breakfast bap

There's nothing quite like a sausage and bacon bap with a good cup of tea for a late breakfast.

Quick and easy fish and rice

This is a meal I would often have at University. Its cheap, quick and healthy and luckily my daughter loves it.
It is simply some boiled rice and peas with a tin of sardines/mackerel in tomato sauce stirred in.

Sweet red bean soup.

This is something I love but make rarely as it can be time consuming. It is a chinese dessert / snack made with azuki beans, lotus seeds and sugar.
You will need to soak the beans overnight and the lotus seeds will also need soaking for a couple of hours. On other ocassions that I have made it I have also added a couple of spoons of tapioca balls.
So what you need is 1 cup of dried red azuki beans (soak overnight, they will double in size) If I am being lazy I will also add the 1/2 cup of lotus seeds in with them to soak.
You then need to put them in a pot with about 5-6 cups of water and 1/3 - 1/2 cup of sugar. Start wih less sugar and add more to taste if you like later. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 1 1/2 hours.
The beans should be just beaking up and soft and should have thickend the soup. Enjoy hot or cold.

Kenwood chef

I have become the proud owner of a kenwood chef thanks to my mum passing it down to me via another older lady. I hope it can stand up to all the use I put it through

Banana loaf

Ingredients:

175g (1 cup) light brown sugar

125g (1/2 cup) butter

2 eggs

250g (2-3) bananas mashed

250g (2 cups) self raising flour

1/2 tsp cinamon

1/4 tsp bicarbonate soda

90g (1/2 cup) chopped no-need-to-soak prunes (or apricots)

60g (1/2 cup) chopped nuts (preferably walnuts)

Cream the butter and sugar, slowly add the eggs then the bananas. sieve the dry ingredients together add add to the mix then add the nuts.

Bake for about 50min at 180 C or until firm and golden

Turkey Pie

This was a pie I made after christmas with left overs. I have to admit that I did 'cheat' and use ready made puff pastry.
For the filling I added to the turkey leek, bacon, parsnip some seasoning and flour to thicken. Cooked it together in a saucepan then put the filling in a pie dish and just covered with the ready made pastry. Put it in the oven for about 40min, and hey presto.

Sushi

My first attempt at making sushi by myself.

Poached egg on toast

A tasty, healthly breakfast or snack especially when sprinkled with freshly ground salt and pepper

beef stew

One of the choices I cooked for Sunday lunch. I tried out the new Colemans cook in a bag packets, which left the beef so soft and succulent. I followed the recipe on the packet but left out the mushrooms. To feed 20 people I used 4 bags.

Stir Fried Chicken Noodles

This was a Sunday evening meal for 15 people after already serving lunch for 30 (which I did have help with). But due to it being the 2nd meal of the day for a large number of people I did a quick version. This involved a lot of frozen veg.

Ingredients:

3 Tbs veg oil

1 chopped onion

4 cloves of crushed garlic

2cm root ginger

12 noodle cakes

1 bag frozen peppers (apporx 500g)

1 bag mixed frozen veg (1kg)

4 chicken breasts cubed

I don't tend to measure the amount of sauce I add to flavour as I tend to just chuck it in and taste so the following amounts are very appoximate!

150ml soya sauce

6 Tbs oyster sauce

1 Tbs fish sauce

2Tbs toasted sesame oil

Lasagne

This is a nice basic meal which I play around with abit depending on what ingredients I have at hand.
This time round I made my own white sauce but I sometimes use ready made.

Recipes to come...

In order to quick start his blog I have just been adding some pictures I have taken over the last few months before I considered writing this blog - my intention is to add recipes as much as anything and hopefully I will get the chance to do this as I write an almost daily blog about the food I am cooking. If anyone has any recipe suggestions, requests or tips I would be grateful for your comments.

Apricot chicken

One of my favourite easy fail safe recipes that I learnt from a friend. Considering the lack of ingredients and the simplicity of putting it together, it is an amazing dish and perfect for a family meal or when cooking for a large number of people.

Ingredients:
6-8 chicken pieces (I prefer thighs)
1 can of apricot halves in syrup
1 pack of powdered french onion soup mix

I sometimes like to add a couple of chopped carrotts as well if I don't want to cook additional vegetables.

Empty the can of appricots and onion soup mix in a casserol dish and place the chicken on top.
If you would like slightly more sauce then you can add a cup of water.

Place in the oven for about 45-1hr at 180 c or until cooked.

Serve with rice. It is as easy as that.

Birthday Cake for Dad

This is the cake my kids helped make and decorate for their dads birthday last year.

My 2nd attempt at a fruit boquet

It didn't look as great as the first one partly due to the shape of the vase I used - however the eating of it was very much enjoyed.

baby boy cake

Carrot cake

my favourite recipe so far for carrot cake is the one from the hummingbird bakery.

Chocolate cupcakes with daisy decoration

Red velvet cup cakes

Donald duck birthday cake

To get the shape of Donald, I printed a picture off the internet then cut out the separate pieces like a puzzle and used them as a stencil to cut the shape of the icing. I then used a tube of black icing to edge it.

Chocolate cake (egg and butter free)

This is one of my favourite chocolate cake recipies that I got from my mum. Not only is it dairy free but it is moist and not too over sweet.

Satay

I have been really wanting some satay for the last few weeks so finally went and bought myself some crunchy peanut butter (I only usually have smooth in the house as thats what I prefer on toast).
Satay is one of the easiest foods to make for such a huge amount of mouth watering satisfaction.
I have decided though that I need to come up with a repeatable recipe - like so many of the things I cook, I tend to chuck stuff in and give it a stir and taste and keep adding ingredients till I am satisfied enough with the product.
This sadly means I will have to make lots of different batches to try out!
So once I have figured out a recipe I like, I will share it with you.