Fruit on salad...is it as nice as people say?

So basically the above picture is of a salad my sister made with fruit on it. So me being me I went commented on the picture and said "ick fruit on salad". Some reason I find the idea of people putting fruit on salad replusive, it kind of just puts me off I honestly have no idea why. I mean I love fruit and I love to eat salad so it seems sensible that I would like the two together. It could be the fact that the only time I have sampled this type of thing is in a chain resturant which means that I probably found the dressing too sweet or too sour, and that will just make me stop eating all together. That could be why I don't really care for it, but who knows maybe its one of the foods I will never really like.

Now the best salads for me are ones that have a tasty cheese, variety of veggies, and some sort of meat on them. The salad I was eating all this summer had mixed salad, sliced chorizo, garlic and herb cheese, and any type of veggie you can imagine really. It was so good and the chorizo just sort of gave the whole thing a nice flavor. This salad was much better than anything you can get pre-made at the store. Another good thing I do for a salad is pan fry some chicken and chop it up and put it on top. You can season it with anything you like really and it will still taste awesome!
So that is pretty much all I have to say on this for the minute maybe if I ask my sister nicely I can post what was in the salad and what dressing she used and post it on here for everyone to see.


upcoming stuff:
lots of baking
some new soup
and anything else that pops in my head


Credit: Ashley for the picture of her salad

Apple brownies the best strangest thing you will ever eat!

To be honest this is less of a brownie and more what we would call a blondie, but who am I to judge they are fricking tasty! The only issue I have with these are that the apples settle to the bottom and sort of make them get a bit soggy after a day or so. I would suggest eating em the day of making them, but I am going to experiment with coating the apple and pecans with some flour and see if that helps (don't worry I will post if it makes a diffence). So now onward to the recipe!

(please wait while I look through the cookbook to find it) Cookbook- 1,000 Recipe Cookbook (no author listed)


Apple Brownies- serves 12
225g/8oz butter, softened
400g/14oz granulated sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
475g/1 lb 1oz plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon salt
500g/1 lb 2oz baking apples, peeled, cored and chopped
100g/4oz pecan nuts
icing sugar, to dust ( I don't do this as I find them sweet enough)


1. Preheat the oven to 180 celcius/350 fierenhiet/gas mark 4. Grease a 23cm/9in square baking tin.
2. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter,sugar, eggs and vanilla essence using an electric mixer.
3. Combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt, then add to the butter mixture. Mix until the flour is moistened. Fold in the apples and the pecan nuts.
4. Spread the mix in the baking tin, and bake in the oven for 45 minutes. Allow to cool in the tin on a wire rack, then cut into squares and dust with icing sugar.

And that is the recipe its fairly simple and if you are allergic to nuts maybe you can try another type of fruit or something and see how it goes. If you serve these for a dessert maybe do some ice cream with it. Hopefully this will go well for you and taste nice. When I try the flour on the apples before adding it I will post on here to let everyone know how it has gone. Also Kait try not to eat all the brownies :P

Dinner time noms!

So last night for dinner I made beef stroganoff from that little packet up there, I have made it before but never bothered to write about it. I know its a packet of powder so it probably has alot more salt in it than if I made it myself, but I don't always have the stuff I need in the house to make this fresh everytime I think oooh beef stroganoff sounds nice. This is so easy to make as well alll you need is an onion, mushrooms, and beef(it says rump steak but I get whatever is on offer) then you just brown the onions and the meat and mushrooms and add the milk with the sauce mix! I think the best bit is that I use skim milk so in my mind that is better than getting out creams and stuff and putting em in a sauce. For what this is powder in a packet that you can buy at the store for about a pound it is really tasty and makes a nice dinner. I find it is best with something like mashed potatoes, but I have been known to eat it with cous cous or rice. Maybe if I was being lazy I could do it with a jacket potato but that day hasn't come yet. Anywho so if you like this kind of thing and don't always have time to make the sauce yourself I would give this a go as it is really nice for what you pay for it.

Soup!

I shall start this post off by showing you all a song about soup.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2zdQgpB18k (just copy and paste the link I hate trying to get the links to work on here XD)

So I went to an awesome party but not a party for New Years eve, and I made soup to take but we ended up making about 8 homemade pizza and once we were drinking we forgot about the soup!
So I came home with the soup which is now going to be eaten by my husband at some point. Anywho this is probably the best soup you can make for winter as it has all those wintery type things in em. I can make the soup with out the recipe but I thought I would share for everyone that wanted it. The good thing is you can pretty much use any typr of dark green veg in it and it will still be tasty! The original recipe used kale which I like but my husband does not, so now onward to the recipe of tasty soup!

Sausage,Broccoli and potato soup:
12 Sausages (is using chipolatas if not 8 normal sized ones will do)
1 tablespoon oil
125g diced onion (a small-medium one should do I prefer red onions)
1/4 teaspoon finely chopped garlic (1-2 cloves)
2 tablespoons chicken stock granules
950ml water (I always add a bit more, and if using chicken stock just use this amount)
2-3 potatoes, halved and sliced thinly
Broccoli- or any dark green veg you like you can add as much as you like just add more stock/water as needed
75g double cream/4 tablespoons

1. Put sausages in the oven and cook until cooked through and crispy on the outside.
2. Heat oil in a large sauce pan/ or soup pot and saute onions till nearly see through then add the garlic and cook until the onions just start to brown(don't let them actually brown).
3. Stir in the water and add the stock granules stir then you will need to add all of the potatoes,then just let this simmer till the potatoes are cooked through. While that is cooking when the potatoes are halfway done put the broccoli on to boil in a seperate pan and cook so that it is still green but not raw.
4. Necxt when the potatoes are done take a spoon a squish some against the pan.(this thickens the soup and makes it alot nicer) Also add black pepper (just to taste) to the soup but no salt if you used the granules and just stir and let simmer. Once the sausages are chop up into chunks and do the same with the brocoli and add to the pot and warm through then take the pot off the heat and add the double cream and stir then you just need to serve with your favorite bread and enjoy!

So that is probably the best soup you can make in the winter and its all fresh and fairly simple to make. Hope you try it out and enjoy it!

Uses for leftovers No.1: Quiche

Last week I was making a pasta bake for dinner and I used a bacon joint and cubed it up and fried it to toss into the pasta. I noticed that I had fried up too much and was left with quite a bit of excess gammon cubes. I remembered that I had bought pastry the last time I went shopping so I got that out of the freezer and let it do its thing. So the next day I knew we were gonna be busy I woke up went downstairs and made a couple of pastry cases. While they were in the oven baking I cracked 3 eggs into a measuring cup and added in milk till it got to the 1/2 cup line on the cup. I then chopped up my gammon cubes a bit more and tossed them in the eggs, then I used a fine cheese grater to get some cheddar cheese into the mixture then finely chopped a spring onion and tossed that in as well. I then seasoned this egg mix with a bit of salt (gammon is already salty so don't add a lot) and I think I added a bit of dried oregano but you can add whatever you like.

When the pastry cases were done cooking I let them cool for about 20 minutes and then added my egg mix to the cases about halfway up. (this was tricky on my end as I was not using a very shallow dish so the quiches weren't very full) then I put back into the oven till they looked a bit golden brown and puffed up a bit. Then I just took em out to cool and cut into wedges and they were ready to eat. My husband even took the second one on a road trip with him.

So making a quiche wasn't as hard as I thought and I will totally be making em again. I figure you can put in most leftover veggies into em so that is a plus. That is all I have for today I may post about this bread mix I used today, but I already cut into it and didn't take a picture of the box.

Mini Chocolate cupcakes

Okay so I am back in an attempt to get more recipes and try out new things. Now I just need to find the camera that my husband took on a trip with him. My mother in law bought one of those fast cooking cupcake machines (I will post a link to one below) so I figured it was a good time to test a chocolate cupcake recipe. As I am intending to start selling cakes and such soon I like to test out recipes which I will start discussing here. Hopefully if anyone reads this it will help them out a bit with baking and such stuff. Okay so on to the recipe.

The recipe I used is from a book called "Gorgeous Cake" By Annie Bell, and can I just say that the book lives up to its name and all the cakes inside look so pretty. The recipe I used for my little testing cakes is called truffle cupcakes on page 16. Now in the recipe they use golden caster sugar, now I have never seen golden caster sugar in my life nor was I going to beg for a ride to the store to fetch some. I just used normal white caster sugar in mine as its what I had didn't mess anything up in terms of how they cooked. The book suggests that I use a chocolate and double cream icing for the cakes (probably to make it more truffle tasting) but I did a butter cream frosting and put coco powder in it and was told by my taste testers that they were yummy.

This is a really good recipe simple and only took me about 10 minutes to mix it all up and get it in the mini cupcake maker, which is awesome if your busy and want some cakes when you get in from work. ( I would advise store bought frosting or making sure you have the butter softened) Next time I go to the store to get double cream for soup as it getting to be soup season and use the left over to make the icing for these tasty cakes. I used a mini cupcake machine to make these and not the mini oven I have in a small room off the kitchen. I must say for such a small machine it did a good job of cooking the cakes properly, even though I tend to over fill the cases on most days. But yeah if I was making mini cakes for people to put in lunch boxes and such this would be a good tool to always have out on your kitchen counter. It does get a bit hot when you use it and like always I was all handsy with it and burnt myself a few times.

Now for the linky links:

Buy this book its awesome:http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gorgeous-Cakes-Published-Association-Magazine/dp/1856266141/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315912551&sr=1-1

The best machine ever: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sensiohome-CBS002-Mini-Cupcake-Maker/dp/B003UTUO6S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315912437&sr=8-1

(if anyone knows how to make the links work please put it in the comments)

If anyone wants the recipe please put a comment and I will attempt to get it to you other than that buy the book. :D

Lemon juice in a bottle

I normally detest using lemon juice from a bottle, but a month ago I caved and bought one as lemons this time of year are small not in season and tend to go off quickly. I still buy fresh lemons every time I do my one month shop as my husband has a love of homemade lemon drizzle cake and I need the zest so it will taste lemony.(the recipe does not call for lemon zest in the batter which is criminal) I mostly use the bottle of juice for things like cake icing.To bake chicken in the oven when we are nearly out of food and my husband refuses to go shopping yet still moans over what he is being fed. I use it in a dressing to put on cous cous I mix equal parts of oil to the lemon juice put in any dried herbs I like (I let it sit while the cous cous steams so 15-30 minutes if I'm not starving) a bit of english mustard as well and it is very tasty.
It is also handy for when I make a whole roast chicken I do a bit of lemon,thyme and oregano, salt, pepper and olive oil. I am still prefecting it as I still sometimes use too much oil but when I get the right about of lemon you get the crispy lemony skin and it is very nice. I really can't think of anything else I could use lemons for if I had readers I would ask for what you use it for, I am in a major cooking rut and at the moment all i have to eat is a pack of chicken and frozen green beans and potatoes oh and beef mince and frozen left over dinners. So hopefully my husband will cave when he has been getting frozen green beans every night for a week and take me shopping for some food stuffs.