Meal Planning Monday 2017 - Week 19

Monday
Lunch: prawn cocktail salad
Dinner: home late (late meeting at work) so my husband will get his own dinner and I will have a low fat butternut squash risotto ready meal

Tuesday - working from home
Lunch: baked potato with bacon and sour cream
Dinner: at a circuits class and not home til 8.30: Slimming World cauliflower rosti pie I keep intending to make but not having time to

Wednesday
Lunch: chorizo and halloumi salad
Dinner: cod in a honey lime sauce based on this recipe I didn't do last week

Thursday - day off to do a macro photography lesson
Lunch:on the course
Dinner: spaghetti carbonara using the rest of the bacon and sour cream

Friday
Lunch: Tabbouleh from Leon Salads book with chicken
Dinner: something from the freezer with chips

Saturday
Lunch: eggs baked into bread rolls with diced bacon, grated potato and cheddar cheese hash based on Denny's
Dinner: Memphis style pork chops from this recipe with hassleback potatoes

Sunday
Lunch: out with my family
Dinner: home late -frozen pizza or similar

This is a blog hop, join in!

An InLinkz Link-up

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Slow Cooker Baked Stuffed Butternut Squash with Walnut and Goat's Cheese

There's an easy way to cook a roast dinner for meat-eaters and vegetarians at the same time without needing a double oven, which not many people have in their kitchens. But there's one thing that many people do have: a slow cooker.

At Easter I really wanted to eat roast lamb, and had the idea of doing a roasted butternut squash for my mother-in-law who is vegetarian. I was worried that the smell of the lamb roasting would mean I couldn't cook the squash at the same time; I thought about roasting the squash while the lamb was resting but wasn't sure I had enough time. Instead, I decided to do the butternut squash in the slow cooker which meant I could put it on at the same time and not have to worry about it.

The recipe I used was a mish-mash of ideas I found online. I've made a stuffed roast butternut squash before; this time I decided to scoop out the butternut squash itself and use that as the filling.

To serve one, you need:
half a butternut squash
1 garlic clove, crushed
25g butter
1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
30g walnut halves, chopped
30g goat's cheese, crumbled
1 tsp dried mixed herbs

Peel the butternut squash and cut it in half lengthways and remove the seeds. Place the butternut squash cut-side up. Cook on high for about two hours until the squash has softened. Meanwhile mix together the other ingredients.

Scoop out the centre of the butternut squash, leaving around 1cm around the edge so it retains its structure. Mash the butternut squash that you have removed in a bowl with the other ingredients.

Spoon the mixture back into the butternut squash; you can keep this warm in the slow cooker on low if you need to.

I'm sharing this with Meat Free Mondays, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.

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Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter Birthday Cake

I just had to share this with you even though it's not my own recipe. It's not only the best vegan cake I've ever made, but it's up there with the best cakes I've made, full stop.

Unlike other vegan cakes it doesn't contain a cupful of oil (I read the number of calories recently in a bottle of vegetable oil, and am still reeling). But it's still incredibly moist, so much so that you need to eat it with a fork rather than fingers, and really chocolatey. The peanut butter filling and topping are delish - even my husband loved this and he doesn't really like peanut butter. All together, it's a gooey cake that feels very indulgent - a real treat both for vegans and non-vegans alike.

I made this the day after my birthday as I had a couple of friends coming over to do a room escape game (which was brilliant by the way, I can't recommend them enough). One friend is vegan and I wanted to make a cake she could eat, so had a look online and found this recipe on Dora's Daily Dish - pop over and have a look.
The recipe was quite interesting - as I said a lot of the vegan cakes I've made use oil. This one uses melted vegan margarine, flax seed, almond milk and coffee.

It's really easy to make, you just mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.

 

Here the cakes have just come out of the oven

The frosting unusually doesn't use icing sugar and is just peanut butter, vegan margarine and agave nectar. I spread half in the middle of the cake and the other half on the top.

A fairly simple, classic cake - the two layers were pretty deep, this is a good recipe in that sense - and in fact in every sense!

 

I'm sharing this bake with We Should Cocoa at Tin and Thyme.

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Restaurant Review: Haskins Garden Centre, West End, Southampton

I’ve been to Haskins Garden Centre at West End, Southampton, twice recently. The simple reason being: when you find somewhere that’s easy to go with a small baby, you’re going to go there again!

 

I have a beautiful niece who is now five months old; when she was just a couple of months old and I was visiting my sister and her partner we went out for lunch at Haskins. The garden centre has a large café, with an outdoor area (which was too cold to use due to the weather) and a lot of seating inside not too close together so it was easy to find space for a buggy.

As it is in a garden centre I was expecting a few options along the lines of jacket potatoes and paninis (though as Woodcote Green garden centre in Wallington proves, you can get really good meals sometimes). I was really surprised when I walked in and saw multiple food counters, each offering something different - jacket potatoes and paninis of course, but also pizzas, fish and chips, a carvery, a Costa coffee bar and a very long cake and desserts counter. There was also a sign advertising Sunday lunch and another offering afternoon tea for Mother's Day - definitely something for everyone!

 

I had a tuna melt panini which came with a small side salad and was really nice.

 

Luckily we also saved room for dessert - I had a slice of apple cake which was really moist and tasty.

My sister had chocolate cake which she said wasn't quite as good and a little on the dry side - but otherwise we had a nice lunch while my little niece gurgled away next to us!

 

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Meal Planning Monday 2017 - Week 18

It was my birthday on Saturday so I didn't get around to planning this week's meals until Monday evening! This should be a quieter week where I can hopefully make a bit more effort with the diet - not so much birthday cake this week!

Monday - bank holiday
Lunch - sausage sandwich with friend who was staying over from last night
Dinner - spaghetti Bolognese with Quorn mince and plenty of veg as I haven't had enough lately!

Tuesday - working from home
Lunch - leftover spaghetti bolognese
Dinner - Slimming World cauliflower rosti pie I was going to make last week but didn't as I ran out of time

Wednesday - might be home a little late
Lunch - couscous, feta cheese and pomegranate salad- based on Jewelled Salad from Leon Soups, Salads & Snacks
Dinner - chicken chargrills and mashed potato (easy for my husband to cook if I am home late)

Thursday
Lunch: chorizo and halloumi salad
Dinner: cod in a honey lime sauce based on this recipe

Friday
Lunch: prawn cocktail salad
Dinner: something from the freezer with chips if I'm tired at the end of the week, something healthier if I've got the energy to cook!

Saturday
Lunch: scrambled egg on toast for him, poached egg for me, with thick cut ham
Dinner: fried chicken (which I might oven cook instead of fry) with 'dirty' wedges and green salad. Or maybe out if we go to the cinema

Sunday
Lunch: chicken Philly melt a bit like the one served at Denny's
Dinner: Memphis style pork chops from this recipe with hassleback potatoes

This is a blog hop, join in!

An InLinkz Link-up

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Tres Chic Dresses Black Border Birthday Card

Here's a quick make using some stickers - I can never remember the brand names of products though so am going to have to do a better job of keeping track in future!

I covered a blank card with some small pieces of pink patterned paper which I overlapped, and then used a black frame sticker from a pack of outline stickers in the middle to create the focal point. I added three dresses and a sentiment 'tres chic dresses' from another pack of stickers, and then corner stickers from the frame pack in two corners of the card. Quick and simple!

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Meal Planning Monday 2017 - Week 17

It's my birthday this week! I am out in Covent Garden in the afternoon on the day itself - Saturday - and going out for dinner with my husband in the evening, then the next day I have a couple of friends visiting and we are doing a room escape game which I'm looking forward to, then going out for dinner - then Monday is a bank holiday so I have that day off as well!

Monday
chicken curry

Tuesday
Starting a new weight loss programme in the evening straight after work which means I won't get to have dinner until late as I won't get home til 8.30! Which slightly defeats the object in my opinion as I will just want to eat the first thing I can find but I need to be good so am going to plan something very quick!
Lunch: chicken salad
Dinner: Slimming World cauliflower rosti pie (make at lunchtime and heat up later)

Wednesday
Turkey, lime and honey stir-fry from an old M&S magazine I was going to do last week but didn't

Thursday
Smoked mackerel in mustard sauce I was going to do last week but didn't

Friday
Fish and chips - Friday treat. From the freezer not the chip shop!

Saturday - my birthday!
Lunch: hoping my husband might make brunch or lunch!
Dinner: out with my husband

Sunday
Lunch: crumpets and hot cross buns
Dinner: out with friends

This is a blog hop, join in!

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Chocolate Star Wars R2D2 40th Birthday Cake

My husband was very lucky for his 40th birthday. As well as some great presents including a 'carvolution' framed picture of all 9 cars he'd ever owned  - interestingly, they seem to have put their prices up quite a bit since I bought it a few weeks ago - and a meal at Hawksmoor, he had two birthday cakes.

We were spending his birthday with some of his family - more on this in another post as I will do a restaurant review.  In the evening after a day out in London we had a takeaway at his brother's house so he could put the children to bed and keep an eye on them. There were six adults but I knew that the following weekend we were seeing more of my husband's family with up to ten people - so I wanted to make him a birthday cake for his birthday but also another cake a week later.

He requested a chocolate cake and I planned a chocolate extravaganza for the bigger occasion, and had an idea for the other one quite some time ago. My husband has mentioned a few times a birthday cake he had as a child in the shape of R2D2 which he thought was brilliant - I thought it would be fun for him to have the same sort of cake when he turned 40!

I bought an R2D2 silicon cake mould for only £5 or so in the Lakeland sale back in January which I hoped would make the cake a doddle, though I wasn't sure how easy decorating it would be. In the end it was actually relatively easy.

The cake mould is quite large and it says on the box to use an 8-egg recipe; but other than that there wasn't any guidance. I spent a while googling 'what recipe to use for Lakeland R2D2 cake mould' and didn't really come up with much, so decided to use my trusty chocolate wedding cake recipe. This is the recipe from BBC Good Food that I used for the middle layer of my wedding cake and when I made the wedding cake of Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker. It works brilliantly every time and is a 10-egg recipe; I scaled it down to use eight eggs but had enough mixture left over after filling the R2D2 pan to make another 9-inch cake which I put in the freezer!

So I recommend that for the R2D2 cake pan you use a six or even five egg recipe; you can basically divide the quantities of the BBC chocolate cake recipe in half. You'd then need to adjust the cooking time and I'd advise keeping an eye on it and testing with a skewer - I think I baked mine for an hour and a half but didn't make a note as I was playing it by ear.

A lot of chocolate

The cake turned out perfectly and as always with this recipe was moist and super-chocolatey.

I had sprayed the pan liberally with PME Release-a-Cake spray, making sure I got into all the nooks and crannies. The cake came out of the silicon mould perfectly and you can see all the details of R2D2.

I wanted these details to show through when I decorated the cake so instead of covering the cake with buttercream, I brushed it with some warm runny apricot jam. I carefully sliced the cake through the middle and filled the centre with chocolate buttercream and then covered it with white fondant, rolled fairly thin, which I smoothed down so the details of the cake still showed through.

I then cut some pieces of blue fondant for the details and before I stuck them onto the cake, sprayed the white parts silver with PME edible silver lustre spray.

I'm sharing this with We Should Cocoa, hosted by Choclette at Tin and Thyme.

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Chocolate Marbled Easter Meringue Nests

Dr. Oetker came up with some great new recipes this Easter, which you can see on their website here. I liked the look of the tear and share hot cross buns but I didn't really have the time. Instead I made this - I actually thought I'd shared this post over Easter, oops!

Dr. Oetker sent me a selection of their products to try and I was intrigued by the powdered egg white as I don't think I have used that before. It replaces fresh egg white and saves you from ending up with a lot of unused egg yolks if you are making meringue.

I decided to make their chocolate marbled meringues; you can find the recipe on this link. Instead of filling them with fruit I gave them an Easter twist by filling with chopped marshmallows, a couple of Cadbury mini eggs and some whipped cream, and drizzling them with some melted Dr. Oetker Cooks' 72% Extra Dark Chocolate.

The egg white powder was really easy to use - I was worried when I mixed the powder with water as directed that I had left it a little lumpy but the lumps disappeared and it cooked perfectly, and I mean perfectly. The meringues were crispy and chewy in the middle and lifted off the baking paper without problem. They are very sweet so I think the original recipe suggestion of filling them with fresh fruit is a good idea, and I recommend dark chocolate rather than milk chocolate which is sweeter.

I'll definitely use powdered egg white again as I often end up with yolks I don't know what to do with - it costs £1.15 for a pack of 4 sachets from most supermarkets.

Don't you just love glossy meringue?

Marbling with melted chocolate

 

Ready to go in the oven

 

And after two hours of baking

 

 Decorated with marshmallows, mini eggs and topped with whipped cream and melted chocolate

 

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Red Gingham Mothers' Day Card

This sweet little card was a super-quick make, as most of the elements came from the same pack. I think it was a free gift with a cardmaking magazine and contained the backing paper - which looks like three different papers but it is actually one!

The sentiment in a little frame looks cute - this came from the same pack and I stuck it into the middle of the card. I had some 'happy Mothers Day' sentiments in red in a pack of stickers and placed this on the top of the card.

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Restaurant Review: Hawksmoor, Commercial Street, London

For my husband's 40th birthday there was no hesitation when it came to a restaurant for dinner. He absolutely loves Hawksmoor, and since his birthday was a Saturday and we had plans with his family, I offered to take him to Hawksmoor on the Friday night after work.

We've been to Hawksmoor in Air Street near Piccadilly a couple of times; you can read my review here. This time we decided to go to the one in Commercial Street, near Shoreditch, as it is nearer where we both work.

Walking from Bishopsgate and down a side street onto Commercial Street, I looked left and right and saw Nando's one way, the Old Truman Brewery the other and a bunch of shops like Urban Outfitters - nothing that leapt out at me as one of London's best steak restaurants. I had to use Google Maps to pinpoint the location and quickly found it - the restaurant is mainly below ground, with a discreet sign above a door at street level but not much else.

The staff were really friendly and helpful, and I mentioned it was my husband's 40th birthday both on booking and when I arrived, as I got there before my husband and the person in front of me at reception had brought a cake for a surprise birthday for the table he was joining. I didn't have a cake with me as I'd been at home all that day baking a birthday cake to share with my husband's family the following day on his actual birthday!

The atmosphere was noisier and the other diners more 'colourful' (including a drunk couple who spilled a drink over the man next to us and nearly got into a fight), prompting my husband to comment that the Air Street restaurant was a lot quieter and more conservative than the Shoreditch location. I don't know if he's right, but I think the next time we go to Hawksmoor (which we will, because we love it), we will probably choose the Air Street location again.

The steak was beautifully cooked and really tasty - we both had the fillet, pretty steep at £35 but so good - and for dessert, my husband had the sticky toffee pudding (£8) and I'd had my eye on the Crunchy Bar (£8.75, 50p of which goes to Action Against Hunger charity) from the start. As far as I can remember it had a biscuit base, a layer of caramel, ice cream and pieces of honeycomb - it was really good.

I spent ages scrutinising the extensive cocktail menu at the start before my husband arrived, and finally settled upon the Champagne Charlie - so felt a bit silly when I turned to the food menu and printed across the top were their top three recommended cocktails - including the one I had spent ages choosing! Champagne Charlie was described as containing Beefeater gin, lemon, seasonal fruit syrup and champagne. I asked the waiter what the seasonal fruit was and he said beetroot - that isn't a fruit! I was prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt and was actually amazed at how good it tasted!

When our desserts arrived I had hoped my husband's might have had a birthday candle stuck in it and was mildly disappointed that it didn't - and then moments later the waiter brought out another plate, with 'happy birthday' written in chocolate and three of their homemade salted caramel rolos - these are on the menu for £4 for 4, and I've often wanted to try them but never have. The chocolate shell contains almost liquid caramel - they are really good and it was lovely to receive them as an extra treat.

So overall it was an excellent meal and a great way to kick off the celebrations for my husband's 40th birthday.

 

 

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Follow Your Dreams Shaker Card

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Meal Planning Monday 2017 - Week 16

Monday; bank holiday

Lunch- bacon sandwich

Dinner- vol au vents with leftover lamb and pomegranate. A slightly odd recipe as I've had some vol au vents in the freezer for ages that need using up and found a recipe for fatayer - spiced lamb pastry parcels with pomegranate - that I thought I could adapt for vol au vents! I think they would go well with salad.

 

Tuesday
Lunch - leftover lamb and pomegranate flatbread
Dinner - out at an event, will grab something en route

Wednesday
Lunch leftover vol au vents with salad
Dinner - potentially out with a friend; if not, I will make yogurt-spiced chicken with rice from a Weightwatchers recipe I printed out years ago

Thursday
Lunch- flatbread and salad
Dinner -turkey, lime and honey stir-fry from an old M&S magazine
 

Friday
Lunch- flatbread and salad
Dinner - smoked mackerel in mustard sauce
 

Saturday 
Lunch - on a bbq course
Dinner - crab and chilli spaghetti for me, spaghetti carbonara for him
 

Sunday
Lunch - scrambled egg bagel
Dinner - roast beef (unless the weather gets really hot and we don't want a roast!)

This is a blog hop, join in!
 

An InLinkz Link-up

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Easter Meringue Nest with Passion fruit Coulis and Cadbury Creme Egg

Passion fruit - indeed fruit of any kind - and Cadbury Creme Egg are two things that I wouldn't have thought particularly go together, but I have been proven wrong.


Cadbury sent me several Creme Eggs just in time for Easter, along with four recipes where they have teamed up with the Rinkoff bakery. I already made these mini s'more brownie cupcakes with Cadbury Creme Eggs which were really good, and I mean really good.


On Easter Sunday I had my mother- and father-in-law over for lunch and cooked a delicious roast lamb... plus chicken for my husband as he doesn't eat lamb, and butternut squash for my mother-in-law who is vegetarian. So with all that, I needed an easy dessert!


The Cadbury/Rinkoff recipe for meringue nests with passion fruit coulis and Cadbury Creme Egg was just the thing as I could prepare most of it in advance. This is the recipe - I will explain afterwards a few tweaks I made. The recipe below says it makes eight meringue nests but they would be pretty small I think as I had to double the quantity of ingredients to make eight.


You need:
For the meringue:
2 large egg whites at room temperature
100g caster sugar


For the passion fruit coulis:
250ml passion fruit puree (thaw if frozen)
240g sugar


For the ganache:
5 Cadbury Creme Eggs, melted
100g butter
8 Cadbury Creme Eggs, cut into small pieces


Method
For the meringue:
Pre-heat your oven to 120C. Put the egg whites into a large clean bowl and whisk on a medium speed. Keep whisking until they form stiff peaks.


Add the 100g caster sugar a tablespoon at a time and whisk until combined. The meringue should be nice and glossy.


Line a flat baking tray with greaseproof paper or a non-stick baking sheet. If necessary use a bit of butter to make it stick to the tray.


Place a star nozzle into a piping bag and spoon in the meringue. Start by piping a dot in the centre of your meringue nest then in one continuous motion go around the dot twice to make a bigger circle, then go round again on top of the outer circle to make the sides. Repeat until you've piped all nests.

NB The recipe didn't state the cooking time so this is what worked for me Place the baking sheet into the pre-heated oven and bake for one hour until the meringues are crisp. Remove from the oven and allow to cool before removing from the greaseproof paper and baking sheet.

For the passion fruit coulis:
In a medium-sized saucepan mix the passion fruit and sugar together. Bring to the boil on a medium heat and simmer for 3-5 minutes. Put aside to cool.

For the ganache:

In a saucepan heat up a small amount of water and place a glass bowl on top (like a bain marie). Place 4 Cadbury Creme Eggs (yes I know the ingredients list says 5.... perhaps they expect you to eat one while cooking) and butter in a glass bowl and stir until all the ingredients have melted (this should take approximately four or five minutes). The mixture should have a slight gloss and be quite runny.

Leave to cool for a minute or two. Drizzle the ganache and coulis over the nest and top with broken pieces of Cadbury Creme Egg.

Here are my tweaks:

• I doubled the quantity so each person had two meringues
• I couldn't find my star piping nozzle so the sides of the meringue are smooth, which doesn't look as good
• I actually forgot to build up the sides of the meringues so they are flat which isn't as good either!
• The recipe didn't give a cooking time, I recommend one hour
• Instead of making the fruit coulis, as I couldn't find passion fruit puree, I bought Sainsbury's mango and passion fruit coulis and used that in the recipe
• I layered two meringue nests with passion fruit coulis and Creme Egg ganache, then put half a crushed Creme Egg on top of each portion, so using six Creme Eggs in total.

The chocolate and fruit flavours went together surprisingly well, and I loved the chewy meringue and the smooth chocolate. This made a really good Easter dessert!

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Fishcake and Poached Egg in a Tarragon Sauce

This dish was inspired by something I saw in a restaurant that made me think 'that's a good idea!'. I like fishcakes but don't have them that often - the idea is often better than the reality. This dish is a bit different, really tasty and very filling, so you only need one fishcake per person and it goes well with some green veg like broccoli on the side.

The fishcake - I used shop-bought ones but you can make your own - is topped with a poached egg; I use Poachies Egg poaching Bags - 20 Bagsand they usually turn out really well with runny yolks unless I leave them in the water a little too long as I've gotten distracted!

The sauce is made very easily, from melted butter, a dash of lemon juice, a little fish stock and some chopped dried tarragon. Place the fishcake in a bowl and the poached egg on top, and pour the sauce around the fishcake. Enjoy!

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Eggs Bunnadict

Here's an Easter twist on one of my favourite breakfast or brunch dishes, eggs benedict - it uses hot cross buns, hence the name eggs bunnadict!

The name comes from a dish served by the ETM bar group, which owns bars like the Botanist in the City of London - I haven't actually been to them but read in the Evening Standard about a dish they were serving over Easter: strawberry marshmallow and vanilla and coconut panna cotta on a hot cross bun base. It sounded awesome but I preferred the idea of making something savoury - and when I heard that Marks & Spencer had launched some savoury cheese and onion hot cross buns I decided these would be perfect for the base.

I couldn't get hold of any unfortunately - I asked staff in one M&S Simply Food and they had never heard of them and seemed surprised when I said M&S had recently announced their launch (do they not pay any attention to internal communications?!) and then suggested I try again in a few weeks - after Easter. Hmm.

M&S were then very helpful via Twitter and checked stock at two other stores local to me but said they didn't have any in stock, which was a shame (at least they knew what I was talking about this time!).

I knew there was no way I would have time to make my own hot cross buns so decided to take a punt and make eggs benedict on normal i.e. sweet hot cross buns and see how they would turn out... I was a bit nervous as my husband doesn't like sweet and savoury together and declared the bacon brownies I made from a Nigella recipe "an abomination". So it was a nice surprise when he said bacon, poached eggs and hollandaise sauce on a toasted hot cross bun shouldn't work... but strangely did!

So there you go - if you want a new way to enjoy your hot cross bun this Easter, try this Eggs Bunnadict!

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