Meal Planning Monday Week 32

Monday

Out of the office with a supplier – will take lunch and almost certainly work late so will grab dinner on the way home

Tuesday

Dinner houmous chicken from meal plan last week I didn't make

Wednesday

Dinner – BBQ (sausage/burger as we haven't had that for ages) if the weather is nice. Had to abandon my mid-week BBQ intention for the last couple of weeks!

Thursday

Dinner - Yorkshire puddings filled with chicken pieces in a white herb sauce

Friday

Dinner - steak - also haven't had this in ages

Saturday

Lunch – at a friend’s BBQ

Dinner – home at some point in the evening though I doubt we will want much to eat. Will have chicken kiev and chips in the freezer on standby

Sunday

Lunch - beans/macaroni cheese on toast

Dinner - coconut prawns for me, chicken escalope with cheese for him

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Baby Shower Invitation Card

 

My friend P was pregnant - she just had her baby two weeks early - and as we were due to meet with my other school friends at my house for a barbecue, we decided it would be fun to combine the barbecue with a baby shower. I wanted to make a bit of effort for her so decided to make some invitations to send to everyone who was coming.

 

I had some card blanks in the shape of a pram which I bought ages ago, but have since decided I prefer normal-shaped cards. It can actually be quite hard to decorate a card shaped like a shoe for instance! I thought the pram cards would work really well though as invitations, and as they didn’t need to be proper cards I cut each one in half along the join, making two.

 

 

P didn't know if she’s having a boy or a girl so I wanted the cards to have a gender-neutral colour but at the same time didn’t want to go with yellow like I often do. I’d recently bought some lovely (and quite cheap) strawberry pattern paper plates and cups from a brilliant shop called Tiger which I thought I could use at the barbecue, then hit upon the idea of making it a strawberry-themed baby shower.

 

I’d also bought a pack of printed papers from Tiger (they sell all sorts!) that had several pages with strawberry prints. I covered the card blanks with the strawberry paper as the starting point.

 

 

I never do much rubber stamping but have realised recently that it can look really nice – and professional – if you stamp a message onto a small piece of card and mount that on top of the card. I had a look on Ebay and bought a ‘baby shower’ stamp for a few pounds which is gorgeous- I love the font and the size was perfect for this project (though it’s not something I expect I will use very often!). I knew that I had some wedding stamps from a job lot I bought once at a car boot sale so fished them out; I had three with the words ‘invitation’ (wedding and evening) but unfortunately two of them were so old and worn that you can’t read the words when you stamp. The third one, a wedding invitation stamp, did work, so I was able to stamp it onto red card (to go with the strawberry colour) and cut off the word ‘wedding’. You just need to be creative sometimes!

 

 

I mounted the ‘invitation’ and ‘baby shower’ words using foam sticky pads and then did the same with a couple of handwritten pieces so I could add the date and the mum-to-be’s name.

 

On the other side of the card I wrote the details of the party.

 

I was really pleased with how these turned out and my friends said they were very cute! I will shortly be blogging about the baby shower itself if you are looking for ideas.

 

I'm sending this to the Daring Cardmakers challenge as their theme is new beginnings, and that's exactly right with a new baby!

 

 

I'm also sending it to the challenge run by Lil Patch of Crafty Friends as this week it's 'anything goes'.

 

 

 

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Alphabakes challenge: August 2015

I don’t know about you, but I enjoy seeing difficult letters come up for Alphabakes – it means you have an excuse to go through your cookery books hunting for a recipe. When an easy letter comes up I tend to think ‘oh, I’ve got some apples that need using up’ or ‘c for chocolate’ – but when it’s a letter from the tail end of the alphabet it involves a bit more thought. And I haven’t yet gotten stuck – I have enough cookery books that there is bound to be something, like these Utah scones I made for U last month!

 

So you have probably gathered that it’s a difficult letter again this month – Z! Perhaps with a lot of people going on holiday or switching off the oven in August anyway there won’t be many entries. If you are really struggling, have a look at the last time we did Z, in February 2014 – we had zucchini (courgette), zest (lemon and orange), zebra (pattern, not the meat, but you could do that!), za’atar, a Middle Eastern spice, zabaglione, zeppole, and even Z for zombies!

 

Please add your entries to the Linky by the 25^th of the month and if you tweet @Caroline_Makes and @bakingaddict we will retweet all the ones that we see.

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Here's a reminder of the rules:
1. Post your recipe on your blog and link it to The More than Occasional Baker and Caroline Makes, stating the relevant month's host. If you do not have a blog, email us a picture and a brief description of your entry which we will  include in the round-up at the end of the month.

2. You can use your own recipe or someone else's recipe. The recipe can be sweet, savoury or a mixture!  Anything goes as long as the random letter is predominantly featured in the recipe as one of the main ingredients or flavours or in the name of the bake itself (i .e . not as a garnish , or using 'flour' for the letter F!)  You can also republish old posts/recipes but you must include the information for this challenge as stated in these rules. 

 

3. Add the logo to your post and add 'alphabakes' as a label to your post. 

 

4. Please add your entries to the linkup on this page. If you want to email your entries please use alphabakes@gmail.com by midnight (GMT) 25th of each month. Please include: 

• Your name (that you want included in the round up or we will use the name of your blog)
• Your blog post URL
• Recipe title
• Photo of recipe (to be included in the round up).

 

5. You can submit as many entries as you like.

 

6. You do not have to participate every month to join in.

 

7. You may submit your entry to other challenges as long as it complies with their rules.

 

8. If you use twitter, please use the tag #alphabakes and mention @bakingaddict and @Caroline_Makes. We will retweet all those that we see.  

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Restaurant Review: Jackson & Rye, London

 With a name like Jackson & Rye I should have realised straight away this was an American-style restaurant. Rye is used in making whiskey and Jackson is the capital of the state of Mississippi. The restaurant, which has three branches in London, has a ‘rye list’ – like a wine list but different types of whiskey – and a ‘blue plate special’ section. This is a term I’ve come across in other American restaurants like the Diner in Spitalfields and am never quite sure what it means – I even asked an American colleague once and she was a bit unsure but said it was a mixture of a specials board and a special (low) price.

I was there for dinner with two friends and found it difficult to choose from everything on the menu – this is a restaurant for people who like their food, and plenty of it. From steak and eggs to fried buttermilk chicken and crab cakes – and of course hamburgers – the menu is American through and through. There are also salads and pasta dishes, and fish – including lobster – and side orders including creamed grits, baked mac and cheese and maple bacon.

I chose the shrimp burger which came in  a brioche roll with fries; it had a chunkier texture than I was expecting (I’ve had fish burgers that are more like fishcakes) and was delicious. My friends ordered the lobster and one of the daily specials, a rack of lamb, and we decided to have the truffled mac and cheese starter to share. My friend then also ordered the truffle arancini, which was delicious, and a side of maple bacon, which I didn’t try – I found it quite strange as an idea. I can understand ordering extra bacon if you want to put it in a burger or mix it into your mac and cheese but as a side to eat with a rack of lamb? Each to their own I suppose!

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Chocolate Animal Biscuits

I don’t know what it is about Cadbury Animal biscuits that makes them so moreish.

 

It’s not just the Cadbury chocolate on one side, but the biscuit itself – which is actually made by Burton’s, who also make Wagon Wheels, Maryland cookies and Jammie Dodgers – which I love. They are so cute too – shaped like different animals and the chocolate side – if I remember correctly, as I haven’t bought them in a while – has a distinctive ridged pattern.

 

I was sent some products not long ago by Mein Cupcake which trades in the UK as Cake Mart and among the items I chose was this cute little cow cookie cutter. It’s a nice cutter – very robust so it won’t get squashed out of shape, and you get enough detail without it being too fiddly.

 

I decided to make animal biscuits and kept the recipe fairly simple; I used:

250g butter, softened

150g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla flavouring

1 egg

250g plain flour

Pinch of nutmeg

100g milk chocolate

 

Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl until you have a dough. Wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for at least half an hour.
 

Preheat the oven to 180C, and roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface. If the dough is too sticky, add a little more flour and work it in.
 

Use your cookie cutters to cut out the shapes and place on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden but still slightly soft.
 

Allow to cool.
 

Melt 100g milk chocolate in a bain marie or microwave and spread over the back of each biscuit. Use a fork to run through the chocolate before it has set to make the vertical marks. Refrigerate until the chocolate has set.

 

These were lovely – not quite the same as the Burton’s/Cadbury’s biscuits (I wish I knew their recipe!) but really good, and they would be fun for children to make too.

 

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Restaurant Review: Belize

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Mug Cakes: Sticky Toffee Pudding and Dr. Oetker Review

Last Christmas I received a book called 'Mug Cakes' full of recipes to make in the microwave in a mug. It's a brilliant concept- when you really fancy something cake-y for dessert but want it then, not in an hour's time! I have already made a few mug cakes (chocolate, and toffee and pear) and when the weather was bad a little while ago we really fancied cake, so I flipped through the book until I found something we would both like where I had all the ingredients. I decided upon a sticky toffee pudding.

To make one, you need:
The largest mug you can find
2 tbsp. butter, softened, plus extra for greasing the mug
4 tbsp. toffee sauce
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp. dates, chopped
3 tbsp. brown sugar
4 tbsp. self-raising four

Grease the inside of the mug and spoon in 3 tbsp. of the toffee sauce.

 

 Place the butter, egg, 1 tbsp. toffee sauce, vanilla and dates into a small bowl (or another mug, but a bowl is easier) and beat together with a fork. Fold in the sugar and flour and mix in. Spoon into the mug that has the toffee sauce at the bottom.

 

Microwave for 2 and a half minutes on high if you have a 600 watt microwave or 2 minutes for a 1000 watt microwave. You can estimate somewhere in between eg 2 minutes 15 seconds for a 800 watt microwave.

Leave to cool enough that you can eat it; you can either turn the cake out into a bowl as the toffee sauce at the bottom should then run over the top, or eat it straight from the mug - to save on the washing up!

That's what we did and the cake was lovely and the toffee sauce at the bottom was an added bonus.

Not long after this I saw that Dr. Oetker had launched its own range of mug cake mixes which are even quicker - you just mix milk with the powder, microwave them for a minute and you're done! I thought this was a brilliant idea - mug cakes are pretty quick anyway but you still can't quite make them in a television advert break by the time you have found the ingredients in the cupboard and mixed them together! Whereas the Dr. Oetker mixes really are super fast.

I was sent three flavours for review: chocolate, chocolate chip and lemon. I have to admit I haven't tried the lemon yet (but will update this post when I do!) - the weather has gotten warmer again and I don't really fancy cake!

You literally just mix the powder with milk. This is the chocolate chip...

... and this is chocolate flavour.

Microwave and the cake is risen and ready.

I was sent a few other bits and pieces by Dr Oetker including this chocolate cupcake centre - it has a nozzle you insert into the cake, squeeze and it fills it with chocolate sauce.

I topped it off with a mini chocolate heart. These are so cute and brilliant for decorating cakes or desserts.

This is the finished chocolate cake - it hasn't risen anywhere near as much as my home-made mug cakes do.

Side-by-side an instant hot dessert. The cakes did definitely taste more artificial than my homemade version and I found them incredibly sweet. I'd prefer these with a little less sugar but for those times when you have immediate cake cravings - or like when I was a student, you don't have an oven - I think these are a great idea.

 

Thanks to Dr. Oetker for sending the cake mixes, chocolate filling and hearts for review. All opinions are my own.

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