Purple and Pink

Couldn't resist a picture of my daughter in her purple and pink top holding the beautiful purple and pink beans.  Nature knows the colours that contrast well.

Rasmalai

Simple recipe

MMMMMmmmmm Tastes as good as it looks.

I found this recipe on the www first but something about it was not working for me. I called my aunt for her recipe which I heard also uses ricotta cheese. It sounded the same but I asked her to send me the recipe. One simple stage made all the difference-Mix together by hand! Previously I had unwittingly used a whisk and the results were a close texture rather than a more crumbly open texture achieved by hand mixing. My addition to the recipe is the vanilla flavoured milk syrup and the ground cardamon.

You need:

• ricotta cheese 2 cartons
• sugar 1/4 to 1/2 cup, depending on how sweet toothed you are!
• ground cardamon 1 t
• 1 pint whole milk
• 1/2-1 large can evaporated milk (or use 2 pints of milk instead)
• vanilla dusting sugar
• flaked almonds or pistachios and rose petals to decorate

1. Mix the first 3 ingredients together by hand
2. Divide the mixture into a lined 12 cup muffin pan
3. Cook in oven for 40 mins fan oven 160 degrees C (lower if using more sugar)
4. Reduce the pint of milk to half by bringing to the boil and then simmering on a low heat.
5. Add the evaporated milk and a good dusting of the vanilla icing sugar(1t)
6. Place the cooked patties into the prepared milk syrup and chill.
7. Decorate-especially good with crushed pistachios!

Chicken Noodle Soup

1. The Little Miss decided to help herself to an ice-cream from the freezer!!!
2. The freezer was left open!!!
3. The Frozen chicken legs started thawing!!!
4. I did not want to start any heavy cooking having just cleared away lunch!!!
5. Chicken Noodle Soup for dinner!!!

The Simple Base:
celery,onion, carrot, sweetcorn and a big fat juicy bay leaf from the garden:)

• Saute for 6-8 minutes
• Season with Salt n Peppa
  
• Fill pan with water
• Throw in the frozen chicken
• Bring to the boil and forget about it...
• ...until the chicken is cooked
• Remove chicken and shred
  
• Throw back into stock base with addition of dried noodles
• I use my store cupboard iron fortified ones:

Geomag ballet

My 2yr old loves making ballerinas with Geomag. On this occasion my 6yr old obliged by making a dancing partner. It's great when they play together harmoniously:)

Mukka Express

I miss my Mukka!! Good looking, sometimes high maintenance but worth it....I had a short love affair with my mukka but it was turning me into too much of a coffee junkie. So I made someones day on e-bay:).

I used to sprinkle the top with drinking choc and vanilla sugar. What a treat!

Love it and set it free. If it was true love, one day it will be back. That day is beckoning.

Cheese Scones

Cheese Scone Flower

Mmmmmmmmm! So cheesy and moreish warm out of the oven.

Ingredients:

80z S.R. flour
2oz (salted) cold cubed butter
1/2 t mustard powder
1/2-1 t freeze-dried chives
1 pinch smoked paprika
1 pinch salt
1-2 grinds of pepper mill
3-4 0z red leicester or cheddar grated cheese
5-6oz full-fat cold milk

I had a lazy moment and used my food processor to grate cheese for baked potatoes. Now I had lots of grated cheese left over plus a dirty food processor!
Solution!
Make cheese scones without having to do the mix the butter and flour into breadcrumbs stage by hand.

Method:

• Process together dry ingredients with the butter and 2oz of cheese
  
• Transfer to a bowl and remaining cheese
  
• Add milk as needed and mix into a dough by hand
• Divide mixture into even sized balls and gently shape by hand and place on floured baking tray
• In oven for 10-12min at 180C
• If cheesy topping wante, remove and add grated cheese to top and place back in oven at 180C for 2 further minutes
• Eat warm:) with organic butter and watercress,rocket and spinach salad dressed with maple syrup and lime juice.
  

Strawberries and Cream Cake

Happy Birthday to a dear friend

She shared it generously with all her families! |Her sweet little niece said it is the best cake she has ever tasted. Ahhhh, Thank you.

Cake Stall

Our story

It all started with mixing.

Add dried fruit to make them healthier and ease your conscience

Prepare for the masses.

Henny Penny helps to keep the eggs at room temp for those impromptu midnight baking sessions!

Feeling bare?
Quick, cover us up before the kids see the fruit.

Ahhhh! That's better.

Can I eat just one?

Happy Birthday

Organic chocolate cake for him

But he prefered this:

Outcaked by Asda!

BTW that was not my six year old!

Cherry and coconut loaf cake

Coconut and Cherry Cake

This cake came about from a sleepless night. You know those times when you go to bed so wired and tired and all sorts of random thoughts come to your head. Well I could not get the glace cherries lurking in the back of my fridge out of my mind. Why have I not made cherry and coconut cake yet!?! This used to be a childhood favourite as my dad was quite partial to it. I was close to getting out of bed at 1.30am to make it but thankfully I waited until the morning. Afternoon to be precise. It was out of this world delicious and I had to blog the recipe in case It goes out of my head, until the next sleepless night.




Ingredients:
5oz soft butter
1oz margarine (ran out of soft butter)
6 oz caster sugar
3 med-large eggs whisked with 1 t vanilla extract
2-3 T milk
8oz plain flour
1t baking powder
1/2 t bicarbonate of soda (half)
2-3 drops of almond essence (extract would be nice but horses for courses)
1oz of glace cherries mixed with 2oz of dessicated coconut
( I find the crazy jack organic coconut variety to be the tastiest and closest to freshly grated.)

• cream together fats and sugar
• add everything else and mix( Although I did add the cherries and coconut after first combining other ingredients.)
• Place in two 1 lb loaf tins lined with greaseproof paper and bake in a preheated oven 180 degrees C for 40-45 minutes.
• Cool and eat after 4 hours( tastes even better I found)

Very more-ish and hard to share, but you must!

Choco Cupcakes

It was a hot day today. I had warm eggs that needed using up(you know when you leave them out of the fridge in case you want to bake). So which cake? Well I decided to check on how much soft butter I had and then one thing led to another and this recipe was born. They are very more-ish and easy to make with minimal washing up!

In a bowl add:

• 4oz very soft butter
• 4oz caster sugar
• 1oz ground almonds
• 1oz cocoa powder(put through a small sieve)
• 2oz self-raising flour(put through the same small sieve)
• 1t vanilla extract
• 1T white chocolate drops(mini buttons for cookies)

Mix everything together with a spoon and divide into 12 cupcake cases in a muffin pan.
Bake in a preheated oven for 20 minutes at just under 180degrees.
Cool and eat warm with a strong cup of coffee or tea:)

Garlic Bread

That is garlic posing amongst the citrus...NOT SPRING ONIONS!

Is it wild garlic? bread??

Armedillo perhaps?

Dinosaur Pasta Jewelry

Threading activity to improve fine motor skills and satisfy Dino-craze!

Makes His...

....and Hers.

Cookies with Milk

Still too hot!

WOww, (s)Weetie ones too!

Now, how do we make them healthier?

Just add milk!

Radishes

What gorgeous colours!

I love the variety in sizes, characteristic of organic produce.

Mr Short n Snowy in April

It snowed only last month and now the sun is shining like a midsomers day!

How choco coffee cake recipe was born

This is all you need for happy tastebuds:
3 medium eggs whisked together with a fork
6oz butter/marg (i use 2:1)
6oz caster sugar
6oz SRflour
1-2oz chunks of dark choc
2T of hot milk with 3tcoffee granules and 1-2T drinking chocolate.
But first:

Happiness: A concious decision to be in a good mood & smile no matter what the day brings-that is the lesson I learnt 2day. 2day was my partners birthday. My present to him was to be cheerful and give him total freedom in choosing his activities and to cake or not to cake. I am known for baking cakes at the drop of a hat and HE does not appreciate the calories involved. So I thought it would be refreshing if I gave him the choice of having a cake or not. Personally I'd feel a birthday is incomplete without a cake. He chose no cake!
So the day went on in between looking after kids, I busied myself with preaparing his favourite dishes, cheese and parsley omlette for brekky with cardomen(nb.used more than one so spelling is 'men' not 'man'-ha ha ha) and cinnamon infused tea, salad for lunch and his very favourite dish of kidney beans curry with rice all done with a skip in my step and a uplifting song in heart. The burden of nagging and having expectations was lifted today and I was actually feeling happy; like I'd set a bird free from its cage. This good mood was probably unnerving to my dear husband as I must admit my recent mood had been blacker than night.
Anyway getting back to the cake- come kids bed time sobs were heard from my 5yrolds bedroom. On enquiring the reason for his saddness he revealed ' but it was Da's birthday today and we did not have his birthday'-translated this means there was no cake!!! I promised my lil darling we would have cake in the morning and whispered in his ear-I've got it-Da will love coffee cake.
So with both kids in bed; Mr 5 and Miss 1; and birthday boy out at the golf range(making use of his freedom) I set to work on the coffee cake.
No recipes in my cookbooks or the www. without sour cream , walnuts or mascarpone(ingredients I did not have). So I decided to create my own recipe and during cooking-it was the most delicious smelling cake mix I've mixed in a long time and it tasted good too (b4 cookin). It inspired me to set up my blog page-this I must share with the world-it would be selfish not to. So here goes the recipe:

Put oven on at 180 degrees C
(T-tablespoon, t-teaspoon, SR-self-raising)
All ingredients at room temp:

3 medium eggs whisked together with a fork
6oz butter/marg (i use 2:1)
6oz caster sugar
6oz SRflour
1-2oz chunks of dark choc
2T of hot milk with 3tcoffee granules and 1-2T drinking chocolate.

Beat butter and sugar together, add about 1T of egg and coffee mixture and continue beating
repeat until all used up and add bit of sifted flour in between if looks like its gonna curdle, add all remaining SRflour.
Mix in chunks of dark choc (I smash'em in plastic bag with rolling pin etc)
divide mixture between two 8'' sanwich tins and cook for 20-25 mins on 180 degrees C
cool and sanwich together with:
3-4oz soft butter whipped together with 1-2oz of icing sugar, 1oz drinking choc and mixture of 1T hot water with 2t coffee & 4t drinking choc. adjust amount of icing sugar to personal preference for sweetness.
spread this icing on top of cake too and sprinkle with grated choc.

Yummy!! Managed to get hubbie to cut it just before midnight with an incensce stick for a candle and my solo happy birthday song-nothing to rival Marilyn Monroe singing to JFK on his b'day, but she did not invent her own cake recipe on his b'day hah!
Thank goodness 4 my sons wakeup call 4 cake. The joy on my husbands face at 5 to midnight when I called him to cut his cake told me that he would have been disappointed had I not made cake. Me who bakes cakes for everyone else on the planet, how could I not bake a cake for my soulmate.