Double chocolate oat cookies

Here's another really simple, quick recipe for you to try. As always, you can dabble with the recipe, take out the cocoa powder and add some dried raspberries and white chocolate, or some raisins, or some extra chocolate.....

Makes about 20 small cookies, or 10 big ones


Ingredients: 

• 125g plain flour

• 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 110g margarine or butter

• 110g dark brown soft sugar

• 100g caster sugar

• 1 egg

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 100g porridge oats

• 50g milk chocolate

• 50g dark chocolate

Method: 

1. Set the oven to 180C/ gas mark 4. Grease and line at least 2 baking trays (you might need more later depending on how big you want your cookies to be). Prepare your chocolate by bashing it into little pieces (its best to do this in a teatowel because bags split easily) or chopping it.

2. Cream together the butter and sugar. To soften the butter you should leave it out of the fridge for at least 2 hours before starting, or failing that, pop it in the microwave for 20 seconds.

3. Add the egg and vanilla essence and beat together. Stir in the dry ingredients.

4. Drop onto a baking tray about 2 tablespoons at a time. Mould them so they're slightly circular. Make sure you leave at least 5cm between each cookie, because they spread out a lot in the oven!

5. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until they feel quite firm around the edges. They'll still feel really gooey on top, but they will firm up when they come out of the oven, leaving you with lovely chewy cookies! Leave to firm up on the baking tray for about 5 minutes before transferring onto a plate (or into your mouth if you can't wait that long). 

6. Enjoy!

What I'm making for Valentine's day

So me and my boyfriend decided we were gonna stay in for V-day this year, and cook something super special, figuring even if we buy the best ingredients, it'll still be cheaper than going out for a posh meal. So here's what I'll be making tonight... Pictures to come! Where's the main, you ask? Well, the boy's making beef wellington (lucky me!) using Gordon Ramsay's recipe... so if you want that, go have a Google!

Starter: Grilled field mushrooms with pesto and parmesan

Ingredients: 

2 large field mushrooms
1 small baguette
1 jar pesto
2 tbsp grated parmesan
olive oil
2 eggs

Method:

1. Chop off about 2 slices of your baguette, and put that and two teaspoons of pesto into a blender, and blend until it forms a paste. Put the kettle on.

2. Wash and fry the mushrooms for about 2 minutes on each side in the olive oil, then remove from the pan. Spread the mushrooms with your pesto mixture, then sprinkle the parmesan over the top.

3. In the same frying pan, add some more olive oil, slice two big slices off the baguette, and fry until they've soaked up all the oil and are nice and crispy (like two big croutons). Put the mushrooms under the grill until the parmesan has gone nice and crispy.

4. Meanwhile, poach the eggs. Fill a saucepan with boiling water, add a few drops of vinegar and swirl the water around so it makes a little whirlpool. When it's doing this, quickly and gently crack your eggs into the water. This way they'll stay together and you'll get perfect poached eggs. After about two minutes the eggs should be done, remove with a slotted spoon.

5. Assemble: put the croutons on the bottom, followed by the mushroom, followed by the poached egg. Slice through half of the poached egg so that the yolk oozes all over the mushroom (it makes it look posh).

And you're done!! An impressive and pretty simple starter.


Dessert: Melting chocolate pots (makes 3)

Ingredients:

110g butter
75g flour
55g good quality dark chocolate, minimum 75% cocoa solids
150g sugar
2 eggs

Method:

1. Grease 3 ramekins.

2. Melt the butter and chocolate together slowly in a bowl over a pan of slightly simmering water, making sure the bowl doesn't touch the water.

3. Whisk the sugar and eggs together until thick and pale, then fold the flour in gently, then the chocolate mixture. Separate equally into the ramekins, and chill until needed, or for at least an hour.

4. When you're ready, preheat the oven to 200C and bake the chocolate pots for 12-14 minutes, or until the tops have set. Remove from the oven and leave for about 5 minutes. Tip them out and serve with cream.


Enjoy your Valentine's day guys! Love is all around xx

Chicken and sweet potato curry

This recipe was the product of an empty cupboard, and turned out surprisingly well!

What you’ll need (serves 2)

2 breasts of chicken

1 red onion

1 sweet potato

2 tbsp creme fraiche

about half a mugful of milk

1 tsp curry powder

1 chicken stock cube

2 portions of rice

1. Get your rice cooking according to the packet instructions. Meanwhile, peel and chop the sweet potato into rough chunks and put in a pan with water to cover. Boil for about 15-20 minutes until it’s soft enough to mash.

2. Whilst all that’s doing, cut the chicken into strips and dice the onion. Fry the onions until transparent, then add the chicken and cook all the way through.

3. Once the sweet potato is cooked, mash it until its…er…mash. Then mix in the creme fraiche and the curry powder, and the stock cube (crumbled). It’ll be quite thick at this point, so add some milk until it’s a curry sauce sort of consistency.

4. Add the sweet potato mixture to the chicken and onion, and serve with the rice. Eat!

Pancake perfection

Today marks a special day in a student's food calendar, a day of gorging oneself on a delicacy that typically comes just once a year.... that's right, IT'S PANCAKE DAY! So here's a recipe for you to make the perfect pancakes and impress your housemates with your culinary skills. I've also given you the recipe for an amazing toffee sauce you can use to top you pancakes.. You're welcome.

Ingredients:

110g plain flour

2 eggs

About half a pint of milk

1 pinch salt

Method:

1. Stick all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk until there are no lumps in the mixture. Ideally you'll leave the mixture for an hour or two so that all the lumps come to the top and you can rewhisk it, but let's be honest, once you have pancake mixture you're gonna want to make pancakes ASAP. If you want really thick american style pancakes add a little bit of flour to make the mixture thicker. This way it'll hold its own in the pan so the pancakes will stay small but thick.

HANDY TIP!

If you're a bit of a gym buff and have a protein shaker handy, put all the ingredients in there instead and shake it up. This saves you the energy of whisking, and also the mixture can pour straight out of the shaker into the pan, saving on unnecessary washing up!

2. Get a frying pan on the hob and heat up about a tablespoon of oil in it. Here you need to make the oil really hot, so that it starts to smoke, otherwise the pancakes will stick and you won't get to flip them, which is, of course, half the fun.

3. Put a little mixture in the pan and swill it around to cover the base of the pan and leave it alone for about 20-30 seconds until you see a few bubbles lifting the pancake up. Now if you give your pan a wiggle the pancake should come loose (if it doesn't, use a spatula to release it). Once you have your loose pancake, flip away, trying not to stick it to the ceiling. After another 20 seconds or so your pancake will be cooked!

4. Repeat about 50 times... and choose your topping.

For the toffee sauce (optional)

100g sugar (preferably brown)

100g butter

100ml cream (preferably double)

All you need to do is melt the butter and sugar together until the sugar has dissolved, add the cream and heat it up. You're done!

Have a great pancake day everyone, watch this space for some great valentine's recipes xx