups as a wedding present, so some measurements stayed the same. However, if you don't have these, there's a great conversion chart here. I also found this useful for the butter.
To save you looking it up, 5 tbsp butter converts to 2.5 ounces. I also wasn't sure what Graham crackers were so used digestive biscuits as these are usually the base for cheesecakes. 1 1/2 cups were roughly 1/3 of a 400g packet. Lastly, 325 F oven temperature is about 190 C.
I'll let you follow the original recipe. However, I would like to share a few photos of the process.
All the ingredients measured and ready
Making the cookie dough
I used a round tin as my oblong one was too big for the quantity of biscuit base.
Tonight's recipe share is from BBC Goodfood. The actual recipe is Spanish rice with chorizo & prawns. However, I don't like prawns so I decided to leave them out. For the full recipe, click here. For my version, with step by step photos, please keep on reading.
1) Slice one onion and cut one red pepper into chunks. I used a red onion, and a variety of peppers to use up what I had in the fridge.
2) Gently fry them in 2 tbsp olive oil until soft.
3) Add the chopped up chorizo
4) Cook until the oil starts to come out of the chorizo
5) Add the paella rice and stir so it's all coated in the oil
6) Stir the saffron into the stock and pour into the pan
7) Cover and cook for 15 minutes until the rice has absorbed the liquid
8) Serve, and enjoy! We certainly did!
This was so quick and easy to make, yet tasted really good. This will definitely become a regular meal in this house. We'll probably experiment with the ingredients too.
For the list of the ingredients and the full recipe, please click here
As you may know, me and my husband have been experimenting with cocktails lately. I've had some friends asking for the recipes to some of the cocktails we've tried. So from now on, I'll try and share the recipes each weekend, just as I'm trying to do with new meals I've been cooking.
Tonight's cocktail is called Almond Joy. The measurements were in ounces, and it was easier to convert to tablespoons than jigger measures.
For this you will need:
1tbsp Malibu/Coconut Rum
2 tbsp Disaronno/Amaretto
2 tbsp Creme de Cacao
4 tbsp cream
ice
Add all the ingredients to a cocktail shaker, shake and strain into a hi-ball glass filled with ice.
Tonight's recipe share was taken from Sarah's Cake Blog. Last week, fellow blogger Sarah made a delicious looking cheese & bacon plait, in her baking with kids feature. Being a fan of quick and easy to make meals, and seeing the opportunity to grab a recipe and adapt it to my own tastes, I thought I'd give this a go, and as I have no kids, I cooked alone!
The difference? Sarah used bacon, white onion and cheese in her puff pastry plait. I chose to use pancetta, red onion, cheese, and some left over peppers. I also cheated by using ready rolled puff pastry.
After grating some mature cheddar cheese, I laid the ready rolled pastry on a lightly floured board.
Using a knife I lightly marked lines vertically down the pastry sheet, marking it into 3. I then started laying the ingredients along the middle section.
Using a sharper knife, I made diagonal cuts in the pastry on each side of the filling.
Using beaten egg to stick the pastry together, I started one end, bringing a strip of pastry from each side, over the top of the filling to create a plaited look.
I then brushed beaten egg over the top, lifted onto a baking sheet, and baked for 25 minutes at 190 degrees. Sarah baked hers for 30 minutes at 180. I have a fan assisted oven, so you may want to adjust to suit your oven type.
I served mine with a baby leaf salad, simply dressed with a vinaigrette made of olive oil, balsamic vinegar and lemon juice.
This is a versatile pastry dish that could be made with just about any filling you like, would be a great way for using up leftovers, and would be delicious hot or cold.
Thanks again to Sarah for sharing the recipe first. If you would like to see Sarah's original recipe, click here.
A day later than promised, but here is my Soundtrack to February. This is a selection of some of the songs I listened to most last month, in no particular order. Hoping to give an insight into my musical tastes. Enjoy!
