Christmas Pie

Oooh, I've had a few odd days off work and i have made like a domestic goddess and gotten everything ready in advance for christmas that i can.

I always make christmas pie for christmas eve, then we have the leftovers as part of christmas tea. It's become a bit of a tradition, I also made it for my work buffet last year and it seemed to go down quite well, so I've made two lots today, and they have come out beautifully, even if I do say so myself.

Here's the recipe for this delicious pie.

1. Heat oven to 190 oC
2. Heat the olive oil and add the chopped onion. fry until soft and golden, then add the chicken or turkey and fry until browned.
3. In a large bowl, mix together the sausagemeat, lemon zest, breadcrumbs, apricots, chestnuts, thyme, onions, and chicken. This is great fun if you mix it with your hands, but make sure the onions and chicken have cooled a bit! season with salt and pepper if you wish.
4. Grease the pie dish.
5. Half the pastry, and roll out in a circular shape until it is big enough to cover the bottom of the dish. Press the pastry into the dish.
6. Chuck the sausagemeat mix into the pie and squidge it down (again with your hands if you don't mind getting squishy!)
7. Roll out the rest of the pastry until it covers the top. Use some beaten egg to moisten the top of the pastry in the pie dish, then cover with the rolled out pastry top.
8. Squidge the edges together slightly. Cut away any excess and retain. Press a fork around the outside of the pie for a nice patterned edge.
9. Glaze all over with the beaten egg.
10. Now for the most important and fun bit! Use the scraps of pastry to make lovely christmas shapes and stick onto the top of the pie. This year I've used gingerbread man, star, christmas tree, and snowman cutters. Holly leaves and berries also look really good. I tend to leave the shapes unglazed because it makes a nice contrast and makes them stand out more.

This pie can be frozen for up to two months, or can be kept in the fridge for a couple of days. It's perfect warmed with a nice winter salad and some chutney.

Snow and Ice!

Now, I know there are people who read this blog from outside the UK, and I'm sure there are some people who come from countries that have REAL weather, like Canada or Russia or wherever (why not let me know where you come from by leaving a comment?), but in the UK, the weather always makes the headlines. Honestly, when the sun is out for more than 5 minutes in the summer, its all over the papers: 'heat wave!!!!! hottest summer ever!!!!' and then the sun goes back in and its dreary an gray again. Well, in the past few weeks, we've had Some Snow. And of course, everything came to a standstill as people wondered what on earth this magical white stuff falling from the sky was. Even though we get it every year.

Personally, I love the snow and I'm determined to keep my child like love of it.. We had some really beautiful, impressive icicles where I live. I don't think the pictures have come out brilliantly but they were really mesmerising. Although that  massive one was hanging very ominously above our car!

Chilli Beef Ramen

I invested in the wagamama cookbook and DVD, and have been having a great time making recipes from it. This is chilli beef ramen soup, which is lovely to have in this wintry weather we are having in Newcastle. There is nothing more comforting than noodle soup. The recipe is fairly easy, but i've noticed a couple of the recipes in the book need you to make a couple of different sauces in advance, so you need to be fairly organised. 

Colour Coded Bento

Goodness, I made this so long ago i can barely remember what was in it! I know ideally bento should have a range of colours but for some reason i really wanted to colour code this lunch, So the 'yellow' box has some smoked salmon, shu mai dumplings, tempura king prawn, and mini chicken fajitas, and the 'orange' box has a mini applesauce and carrot muffin and some baked mango.

Catch up

Hiya folks,

It's been absolutely yonks since i've had a chance to get back to blogging. nothing interesting in particular just ive been quite busy at work, and because there has been a lot of snow we haven't been able to get the car out to go shopping.

There's a couple of updates on their way!

Winter curry bento

Now the winter is well and truly here, I want spicy, warming food for lunch. oh, and lots of cheese. So this bento has it all- Magalorean tomato and beef curry with rice, mini cheeses and bruschetta (with a small bottle of chilli oil for drizzling) and some crispy vegetable balls. Yum!

I Heart Pasta

I've been getting a lot of kale in my veg box recently, and I wasn't to sure what to do with it. Luckily, I found a recipe for slimming world creamy kale spaghetti. I topped it off with some happy little hearts because I made this bento for lunch the day after my third wedding anniversary!

It Ain't Pretty

... but it's my bento! (sung to the tune of 'he ain't heavy' of course!

This very brown and dull looking bento was actually a super delicious winter warmer lunch- leftover Spanish fabada (Remember my recipe post?) with Thai chicken patties on top, then the bottom of the box has yummy mini cheeses and bruschetta, with the little monkey cup being filled with mayo. I've also got a mini carrot and apple sauce muffin (I'll definitely do a recipe post on those- they were scrummilicious) and a little raisin box.

Lunch and Snack Bento

This looks like a rather large bento selection for one person, but its actually meant to be my lunch and a snack because i'll be at work later tomorrow. The yellow bento contains a selection of dumplings- shu mai, prawn dumpling, and a vegetable ball, with some yummy spicy edamame beans on the side. The orange box contains mini fajitas and some potato wedges, then the small box contains wasabi peas, perfect for afternoon munching. I've also got some fruit boxes as well.

Apple Berry Crumble

mmmm yummy! I made some delicious mini apple and berry crumbles the other day. I had a lot of leftover apples and some garden apples that my mother in law had given me so it seemed rude not to! The crumble topping was delicious- made with oats and demerara sugar, then I topped them off with walnut halves. Next time I might try and make some in mini silicone cups so they could pop into a bento and make a lovely teeny tiny pudding for lunch time. They would be super cute made in heart shaped ramekins as well. Here's the recipe, folks. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
4 large cooking apples, or 8-10 small apples, peeled, cored and cut into chunks,
3 tablespoons water
3 tablespoons sugar
225g frozen mixed berries

Crumble Topping:
170g plain wholemeal flour
75g butter
75g sugar
Handful of oats
walnut halves

Preheat oven to 180 oC

In a saucepan over a low heat, cook the apple chunks, water and sugar until the apples are soft, syrupy and mushy (about 10-15 minutes). add more sugar if needed. Once the apple is ready, stir in the frozen berries and stir until they are thawed.
Transfer into ramekins and allow to cool while you prepare the topping.

In a medium sized bowl, rub the butter into the wholemeal flour until it resembles course breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar and oats, then sprinkle into the ramekins over the apple and berry mixture. Put some walnut halves on top to decorate (optional of course)

Bake for 15-20mins, then devour when still warm.

Sarah's Cupcake

Its was my colleague Sarah's 30th birthday last monday so i made her this girly giant cupcake. The colour hasn't come out so well on these photos but the buttercream lcing was a nice pale lilac colour with some lilac pearlescent sprinkles over it. I also used pastel sprinkle and silver dragees.

Spooky Lunch

 another halloween theme bento- chicken katsudon with spooky cheese and nori shapes. yummy and warm for a cold October day.

Autumn Leaves

Again, I took some inspiration from the weather and yum yum bento box to make these autumn leaf friends. This box contains pasta bolognese, cheese leaves, a fresh salad, and a a berry mix. 

I do love when the leaves are on the ground, and they are dry underfoot like crispy corn flakes.

Mushroom Friends

As it has been very damp this autumn, there has been an abundance of mushrooms around. There's also been some programmes on tv recommending foraging and picking wild mushrooms, which has led to quite a bit of work at my workplace (we give poisons advice to healthcare professionals). There has also been an alert from the HPA warning people to be very careful if picking wild mushrooms. So with that in mind, I thought I'd do a mushroom bento... a safe one though. It's from Yum-yum bento box.

the happy mushrooms are made from cheese and salami with nori faces. The bento also contains some tomato prawn noodles, some crispy courgettes and green beans with courgette.

Shopping Cute

I've had the day off work today so I took the opporunity to get my nails done (they've been left in a right state as they haven't had any attention for at least a month, and i attempted to keep them longer than usual which didn't quite work). Anyway, my fab nail lady Nicola advised to get Jessica GELeration nails rather than my usual tips and acrylic. They seem really fab, take much less time to apply, and are really versatile, and come in a range of great colours. Today I chose this lovely purple, which we think should be called 'Cadbury chocolate wrapper purple'

I've also been shopping this afternoon- it seems like a long time since I've had a nice little wander around the shops, and I've picked up some lovely cute things:

Look at these cute badges that I got from Gaf, sure to make any bag or jacket beautiful.

Well of course I popped into paperchase to see what was available there. I've been after a lunch bag for a while, to fit a bento plus fruit, cutlery and chopsticks etc in. And then of course I couldn't resist the set of four boxes and matching fork and spoon set!

More Cupcakes

Phew, I made three more batches of the golden syrup cupcakes last night, as they got a very good reception when i took some to work last week. I've decorated this lot slightly differently:

With some silver balls and pink, orange and white stars. I didn't learn from last time and ended up finishing off the buttercream then feeling a wee bit sickly afterwards. I took a batch into the salon when i got my nails done, where my cupcakes are always highly appreciated, and the consensus there seemed to be that these were my best yet out of the selection I've brought them in the past.

Spanish Fabada recipe

Hi all,

Whilst on our hols in Spain we had something called fabada as part of a tapas meal and it was delicious, so i thought I'd give it a go when I got home. Fabada is a lovely, rich stew made of white beans and chorizo, morcilla (black pudding) and pancetta (definitely not one for vegetarians!). It doesn't make for the most attractive of meals but it's perfect for cold, dark nights!

Its one of those meals that takes a short time to prepare, but quite a long time to cook, but it's actually quite easy to make. Here is the recipe:

500g dried cannelini beans
250g black pudding
250g chorizo
250g pancetta
pinch of saffron
2 bay leaves

1. Soak the beans in water overnight.
2. Put the beans in a large pan (or put half into two pans), just cover with fresh water, and bring to the boil.
3. Meanwhile, chop the chorizo, plack pudding and pancetta into small cubes.
4. Add the saffron, black pudding, chorizo and pancetta into the pan, along with the bay leaves, (add more water to just cover the ingredients in the pan if need be)
5. Cover the pan and cook for 15 minutes, then skim off the froth from the top of the stew.
6. Simmer gently for 2-3 hours until the beans are tender. Make sure to stir occasionally and add water to keep the beans covered so they don't split.
7. Once the beans are tender, increase the heat and stir continuoously until the stew reaches the desired consistency. It should be relatively dry and stodgy, but you could make it more liquid if you would like.

These amounts made two lots big enough for a main course for two people, and a smaller amount which is perfect for use in bento lunches!

Another Halloween bento

I continued with the halloween theme for today's lunch:

This bento contains crackers and pumpkin shaped cheese with cucumber face, chilli and coriander prawns, some chicken roll, and a cucumber ghostie, then the upper layer contains pretzels, edamame and pea salad, olives, pickled onions, celery, and a quorn sausage roll.

First bento in a while!

Hurrah! back into the world of bento, and i noticed that many of those in the bento blogging world are making their halloween themed bentos now.

Here's my first attempt at a halloween bento:

My lunch for tomorrow contains an edamame and pea salad with a small pot of dressing, jigsaw sammies, tomato skewers, a quorn sausage roll, and some spooky mini babybel... Alright it's not the most inventive bento in the world, and its nowhere near as good as the other folks, but i'm going to try and go supplies shopping to get some cutters and things during the week. The hub's lunch is similar:

We also have separate small bentos filled with beef dhansak which i have made today... I really will get round to posting my curry recipes at some point... honest!

By the way, we are having a halloween buffet at work, instigated by me, so i'll need to make some impressive frightening feast foods- does anyone have any ideas?

Golden Delicious

I do love golden syrup- it looks like its made out of sunshine and it appears to obey its own laws of physics. So what better than Golden Syrup cupcakes?

I came across this recipe on facebook- its on the Tate and Lyle website and you can find it here. I had one of those wonderful moments in baking- The moment i took the cupcakes out of the oven i knew i had timed it just right and they were spot on, so i was feeling quite smug.

They had risen nicely, were a lovely golden brown, and they all seemed to be a nice size. So i added the buttercream (which was absolutely delicious - i made myself feel quite ill by eating the leftovers) and a couple of sprinkles and they look absolutely fab i think, although the colour scheme of the yellow buttercream and white, blue, and green sprinkles doesn't really go with the cases. I haven't actually tried one yet as they are all waiting to be taken to work where they will no doubt undergo rigorous testing by my colleagues- I'll let you know the responses, and in the meantime, why not give them a go?

 

Twenty20!

hurrah! just noticed I'm up to 20 followers now! thank you all very much for your time in checking my little corner of the blogosphere...

Sunny holidays

The hubs and I got back last week from a lovely sunny holiday in Benalmedina, Southern Spain. Whilst a lot of the area is very 'Englishified' we had some aboslutely delicious food, including lots of fresh fish and seafood paella. Oh and my lovely big ice cream!

Needless to say, we returned from a week of beautiful sunshine non-stop, to grey cloudy rainy britain. Still, at least its nearly christmas.

I'm still here

Hi all,

I am still here, don't worry! Just i haven't made any lovely lunches recently... promise i'll be back soon.

Hayley xxx

Red and Yellow bento

Ugh, as I am writing this post, I can hear very heavy rain outside:( Today has been the first day that I've truly realised that summer is over. Yack yack yack.

I think I've subconsciously made an autumn coloured bento! Its very yellow and browny-red. It contains homemade sesame prawn toasts, which I've never made before They seemed fairly easy to make but because I used Fry light instead of oil they look a little burnt in areas instead of going a nice golden brown. I've also got some spicy chilli dip, olives, quorn satay skewers, and some leftover vindaloo.

Sunday cooking day is definitely the way forward- it's lovely not having to worry about making tea after work. I know some of you would like the recipes so I'll definitely get around to putting them on here soon.

Raindrops keep falling on my head...

monday bento

Its been a busy day today- I've made all of our evening meals for the week in one go, so i don't need to worry about cooking for the rest of the week hoorah! I've made a pork vindaloo, a mandalorean beef curry, kofte curry, pork and parsnip stew, and picadillo... all lovely warming autumn meals. 

I'm out of the office training folk tomorrow. My bentos usually cause a bit of a stir and make a conversational point. This one isn't very cute however, but I've got a lot of different flavours so it should be good. It include salmon and quark wraps, pickled onions, ham rollups, mini babybels, duck wraps, olives, and some salad.

Rabbit Ryvita

Today's lunch consisted of a cheese bunny with ham and quark on a Ryvita, with another one hiding underneath. These were resting on some sweetcorn cobs as well. I also had some lovely fresh steamed organic courgettes and leeks, and some Thai mini bites with a chive dip, then a few grapes as well.

18 followers now! I'd love to get to 20... I know its not a huge amount in the grand scheme of blogging but i very much appreciate you all and hope you enjoy my little blog. Thank you all muchly.

Falafel friend

Tuesday's bento was a bit of a mish mash! It contained leftover sushi from our Bank Holiday Monday sushi feast, a healthy coleslaw salad, pickled onion and olive picks, lemon and pepper smoked salmon (yum!) and devilled eggs, with a mini babybel to top it all off. The devilled eggs are also a slimming world recipe and i thought they were really tasty.

Sushi Feast

Lunch today has been a veritable sushi feast, and very delicious! I'm spending the whole day cooking, making stews and the like that i can freeze for teatimes through the week. I've made picadillo, a south american beef stew, and i'm about to go and make a truly delicious pork and parsnip spicy stew this afternoon. I made a variety of sushi for our lunch- egg and crabstick nigiri, tuna mayo and spring onion maki, and lemon salmon, cucumber and egg maki. Because i don't have any dainty little sushi bowls we made do with these denby teacups, which were the perfect size for dipping into soy sauce and wasabi. 

I probably should get round to buying a proper sushi making kit but i find it really easy to make sushi anyway, without any specialist equipment.  

Sushi wants:

Cream tea cupcakes

There was an end of summer barbecue at a friend's house yesterday. We brought some delicious Syn free sausages (garlic and pepper), and i made a batch of these strawberry and cream cupcakes. They're like a cream tea in cupcake form, with jam inside, cream on top and half a strawberry. They went down very well as per usual. strawberry cakes were particularly appropriate for this party as the friend whose house it was famously had a strawberry fight (mainly with himself), then woke up the next morning a bit miffed that there were red patches on his walls and in his carpet, until someone then reminded him it was actually him throwing them in the first place.
I do love our work social evenings... this one last night involved tequila, cream soda, rum, frogs, the time warp, and wet wet wet. Needless to say today has been a write off, involving very little movement, lots of carbohydrates, and lots of Farmville.

Sushi Fresh

Oooooh what a great idea... Someone in my area has just started a new sushi delivery service, called Sushi Fresh. Their prices are fantastic and their sushi looks delicious. They also do noodles and set meals. It seems to be a service delivered straight from their house. We're going to try it on Friday, so fingers crossed that its as delicious as it sounds. Wish I'd thought of that idea!

Mini burger bento

a last minute bento idea tonight, although it seems to have worked out alright. I've used left over risotto (see the previous recipe) with ham and carrot decorations, then I defrosted some hamburgers I'd made for a bento a while back. I reshaped them into smaller mini burgers, then grilled them, and made mini cheese burger bentos using salad and mini babybel cheese. They are held together with skewers and a piece of gherkin, then I have a gherkin and pickled onion skewer and a tomato and ham skewer.

risotto rules!

My friend Haymond told me today that he wants to try the pork vindaloo recipe I posted, so I thought that if he found it useful, I'd post a few more recipes. What do you reckon? Let me know by leaving a comment.

A cheesy bacon risotto? on a diet? well yes. And its very easy to do and only takes 20 minutes or so to make.

1. Chop some spring onions and four cloves of garlic. Spray a large frying pan with Fry Light (or use a dash of olive oil), and sweat the onions and garlic over a medium heat for a few minutes.

2. Slice approx four slices of turkey bacon or lean bacon rashers into strips. Pop them into the pan with the spring onions and garlic.

3. Add just over 300g of arborio rice to the pan and leave for about a minute or until the rice turns translucent.

4. Add about a litre of chicken stock to the rice. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer until the stock has absorbed into the rice. keep an eye out so the rice doesn't burn or stick to the pan- it can be a nightmare to clean. 

5. stir in a tablespoon of parmesan cheese and sprinkle with fresh chives and pepper. 

6. Serve and enjoy!

I'm keeping the leftovers to put into lunches tomorrow- yum!

Noodle Soup

A pretty boring  lunch  today from a kawaii or exciting perspective but it was rather yummy! lovely spicy miso prawn noodle soup.

Piggle Sammie

Cute piggy prawn sammie lunch for him...

(two piggies= Man size portion)

...and for her:

Dainty slimming sized portion for moi! These boxes contain low fat prawn cocktail sandwiches (1 healthy extra and syn free filling) with some salad (free), Low fat cheese triangles (healthy extras), a quorn sausage roll (2.5 Syns), tomato and grapes (free). See I'm getting used to this complicated Slimming World malarkey now!

Monday's bento box

C

Tomorrow's bento contains mini quiches (these arre very clever, using ham as the case... I'll do a post dedicated to them later I think), heart shaped egg, salad, onigiri, strawberries, and my favourite bit, an egg chick:

Its all syn free on Slimming World as well.

Slimming World Vindaloo

I thought I'd share this delicious recipe with you guys. Its a healthy pork vindaloo and is absolutely scrummilicious. 

1. Place 500g lean pork chunks into a bowl with 2 chopped onions.

2.  Using a pestle and mortar, combine 8 garlic cloves, 2 teaspoons of finely chopped ginger, 2 tsp cumin, 2 tsp whole mustard seeds, 2 tsp hot chilli powder, 1/2 tsp ground cloves and 1 tsp ground cinnamon. Add a little vinegar to make into a paste, then add 125mls vinegar.

3. Marinade the pork for 6-8 hours or overnight in the vinegar mixture.

4. Spray some Fry light into a large saucepan, and add the pork mixture and a can of chopped tomatoes, along with 1/2 tsp of artificial sweetener. Simmer for up to an hour or until the pork is tender.

5. Serve with pilau rice, and some fresh coriander.

Simple as that and absolutely delicious!

Pastel Passion

I'm off to a friend's house to celebrate her birthday later on tonight, so I thought I'd whip up a batch of birthday cupcakes to take with me.

They're plain vanilla cupcakes (sometimes simple is best) and i made lovely pastel buttercream colours- pink and yellow, then topped with cute sprinkles. Hopefully she and the others will appreciate them!

Cute Cards

Look at this Super Kawaii card that I bought for a friend's birthday... It is just so squee. I love the multicoloured envelope as well. I bought it from gaf, a fab little shop just down the road from me. You can find their website here:
http://www.yourgaf.com/

the card is made by Pango Productions... Their website is here: http://www.pangoproductions.com/ . They're based in London and have an Etsy Shop.