Christmas Treats

I have started to make a few lovely things to eat over the Christmas period including these mini caramelised cheese and onion tarts which are the easiest thing in the world to make, just caramelised some onions in butter and a sprinkle of brown sugar, make an egg custard with cream and an egg, throw in lot's of good quality mature cheddar cheese, add the onions and mix together. I just used shop bought puff pastry because that's how I role, put it into Yorkshire pudding trays, put a blob of my cheese and onion mix into each one and put it in the oven for 25 mins and voila!!!



I also made some chicken liver paté by trimming any yucky or green bits off the livers, sauté some onions in butter the add the livers and a good slug of brandy making sure you burn the alcohol off and as it's Christmas I put a dash of double cream in and then seasoned. To finish it off pour clarified butter over the paté and put it in the fridge to set and you are done.
And to celebrate my culinary achievements I'm going to have several drinks of the mulled variety!

Christmas Shopping list....Done!

I am cooking Christmas dinner for the first time this year as it would usually be my Mum but she is currently living in Portugal on a foodie adventure so I am cooking for Mercer's family and there are 12 of them.
I'm sure it will be fine as I am one of life's obsessive list writers and have had everything planned for around a month, Ive got my Christmas and boxing day menus written down with corresponding shopping list's (don't laugh) and have already made my mincemeat for my mince pies and enough sausage rolls to feed a small country.
This year I am planning to do a rib of beef and goose, normally it would just be the goose but as there are 12 of us it's not really feasible, and of course a glazed ham on Boxing day!
I'm also going to attempt a salt caramel cheesecake, chocolate roulade, damson trifle and some Bompass and Par style jellies for the munchkins!!!
I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and hope all your culinary dreams come true!xx

Lamb and Red Wine Stew with Roasted New Potatoes

I was talking to my brother the other day about food like we always do as we have a shared passion for all things edible and he told me of a rather impressive amount of meat he had in his freezer, and for a young man of 23 with little cash I thought how was this possible? Well it turns out that my brother has taken to going to his local Sainsburys just before closing time and buying all the highly reduced produce on the meat and fish counters and got some ridiculously good bargains!! Well I thought I must have a go myself and so I did and got a huge slab of pork belly for £2.20, two fillet steaks for £1.80 and 8 pieces of organic lamb stewing steak for 30p a piece....I was very pleased to say the least!
I made a very tasty stew out of the lamb by frying the meat and sealing it before covering in flour and sauteing onions and carrots with the meat and then pouring half a bottle of red over it and then adding bay leaves, beef stock, peppercorns and tomato puree and letting in simmer for around an hour and 45 mins.
I am a bit of a mash addict and would never even think of having stew with anything but buttery mash potato's but I felt like this lamb stew would benefit with some new potato's roasted in olive oil, rosemary and garlic so that's what I did and they went together perfectly along with some brussle sprouts and mashed root veg (needed something that was mashed!)

A few of my favourite things....Cauliflower Cheese

Personally I love the snow because it makes me all festive and happy and gives everyone the perfect excuses to eat lot's of hot, scrummy, fatty things that make you feel all warm inside and what better to give you a snugly culinary hug than home-made cauliflower cheese.Cauliflower cheese is most definitely one of my favourite things to eat so any excuses really. I always make my cheese sauce from scratch starting with a roux, I am known for putting criminal amounts of cheese in it and also for eating most of the sauce before the cauliflower even see's it, but somehow my sauce to cauliflower ratio always favours heavily on the sauce side so it's more like eating cheese sauce with a bit of cauliflower in it.




I just make my roux with butter and flour and begin to slowly pour in full fat milk little by little whilst stirring with my trusty wooden spoon and then when the sauce is the right kind of consistency I start to add big handfuls of grated mature cheddar, pepper and sometimes a bit of nutmeg to! When the sauce is ready I add the cauliflower to it, put it in a baking dish, put more cheese on top and chuck it in the oven until the top is crisp and bubbling.
I had mine with gammon staeks and brussle sprouts and I could not have been happier.

Chicken, Bacon and Leek Pie

It's the time of year again when you need to eat pie. I love pie more than I could merely express in words on this blog, any kind of pie and I am happy whether it be sweet or savoury.
I had a whole chicken than I bought from the butcher and decided to roast it to make several meals over the next few days, the first being a delicious and comforting pie. Chicken, bacon and leek pie is so easy to make and takes no time at all.
When the chicken was roasted and rested I stripped enough of the meat off for my pie and started on making the filling by sauteing a whole leek I had cut into thin strips in butter with 4 slices of smoked streaky bacon. I then added the cooked chicken, some fresh chicken stock made from last weeks roast, white wine, some double cream and seasoning, that's it.
It was horrible weather yesterday so I didn't want to walk to the shop to buy pastry so I made some using a basic recipe of flour, butter and water, I have to admit the pastry was not great but it all tasted amazing and that's the main thing! Sorry the pictures are not the greatest but I was in a rush as the camera was running out of battery fast. I have just had to add in that three of my photo's of the fillings and other exciting things have been deleted by mistake so now you just have pictures of pastry, I am sorry but the show must go on so here is my pastry.



I couldn't find my rolling pin so had to use a role of tin foil, it worked quite well though!





My pie was a little burnt around the edges and sunk slightly in the middle but it was delicious served with buttery mash and savoy cabbage and I don't care what you lot think anyway so there ( I do really).
For lunch the next day I made the leftovers into a pie version of bubble squeak with some extra cabbage and bacon, I highly recommend you do the same.

Portuguese Baked Pork and Orange Ribs with Butter Rice

I took this recipe from a beautiful cookbook called 'Piri Piri Starfish:Portugal Found' and it worked so well. Gorgeous sticky ribs with an amazing orange flavour as well as the roasted peppers that I tucked under the ribs when they were cooking. I served this with butter rice and salad.

1KG of pork short ribs
125ML olive oil
1 Red and one yellow pepper (optional)
2 bay leaves
125ml white whine
juice of 1 orange plus 2 oranges quartered
1 large onion chopped
3 garlic cloves
3 tablespoons of passata or tinned diced tomatoes
a pinch of piri piri (optional)

First of all brown off your ribs in half the olive oil and in a separate pan saute the chopped onion, next add the crushed garlic and after a few minutes add the passata and piri piri if your using it. Place the orange segments and sliced peppers onto a roasting tin before placing the ribs on top and then pour over the sauce and bake for around 40mins. I made some butter rice to serve alongside this by just frying onion and garlic in oil and butter and the adding the rice to it and frying for a few moments before adding water to boil. In the original recipe peppers are not included but I think they go really well and you can also add more passata for more sauce to eat with your rice.
It's quite possibly one of the messiest meals to eat so have lot's of napkins ready, Mercer managed to get sauce in his ear and he's 27....

Portugal trip.

Sorry I have not posted anything for awhile but it's been rather a hard month and I lost a very dear friend so have not felt up to much, but now I do so onto happier things!
My Mum and her husband have recently moved to Portugal for 6 months and so I was lucky enough to go and stay with them for a week in a tiny village called 'Villa du Bispo' in the Algarve. My Mum is just as much into food as I am so I knew there would be lot's of food adventures to be had and my first morning there I was taken to a market in a place called 'Lagos' and it was fantastic, the amazing choice of gorgeous fresh produce was so varied. There were lot's of locals with fruit and veg they had grown in there gardens and live chickens and rabbits for sale that were clearly bound for the pot!







We bought some fresh sardines and I gutted them with Mum and we just covered them with lemon juice, sea salt and the BBQ'd them. We just served them with them salad and bread we had bought at the market. Very delicious!







I adore Portugal and have been twice before to Lisbon which is one of my favourite city's I have ever been to. I was lucky enough to go to the best bakery in Portugal that is known for making the best Portuguese custard tarts in the world and it's called 'Pasteis de Belem' and my God they really were the best, crunchy flaky, chewy pastry filled with sweet, rich, thick and creamy custard filling with a glorious slightly burnt top, oh how I love Custard Tarts!





My Mum has a great Portuguese cookbook called 'Piri Piri Starfish, Portugal Found' with the most beautiful photo's in it. We took turns in cooking recipes from it including pork ribs with orange, pork and clams served with sauteed potatoes and I made seafood rice using crab claws, mussels, prawns, squid and clams. Unfortunately there are no photo's for thses dishes but I can assure you they were all very delicious.

The Brighton Food Festival.

Horay it's the Brighton Food Festival!! Well actually it started on the 1st of September and runs until the 7th of October but due to no internet I can only blog about it now.
As part of the celebrations today was the fiery food Chilli Festival that I went along to with my lovely friend Becky.
I do love spicy food but I can't handle very hot stuff as I found out today when I accidently ate the hottest chilli jam in the world. I saw a pot with 'Apple and Chili' jam written on it in the tasting tent and thought 'yum' that sounds good and so had a try, within in secomds I though my throat was going to close up and it was on closer inspection that the description next to jam claimed it as the hottest in the world due to the type of chilli they used in it, never again is all I can say on that one.
To cheer myself up I bought the most beautiful chilli plant called 'Numex Twilight' which has little chilli's that start off purple, then yellow, then orange before finally turning red when they are ripe.



All in all it was a lovely day with some great produce and lovely food and I will be going again next year for sure. Sorry about the lck of pictures but I did not have my camera with me, foolish I know.

Camping and cooking in the Kent countryside.

Hello again, it's been far to long and I have really missed my little blog and the few lovely people who read it! I am once again connected to the internet and so can at last update you all on some food realted things starting with a three day, last minute camping trip with my wonderful best friend Gem to the idiylic Kent countryside for a little adventure! Unlike me Gem can drive so we packed up her car, not entirely sure where we were going to camp but full of positive thoughts so off we went and found a few campsites but none of them were really what we looking for and we had been driving around for rather a lot longer than we had wanted to, so we bit the bullet and I rang my Mum, yes I know a fully grown 26 year old woman ringing her Mum for help but it had to be done and I am so glad I did! Her and her lovely husband Dave looked on the internet while me and Gem sat in a pub car park waiting for some good news and of course my Mum came through as she always does and told us of a very delightful campsite called 'Bedgebury Camping' where you could have your own campfires and there was a stream, sounded great and I can happily say it was!
We bought a two burner camping stove with us which also had a little grill and it did us proud! On our first morning I got up very early and started to make a proper fry up in the dewy morning air, and it was totally blissful.
For one of our evening meals I decided to make pork loin, with pan fried apples, cider sauce, sauteed potatoes, spring greens and romanesco caulifower cheese which sounds like a ridiculous thing to cook on a camping stove, but I did it, it worked and I have the pictures to prove it....behold.

Here is a selection of the local, organic produce I used to make the meal, including a free range organic pork loin from a farm shop we visited.







Here is the lovely pork loin that I pan fried in butter before adding apple that I scrumped( is that a real word?)from an orchard (naughty) with onions and cider.
Next to the pork are my florets of Romanesco Cauliflower boiling away, before I covered them in cream and local chedder cheese and put them under the tiny grill.
I just par-boiled the potatos before finishing in the pan I cooked the pork in. It was a ridiculous juggling act but it worked out well in the end!



Here is the finished meal.



Until next time...

I am still here!!!

I am having severe withdrawal symptoms......I really want to post lovely stuff on my blog but I can't because Virgin are the worst Internet provider I have ever come across. I was supposed to be connected a week ago but they keep pushing the date back and now I have to wait until the 17th of September. So I will be back as soon as I can or as soon as Virgin allows me.......

Will be gone for a week or two......sad times

I am moving house this weekend and may have no internet access for up to a week, depending on how quick it gets connnected again, very very annoying as I have a great post to put up about a lovely camping weekend in Kent but I guess it will be something to look forward to! See you lovely people very soon.xx

The Real Patisserie, Brighton.

For those of you unfortunate enough to not reside in Brighton prepared to be jealous and I mean very jealous, I don't want to fall out over this but you have to know of it's existence. I am talking about 'The Real Patisserie' one of the finest Artisan bakeries I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. They are an independent company that uses traditional French methods for making bread, cakes, quiches, patisserie, sandwiches and everything is made on site by there largely French team of fabulous staff.
My lovely Mum would always get a box of cakes and patisserie from them for our Birthdays (as well as making us a cake of course!) and sometimes as a treat we would eat there almond croissants for a weekend breakfast,yummmmm.



They do open sandwiches 'Tartines' which are made using there rather famous chewy brown bread cut into long slices, I had chicken liver pate, cornichons and green peppercorns while Mercer had palma ham, artichokes, rocket and olive oil.
I didn't get a chance to take any photo's so I have used some of the website and other method's so you can see what the fuss is all about!


This is the 'Tartine' that Mercer had.


Here is just a tiny selection of the cakes and patisserie they do.

If you ever come to visit Brighton and fancy a spot of lunch then I highly recommend 'The Real Patisserie' as tasting is believing!

Happy Pride Everyone!!!!!!!

As some of you may or may not know,the fabulous and diverse city 'Brighton' is home to a very large gay community and every year we celebrate that fact by having 'Gay Pride' and the theme this year was 'Pride not Prejudice'. Every year without fail I attend with all my friends whether they be gay, lesbian, strait or otherwise!!! I feel very proud to come from such a vibrant, modern, forward thinking and accepting place where you can be what you want to be and not be judged for it, you can hold hands with your boyfriend or girlfriend as a gay couple and not get stared at, whispered about or worse like you would in many other places in the UK and the world. Brighton I love you and glad your my home, I wouldn't have it any other way!! Here are a few photo's of Pride from over the years and of me trying to hold my friend in her pirate outfit,oh dear!!!











How Stunning does the Brighton Pavilion look all lit up in pink!





Here are the gay and lesbian members of Brighton police force marching for gay pride! We also had gay and lesbian employees of Brighton hospital and the NHS, Paramedics and ambulance drivers. Pride had floats at the parade from American Express, co-operative, amnesty international, Greenpeace with our local Green MP on the float, Gay men's chorus to name just a few.
Sorry this post had nothing to do with food, but hey it's pride!!!

Humming Bird Brownies with hazlenuts and chocolate chunks

This is just a quick little post about the unplanned brownie making at around 11.30pm last night with Mercer. We bought the ingredients a few days ago to make the brownies but never got around to it until last night at a highly unusual hour! You don't tend to bake chocolate loaded treats at this time of night unless you a stoned teenager or pregnant but to hell with it we thought and went ahead and made them.
I used the Humming Bird Bakery recipe for them and just added a few extras.

Humming Bird Brownies

200g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
175g unsalted butter
325g caster sugar
130g plain flour
3 eggs
Hazelnuts
White chocolate cut into chunks

Put the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and melt until smooth.
Remove from the heat. Add the sugar and stir until well incorporated. Add the flour and stir until well incorporated. Finally, stir in the eggs, nuts and chocolate chunks and mix until smooth.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared baking tray and bake in the preheated oven for about 20-25 minutes, or until flaky on the top but still soft in the centre.
I did not use a baking tray and just baked mine in an oven dish but it worked well enough and as it was so late we didn't wait for them to cool down or slice them so the picture is a bit messy but hey you get the idea!

Crispy duck stir fry and prawn toast

After the very carb filled start to my week I felt like something a bit healthier and found some organic duck legs on special offer so decided to make a stir fry with them.
I nevcr buy stir fry sauces and have always done pretty much the same thing every time I make my sauce by just adding sesame oil, dark soy sauce, fish sauce and sweet chili sauce and it's never failed me yet.



To make my stir fry I pan fried the duck legs before roasting them in the oven and when they were done I let them rest before chopping into bite size chunks and accidentally eating all the crispy skin.....



I have never made prawns toast's before and I really love them but it can be very much hit and miss when you order them from the takeaway so I thought I would have a go at making them myself. I just minced prawns with pork mince, ginger, sesame oil and a pinch of salt and sugar before frying them in sesame oil. Here is a picture of them before they got fried.



To make my stir fry I just used up what ever veg I had in the fridge so we ended up with carrots, beansprouts, sweetcorn, red and yellow pepper, spring greens, red onion and of course the crispy duck all doused in soy sauce, fish sauce and chili sauce. I did get a couple of spring rolls for Mercer as he hates seafood but I didn't make them





Sorry the photo's are not that great but it's hard with a rubbish camera phone, oh well it's my Birthday soon and I think I have dropped enough hints to Mercer.....

sausage with bubble and squeak cakes and a rather yummy chicken, bacon and leek pie

I have been having very strong carb cravings due to me trying to be a bit healthier and cutting down on bread, potato's, pasta and such like, I'm not gonna lie, it's been hard and at some points emotional. So I totally gave in and went a bit carb mad over the last few days starting with some fat juicy sausages from the butchers served alongside my bubble and squeak cakes filled with bacon and cabbage and smothered in roast onion gravy. Such a simple thing to make and so God damn delicious it can never be a bad thing in my opinion.






As if the sausage and potato feast wasn't enough the next day I made a 'Chicken, bacon and leek pie' with mounds of buttery mash and savoy cabbage. I browned off some corn fed chicken legs and thighs and then added bacon lardons, chopped leeks and then sweat them off in butter and white wine before adding a dash of cream at the end. I was naughty and bough puff pastry but it was still very good and I wasn't complaining!

Prawn and Pea Risotto.

I wanted something relatively indulgent and filling but also fresh and summery to eat for my dinner this evening, so though a sweet pea and prawn risotto would be perfect enjoyed outside in the afternoon sun with a glass of white wine, so that is exactly what I did.
Mercer does not like sea food because he is mentally unbalanced but luck had it that he was going to spend the evening with friends so I had free reign to cook what I wanted in the kitchen and by God I knew it had to be seafood.

Prawn and Pea Risotto

Knob of butter
olive oil
1 small onion , finely chopped
2 garlic cloves , crushed
300g arborio rice
100ml white wine
800ml vegetable stock fresh
250g cooked peeled prawns
100g frozen peas
80g Parmesan , grated

First melt a knob of butter with a dash of olive oil in a wide, shallow pan and add the onion. Cook until softened, then add the garlic and cook for a minute but don't brown. Tip in the rice and mix well. Add the wine and stir till it evaporates. Pour in stock to just cover the rice and gently simmer, staying with it the whole time and stirring from time to time.
As the stock evaporates, add more stock and stir until all the stock is used, this will take about 12-15 minutes. Finally, add the prawns, peas and season. Simmer for 2 minutes, mix in half the Parmesan just before serving then sprinkle the remainder over the top and you can add a squeeze of lemon juice if you fancy and have a green salad with it, if you fancy but it's very perfect as it is as well!

Thai Spinach and pea soup

I have only been writing this blog since April and seem to have already done two soup recipes and I'm about to do another one, so there! I do love home-made soup and can eat it even if it is hot outside and other people are eating ice cream or salad and I'm sitting there with a steaming bowl of thick soup!
I like to think of this soup as a summery one as it is fresh and light with delicious Thai flavours, I just made this for myself so there isn't large amounts of ingredients but you can very easily adjust it to your needs and taste!

Ingredients

1 Bag of spinach
1 onion chopped
clove of garlic
1/2 stalks lemon grass
Knob of ginger
Handful of frozen peas
Half a tin of Coconut milk
500ml home made chicken stock or just ready bought veg/chicken stock
1 small green chili
Lime juice
black pepper

Start but gently frying the onion until soft then add the garlic and chili and fry for a further two minutes. Then stir in the vegetable stock and while that is simmering peel the outer layer from the lemon grass and finely chop the lower bulb part of the lemon grass and discard the top parts before adding to the soup and cooking for 10 Min's.
Next add the frozen peas and cook for 3 Min's before adding the spinach and cook for a further 4-5 Min's.
Now add the coconut milk, lime juice and some black pepper and gently re-heat. You can add some cream, sour cream or Greek yogurt if you want to.

Ozzy Breakfast..... my favourite breakfast.

I love a full English breakfast on a lazy Sunday morning as much as the next man, woman or child so please don't get me wrong, I would never turn down sausage, egg, bacon, beans, mushrooms, tomato, toast and black pudding...I just wouldn't say no...or would I???
Well yes I would so I just lied as I would much rather have an authentic Ozzy breakfast any day because it is just so God damn good. When I lived there(which was mentioned in my first post!) I worked in a cafe called 'Leroy Espresso' (that's how it's spelt!) that just served breakfast and that is where I learnt the ways of the Ozzy brekky and the stupendous varieties and choices that you could peruse from the menu, for example ladies and gentleman I give you the brekky bruschetta topped with scrambled eggs, pesto and smoked salmon, or perhaps a healthy version of a fry up which is sausage, mushroom, sauteed spinach, avocado, tomato and sour dough bread and maybe a pot of home-made hollindaise sauce to dip in,(I know that's not healthy,shhhhhh)
One of my favourites was corn and zucchini fritters with mint yogurt on a bed of rocket with chili sauce. You may think that it does not sound that exciting but it would be hard to find the same quality and freshness of ingredients, cooked so perfectly and the huge variety of dishes to choose from is out of this world.
I also had porridge with Cinnamon poached pears, toasted fruit bread, carrot and orange muffins, savoury muffins with feta, spinach, roast tomato and Parmesan cheese on top, pancakes with stewed fruit and creme fraiché or banana's and maple syrup and that is just naming a few. I urge you to go to Australia and eat breakfast at a gorgeous cafe, when the sun is shining with a mug of the best coffee whilst looking at the menu. If you need a guide I would be happy to accompany you so don't be shy to ask me.



This was what me and Mercer had for Breakfast on Sunday, but he had his with bacon, I'm trying to be healthy, that's a bit of a joke when I'm eating something that is basically covered in Butter and egg yolk...mmmmm healthy.

Chicken Satay

I love love love chicken satay and hadn't eaten it for ages so decided to make it for tea to eat on a balmy summers evening with Mercer. I also made coconut rice with peas and spring onions but didn't take a photo of that as it got eaten before I got a chance and so did the skewers, so here is a photo of my lovely peanut sauce!!
I will be the first to admit that I never really measure anything and so ingredients just get thrown in but 'carefully' thrown in as I have a pretty good feeling for what the right amount should be and things generally turn out very well! I have made this recipe to feed two but please do adjust the measurements to suit you!

Ingredients

Pack of chicken thighs (around 3 per person if a main meal or 1-2 if a starter, they're are very moreish!)
Soy sauce
fish sauce
1 tin of coconut milk
peanut butter
1 fresh chili (red or green)
fresh coriander
sesame oil
half a fresh lime
pack of skewers

Method

Firstly get your chicken thighs, peel the skin off and de-bone them, then lay them flat and cut into strips not forgetting to remove veins, extra fat and little bit's of bone.
Try to be quite generous with the size of the strips as they do shrink a little in the pan.
Put your strips into a bowl and pour in just enough coconut milk to cover them all, a few splashes of soy sauce, a teaspoon of fish sauce and then cover and refrigerate for around two hours or as long as possible.
To make your peanut sauce add 90ml of coconut milk into a pan that's on a gentle heat, then two tablespoons of peanut butter and stir, when the sauce is smooth add a teaspoon of fish sauce, a splash of soy sauce, the juice of half a lime and come finely chopped chili. The sauce will thicken quite quickly but if it needs more peanut butter than add more as you please, but be very careful not to over heat the sauce or it will go very wrong, it should only take a few minutes to make. When the sauce is done add some chopped coriander to finish it off.



Put your chicken on the skewers(don't forget to soak them if there wooden) and cook them on a griddle if you have one or just pop them under the grill if not. Serve with the peanut sauce and there you have it! To make the coconut rice I just cooked basmati rice in coconut milk and water the added peas and spring onions at the end. Enjoy!

Bananna and pecan muffins with cream cheese and molasses frosting

Last night Mercer and I went to a friends house to cook dinner for her and her teenage kids but when I say 'we' cooked I meant 'I' cooked, as Mercer's Idea of cooking is cheese and marmite on toast or a anything with salad cream and BBQ sauce but that's another story for another day.
I decided to make the slow cooked beef and spinach balti curry that I was supposed to make a few days back but never got to and for pudding I made some banana and pecan muffins with a very delicious cream cheese and molasses frosting which were so so good. I stole the basis for the recipe from Nigella Lawson's Banana Bread recipe but just separated it in to muffin cases and added the frosting and I am so glad I added the frosting.

100g sultanas
75ml bourbon or dark rum
175g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
125g unsalted butter, melted
150g molasses sugar
2 large eggs
4 small, very ripe bananas (about 300g weighed without skin), mashed
Muffin cases
1 pack of cream cheese
extra molasses sugar to make frosting with


Put the sultanas and rum or bourbon in a smallish saucepan and bring to the boil.
Remove from the heat, cover and leave for an hour if you can, or until the sultanas have absorbed most of the liquid, then drain.
Preheat the oven to 170ºC/gas mark 3 and get started on the rest. Put the flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt in a medium-sized bowl and, using your hands or
a wooden spoon, combine well.
In a large bowl, mix the melted butter and sugar and beat until blended. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the mashed bananas. Then, with your wooden spoon, stir in the walnuts, drained sultanas and vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture, a third at a time, stirring well after each bit. Then scoop a spoonful in to your muffin cases until it's used up and place in the oven on the middle shelf and leave for around 15-20 Min's or until springy in the middle. When they are in the oven mix your cream cheese and add your molasses sugar a little at a time and I think it's totally up to you how much you use! The good thing about molasses sugar is that it dissolves very quickly and makes a sumptuous glossy frosting.
Let the muffins cool before using a palate knife to spread the frosting on top of the muffins or if you prefer slice them open and put the frosting inside which is what I would have chosen to do but they had not risen enough!



I am afraid the icing does have a few bit's of unmelted molasses in it but never mind! And my brother has taken his camera back to use for a few days so the photo quality is not fantastic but you get the idea.

What ever is in the fridge soup or just 'Fridge Soup'

I really wanted to make a slow cooked beef, tomato and spinach curry for mine and Mercer's dinner tonight and so I went to the shop's to get all the bit's that I needed and came back home and put it all away only to get a phone call from Mercer explaining that he would be staying out with friends until,late so not to worry about dinner. Well to be honest I was slightly annoyed and may have huffed, puffed and stamped my feet a little as there was no way I wanted to cook a curry just for me. Don't get me wrong though as I will cook extravagantly for myself when ever the fancy takes me, but I really wanted to enjoy this with another person!
So instead I searched the fridge to see what i could find and I pulled out several large carrot's, a couple of small potato's, half a butternut squash, a large red onion , fresh ginger and some roast chicken left from Sundays lunch and I thought the most logical thing to do was make it into soup which is exactly what i did by sweating all the veg and ginger in butter, olive oil, turmeric, garam masala and cumin seeds for about 5 Min's and then added vegetable bouillon and simmered until the potato's were cooked, blended it all before returning it to the pan and putting shredded chicken in and the topping with coriander and pumpkin seeds!!! In the end I was glad Mercer stayed out because it was one of the best soups I have made and I am rather fabulous at making soup!

Growing for the first time and basil pesto

I recently went to a huge car boot sale in Sussex with my lovely friend 'Miss Dobby' who drove us there, which was very lovely of her as I still can't drive and I'm nearing the age of 26 now so should really start learning! It was not the best boot sale I have been to but there was a lot of local people selling an array of vegetable and herb plants from there gardens and allotments and so I decided to buy two tomato plants, a basil plant and a little coriander plant to. I have been carefully looking after them ever since and if I do say so myself they are looking very good and are growing so fast that I am going to spend my day re-potting them all. The best thing of all is that my two tomato plants have actual real tomato's on them, there is only three that I can see between them and they are very tiny and green but they are definitely tomato's so I am very happy!



My basil plant seems to be producing more basil than I know what to do with so I made a batch of basil pesto which was very easy,and here is how to do it.

Basil Pesto

Ingredients

1 small garlic clove
A pinch of sea salt
25g pine nuts, very lightly toasted
50g fresh basil leaves (this is the amount of picked leaves you get from a large pot from the supermarket)
25g Parmesan, finely grated
Juice of ½ lemon
125ml extra-virgin olive oil

Put the garlic and a pinch of sea salt in a food processor and pulse, then add the pine nuts and pulse again until roughly chopped (be careful not to over-process). Add the basil and pulse carefully until it is well mixed but still very textured. Turn into a bowl and stir in the Parmesan and lemon juice. Pour in the olive oil, mixing to a juicy paste. Season to taste.
And do not worry if you don't have a food processor just use a pestle and mortar which is an equally great way to do this and it's a bit of exercise for your arm which can't be bad!
You can stir the pesto into tagliatelle with mushroom, onion, garlic and bacon with shavings of Parmesan over the top,or as an alternative to tomato paste on the base of a pizza with spinach,mozzarella and sun-dried tomato.
I how ever decided to have mine in a sandwich with tomato's and mozzarella for breakfast this morning along with a purple berry smoothie I made by mixing natural yogurt, oats, honey, half a frozen banana, frozen strawberries and blackberries to give it the lovely purple colour that I can't show you as I drank it, sorry!