plain flour Archives - Journeys Are My Diary

Recipe – Megan’s Minecraft Brownie Blocks

July 21, 2015 by Bel Leave a Comment

Last week, Megan decided that she wanted to make brownies and since we were heading out to the supermarket anyway, I agreed to let her get the ingredients for her brownies. When we got back she set to making the brownies and did a pretty good job of managing by herself for the most part. After they were cooked and cooled she turned her brownies into Minecraft dirt blocks and though they didn’t turn out quite how she wanted them, I was still really proud of her!

Ingredients
100g unsalted butter
175g caster sugar
75g dark muscovado sugar
125g dark chocolate
1 tbsp golden syrup
2 eggs
1 tsp chocolate or vanilla extract
100g plain flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder

This makes approximately 9 large squares in a 20cm shallow square cake tin.

1) Pre-heat oven to 180/Gas Mark 4 and lightly grease baking tin and line with baking paper.

2) Place the butter, both sugars, dark chocolate (broken up) and golden syrup into a pan and heat through gently until all melted and combined. Leave to cool.

3) Beat together the eggs and flavouring and then add to the chocolate mixture once cooled.

4) Sieve together the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder, before folding carefully into the chocolate mixture.

5) Spoon the mixture into the prepared baking tin. Place in the oven and cook for approximately 25 minutes. The cake will begin to pull away from the sides of the tin and the top will be crisp, but the inside of the cake should still be quite stodgy and soft to the touch.

6) Leave the cake to cool completely before removing from the tin and then cut into squares and serve.

Megan obviously cut out cake into bite size pieces as she wanted them to represent Minecraft blocks. After she’d cut them up she mixed some icing sugar with green food colouring to make and icing and dribbled it over the top of some.

Once she was done, she placed the blocks in a certain patter and then made the same look on her Minecraft game to represent her brownie blocks. I think she did a fab job, especially as she’s not much of a baker!

Recipe – Turkey and Bacon Hotpot

January 28, 2013 by Bel 1 Comment

Saturday night was one of those evenings where comfort food was a must. It had been snowing, everyone in the house was under the weather, and to be honest, I didn’t even feel like cooking. But with a house full of people, including my partner, my brother, and a guest, I knew we needed something hearty to warm us up. I ended up making hotpot—just the main dish, without any salad or veggies to accompany it, as I often forget that part! As we all gathered around the table, it struck me how much easier it would be to enjoy this kind of meal if we could just go out to a franchise hot pot place. Having everything prepared and ready to enjoy would have been a real treat. But that night, our homemade hotpot did the trick, bringing warmth and comfort to an otherwise chilly evening.

Turkey and Bacon Hotpot
Serves 4
Per serving: 412 Calories, 6.4g Fat
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 20-30 minutes

Ingredients:
2 red onions, sliced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
450g lean diced turkey
225g thick-cut lean bacon, diced
1 tbsp plain flour
450ml semi-skimmed milk
1 chicken stock cube
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
450g potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
1 tbsp reduced-salt soy sauce
freshly ground black pepper

When making this, I completely forgot to take pictures until the end. I’m clearly not capable of multi-tasking by cooking and photography at the same time, oops!

Begin by preheating the oven to 190 C (375 F, Gas Mark 5). Get a large non-stick frying pan, adding the onions and garlic and dry-frying till soft. Next add the turkey and bacon, continuing to cook, turning the meat to seal on all sides. Sprinkle the flour over and “cook out” for 1 minute, then gradually stir in the milk. Add the stock cube and allow to dissolve, stirring to distribute. Simmer gently for 15 minutes, to allow the sauce to thicken. Stir in the parsley (I used dried as I rarely have fresh in) and pour the mixture into an overproof dish. Top with sliced potatoes, drizzle with soy sauce and season with freshly ground black pepper. Finally bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes, until the potatoes are cooked.

This is the only picture I remembered to take (and the kitchen lighting makes it look quite yellow, where it isn’t)! Both pictures show the portion size, this being a quarter of the full size dish. The only thing I would add to the recipe is to say that I season with salt and pepper even at frying stage, not just at the end. Also I have no idea what weight of potatoes I used, just enough to top about 2-3 layers deep. Having done more than this previously, I know the potato doesn’t always cook through well. That said, if you doing it with plenty of time to spare before dinner, you could cook at a lower heat and for longer, to ensure it was all cooked through, if you did want a deeper potato topping!

This recipe is another of my favourites, but ideally I definitely would have served it alongside some salad or vegetables.

Next time… Spicy Chicken Pasta

Recipe – Boozy Beef with Mushrooms

January 28, 2013 by Bel Leave a Comment

As I mentioned before, I’ve just started dieting again, using the Rosemary Conley diet books I had from a few years ago. I’m not following her low GI diet exactly, doing more of a calorie counting one, but I’m cooking fresh meals every night, using her recipes.

Boozy Beef with Mushrooms
Serves 4
Per Serving: 230 Calories, 7.1g Fat
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 50 minutes

In my opinion, these recipes only serve 4 if all of you are on a diet. However as I’m often cooking for my partner and/or friends, I feel like they provide 1 correct size portion and then 2 good potions, or 1 good portion and 2 correct size portion (especially given that the normal non diet people are usually guys). Also my logic is – they can always have extra food after, its more important that I just don’t eat more than the correct size portion.

Ingredients:
2 red onion, sliced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
450g lean braising steak, diced
1 beef stock cube, dissolved in 300ml (1/2 pint) boiling water
1 tbsp plain flour
225g mixed mushrooms, sliced
300ml (1/2 pint) beer or cider
2 tbsp chopped fresh mixed herbs
salt and freshly ground black pepper

To begin with you get a large, non-stick pan, add the red onions and dry-fry until brown. You then add the garlic and beef, continuing to cook and seal the beef, seasoning with salt and pepper. Add 2 tbsp of beef stock and sprinkle the flour over.

Mix well and “cook out” for 1 minute, before gradually stirring in the remaining stock. Stir in the sliced mushrooms and the herbs. I didn’t actually have fresh herbs in, or even mixed herbs for that matter, so I just added a tsp of every herb I had in the cupboard, from parsley to thyme, from rosemary to oregano.

Finally add the beer or cider, then stir. Reduce the heat to a gentle simmer and cook for 35-40 minutes, until the beer is tender. It looks a lot of liquid after you’ve added everything, but trust me it simmers down to nothing. In fact it can end up too thick so be sure to keep an eye on that, possibly add a little water.

I haven’t cooked any of the Rosemary Conley recipes in about 4 years and while I remember they are tasty, I had forgotten just how good they were. At the point of typing this up I have actually cooked three of her recipes, and so far this is my favourite. I shared it between 3 in this instance, but making sure my own portion was the smaller. Of course the other thing about Rosemary Conley’s recipes is that she just provides you with the main part of the meal, but not whatever you serve it with. I chose to serve this with basmati (microwave) rice. However I only had one plain and one egg fried version, so I ended up mixing them together before serving them up.

Anyway, it was delicious and both my partner and guest agreed! Its really easy to make, low calories and not really all that expensive (my cider was 99p and my beef was marked down as reduced).

Next time… Turkey and Bacon Hotpot