Cook from a Book challenge #6

I have a small confession to make - this is not actually from a book I own - I found the recipe in the paper a couple of weeks ago - it's an extract from a new book which is called Recipes My Mother Cooked.

I thought it sounded easy and yum. And I had a friend coming over for lunch, and I happened to have a couple of sheets of puff pastry in the freezer, so the ideal time to make it!

Egg and Bacon Pie:

(Check out the puffiness of that puff pastry!) It was delicious! I downsized the recipe - which uses 10 eggs (plus one for the pastry glue!), because I don't have a pie dish big enough to hold a 10 egg pie! But it was still plenty for 6 servings, which meant leftovers the next day! Woo hoo!

Very very easy to make as well. And could easily be tarted up with the addition of other ingredients too I think. Peas or corn, capsicum, maybe tomato, perhaps some grated cheese.

And can be eaten hot or cold. Very versatile!

Cook from a Book challenge #5

Or, more correctly for this post, Cook from Cindy2Paw's Blog!

Today I made these:

Red Velvet Cupcakes!

I decided I was going to give these a go as soon as I saw them on Cindy's blog, and since I was having visitors with a bunch of kids today, the perfect opportunity arose! Or at least, I thought it was perfect but on reflection, making cupcakes with red food colouring and a cream cheese icing - for kids - was perhaps not as perfect as I originally thought...oh well, some of the kids loved them, some had to scrape the icing off and some weren't that keen.

But I managed to polish off 3 of them in quick(ish) succession.

They were delicious! Although I couldn't get the icing as thick as I think it probably should be (and I only made half as much as the recipe specified, which was still plenty). I would definitely make these again! Red cupcakes! Red! Chocolate! Cream Cheese icing! What's not to love! Thanks Cindy for the inspiration and the recipe!

Cook from a Book challenge #4

Yes, almost the end of March and this is only #4 ... I knew I should have made it a monthly challenge rather than weekly!! And I must confess, I only completed this one out of necessity - I couldn't find the recipe I wanted (an old favourite), so had to resort to the books!

Thank goodness for The Cook's Companion. Stephanie Alexander has come to my rescue yet again!

This is the quick apple cake:

I had a friend coming over for afternoon tea, and I do believe you can never go wrong with an apple recipe! But I couldn't find my apple tea cake recipe (from my Year 9 Home Science recipe book - I couldn't find the whole book, which makes me sad!!). I thought Stephanie would be my best bet and she didn't let me down. A really nice, easy to make cake, goes delightfully with a dollop of cream and a pot of tea.

(Sadly though, I had to throw out the leftovers yesterday, due to ants! Darn ants got into the cake! I shouldn't have left it out on the bench - although it was covered nice and tight with glad wrap - darn little ants! They should be made to wear steel capped boots so we can hear them getting into things!)

Cook from a Book challenge #3

This week's offering is brought to you courtesy of my glucose tolerance test and Nigella Lawson.

Pasta with Ham, Peas and Cream! Yum!

I had to do another glucose tolerance test this week (testing for gestational diabetes), requiring me to have a high-carb diet for 3 days beforehand. I'm not entirely sure my usual diet isn't high carb anyway, but it was certainly no hardship to eat lots of pasta, potatoes and bread!

This is ridiculously easy to make. Boil up your pasta, add the peas half-way through, drain and set aside. Warm the cream, ham (mmmm, leftover Christmas ham that I'd frozen) and some parmesan, then mix pasta through. So easy! The recipe is from Nigella's Feast, another lovely Christmas gift (thanks Bells!). It's actually from the "Kiddiefeast" chapter. So there you go, good for kids and adults alike! Interestingly, the recipe says it serves 2-3 children. Well, we've already had 3 meals from the amount made by the recipe, and there's enough for another meal too.

I will definitely make this again, not least to use the rest of the fun bowtie pasta!

Cooking challenge

So last week I didn't do my cooking challenge, for various reasons. Am making up for it this week by making two new recipes (although I must admit, one of them hardly counts as a recipe, or really for that matter, cooking). Both are from Nigella Lawson's How to Eat.

First up, Pea Risotto. I've never made risotto before. All that stirring really put me off, I suppose. But I liked the sound of this and since part of this challenge is to try new things, I thought I'd give it a whirl.

It was really very good! I think I could have cooked it a tad longer, but I was running out of time. And the constant stirring really wasn't that bad (listening to the Australian Open tennis in the background probably helped!). I would definitely make this again, especially as it basically uses ingredients that you would most likely already have in your pantry and fridge/freezer.

Next, a dessert. I do love a dessert! Roasted Sugar-sprinkled Peaches. Here's the before (I used white sugar on one and brown sugar on the other):

And the after:

Yum!! I think brown sugar works better, although they both tasted very similar. These are so easy, all you do is cut the peaches in half, remove the stone, put some dots of butter and a teaspoon or so of sugar in the hole and on the flesh of the peach, bake for 20 mins in the oven, and serve with icecream. SO EASY! I will definitely be making these again! Probably this weekend!