Planning and Procrastination: Raspberry Lemon and White Chocolate Slice

I am in the final year of my Masters degree in Law and despite the fact that I have only had 1 subject to do this semester I have absolutely no motivation. In the beginning my motivation for doing my Masters was all about creating opportunities in case I ever wanted to seize the moment. I have never been a great planner of things in life, I never planned to be a lawyer and although I have dabbled in creating 5 year plans in my early twenties, a 5 day meal plan is about the best I can manage now. However when I know something needs to be done I unexpectedly become an excellent planner, I go about radically setting new goals and finding new motivation. I suddenly gather the focus and determination  to spend 2 hours googling lipstick colours while in my pj’s. A potentially crucial step on the path to my new goal of being an expert at retro make up techniques….. True none of this is may lead to a distinction on my criminology essay, but maybe I will find that elusive plum lipstick that you can wear from day to night. Lets be honest isn’t that an equally noble goal

Knowing that in good conscience I can’t leave the house because I should be chained to my laptop writing another 1000 words on the challenges of the adversarial system (yawn),  I try and find distractions within the home and at some point even I know I have to be cut off from my new googling addiction. So I bake.

I found this Recipe for Blueberry and Lemon Brownies a while ago on Strawberry Ginger, a blog I nominated for the Kreativ blogger award. Having undertaken to really hammer out some of my essay and then go to the shop for the blueberries the recipe required,  I then threw myself into 2 hours of research……this time on platform shoes…..so I never made it to the shops. Instead I improvised and thereby altered the recipe slightly using what I could find within my house. The alterations are as follows

• frozen raspberries (not thawed),
• doubled the zest content ( I like a lot of lemon)
• white chocolate chips added to the mixture instead of creating a drizzle (just pure laziness on my part)

This was a really nice slice and I will make it again but probably double the quantities because too much of a good thing is never enough. Miss Meat had seconds every time she had a piece because apparently she felt it wasn’t so overpoweringly sweet that it required self restraint.

At least i have something to show for my web surfing!

How do you procrastinate? Are you a planner?

Tags: Berries, Food, Lemon, Raspberry, Recipes, Slices

Adventures in Eggs: Smoked Trout Omelette

This is not really a recipe that requires a post but it does make a fairly regular appearance in my weekly menu plans usually on a Tuesday night when leftovers from the weekend are used up and my mind is still plagued by that beginning of the week brain fog.

I make an omelette with more variations that I can think of and it is a useful way to use up some eggs, which as previously mentioned I currently have in plentiful supply.  You can of course use cream, I don’t, not out of any desire to avoid the extra fat but rather just because I like my omelette a bit more light. Sometimes I add a teaspoon of good pesto for a different flavour or even left over roast veges. I suppose this may not be traditionally considered an omelette as I don’t flip it, but on a Tuesday night who has the dexterity to manage that!

Do you suffer from beginning of the week fog?

Smoked Trout, Baby Spinach and Fetta Omelette

Serves 1

• 2 large eggs
• 1 tablespoons of milk
• 50 gms smoked trout torn
• 2 large mushrooms sliced
• Handful of baby spinach
• 25 gms of fetta crumbled

1. Heat frypan with 1 tsp of butter and 1 tbsp of oil on high.

2. Crack 2 eggs into a bowl and add milk whisk until combined

Light Golden Colour

3, Add eggs to the pan and then add sliced mushrooms. Turn the heat down to low

4. Lift the sides of the omelette away from the pan and scrape into the middle allowing the eggy fluid to spill out over the edges into the hot pan ( this makes it easier to remove from the pan in my experience and produces a fluffy edge)

5. Strew the smoked trout into the egg mixture and then top with fetta.

Edges slightly fluffy

6. When the fetta has melted slightly add the baby spinach and gently press into the omelette so that some parts of the spinach are covered in some of the eggy liquid.

7. Pop under a grill for a few minutes until set on top. Fold the Omelette in half and serve by itself or with hot buttered bread.

Tags: Eggs, Fish, Food, Recipes

Adventures with Eggs: Pancetta, Ricotta and Spinach Bake

They say if you have an egg you are wealthy. At the moment I have 25. I have tried buying shoes with them, I have tried paying for my bus ticket with them and well visa apparently doesn’t accept eggs as payment. So I assume I am only wealthy nutritionally speaking. There goes my cunning plan to pay for my cocktails with a carton of eggs and some killer charm

How does one end up with 25 eggs I hear you ask, well I was clearly having a seniors moment when last week I went to the grocery store and thought ‘hmm, I don’t think we have many eggs left, I should buy a dozen, they never go to waste.’ Needless to say to live up to the challenge of an egg not going to waste I have really had to put my brain into action. This post will be one of a few in the coming weeks based around eggs and the wonderful things you can do with them…I hope.

I made this dish to take to a friends house. She is currently moving house and pregnant which is just an awful combination. This made a lovely lunch with some crusty bread. I only very slightly adapted the original recipe by adding pancetta and pine nuts. You could of course keep it completely vegetarian friendly by omitting pancetta, but let’s be honest eggs and bacon a match made in heaven!

Do you ever buy things you don’t need? What are your favourite ways to use up eggs?

Pancetta, ricotta and spinach bake

adapted from BBC Australian Good Food Magazine August 2011

Serves 4

• 150 gms of pancetta sliced
• 250 gms of low fat ricotta drained of excess liquid
• 1 box of frozen chopped spinach defrosted and squeezed of water.
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup of parmesan
• 1/2 cup of pinenuts
• 2 Tomatoes sliced
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees

2. Squeeze spinach between a clean tea towel until all the water you can remove is squeezed out.

3. Fry off the pancetta until slightly crispy. Turn of the heat and add the pinenuts to the same pan. Watch the nuts to make sure they don’t burn.

4. Mix together ricotta, eggs and parmesan with salt and pepper in a bowl.

5. Add spinach, pancetta and pine nuts to the ricotta mix.

6. Pour into a baking dish and top with sliced tomatoes.

7. Bake in oven for 15 minutes or until set and golden on top.

8. Serve with crusty bread and a salad.

Tags: Cheese, Eggs, Food, Nuts, pancetta, Recipes, Ricotta

Self Awareness and M&M Cookies

Recently I have been going through a little stage of hating people. My faith in them has been seriously undermined by a combination of being exposed to the worst qualities in people in both my work and my social life. It doesn’t happen that often, but a few incidents of poor behaviour in a row and a wealth of stewing on and analysing disappointments can really put me in a mood. So here goes the rant….

People just seem to be prepared to have no self awareness.  Let’s be honest no one wants to admit that they can behave badly, but recently I have become increasingly frustrated at people who run away from their mistakes or minimise their involvement. I sometimes feel that this complete unwillingness to be brutally honest with ourselves means that people can engage in some hurtful and often self harming behaviour. We learn nothing and gain nothing when we ignore our failings. We all make mistakes and bad choices, we respond in humanly flawed ways to challenges and humiliations, I think it is how we deal with them that is the measure of who we are and who we will become…. Deep breath….

When I get into my hating people funk I like to spend time with children. I can’t have any expectation that a small child will have any self awareness and empathy, I can’t feel betrayed when they hug me and tell me 5 mins later they don’t like me and I know that all I have to do to win a smile is present them with a cookie. If only everything was so simple. I have to admit these cookies were crunchier than I would have liked but they were still tasty, maybe a little less cooking time would have rendered them more chewy. I also used M&M’s instead of Smarties. Chocolate freckles would be good too.

I brought the cookies along with me for my play date and they did elicit a smile and that smile plus some cuddles went some way to rebuilding my trust in people, plus they look like such happy cookies, how can a world filled with cookies be bad? In the meantime I have to keep practicing acceptance and repeating the mantra the dude abides…the dude abides

M&M Cookies

Very slightly adapted

 

Happiness in a biscuit

 

Do you ever have difficulty accepting things as they are?

 

Tags: Biscuits, Chocolate, Food, Gifts, Recipes, Vanilla, Vegetarian

Indulging for Easter: Black Forest Trifle

When I was a kid, Mutti and I while shopping would sometimes stop for Kaffe and Kuchen. I loved being able to go up to the cake display and with my nose pressed to the glass look at all of the sweet offerings and decide what I would have.

I absolutely love chocolate, particularly dark chocolate, but I am not obsessed with mud cake like so many chocoholics I know, unless it is for breakfast where it seems to possess an all together different appeal……..rather like McDonalds at 2 am after a night out drinking So Black forest cake was often my pick. The slight sourness of the cherries against chocolate sponge and cream were just heavenly.

This Easter after weeks of almost no sugar in my daily diet thanks to my new health kick, I decided to go all out and make a heavenly trifle based on black forest cake I so fondly consumed as a child. There is certainly no shortage of chocolate in this recipe which seemed only fitting for celebrating the day where I can eat chocolate with guilt free glee.

Black Forest Trifle

I won’t lie, this particular version is not exactly a slap dash type of trifle. But I have taken some short cuts which hopefully will make you more inclined to make it. I used cherry brandy because despite Dads best efforts Kirsch could not be found. The cherry liqueur serves to add an echo of cherry flavour to all layers of the trifle and gives it extra depth. The chocolate cake recipe I have used is by no obligatory it just happens to be a quick one bowl wonder and is not so rich as to be over powering, but you can use your favourite chocolate sponge recipe.

I have  used the mousse recipe so many times it doesn’t bear thinking about. I usually use brandy, but in keeping with the cherry theme substituted cherry brandy. Don’t be scared that it will add some strong alcoholic component to the mousse. It really doesn’t but rather enhances the flavour of the chocolate.

While I knew all the components of this trifle were delicious by themselves, I had no idea if placed together they would really work the way I hoped. But I promise that this will not disappoint. Even Dad licked the bowl!

Black Forest Trifle

Serves 6-8

Chocolate Sponge

by Miranda Sharp in Epicure Chocolate

• 3 tbsp butter
• 1 cup of self raising flour
• 2 tbsp of cocoa
• 1 cup castor sugar
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup milk
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract

Chocolate Mousse

adapted from ABC Online

• 300 mil cream
• 30 gms of sugar
• 130 gms of dark chocolate
• 4 eggs, seperated
• 2 tsp of Cherry Brandy

Remaining Layers

• Jar of morello cherries
• 300 mls Whipped cream
• Vanilla pod
• Store bought sponge cake
• Cherry jam

Make the chocolate cake as instructed below;

1. Melt butter and combine with remaining ingredients. Pour into 20 cm cake tin and bake for 20 mins.

2. Once cooled and removed from the tin wrap in cling film and place in the freezer for approximately 30 mins before using. This will make it easier to cut in half.

Make the mousse as instructed below;

1. Whip cream with sugar until soft peaks

2. Melt chocolate in microwave on short bursts. Allow the chocolate to cool slightly and then add brandy, egg yolks and whip until smooth and thickened

3. Fold cream into the chocolate mixture

4. Whip egg whites until soft peaks and then fold 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture, you can be quite cavalier with how you combine this 1^st 1/3 of the egg whites. Add the egg white and chocolate mixture to the remaining 2/3rds of the egg whites folding gently until just combined.

5. Chill.

Next prepare the cherries

1. Drain cherries, put the cherries aside and place the syrup in a small saucepan and bring to a boil.

2. Add 2 tbsp of cherry brandy and reduce the syrup until reduce by half and sticky. Take off the heat and put cherries into the mixture and leave to macerate. The cherry mixture must be completely cooled before using.

Slices are similar heights.

3. Slice vanilla sponge cake in half lengthwise.

4. Slice chocolate sponge in half lengthwise

5.  Slice 1 slice of vanilla sponge on the bottom of trifle bowl. Spread with cherry jam top with 1 slice of chocolate sponge.

6. Top the chocolate sponge with half the cherry mix and spoon over half the syrup.

7. Repeat process until all the sponge, cherries and syrup are used up.

8. Top with Chocolate mousse

9. Whip cream with vanilla seed from 1 vanilla pod and spread on top of trifle.

10. Top with chocolate shavings.

 

Tags: Cherry, Chocolate, Food, Recipes, Trifle, Vanilla

Kreativ Blogger Award

I was awarded some weeks ago the Kreativ blogger award by Susartandfood. I was very flattered to be nominated by such a great blogger, her posts are such great reads. Go check her out!

The rules are that I should tell you 7 things about myself that my readers may find interesting, as well as  nominate 7 other bloggers that I enjoy. So here goes

1. I have lived in 3 different countries and 5 different cities or towns. I would happily live in a 100 more
2. The most common words used to describe me are loud and passionate
3. Nearly all of my previous pets had names derived from Greek and Roman mythology and history. It is just something we do in my family, so my guinea pig was Archimedes and we had a mouse called Persephone.
4. I iron my sheets. Yes you heard it people I iron my sheets. In my defence they are a 100% cotton so they really never come crease free of the washing line. Yeah I know it is still weird
5. During university I had many jobs, one of which was working in a lingerie store and being a bra fitter. I still think it remains one of the most fun jobs I have had. Just chatting with women all day and looking at pretty stuff. I often think I would happily open and work in a lingerie store tomorrow, but I know that I would be money poor and bra rich!
6. I hate coffee. Simply can’t stand it. I don’t like the smell or the taste, but desperately wish I liked it so I could talk about it with equal parts pretension and passion.
7. I am prone to randomly dancing in public places when I hear a song I love. Not big dance moves unless it is a show tune and then sometimes I fake tap dance,  but I often have a little wiggle. My friends have learnt not to be embarrassed.

My 7 nominations

Glamorous Glutton – Don’t think there is a recipe I don’t salivate over

The Home Empress – Love her open and honest writing

Strawberry Ginger –  Great step by step photographs

The Big Fat Noodle – All I can say is 4 cheese cauliflower…oh yeah!

Bagna Di Lucca and Beyond- I am totally jealous of every photo and experience she writes of.

Cooking in My Heels – this girl is just sooo funny

Bangers & Mash – great recipes, fun reading

I know I have been behind on my blogging I have plenty of recipes and tales to post and promise to get back on track in the coming weeks. Thanks for dropping by!

Do you iron anything weird?

Tags: Kreativ Blogger Award

Weeknight Serenity: Meatballs in Tomato Sauce

The days are getting shorter and the nights are getting colder and my longing for comfort food as started to rouse from its slumber. I am not completely ready to give up yet on some decent weather but when I pulled the heaters out of the loft this week I knew I couldn’t deny the inevitable much longer.

One of the things that I love about the colder weather is the slow cooked meals and the robust flavours. Standing at the stove making slow cooked food is my Bonnydoon, it is all about the serenity. But weeknight serenity is not always feasible so I have  Clayton’s serenity food, relatively quick to make, doesn’t require constant supervision but gives you the comfort you are looking for.

Weeknight Comfort

What is your favourite Comfort food?

Meatballs in Tomato sauce.

Serves 4

Meatballs

• 500 gms beef mince
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 2 tsp mixed herbs
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire
• 2 tbsp ketchup
• handful of parmesan

For sauce

• 1 onion chopped
• 1 chilli chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic crushed
• 1 can of crushed tomatoes
• 1 jar of pasta sauce of your choice
• 1 cup of white wine
• Bacon stock cube
• water

1. Fry onion chilli and garlic together in a  pot with some olive oil.

2. Add the white wine and boil until reduced by half.

3. Add the  tinned tomatoes and fill half the can with boiling water and add stock cube. Mix until stock cube dissolved, then add to the sauce.

4. Allow sauce to simmer and reduce slightly before adding the pasta sauce.

5. Leave sauce to simmer gently while you make the meatballs

6. Mix the mince, herbs, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, parmesan and ketchup in a bowl, best to do this with your hands until  it feels combined

7. Form into small balls, I used approximately 1 heaped tsp per ball.

8. Drop the meatballs into the simmering sauce and cook for 15 mins.

9. Serve with vegetables or short pasta.

Tags: Beef, Food, herbs, Recipes, Tomatoes