Helllooooo…and goodbye

Hello.

I’ve posted some lovely recipes on my blog recently.

But you can’t see them, because you’re still looking at this one.

Why not move over to my shiny, pretty new blog?

Are you still here?

Hello. I’ve a lovely recipe for Chilli-Stuffed Cabbage to share with you.

Unfortunately, I’m not going to be putting it on here. This blog is now sleeping; if you want to see any new recipes, you need to go to the new She Cooks, She Eats. It’s much prettier, and much nicer to use.

Please update your feed readers and URLs. Thank you!

Love, Amy x

Moving House

Hello, darlings. I’m afraid that She Cooks, She Eats has moved.

You can find the new website at www.shecookssheeats.co.uk

 

It’s very pretty, and there’s an awesome recipe for Mince Pies on there. I won’t be posting any more recipes on this blog now, so please update your RSS feeds and everything.

I hope to see you there!

With love,

Amy xx

Choc Walnut Crunchies

A few weeks back, my darling friend had a baby. As she’d had to watch her sugar during large part of her pregnancy, I promised her biscuits after she’d had him.  When I asked her what kind of biscuits she’d like, all she said was “Nuts and chocolate!”

So I made a special choc-walnut biscuit just for her. They’re very crunchy and filled with nice big chunks of chocolate and walnut — hence the name Choc Walnut Crunchies. They’re also my first venture into proper biscuits, and I was quite pleased with how they turned out.

Ingredients

• 225g unsalted butter
• 140g caster sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 250g plain flour
• 25g cocoa powder
• 200g chopped walnuts
• 200g chopped chocolate

I bought whole walnuts and a bar of Dairy Milk and had to chop them up myself. Tip: Get a big knife, line the ingredients up flat on the board and chop diagonally one way and then diagonally another way. You can always chop up a little more if needed.

Preheat the oven to 190C and line two large baking trays with baking parchment (or if, like me, you never seem to have baking parchment in the house, use foil). Then cream the butter and sugar together until they are light and fluffy.

Beat in the egg yolk and sift in the flour and cocoa. Tip in the chocolate and the walnuts before mixing well to combine. You’ll end up with a soft looking dough.

All you need to do then is scoop up tablespoons full of the mixture and roll them into balls. You should be able to make about 30 little balls. Then put them on the baking trays and use the back of the tablespoon to flatten them slightly.

Then you just need to bake them for 12-15 minutes. A word of warning here; I would bake in two batches.

I put my two trays in and they were both baked for about 12 minutes. The tray that had been on top was fine, but the ones on the bottom were underdone. So I kept them in for another…two minutes? And look what happened…

They bloody burnt on the bottom! So, try in two batches so you can get them cooked evenly.

The ones that didn’t burn, however, were delicious…

My family snaffled a few before I sent them off, and said they were gorgeous. I only had a nibble (I don’t like nuts) and thought that the biscuit itself was lovely, and just begging to be dipped into a cup of tea.

Now I’ve ventured into the world of biscuit making, I might try it again. What do you think I should try next? White chocolate and …something else? Maybe raspberry?

Chocolate Chip Cookie Cakes

Oh, hi. How’re you? What’s that? These? Oh, these are nothing. They’re just a low-sugar low-fat dessert that has the taste of a chocolate chip cookie and the texture of a cake.

It’s a cross between a cookie and a cake. And it’s diet friendly. And low-sugar. Do I need to say anything else, or shall I just tell you how to make them?

Ingredients

• 170g self-raising flour
• 85g low-fat spread
• 12 tablespoons of artificial sweetener
• 71g chocolate chips
• 3 tablespoons of natural, fat-free fromage frais
• 1 egg yolk

Pre-heat the oven to 180C and line a baking sheet with baking parchment (or foil). Then sift the flour into a bowl, tip in the spread and rub the two together. Just use the very ends of your fingertips to do this, and shake the bowl occasionally to make the big lumps come to the top. Ideally it will look like fine breadcrumbs when ready. Then mix in the sweetener.

Add the chocolate chips, fromage frais and egg yolk. Stir together and use your hands to form a soft dough. Well, the recipe said it would be a soft dough. What I actually got was a big mush.

Separate the mush into 18 portions. Roll each portion into a ball, put the balls on the baking sheet and use the back of a fork to flatten them.

 

 

Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden. You can let them cool completely before eating, if you want, or you can wait just until you won’t burn your mouth and devour with a cup of tea. Guess which I did…

 

Cookbooks for Christmas

It’s coming up to Christmas, and soon I’ll be filling up this blog with recipes for gingerbread and syrup. Christmas food is lovely, and I’m looking forward to making and eating a huge amount of it. But there’s more to Christmas than food…there’s presents too.

Here are a few cookbooks that you could give as presents this year. Some of them I have, some of them I want, but all of them would sit very nicely underneath a Christmas tree. Feel free to add to my list at the bottom.

Mexican Food Made Simple — Thomasina Miers

Remember I reviewed Wahaca and said I adored it? Thomasina Miers is the owner. She did a TV show about Mexican food, and this is the accompanying book. I’m writing this whilst watching the TV show, and I’m practically drooling onto the keyboard. I don’t have this book, but if I don’t get it for Christmas I’m going to be buying it.

Cake Days — Hummingbird Bakery

I got this for my birthday, and I adore it. Some of my favourite recipes have come from here — Guinness Cake, Red Velvet Cupcakes, Raspberry Trifle — and every one has turned out brilliantly. Everyone likes to be able to bake a little, and this is perfect for someone who likes simple recipes that look incredibly fancy.

Mastering the Art of French Cooking — Julia Child, Louisette Berthole and Simone Beck

You’ve seen Julie & Julia, right? Well, this is the book that film is about. Or rather, these are the books — there are two volumes.

I got this again for my birthday, and I’ve never made anything from it. So why am I recommending it? Well, partly because it has some of the most delicious sounding recipes I’ve ever come across, with lots of variations on basic recipes so that you’ll always find something you like. But mainly because of the tips at the front. I don’t know how to cook, really. My cookery classes at school were awful and I’ve never done a course or anything. I assume most people are the same. There are plenty of tips on how to cook at the start of the book, and since following these tips my chopping speed has practically doubled.

Mrs. Beeton: How to Cook — Isabella Beeton and Gerard Baker

Do you know of Mrs. Beeton? Possibly, because Sophie Dahl starred in a TV show about her recently. She’s quite an amazing woman; her book, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management was the first to use the layout found in most recipe books today. She only lived until she was 28, but she is one of the most famous cookery books.

According to all of my cooking magazines, this book is brilliant. It goes right back to what Mrs. Beeton originally wrote and is full of techniques for novice cooks. It’s going to be a good gift for people like me, who can cook a little bit but want to learn how to cook better.

The Good Food Cook Book

I love BBC Good Food. I know that’s obvious because of the amount of recipes of theirs I use, but it doesn’t stop it being true.

This is a huge, beautiful, shiny book. Everything about it is lovely. I don’t even need to cook from something like this, I just want to look through it and stroke the pages.

That’s a lie, I’d cook like crazy from it. But I’d look at it quite a lot too.

Garry’s Healthy Lasagne

Mmmm. Lasagne.

This is another recipe that I’ve pinched off my long-suffering boyfriend. But really, look at that. How can you blame me? It’s GORGEOUS.

It’s a healthy lasagne, so low fat and everything. By “low-fat” I mean “There’s no proper white sauce’, basically. There’s still quite a lot of cheese in this bad boy. But cheese is lovely and if you use low-fat cheese it’s not even that bad for you, so meh. It’s healthy in my eyes.

Besides, it’s very, very tasty. And that is far more important.

Ingredients

• 500g extra lean minced beef
• 1 red pepper
• 1 green pepper
• 1 yellow pepper
• 100g mushrooms
• 1 onion
• 4 garlic cloves
• 400g can of chopped tomatoes
• Mixed herbs
• 400g passata
• 511g fat-free natural yogurt (or a 500g tub of Quark)
• 2 eggs
• Nutmeg
• Lasagne sheets
• 168g low-fat cheddar

Start by deseeding the peppers and chopping them into chunks. Then peel and chop the onion, and slice the mushrooms. Then spray a large frying pan with Fry Light, add the vegetables and the crushed garlic cloves and fry it all for 5-10 minutes, until soft. Add the mince and fry until browned all over.

Add the can of tomatoes, the passata and two tablespoons of the mixed herbs. Stir well and cook for 12-15 minutes, stirring frequently. The idea is to let some of the liquid bubble away so that you end up with lovely, thick sauce.

 

Whilst the sauce is thickening, mix together the yogurt, the eggs and a pinch of nutmeg. Grind in a healthy dose of black pepper, beat with a fork until smooth and set aside.

When your mince mix is ready, pre-heat the oven to 200C. Then spray a medium size ovenproof dish with Fry Light, and spoon half of the mince mixture into it.

Smooth out so that it’s even, before laying half of the lasagne sheets on top.

Spread over half the yogurt mixture (the best way to do this is to do lots of big blobs of the yogurt that you then smooth out with the back of a tablespoon)

And repeat. Meat…

 

…lasagne sheets…

 

…and the yogurt mix.

Grate the cheese and sprinkle it over the top…

Before baking it in the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until it looks like this.

Serve with salad, like Garry has done here (he’s posing with our lasagne)

 

And there you have it. One simple, healthy, tasty meal.