Salmon with Creme Fraiche

My hubby was suffering really badly from tooth pains the other week so I wanted to cook him something soft to eat for dinner. I had some salmon fillets and left over creme fraiche and found this recipe on the BBC Goodfood website which was really simple to follow.

You don’t need alot of ingredients, as long as you have the fish and creme fraiche, you can put any vegetables you have in your fridge. I cooked this with leeks, mushrooms and chives, and the great thing about this recipe is that you can just use the 1 pan to cook everything. It was really yummy and just what my hubby needed!!! I think for next time, if i am cooking this, i would use less stock as it turned out to be really saucy. Also, you can just use veg stock instead of chicken stock if you are vegetarian!

Vegetarian Dishes – Sept 2020- Best stuffed shells

As we are having our veggie day once a week, i don’t want to cook the same usual dishes all the time as i like to learn something new. I was searching online for inspiration of vegetarian recipes and come across this blog called Cookie and Kate. Once, I was on her site, i subscribed straight away to receive their new posts. I really love this website, her photography is bright and colourful, the recipes are so easy to follow and love that they include a video of how the food is made so you can have an idea if you are making it the same way. The only snag, is that you have to covert the ingredients into grams as they use cups and ounces in America but you can do the conversions easily on the mobile phone.

I have been meaning to try out her recipe called ‘Best stuffed shells‘ and was having a hard time to getting the ricotta cheese in the supermarkets. It has now been sitting in my fridge for awhile as i just haven’t had a chance to make it. My brother in law was coming round for dinner and it is a nice dish to share with people so took the opportunity to make this. Unfortunately, i just used up most of my spinach the previous night for dinner so i only had a handful left over. I then, decided to bulk this up with some mushrooms and leeks. The best thing about this recipe, is that you can fill it with anything you want so it doesn’t have to be vegetarian as you can add chicken pieces, bacon or chorizo etc.

I used a whole bag (500g) of the big shells and i had enough fillings to make 2 trays. I used a shop brought jar tomatoes and basil sauce for the base and had enough left to drizzle on top. I must admit, it is quite fiddly to stuff each pasta shell but it was worth it as it was really delicious! My hubby and brother in law was really impressed by the dish and the flavours. I was impressed myself!! I will definitely be making this again and probably experiment with the fillings.

Kate has got a book out called ‘Love Real Food’, this will be on my list to buy. You can find her best stuffed shells recipe on her blog. Watch this space as I will be making a few more recipes using her blog!

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World Chocolate Day!

It was World Chocolate Day on Tuesday 7th July so I thought it would be good excuse to make something chocolaty with the boys! I finished work late so we didn’t enough time to make it on the actual day so we made it the next day!We decided to make a Chocolate chip traybake from BBC Good Food website. With this recipe, I adjusted the light brown sugar from 300g to 200g as I thought it would be sweet enough already especially if it has got icing on top aswell. The cake is very moist and not dry at all!It was really simple to make and the boys enjoyed all the weighing and mixing and eating the white chocolate chips! Although, I didn’t realize how big the cake is! In the end, I had to freeze most of the cake or otherwise we would be having chocolate cake for the whole month!! Hope you guys enjoyed World Chocolate Day! 🙂

The Perfect Pavlova

During then Xmas period, I had such a disaster with making my meringues desserts!! I wanted to make Lorraine Pascal’s Strawberries & Cream Meringue Layer cake from her ‘Bake’ book and the recipe required 10 egg whites. I didn’t have the heart to use 10 eggs as I wasn’t sure what to do with so many left over yolks and you can’t keep them for long!!

So, in Tescos, I brought a carton of egg whites as it said it can be used to make desserts. I measured the egg whites and the mixture was really runny and not getting stiff at all. I baked it and the outcome was really sticky and flat. I had to bin most of it as I made 5 x disks. We ate 1 of them and the boys seems to like it, but I found it too chewy to eat!! Luckily, I had some meringue nests in my cupboards and added some double cream and berries for my back up dessert.

Then last week, a blog that I follow by Eat Little Bird, posted an entry on Pavlova and tips of why the mixture has failed. I found it really useful and will refer back to it when I make a meringue dessert again which I did for new year’s eve!! To finish it off, I would drizzle some melted chocolate on top or buy a flakes chocolate and crumble it over.

1st Bake of 2019

Happy New Year to everyone!! It has been such a long time since I last went on my blog!! I couldn’t even remember my password!! I do apologize for being missing!!

I have been so busy with my 2 beautiful boys, Dee who is 5 years old now and Gray who is 2 years old!! Both boys are a handful as they are full of energy!!! I have still been baking but not having much time to write my entries.

I was saying to my husband that I missed blogging on my site and he said “Just do it!” I find time baking during the boys nap times or when my husband is off, as i do love exploring new recipes and i enjoy it aswell!! The steriliser has been put away so there is space for my beloved Kitchenaid!! Recently he has been hooked on Instagram and posting entries every day. So, for my new year’s resolution is to get back into blogging and to start posting entries on Instagram aswell.

Therefore my 1st bake for 2019 is Brownies!! I am having a family lunch this Saturday and both of my boys loves chocolate and my 2 neice so I wanted to bake something chocolatey!! A few months ago, I purchased Martha Collison’s book called Twist and found her recipe on Brownies and decided to make them.

I do try lots of different brownies recipes as I find the texture is always different, sometimes its hard or dry or too soft in the middle. So I do have a favourite one which I normally use from Tescos as it is so simple to knock up and it has never failed for me. I will write up a separate entry for this later on.

Martha’s recipe can be found here but just omit the easter eggs. You can always put different chocolates as I used white chocolate chips so that it is not too dark. The mixture is very wet and once baked, when you use the knife to cut into it, the top of it cracks but in the middle it is very fudgy like. The boys love it so I’m sure it will be a hot with the girls aswell!!

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Cake and Bake Show 2014

Yesterday, I went to the Cake and Bake Show at Earl’s Court with my friend, Katy and sister in law, Sharon. Last year, I didn’t go last year as I was pregnant, I was excited to see what will be on offer! I remembered the first show in 2012, it was packed and they didn’t have any food on offer! This year, there were alot more stalls selling cupcakes, brownies, macarons, bread and even wine! It was pretty busy and lots to see. We saw on the main stage, the great british bake off winners and they were baking brownies with prunes! We also saw the some of the main contestants from this year’s show which was a bonus! 🙂

Cakes from the little roundcake company

Instead of buying baking accessories, this year, I brought bakes instead! 🙂 Katy and Sharon were raving on about the cakes from ‘The Little Round Cake Company’. They were selling big meringues, little mini cakes, and tarts and i couldn’t resist buying some. I had the blueberry cheesecake cake last night and it was delicious! The sponge is moist and flavoursome! Even Dee approved as he had some of the cake! 🙂  I can’t wait to try the black forest one and the tart and strawberry meringue!

Yummy macarons

I also brought some macarons, sausages, cake sprinkles and this sweeper product that collects crumbs! It has a ladybird shell and I think it might be appealing to Dee as he can use it as a toy but clean at the same time!!! When Dee eats in his high chair, there are always crumbs or he would deliberately drop his food on the floor!!

 

Cake sprinkles and the cute sweepers! 🙂

It was a great day out with the girls and I am glad that I didn’t spend too much!! 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

GBBO Winners

 

GBBO Winners

 

Came across this stall with my name so had to take a pic!!! 🙂

Dee Dee’s Christening Bakes!

Oreo cupcakes all decorated!

It’s my son, Dee Dee’s Christening tomorrow and I have been really busy in the kitchen baking from this morning! We have hired a hall and there will be Filipino food (hot) and a few of the ninangs (god mothers) are going to make some dishes and desserts aswell. With our caterer, we decided to drop their dessert from the menu and make our own desserts as normally when we go to parties, the aunties will bring a Filipino dessert and of course yours truly have some desserts to offer too!! 🙂 Also, it gives me a good excuse to bake some treats, although i don’t think Dee Dee was too happy as he was missing his mum!

Oreo cheesecake waiting to be chilled

For tomorrow, i have made the kids favourite Oreo cheesecake, chocolate Whoopie pies, and Oreo cupcakes. I don’t think i have mentioned whoopie pies on my blog before but I will be writing a separate post for this so that i can include the recipe for them.

 

 

Whoopie pies

I hope our guests will enjoy the treats tomorrow! 🙂 I will be posting some pics afterwards to show you the food! 🙂

 

Long time!

Hi everybody, I must apologise for not posting a blog in such a long time! I had my baby son in dec and have been so busy!!! I didn’t realise a baby needs so much attention and the free time is spent on cooking dinners, housework and sterilising! Plus I actually forgotten my log in details and took quite awhile to get into my account!

I have been baking quite alot as I get my time to ‘bake myself happy’ during the weekends but no time to write them up! I do miss writing in my blog so I will be making a conscious effort to write up my posts!!!

elBulli: Ferran Adria and the art of food

I went to ElBulli: Ferran Adria’s food exhibition and was totally inspired! The fundamental principle of his philosophy is ‘Stop copying and consequently to start creating’. When compared with Heston’s food creations, it is completely on a different level!!

The exhibition showed how it all began up from 1961 up until the restaurant closed in 2011 and this has now became the ‘elBullifoundation’ which will open again in 2014 as a creativity centre. The name “elBulli” came from the French bulldogs the Schillings owned, hence the logo. The exhibition is at Somerset House and it is only showing until the 29th September. I really enjoyed this and recommend this to anyone who is a foodie fan! 🙂

elBullifoundation

All the food creations

Tools & Equipment!

 

Tweet Tweet!!!

Just wanted to let you guys know, that I have now offically joined Twitter!!! I have only started tweeting last week and still trying to get the hang of it! It was my hubby who is really ‘not technical’ was showing me how to use twitter! and what to do!! How ironic is that!?!! I have downloaded the app onto my mobile so i can tweet every now and then if i don’t have time to write my blog entries!!

You can find me on Twitter: @AuntygkitchenHopefully, soon I will set up a facebook page as well for my blog! 🙂