This morning I'm posting an update.

Just to let you know, the beany chilli was brilliant and the pulled pork is pretty damn awesome!

Chuffed!

And eating my words. Sorry Nikki lol

Xx

This weekend i've been back cooking again!

Well.

For the last wee while I've not really been making much, a mixture of being not arsed and being bloody knackered. However, last week i done my usual fir this time of year (this is the third year, anyway) and rejoined slimming world.  The last 2 years I've joined a local group bit I've decided this year to join online and go it alone. No more paying a fiver ti get told I'm fat- at least this way i can pay way in advance and clap myself every week  (or eat shit loads of chocolate and drink shit loads of wine if it's a shit week lol).

Anyway, i digress!!

I knuckled down this weekend and went mad on cooking. Well. That's maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but i cooked more than i have in a while.

It started with chilli. Now. Normally i use lean mince (5% fat) but i felt a bit saucy and got turkey breast mince instead! Ooh! So mince, tomatoes, peppers, onions, spring onions, chillis, green beans (only cos they were there and out of date) and shit loads of cumin, paprika and chilli powder.

It tasted of nothing. I don't know what i done wrong. I did, however, use to much chilli so it burnt the mouth off me. My lips were tingling (oo-er). I put a pic on instagram (as one does) and my pal nikki (who we take the piss out of for putting baked beans in her chilli) suggested i put beans in it. So i have. I've not tried it the again yet to test it but ive warned her if it's shit then shes broon breed 

Then there was soup. I had baby plum tomatoes in the fridge that had a bbe of 3rd feb. I thought well, it's only the 7th so fuck it! Tomatoes, carrot, onion, ham stock, chilli and basil. Bloody amazing. Except, you'd think I'd learn, i put too much chilli in it. Near took the tongue off   me!!

Then, after looking at recipes on the slimming world website, i decided to make pulled pork! 1.8kg of pork shoulder and passata, Worcester sauce, balsamic vinegar, mustard powder and sugar to boil while searing the pork (it was a bloody big bit of meat to handle ).  It looks ok so far but tomorrow morning well be the tell.

*sings* how do you pull your pork in the morning... 

Come back next time when i try and make something called cloud bread!

Fuck knows!

turkey chilli

turkey chilli with beans

tomato soup

pulled pork sauce

Searin the meat!

pulled pork prepared :)

Tonight I've been experimenting with scones.

Tonight i decided to make some scones, and also that i wanted to be fancy. So i set about the kitchen and got my mixing bowls out (new colourful ones that Andrews sister got me for my birthday- right fancy!) and got mixing!

When i said i wasn't making plain ones, Andrews face fell, so i started with them. Start simple and get more complicated, i thought.

It turns out my lack of imagination stretches further than being shit at choosing Christmas presents.

As soon as I'd mixed my scone mix, i had absolutely no idea what to put in.  I searched my cupboards for ideas and eventually found some chocolate that i bought for making hot chocolate (ho cho, i heard recently).  Game on,  i thought. Chocolate scones!

They worked!

So, feeling a wee bit more confident, i decided to make a savoury mixture (I thought this would be really complicated,  then realised all i had to do was leave out the sugar haha). 

Cheese! Cheese was calling me!

Ooooh and chilli powder!

So cheese and chilli went in next!

Then i got all fancy when i found one of those wee portions of blue cheese you get in pick n mix cheese counters! I decided to make it even more fancy by putting salt and pepper on top! Get me!!!

I'm not entirely sure what happened, but they resemble snails. They rose a bit funny...

The last batch, i decided to split and make half sweet and half savoury, because i am now a scone queen and know how to do that shit!!  Another rake of the cupboards found half a bar of white chocolate, so in it went!

Finally, i chopped up some ham and chucked it into the last lot and mixed up a mustard glaze for the top!

Oh yes! Fucking mustard-glazed ham scones!

Once i take them into work tomorrow and force my Easties to try them I'll see about future experiments...

Today i used a chocolate transfer sheet.

Last week my lovely mother-in-law (more or less, although I'm not actually married) gave me a chocolate transfer sheet! I had no idea what this was so, after a lot of googling discovered that if you put melted chocolate on it, the transfer pattern ends up on the choc! !!! Brilliant!!

I always wondered how fancy shops got the pattern on, and now i know :-)

Anyway, i made a couple of muffins and while they were cooling spooned wee drops of choc on the transfer,and chucked it in the fridge. I was sceptical. I don't trust this kind of wizardry normally.

But it bloody worked!

I cut a wee hole in each of the muffins and shoved a bit of starry chocolate it!

Chuffed!

This week my boss gave me apples.

My lovely boss, Tracy, shouted over the office to ask if anyone wanted any cookers. I got quite excited as this was around the same time as my oven broke, but then i realised she meant apples. She's had quite the crop this year! So i took some and they've been sitting in my kitchen for a wee while now.

I'm sure you'll have seen the thing going round t'internet just now about apple roses. I did and thought "I'm sure i could make those!". So tonight i did :-) Well. Kind of.  I didn't have any jam that the recipe asks for, so i done it without.  Except for one, which i used peanut butter in. Turns out that makes it mingin so i dint really recommend it.

I'd bought puff pastry at aldi at my last shop and its been in the freezer for a few weeks, so i defrosted it overnight so it was ready to use tonight. Turns out its right hard to roll, so i got a bit fed up and ended up halving it which meant less roses. Never mind! I ended up with 4 and, know what- they're actually not too bad looking!!!! A bit burnt round the edges, but ive come to expect that these days!

But what to do with the other apples and pastry. I got Mary Berry out and asked her, and she said-you have some butter and sugar, why not make a tart tatin?

Why not indeed!

So i got slicing some more and boiled my butter and sugar, and got a square tin  (square, not round - get me, I'm a rebel) and assembled. I shoved the edges of the pastry down and popped it in the oven and hoped for the best!

Well, it bloody worked!

I put a plate over the top and closed my eyes as i flipped the whole thing over, and it came out in one piece!!!!! I had a bit syrup spillage, but nothing major! How chuffed am i!!!

I've had a wee corner off out and it tastes fairly good! I've not really got anything to compare it to (i would never order tart tatin for pudding, i don't actually think i know anyone who would-especially if there's chocolate cake or cheesecake on the same menu! ) but it tastes nice for what it is!

I've still got a few apples left so christ knows what will end up happening to them :-)

Today i attempted to make macarons.

It didn't go well.

I decided i would become a macaron master before Christmas so i could give everyone them as presents on the big day. I've made them before, bright green in colour, and noone ate them. I work with nurses, and let me tell you-nothing sweet gets left, ever.  Except those.

So today was round two.  I trawled the internet for the best recipe and ended up on the guardian site, and proceeded to make chocolate macarons.

I weighed everything right, made sure my bowl was spotless and whisked until my peaks were stiff! I folded as per instructions and combined like i was told! I even used a wee scone cutter to make templates to pipe the mix onto my baking parchment.

My oven is still broken, i should add here. My lovely colleague Shona gave me a number for a good electrician but ive not got round to calling him yet (hopefully he can come at night or the weekend! !!). So I'm still left with my top oven which burns things at the back before the front is cooked. FML.

Anyhoo, i let the macarons rest after battering them off the table a few times. I really should have known they wouldn't work after i realised they weren't forming the thin skin they're meant to get. Well, that and the fact i had to use a rose nozzle as i don't seem to have a plain round one. Oops.

But in they went. I opened the door halfway (as per instructions) and used this opportunity to turn the baking trays round. As soon as i opened the door i was hot with a thick smoke that smelled of burnt chocolate. No sae gid!!! But i persevered and shut them in for the last 5 mins.

So now they're out. They're flat. They're burnt. They're cooling but they're shit.

I was going to put caramel in the middle and it was going to be awesome but fuck wasting the good shit on them! Instead ill probably have a few wines and demolish them when I'm a bit tipsy.

And wake up tomorrow shitting off the face of the earth.  Time will tell!

See you soon.

Ps, i don't know why the pictures are upside down, but at least if it's arty it makes it look less faily!!!

This week I've already made lots of cake.

Well. This week i planned to make 2 cakes. One for my best pal's daughter who will be 4 tomorrow (which i can't quite believe as i remember her being born yesterday ) and a boat cake for the consultant i work with who's leaving for a new job this week.

But of course my oven broke, didn't it!?!

Thankfully the cooker i have has a top oven, which I've never baked in before and isn't fan like the normal oven, so i still got cracking. Albeit with a different plan.

Miren had quite specific requests that it had to be pink. That's fine. I had loads of pink- fuscia and rose, and red colouring i could add to white icing. But she also wanted roses. Now. Roses are bloody hard to make from fondant. I didn't know this until recently! However, after a couple of attempts- and lots of pintresting and youtubing- i think i got away with it.

My plan was to make a lovely 3-tiered pink creation with ribbons and hearts and polka dots and pinkness. That went out the window pretty swiftly! 

I ended up making a wee heart cake with some questionable roses, then shitloads of pink cupcakes with pink icing and pink piped roses. Game on.  I delivered them tonight, so that's at least done.

But then the boat. I planned a tiered sail boat, with royal icing blue sea and loads of movement, and even bought edible rice paper for the sails!!! AND I made a wee consultant sailor out of fondant, who would be sitting proudly hanging onto the rigging.

But no.

What I've ended up with is an effort of a cake that looks like a 4 year old made it!

On the plus side, i still used my edible paper on the sails. You can't tell, of course, because that kind of went tits up too and i ended up having to make blue sails when i ran out of white fondant! So the sails are ricepaper-covered blue things.

Fuck it. It tastes nice!

Isn't it funny how you can start disliking a hobby...

Til next time!!!