BROWNIE MUFFINS!!!

Made some muffins with my friend candi-cloud the other day, oh they were fun! The recipe came from a magazine I think! We had all the things we needed, but forgot to get chocolate chips! Good thing there was some hiding in the fridge!!

Here's some pics!

Look at all the pretty cupcake case colours!!!

    

Popping them in the oven!

      

Now time for the best bit when baking......

Our next baking challenge will be a Rainbow layer cake!! I've seen these numerous times in cookbooks and on the internet and god they look so much fun!!!

Homemade BBQ sauce!

So here's the recipe for the BBQ sauce I made to go with Kievs the other night. Originally planned on making some and keeping it for future use, it was yummy, it all went! Fairly easy to make more though!!


This is a recipe from the burger book!

Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 20 mins
Makes about 200ml

1tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped
1 jalapeño, finely chopped
3tsp tomato purée
1tso mustard
1tbsp red wine vinegar (cider vinegar works aswell)
1tbsp Worcestershire sauce
3tsp sugar
300ml water

1. Heat the oil in a small saucepan. Add the onion, garlic and chilli and gently sauté, stirring frequently for a few minutes. 

2. Remove from the heat. Mix together the tomato purée, mustard, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce and add to the onion mixture, then add 2 tsp sugar and gradually stir in the water.

3. Return to the heat and bring to the boil, stirring frequently. Simmer for 20 mins and add the rest of the sugar.

I found I needed to add some gravy granules to thicken it!

Chicken Kiev

So, I actually remembered to get some chicken out of the freezer on time! So I made chicken kievs, a favourite of the bfs! I don't use a recipe, just kinda make it up as i go depending what's in the cupboard.

Chicken Kiev

Serves 2
Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 30 mins

2 chicken breasts
2 slices white bread
1 egg
Salt and pepper
Chicken seasoning and/or herbs
Garlic mayo
Grated cheese

1. Preheat oven to 200C. Blitz the bread, herbs and seasoning in a food processor.

2. Make a deep cut into the chicken breast, and fill with garlic mayo and cheese then close with a skewer.

3. Whisk the egg in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Dip the chicken breasts in the egg then roll in the breadcrumbs.

4. Cook the chicken for 30 mins until golden. Serve with chips and homemade bbq sauce (recipe on its way!)

Fairly easy, very yummy!!

Back to burgers!

So, I had some more mince to use and decided to have a flick through the burger book and try a new recipe! So here goes the Vietnamese Banh Mi-style burgers!

Needed pork mince, but only had beef so this is a bit of an experiment, so a little nervous about how these will turn out!

Vietnamese Banh Mi-style Burgers

Prep time: 35 mins
Cook time: 10 mins
Makes 4

450g pork mince
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1tbsp fish sauce
1tsp chinese 5 spice
0.5 tsp sugar
0.25 tsp pepper
Rolls and Mayonnaise to serve

1. Mix together the mince, garlic, fish sauce, spice, sugar and pepper together.

2. Divide into 4 portions and shape into patties and refridgerate for 30 mins.

3. Cook on a griddle pan and serve in a roll with mayonnaise!

Fairly simple really! If you've got it, pop on some sliced cucumber and chilli, unfortunately I don't have any atm!

Verdict: nice! The 5 spice works very well in burgers! Hopefully next time i'll have the garnishes to put on it!

Masterchef?

So i'd been having a flick through the "masterchef everyday" book. The recipes in there do look scrummy, however they don't all seem that "everyday" if i'm honest! There are lots of ballotines of rabbits and saddled of suckling pigs!

Though, looking through i've kinda seen recipes I like the look of and edited them to make them suit me more. 

One thing I do like in this book is the pages towards the back. There are just a few _ +... pages, so if I look at the page "potato +" its got some fairly simple recipes for potato salad and gratin!

So. I had a crack at this blackberry sauce. It's supposed to be served with a "canon of venison"...... I did it with chicken and it was bloody lovely!

Blackberry and red wine sauce

Serves 4
Prep time: 5 mins
Cook time: however long you need!

400ml beef or chicken stock
200ml red wine
1 finely chopped onion
100g blackberries, finely chopped
2tsp redcurrant jelly

1. Put the beef stock, red wine, onion and blackberries into a pan. Bring to the boil, then simmer until reduced by two thirds.

2. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve and into a pan. Stir in the redcurrant jelly and simmer for a few minutes to make a glossy sauce.

Easy! I didn't bother with sieving the sauce, I like the bits of blackberry and onion in the sauce!

Pug Life!

Went shopping the other day and wandered into Urban Outfitters and spotted this:

Absolutely HAD to take a picture of it as soon as I saw it! Further research lead me to the whole range of pug-related tees and other stuff they've got in! BRING ON PAYDAY! 

http://www.urbanoutfitters.co.uk/search?q=pug&searchsubmit=

Cookbooks ready!

So over the last year or so I've collected quite a few cookbooks, so decided to try using them a bit more!

This is one of my favourite books: 

I love doing home-made burgers, and trying to make them a bit more interesting. This book is full of interesting takes on the standard beef burger! The recipes are all easy to follow with loads of pictures!

Today I decided to have a go at the sautéed mushroom burgers, they turned out to be a success, so I thought I'd share them!If you measure and prep everything before-hand they only take a few minutes to make!

My new favourite chopping toy is the Mezzaluna chopper, it's perfect for finely chopping things, takes very little effort aswell!!

                       

A lot of burger recipes I've seen and used before say to bind the beef with egg yolk or breadcrumbs, I don't really use eggs very often so always ended up wasting them. I've found in these recipes, they say to just pop the burgers in the fridge for 30mins once they've been made. It does work, never had an issue with them falling apart mid-cooking!

I did make a few tweaks to the recipe. Had some bacon left over so wrapped the burgers in them, then topped them off with cheese before serving with a nice dollop of bourbon BBQ sauce!

Burgers with Sautéed mushrooms

Prep time: 10 mins plus 30 mins chilling time

Cook time: 25 mins

Makes: 4

oil

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

4 mushrooms, stalks removed, very finely chopped

400g beef mince

1tsp Dijon mustard

salt and pepper

1 tsp rosemary

4 slices of cheese

4 slices streaky bacon

4 bread rolls

bourbon bbq sauce

1.  Heat the oil in a pan and sauté the garlic and rosemary for a few seconds, then add the mushrooms. Season to taste, reduce the heat and cook for 15 minutes.

2. Put the beef mince into a mixing bowl, season with salt and pepper. Add the sautéed mushrooms and mustard, then mix together and shape into four patties. Wrap the patties in the bacon, and pop in the fridge for 30 mins.

3. Heat some more oil in a pan. Add the patties and cook for 5 mins until browned. Turn the patties over, place the cheese on top, and cook for another 5 mins.

4. Serve in the bread rolls with a dollop of bourbon bbq sauce.