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Archive for January, 2010

January 16th, 2010

Peanut butter sandwiches

I was never really a fan of peanut butter until I visited the States about 10 years ago. I knew that the Americans loved their PB&J sandwiches but I had no idea how much they were part of the culture. I become hooked and now a peanut butter sandwich is one of my favourite things to eat. I think it’s the combination of sweet and salty that I really love and I’m also a huge fan of Reece’s Pieces now (which you can buy almost everywhere in the UK). I do like to chop and change the flavours though so here are some of my favourite PB combinations

  • PB and banana – the old classic, brilliant on brown or white bread with the banana either sliced or mushed in to the PB with a fork. Good toasted too.
  • Fried PB and banana – as above but lightly fried in butter before serving
  • PB and fresh peach – ideally you need to eat soon after making as the peach will start to go brown the longer it’s left
  • PB and Nutella – to die for
  • PB and honey – yummy
  • PB and golden syrup – really sweet but very moreish
  • PB and marmite – super sweet and salty
  • PB and ready salted crips – messy but soooo nice

Funnily enough, peanut butter and jam is the one combination that I really can’t stand.

January 13th, 2010

Creamy Cauliflower Soup

It’s been so bitter cold lately I haven’t really wanted to spend an awful lot of time in the kitchen with it’s single glazed back door and always-in-use catflap letting in the cold. However, I’ve wanted to make sure we had at least one good hot meal a day to keep the chill away. I’m not a huge fan of soup and I have to really be in the mood to make one but I made one yesterday using a caluiflower and some bits of stilton left over from Christmas and it was really gorgeous. I didn’t follow a recipe as such but  I used the following in roughly these measurements:

A medium sized cauliflower
About 2 ozs of Stilton
A tsp of butter
2 onions – chopped
2 medium sized potatoes – chopped
A pinch of nutmeg
About a pint and a 1/4 of veggie stock
Salt & Pepper

I fried off the onions in the butter, added in the potato, cauliflower, nutmeg and seasonings, covered with the stock and brought to the boil. Then I let the whole lot simmer for about half and hour (until the potatoes) were soft. Left it to cool, then whizzed it up with a hand held stick thing (leaving it a bit lumpy). I served it with a blob of creme fresh, a bit of dill and some crusty brown rolls. It’s gone straight onto my ‘will make this at least once a month’ list as it was so yummy :-)

January 1st, 2010

10 gorgeous cupcakes designs

I’m great (she says modestly) at making loaf type cakes but have also been a bit hit and miss when it comes to making cupcakes – and muffins for that matter. My cupcakes never seem to rise enough or have the right kind of frosting/icing and they never seem as appetising as the ones I see on other blogs. However, I will not be beaten and 2010 will be the year I make the perfect cupcake! In the meantime, I have put together 1o of my favorite cupcake designs as inspiration, enjoy!

Banana Split Cupcakes

I could just dive into these:

Terrier Cupcakes

Absolutely adorable – too good to eat really

Alice in Wonderland Cupcakes

So adorable

Rose Cupcake

Look at the details that has gone into this – amazing

Pink Star Cupcakes

How lovely are these – and how yummy does this icing look?

Peppermint Vegan Cupcake

Oh my….

Cupcake Burgers

How brilliant are these?? :-)

Murder Cupcakes

Creepy but inspired!

Coke Cupcakes

Love, love, love these

Monkey Cupcakes

So funny

Photo credits: Philip, Pascal, Hippie2006, Toxel, mymodernmet, cupcaketakesthecake, hellocupcake,