Short bread !

This evening while catching up on the great British bake off I found the urge to make some bickies!!! 

As I have just tidied the kitchen as well! They will be done at 12.05 ! A tad late but so easy to make. I have been measuring the ingredients and sitting back down on the sofa while mixing !

125g butter

55g caster sugar

180g plain flour 

Cream the butter and sugar together, then mix in the flour until it becomes a smooth paste ! Roll out on the work surface but I patted mine as I have no rolling pin at the moment ! Cut into fingers , sprinkle with caster sugar, pop in the fridge for 20 mins and then In a pre heated oven for 15 mins until golden brown. Sprinkle with cinnamon and serve with tea. 

Late night snack ! Yummy ! 

Quick Spanish omlette

Soya sauce and eggs are an amazing combination. I discovered this while perfecting my signature dish of egg fried rice! Another thing that I never run out of in the kitchen is garlic salt (or granules). No fresh garlic as it won't get used. You can buy this from any supermarket in the spice and herb section!

This is great for a buffet as well! Serve as tapas with Parma ham, olives, manchego cheese (the best cheese in the world, see supermarkets deli counter!)

ingredients: 

1 onion

3 slices of bacon

4 small potatoes

3 eggs

Garlic salt

Soya sauce

Start by boiling the potatoes (I always put salt in the water), it doesn't matter if you chop them into small squares or into thin slices. At the same time fry the onions and bacon, which should be finely chopped. Fry in oil and add garlic salt.

Mix the egg in a bowl with a little dash of water. Add soya sauce and garlic salt. The soya sauce should make the mixture a little bit darker but it need quite a bit, roughly 4tbsp.

Once potatoes are done, add then to the frying pan with the egg mix. Then leave to cook until the bottom of the omelette is cooked. Then stick under the grill to finish the top.

Eat with ketchup!

Nan's Bread and butter pud

Last night I had nothing in the house to eat except some stale bread, a few eggs and a bit of milk, some sorry looking apple and my jar of cinnamon. So i rang nan! 

My uncle loves this recipe and so do i now. I had made it before dinner and while we were eating i popped it in the oven! 

Ingredients :

eggs

milk

butter

bread as much as you have

sugar-caster or granulated or brown

apples and cinnamon or jam 

Start by buttering all of the slices of bread, cut into soldiers and layer into a deep oven dish. Mix eggs and milk in a bowl (make enough to cover the bread) and add a tbsp of sugar, then pour over the bread. cut the apples into segments and lay on top of the pudding. Sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on top and pop in a pre heated over of 180 degrees. cook for 20 mins or more.

Keep some and eat it the next day cold! It's better cold! 

Simple but delightful custard!

I do not like shop brought custard ! Out of a tin is a definite no-no for me. But after I had made the meringue for mums birthday cake I was left with 3 egg yokes that I didn't know what to do with.

Custard recipes are hard to follow! They tell you to use corn flour and rubbish like that. Nope this is easy!

ingredients:

290ml milk

1tsp vanilla essence

2 egg yokes

1 tbsp caster sugar

Heat milk until it come to the boil. In a seperate bowl beat the eggs and sugar. Pour the hot milk in to the bowl with the egg mix and whisk. return to the pan and heat until the mixture thickens and then add the vanilla essence.

Quite simple.

Goes great with an apple crumble which i will do in another blog! 

Always make if you are making a meringue! 

Gluten Free Radley Mess cake

November 11th: My mothers birthday.

My mother is a coeliac, which means she can not eat gluten. gluten is found in cakes, bread, anything thing with flour in it and anything that is really yummy! or so we thought!

She was diagnosed about 10 years ago and as a result stopped eating more or less everything! but she has proven to me that gluten free is the yummiest way to make anything!

This cake is an eton mess cake with a twist. I called it Radley as that is eton schools biggest rivals and that is also the village in which my mother was born.

I started with:

110g gluten free self raising flour

110g ancor or stalk

110g caster sugar

2 eggs

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tbsp milk

1tsp vanilla extract

(if your not cooking for these requirements normal self-raising flour is fine, just don't add baking powder)

Start by creaming the sugar and butter together. Beat the eggs in a seperate bowl and then add to the sugar/butter mixture slowly. Then add the flour (i don't normally bother sifting, It should be fine if you continue to mix until the mixture is smooth). Add the baking powder,milk and vanilla. I always line the tin (two round half cake tins or one loaf tin is fine) with grease proof paper as this means less washing up. 

Cook in a pre heated oven of 180 degrees. For about 20 mins. To make sure cake is cooked all the way though, stab with a knife in the middle and if it comes out covered in cake mix, give it another 10 mins until the knife comes out clean.(obviously take the knife out before returning the cake to the oven).

As my cake had sunk in the two round cake tins, i made another cake and put on top so it was really tall and looked AMAZING! 

Next, buttercream icing:

140g ancor or any other butter or spread

280g icing sugar

1 tbsp milk

1tsp vanilla extract

Cream all ingredients together with a wooden spoon or with an electric whisk, until light an fluffy.

Lastly, meringue:

4 egg whites

225g caster sugar

Whisk until fluffy and the meringue stands up in peaks. Cover a baking tray in grease proof paper and dollop the meringue on top in one large meringue. Place in a pre heated oven of 140 degrees, bake for 1 hour and fifteen mins and then until golden brown.The meringue should be crispy on the outside and very marshmellowie on the inside!

Wait to cook, remove from baking tray and crush in to different size pieces. Put the cake together like usual and ice all over, then place the meringue, some strawberries and strawberry jam all over the cake. 

Beautiful!

Waste not, WANT NOT!

The young women's food blog.

This is a food blog written by a young women, for everyone. This is my journey of food experimentation, business plans and the idea that everyone can cook with a small budget and the motto of waste not, WANT NOT!

I have been brought up on fresh food. Bland but fresh. I want to prove to the world that it is cheaper to buy ingredients rather than a ready meal. I understand that time has become scarce and that work, families and commitments are putting pressure on our schedules. I want to prove that there is a way of using real food that everyone has, or should have in the cupboard. 

First, go and buy tupperware! Always make too much food, freeze it and it can always be put into the microwave or oven at a later date. Food always taste better after it has been cooked a second time (especially bacon).

Please feel free to write comments, experiment at home, give me tips and ideas and I hope I can find food lovers like me out there somewhere!