Don't forget!

Hubby was in London until late last night and I was all on my little lonesome and trying to think of something for tea. With some interesting veg left in the fridge I made a a kind of veggie sauce to go with some pasta. I don't know what went wrong but it tasted totally bleugh. (hence why there is a photo of a funky looking plant I saw on a walk a few weeks ago and not my godawful pasta) It was missing something, but I just couldn't work out what it was. I consoled myself with a Tunnock's wafer. Tunnocks wafers are a bit of a enigma. You never see people buying and eating them, but according to their packaging they sell 4,000,000 a week. I especially love the dark chocolate wafers.

We certainly felt the earthquake on Wednesday. It felt as though someone was at the foot of our bed and shaking it, however it wasn't the trembling I found the scariest, but the rumbling sound resonating from the cottage. It was incredibly spine-chilling sound followed by and eerie silence. In the grand scheme of things the earthquake we experienced was minor compared to the earthquakes that some other countries, but I hope I never experience one again. The BBC summed up the earthquake perfectly "a very British earthquake - everyone's talking about it, but no-one's been badly hurt"

Don't forget the competition to win a years supply of Kinder Bueno. The competition is open to UK residents only. The winner will be the first entry drawn at random after the closing date of 1st March 2008 and will win 52 Kinder Buenos. Good Luck

Chocolate Therapy & Easter Egg Hunt

After a thoroughly awful day at work I was in severe need of chocolate therapy. So finding a box of Just Truffles from Hotel Chocolat on the doorstop cheered me up no end. The smell as I opened the box was divine.

With 10 different alcohol laced chocolates to choose from including Kirsch, white rum, white champagne, cointreau and calvados. My favourite is Tiramisu, the contrast between the white and dark chocolate shell plus the tiramisu filling was delicious.

To be honest my favourite chocolates are usually the ones that involve coffee. I learnt as a young child it was advantageous to like coffee chocolates as more often than not they were always the ones left in the bottom of the tin. The trick being eat all the chocolates that everyone else likes first, then you'll also have the coffee ones at the end that no one wants. I wasn't daft!

I've promised to take the remainder of the box for my mum to taste on Mother's Day. I can't promise her how many will be left though. Thank goodness I didn't give up chocolate for lent.

Win luxury Easter eggs from Hotel Chocolat

Easter is coming around the corner very quickly and everyone wants that extra special Easter Egg! Domestic Goddess in Training has teamed up with Hotel Chocolat to offer you a chance to win some of Hotel Chocolat’s extra special, extra thick Easter Eggs. To enter, click here and simply answer six questions which will take you on an Easter egg hunt to find the secret code. Once you have answered each question, use the first letter of each answer to reveal the secret code. If you have found the right answer you stand a chance to win one of Hotel Chocolat’s stunning Extra Thick Easter Eggs!

Please read the terms and conditions. Only UK residents are eligible to enter this competition.
Closing date for entries is 11.59 pm 18/03/08.

Energy Bars of Goodness

Since giving up biscuits for Lent I'm noticing a huge energy slump around 10.30am. While everyone in the staffroom is dunking biscuits into their tea I'm craving sugar. I eat quite a bit of fruit during the day and wanted to find something a bit different that would cure my energy slump, but also be good for me. Earlier today came across a recipe for energy bars, but has it was american it had ingredients I can't get in the UK. So I took the recipe, tweaked it, converted it to grams and here is my version.

They are delicious, the perfect sweetness and consistency and will certainly be making a regular appearances in our lunchboxes. They certainly don't taste like they are crammed with goodness!

Energy Bars of Goodness
Makes 12

35g sesame seeds
25g flaked almonds
40g currants
60g dried apricots
40g dates
30g dried cranberries
250g muesli base (from Holland & Barrat)
110g honey
250g crunchy peanut butter
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp water

1) Toast sesame seeds and almonds until golden. Set aside.

2) Pulse currants, apricots, dates and cranberries until the consistency of sweet mincemeat. Mix minced fruit with muesli base, almonds and sesame seeds until well mixed. It's easier to use your hands to rub the fruit into the dry ingredients.

3) In a small saucepan on a low heat, gently heat peanut butter, honey, vanilla and water for around 6 min. Regularly stir as it can catch on the bottom of the pan. Allow to cool for a few minutes.

4)Add peanut butter mix to the muesli mix and combine. Again it is easier to use your hands, just be careful as the peanut butter can be a bit hot!

5) Line a 8" by 8" tin with baking parchment. Press mix into tin. You can be quite firm as you want the mix to stick together. Allow to set at room temperature for 2 hours.

Crispy Cod & Posh Peas

My quest to introduce fish into my diet continues. Last month was salmon and this month is cod. The only time I've had cod before is from a fish & chip shop. I would try and eat fish more, but there is a distinct lack of fishmongers where I live and the farm shop only sells fish once a month and I'm yet to brave tinned tuna etc...

I coated the fish in my new best friend - polenta. I gives the fish a lovely crispy coating. Hubby made his delicious Heston Inspired Chips to accompany the fish, peas and big wedge of lemon. I love peas at the best of times, but slightly pulsing the pea 1) made them easier to eat as they didn't roll off! 2) intensified the pea taste. We'll certainly be coming back to this dish. Next time I would like to try it with either hake or haddock.

Crispy Cod
Serves 2

2 cod skinned fillets totalling around 340g
100g polenta
1 tbsp garam masala
juice and rind of 1 lemon
2 spring onions finely sliced
rapeseed oil

1)Mix polenta, garam masala, lemon and spring onions. Smother each fillet with a small amount of oil. Press each fillet into the polenta mix until evenly coated.

2)Heat a small amount of oil in frying/saute pan on a medium heat. Cook fish for around 3 min each side until golden. Drain fish on some kitchen paper before serving.

Posh Peas

1.5 cups of frozen peas
1 tsp mint
1 tbsp creme fraiche (optional - just makes them slightly more creamy)

1) Cook peas in boiling water, drain, add mint then blitz with stick blender or processor until you have a thick, coarse paste. Stir in creme fraiche.

Lemon Drizzle Cake

This evening I had an immense craving to make lemon drizzle cake. I've never baked it before, but I didn't let this didn't stop me. All I can say is that I love lemon drizzle and my effort was no exception. The recipe is by Tana Ramsey (Gordon's misses)and I'll certainly be using the recipe again.

Tana's Lemon Drizzle Cake

225g butter, softened
225g caster sugar
4 eggs
225g self raising flour, sifted
zest of one lemon

For the drizzle icing
juice of 1.5 lemons
85g caster sugar

1) preheat oven to 180oc. Line 2lb loaf tin with greaseproof paper. Beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in each egg one at a time. Stir in flour then lemon zest. Pour into tin

2) Bake for 45-50 min. Mix icing ingredients together. While cake is still warm prick with a fork and pour icing over cake. Leave in tin until cool.

Braised Lamb Shank

In this months Delicious Magazine there is a yummy recipe for braised lamb shank with a lemon, garlic and parsley gremolata. When I noticed the butcher has lamb shanks I knew we had to have it for sunday dinner. The gremolata complemented the lamb perfectly and the lamb literally fell off the bone. Next time I may try swapping the parsley with mint in the gremolata as I love mint with lamb.

I won't talk about the awful jam sponge pudding I made for pud. It was a bit of an experiment that didn't work. We ended up scraping the jam off and just eating that with the custard...which is a very underrated combination...

They call it Mellow Yellow

I've been using Farrington's Mellow Yellow cold pressed Rapeseed oil for about a year now and thoroughly believe it is the best thing since sliced bread. It is one of the most versitile oils I have in the kitchen. Not only can it be used in dressings, but also in baking, roasting & stir-frys. In addition to it's versatility it is lower in saturated fat than olive oil and high levels of omega 3,6 & 9 plus vitamin E. Mellow Yellow makes cracking crackling on roast pork, fantastic roast potatoes and the most perfect Yorkshire Puds. It's not surprising to hear that their oil has won awards.

Toward the end of 2007 Farrington Oils launched Honey & Mustard Dressing and Blackberry Vinegar Dressing. I tasted them both for the first time this weekend and they were gorgeous. The honey & mustard dressing is perfectly balanced and not overly sweet. It's delicious drizzled over salad or hot and cold new potatoes. The blackberry vinegar dressing is unlike anything else currently on the market and is a refreshing change. It's stunning with cheese and I have it on good authority it's lovely with smoked fish.

Farrington's Mellow Yellow products are sold in over 600 shops throughout the UK including Waitrose and Harvey Nics. Trust me, give it a try and you'll never go back to other oils and dressings.

Who said romance was dead?

On Friday late afternoon Hubby decided to surprised me, obviously to thank me for the lovely rolo cupcakes I made him! As soon as Hubby got home from work he told me to put lots of warm layers on. While I was upstairs, unknown to me, he prepared a flask of hot soup and hot squash (as in the drink not vegetable!) and a picnic of bread, cheese, rolo cupcakes and a few other nibbles. He then whisked me away to one of our favourite spots that not many people know about. It's a gorgeous wood at the top of a hill with beautiful views of the surrounding area, the photo doesn't do it justice.

We sat at the top of the hill having a picnic and snuggling to keep warm. We did intend to watch the sunset but it was just too cold. If we weren't already married it would have been a perfect propsal opportunity!

Win a year's supply of Kinder Bueno

Kinder Bueno, the purveyors of those permissible pods of chocolate pleasure, offer us a little bit of what we fancy. Their website offers tips on getting a little bit of what you fancy, and you can now find great advice on weekends away. Whether you're a city slicker, a last minute lass or like me a detox diva, the experts will be on hand to advise you on how to get a little bit of what you fancy – with minimum fuss and effort.

Kinder Bueno is offering one lucky reader of Domestic Goddess in Training a year's supply of these delicious bars. For your chance to win, simply answer the following question:

The Kinder Bueno site asks visitors to choose what the coolest destination for a weekend away is. Which of the following is NOT included in the options?
A – Barcelona
B – NYC
C - Prague
D – Edinburgh

Simply email your answer to KinderBueno@immediatefuture.co.uk by 1st March, and one lucky reader will receive a Kinder Bueno bar for each week of 2008!

Terms and conditions
The competition is open to UK residents only. The winner will be the first entry drawn at random after the closing date of 1st March 2008 and will win 52 Kinder Buenos.

Rolo Cupcakes

As soon as I saw these beautiful cupcakes on Hannah's blog I knew I had to make them. I've never made, what I call, American Cupcakes with the swirls of buttercream on top before. I baked them in my silicone cupcake cases and they make things so much easier, I would highly recommend them for anyone who does baking. I used the last of my homemade butter to make both the cakes and the buttercream.

The cupcakes are a Valentines gift for Hubby. However to ensure they are edible I had to just taste test one of them, and I can say they are delicious! I wasn't able to get hold of any Valentines related sprinkles so had to make do with hundreds and thousands.

Two things I learnt while making these cakes:

1) Don't, on a whim, decide to use the old electric whisk that has been getting dusty in the cupboard since you received your all singing & dancing stick blender. The old whisk will only speed up and slow down on it's own accord and smell like burning plastic. The said whisk is now living at the bottom of the dustbin.

2) Hundreds & Thousands are called that for a reason. When sprinkling them on make sure you have something underneath with a lip to catch them or, like confetti, you'll be finding them for months to come. You wouldn't believe how far they roll.

Chorizo Frittata

Firstly apologies to anyone who has clicked on my blog this afternoon and noticed my blog format and colours changing with every click. I've spent the day experimenting with the graphics tab I received for Christmas, hence the new header and blog template. Don't be surprised if it is different yet again tomorrow.

For dinner tonight I made a chorizo & spring onion frittata using my basic frittata recipe. I've never eaten chorizo before...or I have, but thought it was salami/pepperoni! Can anyone enlighten me as to what the difference is between chorizo, salami & pepperoni?!? With the weather about to get cold again I'll probably be back to cooking comforting stodge tomorrow.

Steak Fajitas

I love fajitas and although they are quick and easy we rarely eat them at home. A few weeks ago Fred at Dinner Diary posted this recipe for steak fajitas and I knew we had to try them.

I marinated the beef for an hour which gave a delicious taste of lime. I also added the wild garlic we foraged for on Sunday in the pepper & onion mix. We had them with tortillas, salad, soured cream, spring onions, cucumber and a bit of grated cheese. They are lovely and we'll certainly be having them again.

Rice Pudding

Although the past few days have been unusually warm for this time of year the nights have been bitterly cold. While the weather is still cold, I crave comfort food. This months edition of delicious has a whole section devoted to British puddings, heaven! Tonight I cooked a rack of lamb with port & cranberry jus and for the last month or so it's become a tradition to cook a pudding with sunday dinner.

Tonight was the turn of rice pudding. I always have a bag of pudding rice languishing at the back of the cupboard, to be honest I don't know why supermarkets sell such big bags of pudding rice as you only need a tiny amount to make a pudding...anyway it's a gorgeous comforting pudding. Be warned it takes a long, long time to cook, but it's worth it. It tastes far better than any tinned rice pudding.

Rice Pudding (from River Cottage Family Cookbook)
Serves 2

50g pudding rice
25g unsalted butter
500ml whole milk
25g caster sugar (I use my vanilla sugar)
pinch of salt
vanilla pod, slit down the middle

1) Preheat to 150oc. Lightly butter ovenproof dish. Wash rice then mix all ingredients in the dish.

2) Bake for 45 min, remove from oven and stir. Bake for a further 30 min, by this point a skin will have begun to form. Stir again to stop the rice sticking to the bottom of the bowl.

3) Return the dish to the oven yet again and bake for a further 1 - 1.5 hours. If you don't want a skin cover dish with lid/foil. If it begins to dry out stir in more milk.

Season of Love

I admit, I (well both Hubby & I!) have a bit of a reputation when it comes to chocolate, especially chocolate that comes from Hotel Chocolat. It all started a couple of years ago when my cousin gave us a gigantic box for Christmas. Now it has escalated to the point where we put "Anything from Hotel Chocolat" on our wedding list and for birthdays my friend and I send each other various new Hotel Chocolat products. So you can imagine when Hotel Chocolat said they would send me The Love Selection to try both Hubby & I were ecstatic!

The Love Selection features 4 of their mini slabs. Although I seem to have eaten my way around most of the Hotel Chocolat stock, I'd never eaten the slabs of mini slabs before. The Love Selection contained a milk Love Slab, dark Love Slab, Crostini Fruit & Nut plus Praline Fusion.

The Love Slabs feature a pink cherry coloured ripple, crispy feuillentine praline textured with small pieces of crispy, oven baked pancakes, decorated with sour cherries and engraved with a chocolate heart. Sour cherries and chocolate are a seriously underated combination.

The Praline Fusion slab had milk chocolate swirled with white chocolate hazelnut praline. It was perfect nutty, melt in your mouth chocolate with a completly different texture than the Love Slabs

Finally we taste Crostini Fruit & Nut. A milk chocolate slab filled with cranberries, sultanas, almonds, crostini biscuit and hazelnuts. I've always been a fan of the famous fruit & nut, but this was delicious. The tastes, the textures, perfect.

Go on treat yourself...

Foraging for wild garlic and snowdrops

Near our house is a beautiful wood. Not many people know about it. As the weather was so glorious today we decided we had to visit our favourite haunt and get a glimpse of the snowdrops. This woodland is also where we forage for wild garlic, sloes and blackberrys when they are in season. The snowdrops looked stunning, providing a bautiful white blanket over the currently colourless ground. I love snowdrops as they are a sign that spring is just around the corner.

As soon as we entered the wood we could smell the wild garlic, but we just couldn't see any. Not knowing if we were too early for wild garlic we carried on. All of a sudden in a clearing we spotted what we were after, the wild garlic. I'm making my thai green curry again tonight and think I may put a bit of the wild garlic in there. It is also lovely in risotto.

A Big Hug in a Bowl - Creamy Mushroom Pasta

Tonight I'm cooking for one as Hubby is on his way back from Ireland. I hate and I'm useless at cooking for one. Too often do I end up having a bowl of cereal because I don't have the motivation to make anything else. Well tonight I decided I should make an effort. With some mushrooms and creme fraiche in the fridge I set about making a creamy mushroom pasta dish. I really enjoyed it and it was like a big hug from inside while I wait for Hubby to return.

Now, should I leave the remainder pancake batter for Hubby when he gets back, or do I whip up a batch of pancakes now?...the Nutella is calling...

Creamy Mushroom Pasta
Serves 1

splash of olive oil
handful of mushrooms
1 clove of garlic, chopped
1 tsp parsley
1 huge big dollop of creme fraiche
80g spaghetti, dried

1) Get pasta on the boil. Gently fry the mushrooms in the olive oil until softened. Stir in garlic and fry for another minute. Stir in creme fraiche and parsley.

2) Once pasta has cooked mix it in with the sauce and serve.

Shrove Tuesday and the glories of Nutella

Today is Shrove Tuesday and here in the UK, it is also known as Pancake Day. The tradition behind pancake day is that people would use up all their rich and perishable ingredients before lent starts. As well as eating pancakes different areas of the country have different tradtions. Some have pancake races, but here in Derbyshire we have Shrovetide Football that is played in Ashbourne. I've never been to Ashbourne to see the match, but judging by the footage on the local news tonight it looks a bit scary for me. I'll stick to the tradition of eating pancakes, thanks!

I love pancakes, but oddly I only seem to eat them on Pancake Day. You can eat them plain and simple with a bit if sugar and lemon juice or be more extravagant. Personally I like, no love, Nutella. I could gladly eat spoonfuls of it straight from the jar and my University finals were fueled by Nutella slathered on rich tea biscuits. It has to be Nutella though, no other chocolate spread has the same taste. I have to admit I did make a marmalade & whisky sauce to go with one of the pancakes, I was thinking crepe suzette style without flambeing (flambeing and low cottage celings don't mix!) but I still preferred the Nutella pancake.

After throughly overeating on pancakes I'm off to flick through The Taste of Britain, Kitchen Diaries which arrived today.

Pancakes
Makes 6-8

115g (4oz) plain flour
300ml (1/2 pt) milk
pinch of salt
1 egg

1) Sift flour and salt into a bowl. Crack egg into well then gradually whisk in milk. Beat until smooth. Refrigerate batter for 1 hour.

2) Heat non-stick frying pan to med-hot. Pour a ladle of batter into the frying pan, enough to cover the bottom of the pan. As bubbles begin to appear under the batter flip the pancake over.

Toffee Apple Pudding - The Great British Pudding Challenge

This months Great British Pudding Challenge is Toffee Apple Pudding. There is a copy of the recipe & rules on Rosie's blog. As there's just the two of us I halved the recipe and steamed for 55 min in 2 mini pudding basins. In the words of Nigella my pudding looks very *cough* "rustic" thanks to me not greasing the mounds enough. I also meant to serve them with custard. I wasn't in the mood to make proper custard so was going to use some readymade stuff I had on standby, but the custard tasted so horrible we ended up serving it with whipped cream.

I felt like I was on Masterchef trying to get the puddings on to steam within minutes of the pies being ready. Poor Hubby got quite a shock as he walked into the kitchen to find dirty dishes all over the place. I admit I'm not the tidiest cook, but trying to keep everything on track tonight almost got the better of me!

Steak, Stout and Cheddar Pie

After last weeks disastrous Sunday Dinner I was determined to make this one better. In this months GFM it features a delicious looking Steak, Guinness & Cheese pie. I knew this was both something we would really enjoy. One problem we couldn't eat a huge pie between the two of us, so I took the recipe and adapted it to make 2 individual pies. By lining to small pie dishes with baking parchment the pies lifted out easily after baking. The one thing that would have made this recipe easier was if I had a ovenproof dish I could also put on the hob. I had to make the filling in a saucepan then transfer it to a pyrex dish. One day I'll own a Le Cruset casserole dish!

The pies were delicious, but incredibly filling. We had it with mustard champ and purple sprouting broccoli. I just love the sound the pastry makes as you cut through it. The only alteration I would make to was to maybe try stilton instead of cheddar next time.

Steak, Stout & Cheddar Pie
Serves 2-4 (depending on how gready you are!)

2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion
1 garlic clove, chopped
10g butter
1 large carrot, chopped
handful of mushrooms, sliced
1 tsp rosemary
400g stewing steak, cubed
220ml stout
1 tbsp plain flour
75g mature Cheddar cheese or Stilton, grated
500g ready made puff pastry
1 egg, beaten

1) Preaheat oven to 190oc. In a large pan heat the olive oil and gently soften the onions. Turn the heat up and add butter, garlic, carrots, mushrooms, beef, rosemary a pinch of salt and a generous amount of ground pepper. Fry for about 4 min, until beef is beginning to colour.

2) Pour in stout and flour, plus just enough water to cover. Transfer to an ovenproof dish and bake for about 1.5 hours until meat is tender and sauce is thick.

3) Remove from oven and stir in half of the cheese. Allow to cool slightly. Line pie dishes with baking parchment. Cut pastry block into thirds and cut one of these thirds in half widthways. With the larger two pieces of pastry roll out, then line each pie dish. Fill each pie with with the stew and sprinkle with the remaining cheese. Roll out the two final pieces of pastry and lightly score a hash pattern on them. Lay pastry over pie and fold excess edges inwards. Brush with beaten egg. Bake for 35-45 min until golden.

Five things about me

Ginger at Dinner Diary tagged me:

The rules are:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 5 facts about yourself
3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them)
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment at their Blogs

1. I spent 3 years of my childhood in Germany and saw the Berlin Wall fall down.

2. My friend & I often talk about setting up a resturant that only sells puddings/desserts. We've even decided on the name.

3. Hubby was the 2nd person I met in University.

4. My dream job would to be designing and sewing wedding/formal dresses.

5. I'm a closet science geek with a degree in Biology.

I tag (appologies if you have already been tagged!):

Margaret at Kitchen Delights
Claire at Schnitzel
Alice at The Alice
Hippolyra at Fuss Free Flavours
Helen at Hel's Kitchen

Oven Baked Red Pesto Chicken

Thankfully we missed to worst of the snow, but it's still bitterly cold with a biting wind. I'm on Chantry Farm's mailing list and today recieved an interesting letter explaining where all their meat came from. With lamb home reared on thier farm, beef from Quenby Hall, Pork from Packington Pork, free-range chicken from Packington Poultry and Derbyshire Dales, free-range eggs from Liberty Farm and fish fresh from the docks in Hull. It certainly gives me a great deal of confidence buying from them as I'm supporting local farmers, something that is very important to me.

Some of thier chicken went into tonights dinner. I've been meaning to make this dish for the last few weeks, but with one thing or another I've ended up cooking something different. It was really delicious and filling and we'll certainly be making it again soon.

Oven Baked Red Pesto Chicken
Serves 2-3

1 tbsp olive oil
2 chicken fillets, diced
1 red onion cut into wedges
1 large red pepper, cut into wedges
1 clove of garlic, crushed
100g basmati rice
1 tin chopped tomatoes
300ml chicken stock
1/2 tsp chilli flakes
5 tbsp red pesto

1) Preheat oven to 190oc. In an ovenproof saute pan, fry chicken in oil until the chicken is starting to brown. Remove from pan. Fry onions and peppers for 4 min. Add garlic and fry for a further 30 seconds.

2) Add chicken back into pan then pour in stock, tomatoes and rice. Stir in chilli flakes. Bring to the boil then bake in the oven, uncovered, for 20 min. Stir in pesto before serving.