Muffinlicious

Ahh the humble muffin, now overlooked in favour of sweet, iced cupcakes. BUT lets not forget muffins were the first cake that came along that was acceptable to have for breakfast- we owe muffins!

So when a colleague brought in a load of cooking apples into the office on Friday I knew just the recipe to use them up  - Apple and Cinnamon Breakfast Muffins. These tasty morsels are made with wholemeal flour so they are defo healthy. Its a fact...... ok well either way these little muffins are super easy to make and here is how.

Muffin Ingredients
2 cooking apples, cored, peeled and chopped
250g wholemeal flour
150g plain flour
2tsp cinnamon
150g light brown sugar
pinch of salt
250ml milk
2 eggs
110g butter

1. First of all pop your oven on to 180 and line a muffin tray with cases

2. mix all the dry ingredients and the apples in a bowl and in another bowl beat the butter, eggs and milk until it is a weird lumpy mush (trust me it will work out!)

3. Now stir the wet mixture in slowly, making sure you combine it all but not over mixing.  Pop a big dollop into each muffin tin and bake in the middle of the oven for 20-25mins until springy!

4. Pop the kettle on, have a cup of tea and enjoy!

Bake Away....

So it was Sunday and I wanted to get my baking gear on so I decided to use up some cooking apples from a colleague at work and make some delicious Apple and Cinnamon muffins. But why stop there? Don't I spend 90p every day buying a biscotti? I wonder how hard they would be to make. Well let me tell you, they are ridiculously EASY! So lets start with biscotti!

Biscotti Ingredients
130g Blanched Almonds
150g Caster Sugar
2 whole eggs
1 egg yolk
240g plain flour (you can use gluten free)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Put your oven on to 180 and toast your almonds for 10-12mins until golden. Take them out and leave them to cool before putting them in a plastic bag and bashing the hell out of them!

2. Weigh out your flour, sugar and baking powder in a bowl, add your smashed up almonds and give it a good mix

3. whisk your eggs, yolk and vanilla extract up with a folk, make a well in the dry mixture and work it in until you get a good, but sticky dough
4. Now, line a baking tray with greasproof paper of grease it up with some butter, now make 2 log shapes about 20cm x 6cm x 1.5cm and pop them on the tray (as far apart as possible - these babies spread!)

5. now pop them in the oven for 20mins..

6. Take them out of the oven and reduce the oven temp to 170, place one of the biscotti logs on a chopping board and using a serated knife, slice diagonally into slices, you should get 10 from each log. Return these to the baking tray and pop them back in the oven for 10-15mins until golden and crisp.

These are the perfect elevenses biscuit to have with you tea or a latte and they will keep in an airtight container for up to two weeks!

Tantric Cooking



just beautiful!



Behold! I have just purchased one of these bad boys - thats right it's a slow cooker! I've had one before but never got round to doing anything more exciting that a beef stew and as it was a one person slow cooker it limited how many times I could use it!

 So lets get cracking...

Fiance does French Onion Soup - Fantastique!



Trust me - you need this!

 On a grey, slightly cool saturday afternoon you need something with plenty of flavour and punch to keep you from snoozing off at supper time. Step up - my awesome future husband Darren and his French Onion Soup.

Ever since we overindulged in bubbling bowls of this french treat in the wonderful Etale restaurant in Morzine at the end of a ski trip, Darren has spent many hours refining his recipe for this heavily soup and my goodness - I think he's cracked it!

To make enough for two hungry tummies you will need
 

·       4 onions - sliced

·       2 garlic cloves

·       20g butter

·       250ml red wine

·       750ml/1¼ pint beef stock

·       4 tbsp balsamic vinegar

·       6 slices of baguette

·       284g grated gruyere

·       Sea salt and black pepper



Tasty!  



1)   Slice your onions finely and slowly soften over a low heat in the melted butter for 15-20mins until they break down a bit and go a caramelly brown colour.

2)  Stir well and add the stock, balsamic and wine and bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 10mins



3)  If your saucepan is ok in the oven crack on, if not pour the soup into a warmed oven proof bowl, top with the baguette slices and cover with the grated cheese – pop under the grill until the cheese melts

4)  Get stuck in. My god this soup is HEAVEN IN A BOWL!

Saving The Dates!

So what to do when you're inviting half the world to your wedding and you want to make sure everyone can make it? Well the thing these days is to send out a "Save the Date" card so everyone knows when and where it will be and can't start looking for an outfit, crocheting a wedding tablecloth etc etc.

Now there are LOADS of companies out there that will design you up some lovely Save the Date cards but none of them really suited our style. We wanted something a bit funky retro so we used photo shop to create these!

I followed a fab tutuorial from this blog here to turn the original photo (taken on bfs phone the day we got engaged in Javea) into more of a "polaroid" look.

We then purchased the birds design and set designing the back of the card.

With printing costs they will probably cost £30 and are far more personal and suited to us that something with ribbons and diamantes on :)

Its never too soon for a Bourguignon...

If you have 3 hours to spare before dinner (and yes it is going to take that long) then you could do much worse than to prepare a delicious beef bourguignon. Let me sell it to you...
1) One pot - less washing up
2) Uses red wine where other sauces use water
3) tastes AMAZING and basically makes you look like a super chef!

Right so we're committing to spending these three hours together so lets get started.... for four hungry people you will need.....

·       800gr stewing steak

·       200gr lardons/ pancetta/ smoked streaky bacon

·       1 bottle of red wine

·       800ml of beef stock

·       2 onions - chopped

·       200g shallots/ baby onions - just peel em!

·       2 cloves of garlic - chopped

·       some flour and salt and pepper

·       a few sprigs of thyme, flat lead parsley and 2 bay leaves

·       100g button mushrooms

·       BUTTER - get President if you can (might as well get in the French mood)

1) Right step one - mix your flour and salt and pepper and roll the beef about in it, make sure its all covered. Put a glug of olive oil in a big casserole thats ok on the hob - gently fry your lardons and then after 4-5mins add in your beef and fry for a further 4-5mins until its all getting a nice colour.

2) Now add your onions and garlic and cook for a further 5mins until they have softened. Now.... Add 500ml of wine and stock and your herbs, pop a lid on and leave it for 2 hours on a low heat until it thickens up. Be warned - your house will smell amazing!

3) after 1.45 hours go and peel enough spuds for your diners and pop them on to boil in some salted water. In a frying pan, melt 25g of butter and gently fry your shallots/ baby onions until they have colour and are softened. When done - add the mushrooms and put the whole lot in the main casserole, stir it up and leave it for another 30mins.

4) whilst that is cooking top and tail some chatenay carrots and slice in half lengthways. In the frying pan melt 50g of butter, add 2 tbsp of honey and 2 tbsp of sugar - melt it all up into a big caramlely gloop! Add your carrots and fry/ bubble for 4 mins. Add 150ml of water and turn down - leave to simmer for 20mins or until tender.

5) Serve with a glass of red (well you only used 2/3rds of the bottle!) and enjoy!

gosh those three hours just flew by!

Hot in the City? Have some cold soup...

We haven't quite embraced the "chilled soup" here in Blighty as our cousins on the continent have probably because it's quite often bloody cold here (my housemate has broken the tights out today - MID August!) and we need a warming bowl of broth to keep us warm us up! but what about on those rare summers evening when they idea of standing over a hot stove/ hob/ microwave is less appealing that John Prescott in a hot tub?

Well relax - I have found the perfect recipe for a gazpacho (chilled tomato based soup) that is guaranteed to refresh and revive you on a  sticky summers evening!

You will need:

100g old stale bread soaked in water
1kg of ripe tomatoes, diced, you can keep the skin and seeds on (get fondling the goods- they need to be soft and almost ready to split!)
1 red pepper - diced
1 green pepper - diced
a cucumber - peeled and diced
1 peeled clove of garlic
4-5 tbsp of olive oil
salt and pepper
1 tbsp Vinegar - Sherry, white wine or even balsamic work well with the flavours

1) |After soaking your bread in water for 20mins, squeeze the water out and pop the soggy bread in your blender
2) add to that the tomatoes, peppers, cucumber, garlic, olive oil and sherry and blitz it up! If it is sticking use a ladle or two of the bread water to help it come together
3) pour and push it through a sieve
4) chill in the fridge for 1hour
5) serve in bowls with croutons and chopped spring onions as a garnish

Enjoy my little senors and senoritas!