Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

• 4oz butter
• 3 oz caster sugar
• 3oz soft brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 4 oz chocolate spread
• 7oz plain flour
• 1 oz cocoa powder
• 1/2 oz baking powder

Mix all the above together then add in 5oz chocolate chips.

Divide into 1.5 inch patties and cook for 12-14 mins.

Ingredients

• Left over lamb (mince it with the magimix)
• 1 x lg pot of Dolmio Bolognese Sauce
• 1 onion chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic chopped
• TBSP chopped rosemary (if you have it)
• Salt and pepper (to taste)
• Lasagna sheets
• Milk, butter, flour (to make a white sauce)
• cheddar cheese or any leftover cheese (not blue as it is too strong) for the topping.

Put a TBSP of olive oil in a deep frying pan or saucepan and cook the onion and garlic until soft.  Add the rosemary and cook 30seconds then add the jar of tomato sauce. I add a bit of water to the bottom of the jar and swill it out into the pan just to get all the bits!

Cook 3 minutes on medium heat then add the lamb, mix together and cook for 5 minutes.  Layer up with the lasagna sheets.  Make the *white sauce and pour over the top, then sprinkle with cheese.

*I have given you the link to a white sauce recipe

Cook for about 40 minutes at 170.

This completely delicious recipe for chocolate brownies uses white, milk and dark chocolate all of which you will have left over from Easter!  You can’t have too much of a good thing !  In fact the brownies are so addictive you’ll want to make a second batch before the first is finished.  If you want to make some to hide away for a special occasion, it’s useful to know that they’ll keep in an airtight container for a good two weeks and in the freezer for up to a month.

Ingredients

• 185g unsalted butter
• 285g left over Easter Eggs
• 85g plain flour
• 40g cocoa powder
• 3 large eggs
• 275g golden caster sugar

Method

1. Cut the butter and break the dark chocolate into smallish cubes and tip into a medium bowl.  Fill a small saucepan about a quarter full with hot water, then sit the bowl on top so it rests on the rim of the pan, not touching the water. Put over a low heat until the butter and chocolate have melted, stirring occasionally to mix.
2. Remove the bowl from the pan. Alternatively, cover the bowl loosely with cling film and put in the microwave for 2 minutes on High. Leave the melted mixture to cool to room temperature.
3. While you wait for the chocolate to cool, turn on the oven to 160C/conventional180C/gas 4 (most ovens take 10-15 minutes to heat up).
4. Use a shallow 20cm square tin and line the base with non-stick baking parchment. Sieve the  flour and cocoa powder into a med size bowl.
5. Break the eggs into a large bowl and tip in the sugar. With an electric mixer on maximum speed, whisk the eggs and sugar until they look thick and creamy, like a milk shake. This can take 3-8 minutes, depending on how powerful your mixer is, so don’t lose heart. You’ll know it’s ready when the mixture becomes really pale and about double its original volume.
6. Pour the cooled chocolate mixture over the eggy mousse, then gently fold together with a rubber spatula. Try to do this by folding the mixture rather than bashing it, you want the fluffiness to stay in the mixture!
7. Re-sieve the chocolate powder and flour into the rest of your brownie mixture and gently fold in . The mixture will look dry and dusty at first, and a bit unpromising, but if you keep going very gently and patiently, it will end up looking gungy and fudgy. Stop just before you feel you should, as you don’t want to overdo this mixing.
8. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin, scraping every bit out of the bowl with the spatula. Gently ease the mixture into the corners of the tin and paddle the spatula from side to side across the top to level it. Put in the middle of the oven and set your timer for 25 minutes. When the buzzer goes, open the oven, pull the shelf out a bit and gently shake the tin. If the brownie wobbles in the middle, it’s not quite done, so slide it back in and bake for another 5 minutes until the top has a shiny, papery crust and the sides are just beginning to come away from the tin. Take out of the oven.
9. Leave the whole thing in the tin until completely cold, Then cut up into the size bites you require.

TIPS

The slabs of chocolate will be quite hard, so the safest way to chop it is to hold the knife over the chocolate and press the tip down on the board, then bring the rest of the blade down across the chocolate. Keep on doing this, moving the knife across the chocolate to chop it into pieces, then turn the board round 90 degrees and again work across the chocolate so you end up with rough squares.

This is my recipe for chocolate brownies.  What’s yours?

Home made Sunday afternoon cupcakes!

…or something my daughter Ella and I have whipped up covered with a thick layer of icing, (see my previous Blog for the recipe), but yesterday I needed a Cake that could also be a pudding, I felt it was time for some Norwegian Baking so made the Blackberry, Almond and Cardamom Cake from the Scandilicious Cook Book.

Well, to be truthful, I didn’t have any blackberries or any fruit in fact, so I sprinkled it with icing sugar and served it with creme fraiche.  But wow it was delicious and someone came by for coffee today and it was even better as the outside gets a little crustier!

Recipe:

• 125g butter,
• 200g golden caster sugar
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• 3 med eggs
• 250g ground almonds
• 2 tsp gluten freee baking powder
• 1 tsp ground cardamom ( Norwegians always have the pods in their kitchen and we grind the little seeds down)
• 1/4tsp salt
• 200g frozen blackberries (or you could use blueberries)

Preheat oven to 180 deg

Cream butter, sugar, vanilla together until pale and fluffy (I couldn’t manage this bit, so I just beat it until I was fed up! .. it still worked!)

Add eggs one at a time with a Tbsp of ground almonds to stop the mixture splitting.

Mix the rest of the almonds with baking powder, cardamom and salt and use a metal spoon to fold the dry ingredients into the butter mix, stir in the blackberries.

Scoop into your prepared Cake tin and bake 30-35 mins.

Cool in its tin on a wire rack.  Eat now or if you can resist it store your cake wrapped in foil in an airtight tin!

Get the book if you haven’t already..oh by the way, this recipe is Gluten free too!

Turkey and sweetcorn meatballs

• (from Ottolenghi “the cookbook”)
• Serves 4
• 100g sweetcorn kernels (fresh or frozen)
• 3 slices of stale white bread, crusts removed
• 500g minced free-range or organic turkey breast
• 1 free-range eggs
• 4 spring onions, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp finely chopped parsley
• 2  ½ tsp ground cumin
• 1 ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp black pepper
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• Sunflower oil, for frying

• Roasted pepper sauce
• 4 red peppers
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 25g coriander, leaves and stalks
• 1 garlic clove, peeled
• 1 small mild chilli, deseeded
• 2 tbsp sweet chilli sauce
• 2 tbsp cider vinegar or white wine vinegar

Method

1)      Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas Mark 6. To prepare the peppers for the sauce, quarter them with a sharp knife and shave off the white parts and the seeds. Put them in a roasting tray and toss with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and ½ teaspoon of the salt, then roast in the oven for 35 minutes or until soft. Transfer the hot peppers to a bowl and cover it with cling film. Once they have cooled down a little, you can peel them, although it isn’t essential for this sauce. In any case, place them in a blender or food processor with their roasting juices and add the rest of the sauce ingredients. Process until smooth, then taste and adjust the salt if necessary. Set aside.

2)      For the meatballs, place a heavy non-stick frying pan over a high heat and throw in the corn kernels. Toss them in the hot pan for 2-3 minutes, until lightly blackened. Remove and leave to cool.

3)      Soak the bread in cold water for a minute, then squeeze well and crumble it into a large bowl. Add all the rest of the ingredients except the sunflower oil and mix well with your hands.

4)      Pour a 5mm depth of sunflower oil into your heavy frying pan. Allow it to heat up well and then fry about a teaspoon of the mince mix in it. Remove, let cool a little and then taste. Adjust the amount of salt and pepper in the uncooked mixture to your liking.

5)      With wet hands, shape the mince mix into balls, about the size of golf balls. Cook them in small batches in the hot oil, turning them around in the pan until they are golden brown all over. Transfer to an oven tray, place in the oven at 200C/Gas mark 6 and cook for about 5 minutes. When you press one with your finger, the meat should bounce back. If unsure, break one open to check that it is cooked inside. Serve hot or warm, with the pepper sauce on the side.

• Have a good camera that takes hi resolution images.
• Journalists will want to use images from your site so ensure they are 350dpi which is what the magazines like to use.
• Take shots of the product with a plain background and some mood shots
• If you are taking the photos yourself, shoot them in daylight,  it is a clearer, cleaner light
• I use the reverse side of a roll of wall paper for some of my background shots.
• If you need to hang an object up to photo a good ‘cheat’ way is to style it on the floor.
• Styling is v imp make sure there are no objects in the background that shouldn’t be there.
• Remember this is your shopfront, put your own style into your design as you would your own shop.
• Don’t cry when you have taken 100 photos and they are all terrible try again tomorrow.
• Make sure you have availability for altering your images on your PC.
• I tend to do alot of the ‘mood’ shots myself and Paul from Paul Elton Photography does the ‘cut outs’.

this cut out was taken by my photographer

This mood shot was taken by me and has been used in a few magazines

I made this delicious Spinach and Feta Tart last weekend and it is so simple but delicious and nourishing.

I took a very large bag of spinach, washed the contents and dropped it into the wok.  Use a large saucepan if you do not have a Wok, but I use it because it heats up very fast and you can put an enormous amount of spinach into it which will reduce to about 1/4 of the volume.

Cook until it has all wilted but do not let it burn. (you only need a dribble of water in the bottom to stop it sticking)

Melt 1/2 pack of butter. Use a little of it to baste your pie dish to stop the pastry sticking, Open out your filo pastry and brush the pastry with the butter.  Put 2 or 3 overlapping pieces into the base of your pie dish and allow the filo to fall over the edges of the dish at the top, so that you can cover the filling.

Roughly chop up the cooked spinach and mix in half a slab of feta, 2 TBSP double cream, a pinch of nutmeg, salt and pepper.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared pie dish.

Fold the extra filo over the top so that you cannot see the filling and brush with butter.

Put in an oven about 160 deg for 20-25 minutes, you want it to get brown.

When ready, tip out and serve. 

Spinach Quiche ready for the oven

Pastry

• 6 oz flour (I used spelt as my husband doesn’t eat refined flour)
• 3oz butter
• 1 egg yolk and 2 TBSP water

Cut the butter into cubes and mix into the flour until like fine breadcrumbs.  Mix the egg yolk into the water and gradually add into the flour mix until you have a firm (not sticky) dough. You may not need all the water mix, but if it is not sticking together well to make into a ball add a little more water.

Roll out and place into your pastry dish.

Bake blind (this is when you put greaseproof or kitchen roll over the pastry and fill it with baking beans and bake in the oven for 20 mins 180 deg.) Baking blind makes cooks your pastry prior to putting in the filling so that it is not soggy!

Filling

• 2 x 160g bags of fresh spinach ( you can also use frozen)
• 1 pot 300g creme fraiche.
• 3 eggs
• 1 pk of Gruyere cheese grated.
• small pinch of nutmeg and salt

Put these into a liquidizer (if you do not have a liquidizer chop the spinach fine and mix all the ingredients together).

Pour into your pastry dish (that you have previously emptied of the baking beans and paper)

Cover or refrigerate until you are ready to cook it.  170 deg for about 20-25 minutes.

Serve with Baked potatoes and salad!

The idea is to find new kitchen accessories that I love and want to add to my website.   I went to the Keith Brymer stand (who makes the lovely white china that I have on my website)  and was amazed to find that they have an entire range of China with Welsh words on it! 

I have been looking for trays for a while too and found some wonderful ones with a real Scandinavian theme so all I need to do is to choose which ones I want.  Made from birch by a Swedish company that has been manufacturing trays for 50 years they have really quirky and fun designs, so do I choose the love birds or go for the Nordic ones?  let me know which ones you like most.

Serve it with a salad or cold meats.  Make it up to 1 day in advance and re heat for 25 minutes before serving.

• 4 Baking Potatoes
• 4 rashers of bacon ( or use 2 packs of cubed pancetta if you have it in the fridge)
• 2 lg spoons cream cheese
• 1-2 tbsp milk
• 2 tsp parsley
• seasoning and grated Cheddar or Gruyere (or anything you have to hand!)

Cook your potatoes until the middles are soft, this always takes me about an hour.  Cut them in half, scoop out the flesh.  Mash the potato with the cream cheese, milk and parsley (I added a large knob of butter too).  Season.

Fry the bacon until crispy and mix into the mash.  If your potato skins are a little wobbly, cut a small nick in the bottom so they can stand upright, then fill with spoonfuls of mash.

Sprinkle them with cheese and keep them in a roasting dish until you are ready to re-warm them.