Kiss the Cook

A week or so ago over on Beautiful Mess (one of my favourite blogs) they did a post about their favourite cookbooks. I thought this was a fantastic idea, so I want to share with you my pick of the best too.

My favourite recipes are:
From the Moomin Cookbook the Meat and Macaroni Bake and the Ham Pie.

From Hamlyn's Fondue Cookbook the Dutch Fondue and the Cider Fondue



What I also like to do is keep a folder full of pages from supermarket magazines with recipes I would like to try or recipes I have googled searched for on the web. Its a good habit to get into because you will have a good resource for dinner party ideas or just a tasty evening meal for yourself.

If you read my blog much you will know I love River cottage and have recently dabbled in bread baking so this would be the perfect next addition to my shelves.

Handbook no3 Bread

Don't forget to check out Beautiful Mess

Emily x

Spring Clean

So Saturday was the first day off Ive had in ages, my boyfriend is away in London so I thought I would invite my friends over for dinner and some drinks.

We hadn't seen each other since my birthday so there wass much catching up to do. I didn't cook anything too difficult just a spaghetti bolognaise (yes another one) I did try the focaccia recipe I mentioned in my bread related post.

Before:


After:


It tasted pretty good, it wasn't as flat or oily as I think focaccia is supposed to be (but when I write it like that it doesn't sound appetising anyway!) any tips?

Ive also had to clean the state that is my flat. The terrapins are squeaky clean as well, Ben normally cleans them so I had to pretty much blag my way through the cleaning process, my back is killing me and their water doesnt even look as nice as when Ben does it...still better than the green soup they were swimming in, poor darlings!

hope you all had lovely weekends

Emily x

Bread mmmmmm!

I baked bread for the first time yesterday.

I am preeeeetty pleased with myself I must say!




I used this recipe:

http://www.rivercottage.net/recipes/simple-white-loaf/

The thought of making bread used to scare me, I think its the yeast part, I don't know why. But this recipe is so easy to follow.

Using the same recipe you can make a foccacia bread (the method is slightly different). I'm going to try that out soon so I will post the results.

Pie

I made a chicken pie the other night.

Sucesses:
The filling tasted marvelous.
Ben loved it

Failures:
Pastry was not as good as on my last pie attempt
I burnt myself




All to play for on my next try.

Look at my charity shop pie dishes


This one has a redipe inside! Its funny because half way through it directs you to fill the dish with fruit....then you cant read the rest of the instructions :P


Also this retro thing



Any pastry making tips?

squirrel shortbread

these little critters sure tasted good!

Recent cooking experiements

The things you do when there is no internet to distract you!

Ive not missed having a computer that much because I have had chance to sew and cook more instead.

Here are my latest dishes

This one isnt very special but its the first recipe I have attempted from my Moomin cookbook



Pasta Bake with mince and a creamy cheese sauce (It had a moomin name but I havent got the book with me sorry!)


Lemon cupcakes, The icing went a bit funny and didnt spread how I would have liked but they tasted lush. These cakes are something my grandma used to make a lot, she doesnt bake much anymore but I expect she could still give me hints on getting the best icing. She always made them in a tray bake style so they were square shaped maybe thats the trick!


Steak and onion pie!!! My first ever attempt at pie! It was good, but I need a smaller dish as there was more pastry lid than filling ha.


In my haste to taste (ha) I delved in too quickly and forgot to take a picture so here it is on its plate with mash and peas. Sorry about the messy gravy spill, I am not one for plate presentation unless I'm doing a dinner party, after all it doesnt stay on the plate very long!


Coffee cakes.


Another speciality of my grandma and another icing failure for me. Once again they were yummy to eat.

My grandma always used to make a big coffee sponge with coffee buttercream and walnut topping. I love coffee cake even though I dont like to drink it :)

Chicken and dauphinoise potatoes.
First time I have made the potatoes this way, I apologise again for the messy presentation.


Apple Crumble

Another first: crumble (I know how easy it is now)


and the leftover apples made these!


most of my cupcake recipies I used to make the cakes in this blog are from a book I got for my birthday, when I am back in Cardiff I will post the details of it. (although the apple cakes look the same as in the book I changed the recipe of the filling a little bit)

Lastly just a picture of a beef curry I sometimes make. I admit I did try with the presentation here, my flatmate discovered some cups we had made perfect rice molds! still managed some unsightly splashes though :P

Bank Holiday

So this morining I got up early, ready to get a lot of things done, only to remember its a bank holiday so,
Job 1. go to the bank: impossible.
Job 2. get prints sorted for final printing: printers is closed, also impossible!
Job 3. Re-write artist statment and email to tutors: can still be done.

So tomorrow will be a busy day!

Instead of curling back up in bed I decided to make the most of this lovely Bank holiday, so I baked a cake. (before 10.30 in the morning!)

I call this the Jackson Pollock Traybake.

I just use a standard fairy cake recipe but put it in a baking dish instead of seperate cake cases.

I used melted milk chocolate for the topping and just flicked it at the cake! fun :P
If I had a fully stocked cupboard I normally use both milk and white chocolate to create a marble effect, you can also do this with the cake mixture, spliting it before adding to the tray and adding coco powder to one lot of cake mixture then swirling and layering the different coloured cake in the tin.


So after I have had another go at my artist statment, I am going to curl up with a good classic film.

I found this awesome channel on youtube, where someone lovely has been posting classic films.

http://www.youtube.com/user/classicscreengems


enjoy! :)
check it out!

Oreo Fairy cakes

This was an experiment with oreos!
I made normal fairy cakes with a bit of coco powder to give them a slight chocolate flavour.

I then made butter cream icing and added 3 oreos. You can either wizz them round in a blender or put them in a sandwich bag and bash them with a wooden spoon :P The icing will go a bit grey because of the white icing sugar and dark oreos so add a bit of coco powder to the icing as well (if you want!)

I then used the remaining oreos to decorate the top of the cakes. They were pretty good!

Sticky Toffee Pudding

I made a sticky toffee pudding at the weekend it was yummy.




it was served with vanilla ice cream.

2 weeks until my dissertation hand-in. Got to go do some work now!

Halloween part 2

Firstly here is a slightly better picture of my costume, taken by a friend, at least you can see some of the bones on my tights.


Last night I carved a pumpkin and made some more fairy cakes for trick or treaters :)


here is my pumpkin:

he looks a bit like the man off the pringle tins hehe what a fabulous moustache. Its the first time ive ever carved a pumpkin and I didnt know how much effort it takes to gut the things!(inside my pumpkins head)

here he is all glowy!!


I am really excited for Bonfire night now!!

Halloween

So Ive always made a big deal out of Halloween ever since I was little. This year has been a little different, maybe its because im growing up but Im pretty sure its just because most of my friends are away this weekend.

I went to a small house party last night in my costume which was partly handmade (ive been really skint recently so i couldnt go all out). So I made the top and I made some spooky cakes as well. I knew that orange food colouring would be used again! haha

i made the top by just gluing paper bones, i tried to sew them but they would have ripped off too easily.


I had some tights with bones painted on them too but i didnt take any photos! silly i know.


tonight will be the first halloween (that I can remember) where im not doing anything. Im gonna just watch nightmare before christmas and corpse bride I think. If i watch anything scary i wont sleep because im all alone in my house! eeep!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! 'Goodnight out there...what ever you are!' (or I might watch Count Duckula!)

Birthday Baking

It was my boyfriends 21st birthday last week so I made him a cake. I was the first time id used the rollout icing so it was all a bit of an experiment.
Ben is basketball crazy so I decided to make an actual basketball cake. i had originally planned to buy one of those round cake moulds so the cake was 3D but i left it a bit late to order one online and the only mould I saw in the shops was so expensive I couldnt justify buying it!

The first cake went badly, it didnt rise properly because I was being too lazy and cutting corners. So I decided to decorate that and make a new one for Ben's Birthday.

you can see where i nibbled the corner to taste it haha.

The 2nd cake came out perfect but I forgot to take a photo of it so this is the cake after it had been iced, the edges were slightly creased, I'm going to have to practise at that.


I then painted the cake with orange food colouring a la basketball and added the black lines. I probably should have kneaded the colouring into the icing but because the icing was ready rolled out I was reluctant to screw it into a ball and roll it out again.

Here is the finished cake complete with candles at Ben's party.



The cake was actually pretty good, even if I do say so myself, who knows maybe next time I will be more organised and do a better job!
byeeee x

Food Glorious Food!

I love cooking and I love trying new recipes and experimenting with them too.
(id like to think of myself as quite the domestic goddess but cut me some slack when i use a jar mix because i am a poor student)
Here are some of the things I have cooked recently.

I ADORE mexican food!

chicken fajitas - discovery sauce, with chicken, peppers, lettuce and topped with cheese and mayo on a flour tortilla.


Chicken Quesadillas - old el paso kit (shhhh!) with chicken peppers and tinned tomatos, hot salsa and a blob of mayo (love it).


We had a BBQ yesterday and i made chicken kebabs i used a BBQ marinade and then just slid button mushrooms, onions and red peppers onto skewers in between the chicken. they were gorgeous!



For my degree course, we have to have a end of year exhibition so me and some of the other photo art ladies held a cake sale to raise money for posters etc.
here is our lovely spread - thanks to vinnie, emily k, claire and daryl for the yummy cakes! we raised £30!



and lastly some home baking just for me and my housemates! chocolate biscuits! -the recipe is from Women's Weekly cookies and Biscuits cookery book. I changed the shape and decorations though :P



My boyfriend is a lucky boy! which reminds me! we had our 1 year anniversary last sunday! we went out for a meal at Wagamamas in Cardiff, it was lovely, i shall post the photographs when i get a chance but right now im off to a photoshoot!
ciao for now! x