Creole Christmas Cake ... YUM !!

So this year I decided ... it is my first Christmas in my new home, my first Christmas ever in my own home; I am going to do this properly!

Christmas pudding, Christmas cake, Mince pies, Home-made Stuffing Terrine to go with the Turkey and roast potatoes and roast parsnips and brussel sprouts and yorshires and gravy and all the other masses of gorgeousness that we shove on our plates on Christmas day !! :) 

Home-made of course ... well I'm going to try ... I'm doing dinner for 7 people so it's probably going to be half and half ... shop bought some bits ... the Christmas pudding is one of those things ... I'd love to attempt my own ... maybe next year ... I don't know ... but there is too much going on this year to be able to do that too! 

What I am making home-made is the Christmas cake! 

I am following Delia this year. 

I stumbled upon this wonderful recipe at my friend Evelyn's house in France. She was my English neighbour and we became good friends. She absolutely swore by it. And me vary wary of traditional Christmas cake tried it and was won over instantly! This is how much her and her husband like this cake ... they make it in April and she makes about 8 and stores them wrapped up in the cellar. They eat them all throughout the year now! 

I'm not quite that bad and I followed Delia's recipe closely which was no feeding and said only make it a month before. 

Here's the link for Delia's recipe ... mix it up this Christmas ... try Creole instead of traditional ... It's moist and lighter and totally transforms the traditional heavy stodgy in your face insane bitter flavour of the traditional! 

Delia's Creole Christmas Cake

Try it and let me know what you think !! 

Mine is baked and stored away ready for icing just before Christmas ... you will have to wait until then to see the finished product ... 

Chipotle Chicken Pizza

I love saturdays ... it means I have time to think about what I want for dinner, get ahead of the game and "pootle" round my kitchen slowly!! 

My lovely man had been out at church all day serving at a wedding so I wanted to do him something I knew he would really love for when he got in. 

That's where the home-made pizza came in ... pizza is his favourite thing. Normally we have shop bought as we both work full time. But home-made is just the best. So much better for you and you can control the ingredients so you know what's in it and you can definitely knock off a few hundred calories off the numbers on a shop bought pizza which to be honest are just scary. 

So then it came to choosing flavours ... I wanted chicken and I wanted flavour. 

I had a bottle of Chipotle Sauce kicking around in the fridge so I marinated 2 chicken breasts and whacked them in the over for 35 mins on 200 degrees. Once cooked, I then shredded the chicken into small pieces. 

I did buy the packet pizza dough, but it's so nice and fairly low cal so I always cheat with the pizza dough. So I made that up as per the instructions and let it prove for a few minutes to rise. 

I used tomato puree as the base and spread probably about a tablespoon on to the dough. 

I then threw my chipotle chicken on top and added rings of red onion and sweetcorn (I used a small red onion and about 2 tablespoons of sweetcorn - but really you can put as much or as little on as you want). 

I covered it all with a handful of mature cheddar cheese, it has a fairly strong flavour so you don't need loads and loads. 

It was utterly delicious and the perfect feast for a Saturday night in front of the rugby. 

Holiday Food

So ... i have been meaning to share with you the absolute gorgeous plates of food i was served up on a recent trip to Aix en Provence !!

Enjoy x 

Goats Cheese Salad ... french style

Caramelised Apple Crepe with Chantily Creme and Vanilla Ice Cream ... HEAVEN!

Slow cooked Lamb Shank with ratatouile and creamy mash ...

A wonderful holiday ... with wonderful food and wonderful wine ... I am blessed !!

simple bakes for crazy lives ... fat free apricot tea loaf

mmmm i must start with an apology ... again !! 2 months have practically gone by and i have given you one whole blog !! Wowza !! anyway ... life is fairly hectic ... and i have done loads of cooking and i've got photos for blogs coming out my ears ... but actually sitting down here to blog seems fairly rare ... 

This one is a hugely simple and easy to do recipe (I can remember the recipe in my head and am blogging from my desk at work its that easy). You just need to be in to have the oven time and soaking time, but the actual method is easy !! 

One absolutely gorgeous moist tea loaf ... making it your own as well is so simple, you can used spiced tea's or different fruit. Generally i use raisins or mixed ... my mum tried it not so long ago with a chai tea ...

See mums recipe 

but this is a long standing family recipe ... fat free but lets be honest with the amount of sugar thats in this bad boy we can't really claim it's a healthy bake !! lol The diet goes out the window again !!

heres what you do ...

use a mug to measure all your ingredients ...
preheat the oven to gas 4//180 degrees

Firstly take a mug of fruit (raisins, mixed dried fruit, apricots, dried cherries)
pour it into a mixing bowl
Then measure a mug full of sugar and stick it in the same bowl
(I actually found it a little sweet last time so next time i would use maybe 3/4 of a mug of sugar)
Then make black tea in the same mug (do not use milk), boil it up then let it brew for a few minutes and add to the bowl
leave to soak for at least 30 mins
rinse and leave the mug to dry at this point

pop off and do a bit of shopping or some ironing ... then ...

add to the bowl (using the same dry mug) 2 mugs full of self raising flour
and 1 egg ...
Mix ...

Stick into a greased loaf tin ... and bake for about an hour ... it really will depend on what you've put in there, so keep your eye on it and check with a skewer to check it is cooked through.
If not ... leave it in for a few more minutes ... it's so moist it won't dry out unless you bake it for ages ... so don't be worried about leaving it for a few more minutes ...

et voila ... one squishy fruity tea loaf ... ready for your family to scoff (Oh and did i mention - it's fat free !! LOL)

One Big Welly !! ... Pork Stuffing and Bacon Wellington

so heres a great one for you !! a total experiment that turned out a winner !!

particularly simple to do as well ... 

well simple if you do a few cheats like me (i bought ready to roll puff pastry and it was packet stuffing rather than homemade) 

but yeh - just assembly really ... and this is what i did ... 

1) I seared my pork tenderloin for a few mins, just to brown it off.

2) I then cut the fat off of about 8 slices of bacon (use as little or as much as you like, i was finishing off a pack i had in the fridge - i used unsmoked) and wrapped my tenderloin. 

3) I made the stuffing - slightly dryer than the packet suggested and laid it out on greaseproof paper. I laid my tenderloin on top and wrapped the tenderloin. My stuffing was slightly too short, so i could have done with making the stuffing layer slightly thinner so it completely coated the outside. Mary Berry would not have been impressed, because the bacon was touching the pastry it has a soggy bottom! (also, do not use a fruity stuffing, the pastry will not enjoy the fruit and will suck up the moisture)

4) I then baked my stuffing coated on 220 degrees for about 20 mins so that the stuffing felt crispy. 

5) I then left my tenderloin to cool completely, this is very very important else your pastry will steam whilst cooking if the filling is hot, and then it won't crisp. 

6) Roll out the pastry so that you have a "thinnish" layer of pastry, it needs to be longer than the tenderloin by   a fee inches either side and wide enough to be wrapped around the whole thing. 

7) I then baked it in he over for about 40-45 mins on 190 degrees, keep your eye on it though, cooking time will depend on size and thickness of pastry. 

 * when using pork you must make sure it is well cooked, I sliced my wellington straight through the middle before serving to check this, it is a good idea to make sure it is well on it's way to being cooked at the first bake, whilst baking the stuffing then it can just finish off whilst the assembled wellington is cooking. 

this dish does take a while but it is really rewarding ... tastes amazing, and theres a pretty good sense of achievement that comes with. 

Turkey and Chorizo Chilli

Recipe ...

441g Turkey breast (cubed)

120g Chorizo (diced)

1 onion

1 tbsp olive oil

1 clove of garlic (or minced garlic)

1 tsp paprika

1 tbsp hot chipotle bbq sauce

1/4 tsp lazy chillis

2 cups stock

200g drained chick peas 

1 cup chopped mixed peppers

285g sweetcorn

heat your oil in a wok/large saucepan

brown off your turkey in a wok then after a few minutes add the chorizo

then lower the heat, add the onions and fry off slowly

add the peppers 

add the garlic and herbs, the sauce, then the stock

add the chickpeas

simmer for about 20 mins

then add the sweetcorn for about 5 minutes to heat through

serve with rice and maybe some sour cream and lime wedges

 I've got a big load of this stocked away in the freezer for a cold winter evening when i can't be bothered to cook anything ... can't wait!

chocolate cheesecake muffins

the hubster was mightily impressed with these ...

i made these a few weeks ago as my birthday cakes to take to the office ...

I have been saving the blog til i had time to sit down and write the recipe out.

so if you want to do some easy chocolately swirly impressiveness ... this is the recipe for you.


you will need :

Cheesecake mix:
175g cream cheese (make sure its full fat)
60g sugar
1 egg (lightly beaten)
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Muffin mix:
150g flour
175g sugar
35g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup veg oil
4 tbsp melted butter
2 eggs (lightly beaten)
1 tsp vanilla essence
110ml milk (this is fairly approximate, just put it in little by little and check how runny your mix looks)
75g semisweet chocolate

heat the oven to 190 degrees// gas mark 5
get your muffin tray ready, with cases, or grease it (I always use cases)

For the cheesecake mix combine the cream cheese, sugar, egg, and essence in a bowl, leave to one side.

Then for the muffins, mix the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.

In a second bowl mix together the oil, melted butter, eggs, vanilla, melted chocolate and about half the milk.

Now add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Add the remainder of the milk, little by little, until you have a thick cake mix.

You are going to layer the mixtures into the cases so you do no want it too runny, but it needs tobe pourable.

Layer your mixtures into the muffin holes, starting with the chocoate mix. Pour a blob into each hole,  this does not have to be perfect, each muffin will be different, then follow with the cheesecake mix and repeat until the holes are about 3/4 of the way full.

You can either leave them as they are in sort of ring formation, or swirl through them with a knife to create a marbled effect. 

Wack them in the oven for about 25 mins ... mine took slightly longer, but it was the first thing i cooked in my new oven, so i was still working out the temperatures and timings.

Leave for a few mins in the tray before turning to a wire tray for cooling.

Seriously gooey, easy muffins to impress ... !!

Kitchen Marathon ...

I just finished a kitchen marathon ... don't you just love those ... get a few bargains from the supermarket and cook cook cook during the summer to have some great freezer meals for winter.

I made the following ...

Chicken and Chorizo Tray bake

Cottage pie with parsnip and carrot mash

Beef Casserole

(no photos though again ... I must find my camera cable !! )

BBQ !! ... well of a sort

Last night we had friends round ... again !!! I love time with friends especially when food is involved. Basically we decided we would have a BBQ and empty the freezer of all the BBQ food we'd bought in great hope of a gorgeous hot english summer ... english summer is what we've got  but it's definitely not hot - it just keeps on raining and it's not very warm! 

so we decided after getting stuck in traffic really bad on the way home and the weather not being all that good that we would have an indoor BBQ instead. Excellent choice i must say ... I thought i'd post you a few pics of what we ate. (Not the most healthy of dinners ... in fact completely dreadful!) 

cheesy topped burger buns

hot wings and ribs 

Adi's Potato Salad

Adi my gorgeous friend made a really 'funky' potato salad as she called it! It turned out to be absolutely delicious ... it was potatoes with green beans avocado and peas, with mayo, dijon, and mint as a surprising little hidden flavour! It was delicious and i ate far too much! If i can steal the recipe and post it on here i will do! you have to try it. 

We also had these sausage kebabs, i marinated the sausage in a smoky chipotle barbeque sauce! Heaven!  my phone is playing up though and will not upload the photo of the kebabs! and my good friends (not me - for once i was fairly controlled) washed it all down with a big slice of gooey toffee cheesecake! 

I hope you enjoyed your dinner last night as much as we all did !! :) 

Ratatouille a la Holly

anyone else a huge fan of this ridiculously healthy tasty side ?? No?? ... oh well - i'm going to blog about it anyway!
I made it last night to go with gammon and it caused uproar in our house.
Gammon can only be eaten with egg and chips in my husbands eyes (or curly fries as he had last night) and i suggested having ratatouille as a healthy option, he could not get his brain around that one.
We had a friend over as we so often do and he adored it - so score !!
The combo worked exceptionally well ...

Blogging on this recipe is literally a guessing game. I throw a bit of this in and a bit of that it but hey ... give it a try.

Literally use what ever quantity you fancy as this freezes really really well and is like about 1 W.W pro point a serving so you can have quite a lot. As you can see from my plate last night.

so this is what i do ...

I dice 3 small red onions and start cooking them down with a knob of butter or two(literally the butter is the only thing you have to count in the recipe so you don't have to worry too much). Meanwhile dice up some carrot (I used two large), into really small chunks so that they are nice and soft, throw them in the pan and keep stirring every few minutes.At this point i add my herbs, two dried bay leaves, garlic (i used dried and threw about a teaspoon in, then crumble a veggie stock cube in, stir through. I DO NOT put salt in. I was eating it with gammon and stock cubes are full of salt and it thought it was perfectly seasoned, but if you want to add salt i would wait until the end and taste it first. I then cut up my courgette, i only had a half of one left so i used that, but i would probably go for one big one if i had had it in. Throw that in, then the peppers, i used one red and one green, i tend to chop into fairly large chunks as it is a nicer texture. Then i whack the lid on, you do have to stir it often though else it sticks. I probably gave it about 10-15 mins with the lid on. Then i take the lid off and add a 400g tin of chopped tomatoes, then i let it simmer down. I left it on the hob for about 25 mins stiring regualrly. Et voila ... Ratatouille a la Holly !!

Don't forget to take the bay leaves out before you serve! this serves about 3 or 4 people. If your being strict weight watchers, way out your butter knob and divide the points between the servings to be massively accurate. It shouldn't be more than two points though. If so you've put way more than you needed in the first place.

But pretty much ratatouille goes with any meat and potato dish ! Enjoy an enormous tasty heap of 1 whole weight watchers point. Mmmm mmm!

Sorry for the lack of photos - we have moved house and i cannot find my cable to get photos off my camera so i had to take this on on my phone.

light lemon cheesecakes

well ... it has been a while ...

since i was last on here we have bought a house, taken it back to bare brick and built it up again to a gorgeous little pad for me and Tim.

Got some friends over tomorrow and i've made some light little desserts for dinner as i'm still trying to do the dreaded diet. Fairly difficult when you love food as much as i do! :( lol

anyway heres a little treat for you !!

I made four little ones out of this recipe:

ingredients:

4 tbs fat free greek yoghurt
6 tbs lemon curd
1 tsp lemon juice
125ml double cream

5 digestive/oaty biscuits (I use a mixture)
50g butter

Whiz biscuits in a processor until they are finely crushed.
Melt the butter over a low heat in a saucepan.
Mix the butter and biscuit crumbs together and press into four cheesecake moulds.
Mix the yoghurt, lemon curd, and lemon juice together in a large bowl.
Whip cream in a separate bowl until you get "floppy" peaks.
Fold the cream, a tablespoon at a time into the mix.
I did mine in little glasses and just layered the cheesecake mix on top of the biscuit.
I used a spatula to push the topping flat, i couldn't fit a pallet knife inside the glasses. 
Chill in the fridge for at least 30 mins.
I did mine the night before and ... they are sat there right now - tempting me!

Stu's Killer Jungle Sauce

I best start this blog off with a public health warning!! 
this sauce is HOT !! 
It's Hotter than hot ... 
In fact it's just totally insane ... but if your up for trying it ... he's given me his recipe ... 

Just to give you an idea ... I literally put my finger in the rim of the bottle and tried the tiniest bit ... 
I then downed about 4 pints of milk! Insane ... 
but this is how many Scotch Bonnets he put in it ... so you get an idea ... 

so yeh .. He's pretty insane ... these babies are also home grown! 


anyway if you dare try it ... here's his recipe ... 
I'd suggest cooking this one on a nice day so you can open all the windows and ventilate the house! 


I honestly think though a few drops of this bad boy in a chilli or something would be awesome! 


Jungle Sauce!

10-20 Scotch Bonnets / how ever many you dare!
2 inches ginger
2 garlic cloves
1 tin of tomatoes
handful of chopped oregano or basil 
sea salt
A huge glug of cider vinegar!

Extra:
(half a chopped mango if you fancy it)1.chop 2.simmer 3.blend 4.bottle! 5.ouch! 

Lemon Tart

yet again an easy but delicious and pretty impressive!

I cheated with ready made pastry which made it like 50x easier!
What you need to do is ...
Blind bake your pastry ... for about 15 mins on gas mark 6/200 degrees
Whilst it's in the oven ...
cut up 200g of fresh strawbs into whatever shapes you want really then ...
whisk together ...
3 medium eggs
75g caster sugar
220ml double cream
finely grated zest and juice of 3 lemons

and that's it really ...  when the pastries done pull out the shelf and place your strawberries on the pastry, then pour your mixture ... if you fo this on the oven shelf you'll hopefully have no spillage.

Then bake it on 180 degrees or gas mark 4 for 30 mins - 40 mins ... keep your eye on it and check it with a skewer. Dust it with icing sugar if you fancy.

strawberry cider

this was the lovely 'aperitif' at our mothers day banquet ... I sort of made it by accident ... but it turned out like a dream!

all it was was a apple and raspberry J2O and a large bottle of cider, and some cut up strawbs ...
pour the J2O  in first (but i think you could use any store bought raspberry fruit juice.
throw you strawbs in the jug, then you pour the cider in exceptionally slowly so that the drinks don't mix .. et voila ... one little word of warning ... this is very VERY drinkable !!
ENJOY !!

Gorgeous lamb chops

delicious and pretty easy ... this was the meal i made for my lovely mum as it was mother's day here in the uk last sunday.

I forgot to take photos so this was a quick shot before the last bit got eaten.

I cooked a bit of a feast so i used a lot.

ingredients:
14 lamb chops
125 g streaky bacon
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
1 large onion
4 cloves of garlic
2 sticks of celery
2 carrots
1 tin of tomatoes
225ml of red wine
225ml of stock
2 sprigs of rosemary

it's this easy ... cut up all the ingredients into chunks ... and throw it all into a casserole dish apart from the chops (set them aside in the fridge for later)

Put the covered dish in the oven on gas mark 2 //150 degrees for about 2 hours
then get a griddle pan and seal the lamb on all sides and seal in all the flavour!
Then place the lamb on top of the casserole leaving it uncovered in dish and leave in the oven for between 20 mins and 40 mins depending how well cooked you like it ...

easy freezy meals for mamas to be

ok ... well i'm off work this week (still living with the mother in law - but hopefully i'll have my own kitchen soon and then the blogs will be back) so i've got a bit more time to be in the kitchen (even if it isnt my own :( ) anyway ...

Both my best friends are at the baby stage of life! one had a baby just before christmas and the other has 3 weeks to go !! It was the baby shower on saturday which was fun! anyway .. I'm going over later and i'm taking a few freezer meals for her and her hubby incase she just can't be bother to cook or just incase Baby Girl Groeneweg comes early !! so i thought i'd give you a few ideas of what you can cook really easily for your friends freezer (or for your own)

I did cheat though as it had to be simply as today was all about doing the long list of jobs !!

So i did for meals for two and all you need is:

one pack of mince meat (pork mince/turkey mince or beef - it doesnt matter)
one pasta sauce
one tin of tomatoes
one egg
one pack of bacon
three large potatoes
a potato bake sauce (or you could make your own thick smokey cheese sauce)
one red onion

and some herbs ...

literally all you need to do is make your meatballs and brown them ... then place them in a pot (I use disposable for my preggy friends so they dont have to wash up)

then i also made two trays of Cheese and Bacon Potato Bake ... yummy but easy peasy.

Literally buy the sauce and it takes about 10 minutes to prepare and 40 mins to cook.

Slice you potatoes and layer them up with cooked bacon and diced onion.
Then when you've filled you dish up to half way use one quarter of the sauce in each dish and pour over.
Then layer up to the top again and pour over the rest of the sauce. I always get the dregs of sauce out with about 2 cm of water in the bottom of the jar, put the lid back on, and shake ... then pour over and bake for 40 mins.

Then write your instructions on the lids so your friends know what to do to finish baking there dishes !

and there you have it ... easy peasy blessings for friends !! 

my favourites to make and my favourites to eat ...

this was a relatively easy decision ... I thought picking 5 would be harder ... but i guess cos i'm a relatively new blogger theres not that many to choose from.

These are in no order whatsoever !! there just my favourites ...

Chocolate Snowballs ... literally a hit with eveyone at the party and everyone at my office the next day ...
see the recipe

Fougasse ... the best bread i've ever tasted.
see the recipe

Apple Cinnamon Butter Crunch Muffins ... don't know what else to say but DE-LI-CIOUS !!
see the recipe

White Chocolate Cheesecake ... my only ever attempt at a baked cheesecake ... turned out great :)
see the recipe

Jambalaya ... childhood memories all in one dish
see the recipe