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 ...