Meals for the week and a sweet treat.

So, yesterday I spent some time looking through the cupboards, making a note of things that needed eating up and then set about writing a menu for the week, then a shopping list. 

Our meals this week look like:

today - out at the in-laws

Monday - chicken, waffles and beans

Tuesday - summer-in-winter chicken

Wednesday - pizza (DH) slim fast (me)

Thursday - filled pasta and sauce

Friday - garlic chicken with chips (DH) and salad (me)

Lots of chicken this week, but not complaining :) quite a lot of this is from our freezer, and every meal this week is something easy and relatively quick to eat. I'm probably going to be pretty tired this week, so easy and quick is what is required. 

Our breakfasts are going to be toast/cereal/porridge/breakfast biscuits, and then lunches are sandwiches, with fruit. 

Now, my DH is very slim and does a lot of walking each day for his job, so he always needs more calories than me. I have a browse online, and decided to make some rocky road for him to take as part of his lunches this week. The only thing I had to buy was some value chocolate, and off I went!

Mmm. I am going to try and stay away from this! If you keep the base of milk chocolate/dark chocolate/golden syrup/butter, you can add pretty much what you want. I added ginger biscuits/digestives/marshmallows/pistachios/almonds/raisins and DH assures me it's very very tasty. Also, I got to use my new tin! We got a set of three as a wedding present, but I've not used any yet, until now! 

Here's to the week ahead. 

N xxx

Chocolate-caramel layer cake.

So, it has been my husband's birthday this week. Being so close to Christmas, it's always a bit of a rush, but I wanted to make it special, as always. 

Now, I've posted before about making a birthday cake on the same day as the birthday party, without having a practice beforehand. This was the same I'm afraid, but had more potential to go wrong! However.....

May I present to you, my husband's birthday cake:

I must admit, this came out pretty well. It has four layers inside. 

There's a vanilla sponge on the bottom, then caramel sponge, then chocolate-caramel sponge and then topped with a chocolate sponge. Sandwiched together with caramel sauce. 

It was then frosted with this delightful bowlful - this is a mix of melted dark chocolate, milk chocolate and double cream. Did I mention this cake isn't healthy?

Mmm. There were lots of oohs and aahs when the cake was cut into. 

 Slice of cake for the birthday boy!

Yum. 

The recipe can be found here at the Good Food website. I didn't use as much caramel to sandwich the cake together as they suggested, but it didn't matter. I also didn't use all of the chocolate mixture on the outside, but you could use it all and make a thicker layer. It also served a lot more people than 12, as the recipe suggests! 

I can also say that it tastes just as good the second day, just in case you were wondering! 

N xxx

The 'I can't believe you made that' cake.

I love cookery programs and cookery books. When Lorraine Pascale's Baking Made Easy was on the tv, I did watch it and found it to be very enjoyable. She made some amazing things and made it look so easy at the same time. 

So, when I was asked to make a cake for an 18th birthday party, I knew exactly what I was going to make. I was going to make her 'I can't believe you made that' cake, with a slight variations. I used strawberries instead of raspberries, and with chocolate fingers instead of chocolate cigarillos. 

I have to admit, it turned out pretty good. 

Please ignore how rubbish the picture is, I was taking it in a hurry!

Chocolate cake, chocolate buttercream, chocolate fingers and strawberries - who isn't going to like that?

I must admit, making a cake for the first time for someone's 18th birthday wasn't the brightest plan in hindsight, as I was pretty stressed whilst making it, but the end result was fine. In fact, if the whispers are true, it was better than the bought birthday cake they had as well ;) I'm happy with that. 

N xxx

Leftovers.

Whilst writing our food shopping list for the week, I noticed that there were two sorry looking bananas languishing in the fruit bowl. Oh no! So, I googled banana loaf, as I've never made it before, and set to work making something tasty from these:

These probably could have been eaten - but they were "past it" for both me and DH! 

All I needed to buy for this was some more butter and some eggs - both of which will be used in a variety of things, so no bother there. I quickly whipped up the batter:

and popped it in a loaf tin and then in the oven and then:

Tada! Banana loaf :) this is just cooling down on the side - DH really wants some but I've told him to wait for it to cool down a bit first, so that it's easier to cut into slices. 

Frugal living, using leftovers so that it's not thrown away. 

N xx

Let them eat cake.

Some weeks I try and use food stuffs that we've already got in for some meals, just so the food budget isn't stretched during the month. Tonight I made risotto (only my second time making this!) using risotto rice from the cupboard, peas and bacon from the freezer and a stock cube. The only thing I had to buy towards this meal was a small onion, which didn't cost too much. 

It was really really tasty! Straight forward, quick and fairly cheap too. A definite keeper for a swift midweek meal.

Remember I mentioned my friendship cake the other day? Well, today was D-day! It was the day to mix in all of the ingredients and wait for the results. To mine I put in some chopped cooking apples, cinnamon, raisins and chopped almonds in. The end result was this:

Nom nom nom. Of course, me and other half had to try it, just to check it tasted okay.... ;)

Verdit? Very yummy, and if we get another starter given to us, definitely one to make again! 

N xxx

Lazy sundays and cake.

Me and DH have had a really lazy Sunday morning - we didn't get up til past 10am and even then we've just been sat around. I love weekends like this, where we can just be happy in each other's company and that's it. No rushing around to be somewhere. 

So, what goes really well on a lazy Sunday is an equally lazy breakfast (brunch?) when you get up. I'm not the biggest fan of bacon and eggs, plus we don't have any in, so this is what I had for breakfast/brunch this morning:

This is homemade banana loaf with strawberries and raspberries. Breakfast doesn't get better than this. If I thought that I could eat cake for breakfast every day of the week and not end up looking like a house, I totally would.

Speaking of cake, I've had a herman cake on the go for 7 days now. That's a german friendship cake, where you have to tend to it for 10 days before you bake a cake. It's quite a long time to be thinking of making a cake, so I hope it's worth it! Not had one before. This morning Herman looked like this:

This is before I stirred him, as per the instructions for day 7. The cake mix is just left on your kitchen side with a tea towel over, and it bubbles away quite happily. In fact, if there are no bubbles, them Herman has died :( but, mine seems to be very happy bubbling away. Once stirred the mixture goes back to looking like a regular cake mix, but tomorrow it will look like this again before stirring. I can make the cake on Wednesday, so I will let you know the results! 

Ahhh cake. Yum.

N xxx