Jollof rice

Fancied making some jollof rice for dinner and went trawling through the internet for a recipe. Each site I visited had different instructions. I tried to find a recipe on the Jollof rice seasoning jar, all it told me was 'There are as many ways to prepare jollof rice as there are cooks'. So I decided to come up with my own version. 

I sautered chopped red, green and yellow peppers, white and red onions for a bit and added a generous sprinkling of the Jollof seasoning. 
After blending well chopped tomatoes, I added to pan.
 I roughly chopped left over pork and chicken and added to pan. 
Then I added 2 cups of raw rice and mixed well. 
I made up 3 cups stock with chicken cubes added to rice and poured everything into a large casserole dish. 
I cooked this in the oven. 
Halfway through cooking, I added a little frozen peas and carrots. 
 5 minutes before rice was done, I also added fresh baby plum tomatoes cut in half. 

Served with chicken wings, shredded lettuce with ceasar dressing, fried onions and garnished with a cucumber fan.

Strawberries, strawberries and yet more strawberries!

With summer now in full swing and the garden not disappointing in producing lovely, juicy and sweet strawberries, the choices of what to make are endless.

Here is a few things I have made in the kitchen with strawberries so far.

Strawberry muffins
I made these when I was so tired, forgot to preheat the oven and realised when I was about to pop them in! So kept the batter on the counter while I preheated the oven. Thought they were going to be a disaster but surprise surprise, they were actually a hit!











Scones with strawberry jam, whipped fresh cream, topped with sliced fresh strawberries. I have lost count how many times I have made these so far this summer.









And finally, mummy's favourite


Strawberry Martini

Lamb for Fathers' Day Menu?

Here is another option for Father's Day main meal. Its lamb shank steaks served with crushed new potatoes, sprouting greens, baby pea pods, carrots and red wine and oregano jus.

Brown the onions in olive oil, add the carrots to brown slightly. Put onions and carrots in a roasting dish then seal the lamb it in a hot pan with salt and pepper. Place the lamb on top of the vegetables, sprinkle freshly chopped oregano on top of the lamb and cook in a slow oven covered until the lamb is cooked.

Deglaze the pan with red wine. Add one Knorr gravy pot, some water and reduce to make the sauce over a low heat. Add freshly chopped oregano and allow it to infuse off heat.

Steam your green vegetables.

For the potatoes, boil new potatoes in slightly salted water. When cooked, drain and crush the potatoes with a pat of butter, cracked black pepper, check seasoning and adjust to taste.

Use a cutter to mould the crushed potatoes onto a tray, reheat in oven ready for serving. Strain the jus through a fine seive.

To Plate: Place crushed potatoes onto plate, arrange lamb steaks on top. Place vegetables around the potatoes then add the jus.

Enjoy!

Jam doughnuts

My daughter's favourite treat. She likes them coated in sugar and hubby likes them without the sugar (talk about trying to please everyone!).

Sunday Roast with a difference

Every Sunday in my household without fail, the main meal is Sunday roast. Yesterday we had friends over for a BBQ and had quite a fair bit of left over food. Me being me and hating food waste, I tubbed it all up and fridged it.

I marinated a full chicken in the morning with the following:

1 tablespoon Calcutta Spice Chicken BBQ (Bought this during my last trip to Zimbabwe)
1 Packet Schwartz Chicken Casserole mix
1 tablespoon soy sauce
Half a  green pepper finely chopped
Half a red onion finely chopped
1 tablespoon dried mixed herbs
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons white wine (or if you prefer non alcoholic use lemon juice)
2 tablespoon water

Rub the chicken spice onto cut chicken pieces. Then mix the rest of the marinade ingredients and pour over the chicken and mix well. Cover and place in the fridge for up to 24 hours.

When ready, bake covered in a preheated oven for about 45 minutes to an hour until chicken is cooked through. Remove cover or foil during the last 1o minutes of baking to brown the chicken.

I served mine with fried rice, potato salad, leaf salad and a baked bean salad (all left over from yesterday’s BBQ party).

Vanilla cupcakes

My family is so easy to please. This is how they like their cake, un-iced and still warm.

This is such an easy recipe to do, you can quickly whip this up, bake it and have family and friends enjoy these yummy babies in under 30 minutes.

I use the same recipe as for the cake pops.
http://double-d-delights.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/cake-pops.html

Enjoy.

Cake Pops

 Last year, I got hooked on the 'cake pop' craze that hit the caking community. I tried the crumbling cake and moulding pops by hand method and found the pops ended up too sweet for my liking. I also found the whole process quite tedious so I invested in a cake pop mould.

For the actual cake pops I use the following ingredients and do the creaming method:

175g butter
175g Flour
175g Caster sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 teaspoons water



I spray the mould with cake release before adding spoonfuls of cake batter into the bottom section (without the holes). I then put the 'lid' on and bake in a preheated oven for about 15 minutes and voila, perfectly formed round cake balls.

Once cooled,  dip cakepop stick into melted chocolate and push into a cake ball. Refrigerate for a few minutes for the chocolate 'glue' to harden. Then dip the pops into melted chocolate and once chocolate is set, decorate with contrasting chocolate.

 

Fathers' Day

Fathers' day is only a couple of weeks away. I am already planning the meal for hubby. This year, I hopefully will incorporate some vegetables from our garden as an appreciation of all hubby's hard work in the garden.



Last year, I packed the kids off to a friend's house and made a meal for 2.

                                                                                                              Starter

Peri-peri chicken livers on a bed of rocket salad topped with bacon lardons












               Main

 Fillet steak atop a fondant potato served with sprouting brocolli, baby roast parsnips button mushrooms and mushroom chasseur sauce

                                                                                    Dessert

Chocolate mousse served with whipped fresh cream and garnished with a strawberry fan and a chocolate butterfly (my husband's acquired totem!)

The cake was heavenly chocolate cake covered in chocolate ganache with chocolate moulded tool box and tools.

Bridal Shower Cake

 A not so simple cake journey from start to finish


Cake making is such a therapeutic excercise for me. Saying that though, the journey involves a lot of YESSSSSSSSSSSSS and air punching, when something works out well and ARGHHHHHHHHHH's when it doesn't go as it should! One of the ARGHHH moments is during cutting out letters. Nevertheless, I do enjoy both these and will find any excuse to make cake!

                                  This cake was for a friend for her bridal shower.

I started off with covering a cake board in white fondant then used an imprint mat for the design, I set this aside to dry.

For the cake

Ingredients:
350g Flour
350g Butter
350g Caster sugar
6 eggs
2 teaspoons lemon Extract
6 teaspoons water

To Make:

1. Preheat oven to 150⁰C (this is for fan assisted ovens)
2. Sift flour 3 times and set aside (I use the McDougalls Supreme Sponge self-raising flour so I do not add any raising agent) 
3. Cream the butter until very soft, add the sugar and cream until very light and fluffy
4. Add the extract (I find lemon extract adds a unique taste to the sponge but you can add any flavour of choice)
5. Add eggs, one at a time and mix well
6. Add the water then gently fold in the sifted flour and pour batter into your prepared tin

Once cooked cool on a wire rake for a few minutes then turn out to cool completely

Level the cakes and let cool, then sandwich with filling of choice. I filled this with buttercream and strawberry jam.

I covered the cake in chocolate ganache (forgot to take pictures of these stages). The cake was then covered in light blue fondant. For the dress, I cut panels of white flower paste and attached to cake with water folding the pleats before attaching to cake. The bodice was cut free-hand and the holes punched out with a number 2 nozzle. For the belt, I used a fondant bead maker.

To finish off, I sprayed pearl Edible Lustre Spray over the whole cake and its done!

Sunflower Birthday cake

I made this cake for my beautiful friend who loves yellow and flowers.

For the sunflower, I used yellow tinted flower paste and cut the petals free hand. The centre was flower paste tinted brown and I used a star nozzle to punch tiny almost holes then did a start border with the same nozzle. I was quite please with how it came out.

Growing our own vegetables is like growing our own money

Growing up, we always had vegetables fresh from the garden everyday. This year, we have decided to grow as many vegetables as we possibly can fit in out small garden.

Last year we had a problem with white butterfly lavae munching on the green leaves. So this year, we are adamant we will not share our vegetables with them so hubby came up with the idea of covering the vegetable patch with netting. Seems to be working so far. (trying to stay away from using chemicals to control pests) Keeping our fingers crossed.

 To aid grown, we used the Rootgrow seaweed (hubby loves researching and reading up reviews and this came with good reviews so we gave it a go).

The results were A.MA.Z.I.N.G

I cant wait for the other veg to grow and GET COOKING! I will be posting pictures and recipes of the goodies I will be cooking with my fresh from the garden veg.