Saturday Kitchen.

Saturdays were made for eating. And lounging. Especially as it's raining outside.

This was our brunch.

French toast with candied bacon for Rob.

French toast with Phish Food for me.

In other news... the freezer has broken. Fuck.

Vegan Cupcakes and Emergency Chocolate.

I'm not afraid to say that I'm not particularly good at baking - cakes, cookies, desserts... they just aren't my forte.

But after the success of the delicious Hummingbird Bakery red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, I decided to try my luck at making a vegan version. My mum was throwing a long awaited house-warming and her fiancée is a vegan... which I know can be really hard sometimes. I tried it once, I lasted about 7 hours before running for the cheese counter, sweating like a crack addict. As a house warming gift, I decided to change the dairy parts of the red velvet and cream cheese recipe to their soy counterparts, but I tried two different batches of this to no avail. The cake in the casing cooked like a cake, but the rest of the mixture rose and then spread across the baking tray to create a cookie type consistency. When I tried to get the cakes out, the cookie topping snapped off and I was left with a very small amount of cake in the casings. Not good.
That's when all my prayers were answered... I found this.

Awesome Vegan Cupcake Recipe.

With all the excitement of my amazing new cakes and then the party, I forgot to take a photo! Never mind, let's just say they looked like little pieces of chocolate heaven that had risen perfectly and were smothered in a thick, creamy (ahem.) delicious non dairy cream cheese frosting. And covered with sprinkles :)

A little snap from the house-warming. My best friend Alex.

They went down a treat, and now I'm going to make Marc (Mum's fiancée) a vegan cake for his birthday too. Am currently playing with the idea of a chocolate and morello cherry cake with chocolate chilli frosting. Think I may do a trial run first....

Other interesting food news. 

We made more ribs!

This is them when we had just put the barbecue rub on them, before they went into the oven for four hours. We chose pork ribs this time as a variation and a different sauce and rub. The problem with ribs is that unless you have the money to buy epic and massive ones, there is just very little meat on  them and they are so awkward to eat. The Jamie Oliver book that is basically our bible because we can't afford any other cook books *sniff* has two different rib recipes. I definitely preferred the sauce on these, it was a great barbecue sauce but it was quite a lot of effort for a very small amount of sauce. The search for the best rib recipe continues....

This is one of the best things I have ever come across. FINALLY someone understands! Emergency food items are  a good idea Lord Sugar. Get me an emergency biscuit NOW.

 Rob seems to think I've got a bit of addiction to Come Dine with Me. It's not an addiction... I do not need Come Dine with Me rehab. But I did watch it earlier this evening, not because I wanted to... honest! That's where I came across this:

What do we think of this? Apparently it originates from a Hugh Fearnley recipe but it just screams unnatural to me. She cut open a huge turkey, layed some chesnut stuffing and then two ducks breast on top. She then made a layer of apricot and sausagemeat stuffing and then a layer of pheasant and then a layer of bacon strips... (This is beginning to sound like Epic Meal Time). She then continued to sew the turkey back together. Something just isn't right here. 

Rob cooked a deliciously comforting spag bol for dinner. And I'm consider making french toast with a huge scoop of Ben and Jerry's Phish Food on top for good measure... Nigella style midnight treat. I've even got a silk dressing gown to match.

Cupcakes

My week as a free woman.

Right now, I'm snuggled up on my sofa in my jimjams watching the launch of Celeb BB (totally shameful I know, but I was intrigued!).

This week I haven't done a huge amount of cooking as I've been by myself, but my mum did come to visit so we ate out a little bit. First of all we tried a restaurant called Little Sicily, which was in the theatre district so lots of restaurants to choose from! On first thoughts it looked really chic and nice, the hostess and our waitress were lovely and they did a set menu of two courses for fifteen squids! Bargins. Now, I may have mentioned before that I like red wine and so that is what I ordered. Luckily for me the house red was a Sangiovese, a previous favourite of mine that I used to serve when I worked at Pizza Express. But this one was pretty sour and I struggled to drink it at first. For my starter I had a parma ham salad which was average and had some really weird tomato salsa amongst the greenery... Then for my main I ordered what sounded like it would be a really nice tender burger with salami and a salad. But I got a boringly overcooked bbq burger in a burger king seeded bun and laced with this really odd pink sauce which I can only assume was burger sauce but tasted a bit like taramasalata. And it came with 4 chips. FOUR CHIPS. If you're going to serve chips, at least serve a good portion. Four is just an insult.

So I won't be returning there.

Secondly, we visited the tapas bar smack bang in the middle of westfield.

LOVED IT.

It was great to stop for a little bite to eat in the midst of tiring shopping. I had octopus with potatoes and paprika. The octopus was really meaty and complimented the other flavours perfectly. Not quite as good as the octopus they serve at The Real Greek though. As an accompaniment I had a goat's cheese and rocket salad with salsa. Amazing.
They served churros there as well which looked amazing but I didn't try any. I will definitely be returning with my other half as he's been itching to try the tapas bar for ages.

After this snack, I dragged my mother to Foyles where I perused books for a good 20 minutes (this is restrained for me). I'm not afraid to say that I do judge a book by it's cover... how else do you know what to pick in up a vast bookshop without reading the back of every book. I'm totally book vain... I either select pretty books, sparkly books, interesting looking book, colourful books or books with interesting titles. I do try not to discriminate, but it's in my interest to find books that I will love and enjoy.

Why is Brett Easton Ellis never in the 3 for 2 section. Why?!

Two cookbooks I definitely want are 

Nigella Lawson's 'How to be a Domestic Goddess'

and

'French Women don't get Fat'

That way I can saunter about my nice middle class house looking skinny, fashionable and with gorgeous heels whilst baking perfect cakes. The dream lives on.

Does this mean I'm not a good ambassador for feminism? 

Rob returns tomorrow! Yay! So I've started baking red velvet cupcakes and I'm going to make a special welcome home icing decoration. Will post tomorrow once I ice them!  

French Tart

A mini Tarte Tatin.

NOM.

Submarines, Pork and Apples

 I have uber jealously issues right now.

Firstly, because my uncle worked Prom 40 - the comedy prom on Saturday night which was compared by Tim Minchin (my absolute hero). Absolutely gutted that I wasn't there. I did consider going to hang around the stage door looking a little bit obsessive, but I just don't want to be one of those people. In the end, I spent my Saturday night watching Submarine - great movie, everyone must watch it. In fact, I think it's made my way into my top 5 favourite films. On another note, Rob (man lover) saw Richard Ayoade going into Oxford Circus tube state and they exchanged a "look". This excited me a lot.  

I digress. 

Secondly, I have creeping jealousy because my oh so talented other half has jet-setted off to Tuscany for an entire week (for free!) to shoot a music video for an Italian political ska band. Let me paint you a picture.... Beautiful italian island, straw hats and linen shirts, fantastic a&r villa, shooting SLR on the beach, flowing vino and olives galore. Jealous. I was sulking about this, being left alone in quiet, sad and cold little west London, waiting to comet to arrive with the new fridge but without giving you a specific time so that you waste a whole day. In contrast to this however, I have just received a message from said man lover.
This is how the conversation went:

Rob: "WOW. This trip is megalolz. Absolute opposite of what anyone expected."
G:     "Whats going on! :)"
Rob: "Retarded dying cats, definitely not a villa, awkward dinner with some Italians and a couple of slightly                mental old a&r men."

He added that his sleeping arrangements were "In an okay prison cell/ bad travelodge".

So much for the free Italian holiday.

Back to the food! 

Being on my own I decided to cook some low effort, comfort food. So tonight I made Pork loins in an apple and mustard sauce.

This is a really easy and tasty dish to make.

Ingredients

Pork loins
Onion
Apple
Red Chilli
Garlic
Sage leaves
Dark sugar
Butter
Wholegrain mustard
Stock
White wine

• First of all, chop garlic and a small amount of fresh red chilli and heat in a very small amount of olive oil.
• Add the pork loins and fry for a couple of minutes on either side.
• Add the diced onions and sweat until translucent and soft. 
• Remove the pork loins from the pan and put to one side.
• In a seperate pan add butter and dark molasses sugar so that it forms a caramel.
• Add a very small dash of white wine and combine with the caramel.
• Add the sliced apples so that they absorb the caramel and soften, then add the remanining onions, garlic and chilli from the other pan.
• Let all the ingredients get covered in the caramel and then add two big dollops of wholegrain mustard - stir in until everything is covered.
• Add your stock and pork loins back into the pain. Add some sage leaves to the sauce.
• Simmer to reduce into a thick, sticky sauce and serve with green beans and mashed potato.

Tasty.

Now I'm going to spend the rest of my evening watching Britain and Irelands Next Top Model, planning my imaginary wedding and drinking hot chocolate with Baileys and ginger liqueur, if only I had a fiancee and whipped cream (for the hot choccy!) to match. :) 

Migraines, Fish and Parmigiana

Naughty me, been too long since I last posted. So as a treat, here is a video of how to gut a fish, starring the beautiful (subject to opinion) ME! It's also sound-tracked to Hot Kiss by Juliette and the licks which is highly inappropriate as a soundtrack for a disgusting fish gutting.

Enjoy!

So over the last few weeks, when I haven't been busy, a few delicious things have been cooked. One particularly lazy Saturday where I literally had NOTHING else to do, I decided to do a bit of rib experimentation after acquiring two big, tasty racks of beef ribs at Borough Market. As it was a Saturday, you can see that there are no vegetables on my plate... but that's fine, because it was TREAT DAY.

These ribs were, however, a labour of love as they took seven hours to cook. Seven.
You cover them in american mustard and a lot of spices, cook for several hours and then add the most delicious marinade over the top of the crust that has developed. It is mainly sugar.... but it tasted fantastic.
The outcome was some extremely good ribs. The only downside I would say is that after seven hours you would assume the meat would be so tender it just fell off the bone... it was actually a bit tough. We tried another ribs recipe later on in the week... and it was horrific.

Tonight (another treat day!), we cooked Pork Parmigiana. (Tesco didn't have any veal).This was basically pork escalopes in herby breadcrumbs, cooked in a tomato, anchovy and chilli sauce and then gratin-ed with mozzerella over the top. A bit too rich for me, and I think the sauce would have been better as a marinara without the anchovies.

Here are two new products I've tried recently. 

AMAZING. I am addicted. Dried mango is the best thing since sliced bread... and as a bonus, they sell it in Pret!

Now this one was purchased merely because I have had a 3 day migraine and I didn't think chugging half a litre of cider would do it any good. This way I could trick my brain into thinking I was drinking it without the physical consequences. The best part about this is, I was ID'd. Someone please explain to me how that makes any logical sense. You may as well have ID'd me for orange squash. The drink itself seems that if you take away the alcohol, you are basically drinking pear drops. It is inanely sweet. Too sweet. And that's a lot coming from me, the queen of sweet tooth, the girl who ate so much sugar last week she got a sugar hangover. Maybe I'll put some gin in it to balance things out.

Also, I thought I'd give you a little insight into my shopping habits.

Firstly there's this. The BEST shop ever. Two types of cookies, Baileys, chocolate, molasses sugar, butter, double cream, whole milk, eggs and cornflower. This isn't a normality for me, I had just decided to make a chocolate cream pie to take my mind away from the London Riots. Keep calm and make pie.
Plus the Baileys was on offer in Tesco - £10 for a litre bottle. 

This was the parmigiana shop. Plus the non alcoholic ciders. And some Rubicon - something my boyfriend thinks he will buy shares in because he is so in love with it and thinks that it's a hidden treasure. 

Oh, and Migraine patches :)
My migraine is in no way an indication that I drink too much red wine. I'm pretty sure the wine helps fend off other potential migraines... this one just slipped through.