Tear and Share Cheesy Bread

It's always nice to have some fresh bread at a barbecue and good to take something homemade. When I was invited to a barbecue at a friend's in August I wanted to take something I'd made (as well as something to throw on the BBQ) and thought she would pretty much have dessert covered, so I would make bread.

I found a recipe on a website called Chef Jae, though it was for cheese and onion bread and my boyfriend doesn't like onion so I decided to leave it out. Tasting the bread at the barbecue I realised it wasn't cheesy enough so instead of putting a lump of cheese in each section I might grate cheese and scatter it throughout - and use a more mature cheese.

I forgot to sprinkle the extra cheese over the top as well which was a shame as that would have increased the cheese factor. The bread was good but next time I would probably try adding some sundried tomato or some rosemary.

 

 

Restaurant review: The Grasshopper Inn, Westerham, Kent

We aren’t the most spontaneous of people and going out for dinner usually involves research and advance booking, but one night recently I was held up on the train from work, my boyfriend was already at home and it was a lovely evening so I texted him to ask if he fancied going out to dinner, and if he could pick somewhere and meet me with the car at the station when my train got in.

 

He chose the Grasshopper Inn in Westerham, Kent which was only a half hour drive from our house even though we live in a different county. It was a nice run in the car and when we arrived I was very taken with the restored Tudor building which houses the hotel and restaurant.

 

The food was good – despite it being a summer’s evening I really fancied the roast of the day and had roast gammon with roast potatoes, red wine gravy and an unfortunately quite flat Yorkshire pudding (£12.50). My boyfriend had a burger and chips (£9). The place let itself down by the service – there were only two other couples in there from what we could see, but service was extremely slow. We waited a long time to order, a long time to get our drinks and a long time to get our food. We would have been waiting a long time to pay our bill as well but we got up and went looking for a member of staff!
 

F1 Foods: Japan Roundup and the Next Challenge: Russia

 

 

Once again I didn’t actually watch the Grand Prix as I was away on a friend’s hen night but I’ve said before I’m not the biggest fan: I started this challenge to cook something from each host country as a way to get more involved with my fiance’s hobby! Still when I do get a chance to watch a race I find them pretty absorbing.

 

This time was Japan and I took the opportunity to share a few recipes I’ve made before. If you’ve ever been in a Yo Sushi you might have seen chocolate mochi on the dessert menu; they are balls of rice flour filled with chocolate and taste really good, though the texture took me a bit of getting used to.

  

I also posted this bas-relief design recently, which I produced on a cake decorating evening class a few months ago. We could choose from various designs and I picked Sonic the hedgehog as I liked the way it looked and thought it would be a good challenge. I remember Sonic from computer games of my childhood but didn’t know that Sonic is actually a Japanese character – so that gives me a good excuse to enter it in this blog challenge.

 

  

I did also cook something on the weekend of the Grand Prix – I have the Wagamama cookery book at home but have hardly ever used it. Not every recipe in the book is Japanese but this one seemed to fit the bill, and tasted really good – honey pork ramen.

  

 

Finally Suelle from Mainly Baking sent in this Yuzu and green tea madeira cake where she has brought Japanese flavours to a traditional British bake. She said it has a delicate flavour where the slight bitterness of the tea contrasts with the sweetness of the cake.

 

 

 

And now to announce the next challenge: the next Grand Prix is taking place in Russia on the weekend of October 10/11, i.e. this coming weekend. You have until Weds 14th October to add your link to the linkup below.

 

 

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Meal Planning Monday 2015 Week 41

I'm experimenting with something new at lunchtime: protein shakes. I've given up trying to follow Slimming World as I was failing miserably (it just didn't seem to be for me). My personal trainer has always been less than keen on SW and instead thinks I should focus on eating simple food, with lots of protein and little carbs. She recommended some protein powder you mix with milk to make shakes, which you can have as well as or instead of meals. She said it's a lot better for you than SlimFast (which I did years ago and think it helped a bit, though I wasn't actually very overweight at all at the time, despite what my ex led me to believe). So I decided to give it a shot and last Friday had a protein shake as my lunch - it did actually keep me full all afternoon and the chocolate flavour was lovely. Also, I'm so busy at work it was nice and convenient! I will have to see whether that combined with eating right does actually help me lose weight. I will probably continue having the shakes for lunch and maybe breakfast as well for this week.

 

Monday

Thai style sea bass based on this recipe for me; chicken fajitas for him

 

Tuesday

The other piece of fish I had to defrost yesterday as two were stuck together!

 

Wednesday

Probably working late so will grab something when I get home

 

Thursday – day off to start Ros’s wedding cake!

Lunch: will depend where I am as I have an appointment to try on wedding dresses at 11.30

Dinner: slow cooker venison and apple based on this recipe with mashed potato and chicken for him

 

Friday- another day off to do the cake and some of my own wedding planning

Dinner: mini rack of lamb with couscous for me, chicken kiev and chips for him

 

Saturday:

Breakfast: sausage sandwich as I need something filling

Lunch/dinner: At a wedding

 

Sunday:

Breakfast: French toast with maple syrup I brought back from our holiday

Lunch: Possibly the above if we don't get up in time for breakfast, otherwise I will find something else

Dinner: Old El Paso tacos

Restaurant Review: The Mermaid Cafe, Westcliff-on-Sea

Southend-on-Sea - just up the road from Westcliff

Hen nights are a funny thing – you are bringing together several people or groups who don’t know each other, live in different parts of the country, some might have children, or be pregnant, some like to drink and others are teetotal and some are on tighter budgets than others. As a bride-to-be, what on earth are you to do? Outsource the planning to your bridesmaid, that’s what!

  

I don’t think I could relinquish full control and hand over planning of the day/weekend to someone with no idea even of where I was going, but that’s what one friend did recently. She was only told what time she would be picked up, nothing more.

 

We actually went to Southend-on-Sea, somewhere she and a few of her friends used to live, and met at a beach-front café on an unseasonably hot day in late September. We were at the Mermaid Café (which doesn’t have a website) and the waitress was more than happy to rearrange the tables and chairs for our large group and to make room for a baby’s buggy. She was also very patient when we twice said we weren’t ready to order as we were still waiting for more people and overall made us feel really welcome, which isn’t always the case when you are on a hen night!

 

There had been talk of having fish and chips for lunch and the menu had a lot more on it, including some salads, but the idea had been firmly planted in my head so that’s what I wanted. I had a feeling fish and chips might be a pretty large portion though so I had scampi instead; the pieces were much more manageable than the foot or more-long fish in batter than turned up on everyone else’s plates – and that was the medium rather than the large fish!

 

Feeling fit to burst we went off to the pier to play mini golf and enjoy the rest of the afternoon. Southend has a huge amusement park area at the beginning of the pier; it reminded me of Brighton at first but I decided it was much better – even if I didn’t win the mini golf.

The Ultimate Cheese Toastie Wrapped in Bacon

 

 

I saw this on Facebook ages ago and kept wanting to make it so one day decided we would have it for lunch at the weekend. This was before I got engaged and decided I needed to start a pre-wedding diet of course!

 

It’s very easy to make but very effective as my fiancé thought I was making him a bacon sandwich. Slice some cheese very thinly and place between two slices of bread.

 

 

Take some bacon – the streaky kind works best as you get long thin pieces. Wrap these around the sandwich so it is completely encased in bacon.

 

 

 

You don’t need much oil at all in the frying pan as the bacon releases plenty of grease itself but I sprayed the pan with a little Fry Light just to get it started (I definitely wouldn’t add liquid oil!). Heat the pan and place the sandwich in; cook on both sides until the bacon is done.

 

 

When you cut into the sandwich you will see the cheese has melted – it was awesome! I recommend having half a sandwich with some salad….

 

 

Rose Petal Wedding Cake with Sugar Flower and Brush Embroidery

 

 

Finally I can share with you this rose petal wedding cake I made earlier this year on a cake decorating course at South Thames College in Tooting. The cake itself isn’t real – we used polystyrene dummies, so we could practice the decorating. It uses a few different techniques; I’ve already explained how to make the sugar flower that goes on top and how to use an icing bead maker.

 

The base of the cake looks very intricate but it’s a pretty easy technique once you know how. First cover your cake board and the bottom cake.

 

Colour some flower paste in a relatively dark shade – that is, I think pastel colours work best, but as you can see the colour gradually becomes paler higher up the cake, so the lower petals need to be darkest. I can’t remember exactly how much we used and it does depend on the size of your cake so I’d start with about a matchbox sized amount as you will add to it as you go with white flower paste, and you can easily make more if you need to.

 

Use a rose petal cutter to cut out about half a dozen petals at once. Use a balling tool to curl them gently at the bottom. Use edible glue to stick a row of petals around the bottom of the cake, attaching each one by the top of the petal so the lower part of the petal stands out a little from the cake.

 

Add a little white flower paste into your coloured lump and work it in, so the colour becomes a little paler. Repeat with another row of petals. Stick them on so they overlap the joins of the petals in the layer below.

 

Repeat again and again, adding white flower paste each time so the colour becomes paler, until the top layer is almost white with a faint blush of colour. When you get to the top, bend the petals over the top of the cake and stick down – they need to be flat as you will sit your second layer of cake on top.

 

For the second tier, cover your cake or dummy in white fondant. Place on top of the tier that you have finished.

 

This layer is decorated with something called brush embroidery which again is quite easy but looks beautiful.

 

Before the fondant on the cake has set hard, gently press in a patchwork cutter, or any other kind of cutter which makes a pretty pattern, so you have an indent you can emboss.

 

Make up some royal icing according to pack instructions and with a very small piping bag with the end snipped off (so smaller than a plastic or metal nozzle) go over the outlines of your pattern. Leave to dry.

 

Mix 2-3 spoonfuls of royal icing with a quarter to half teaspoon of piping gel (or piping jelly as it is sometimes known – you can buy this in cake decorating shops or on Amazon). Use a brush to apply this to the inside parts of your pattern, starting from the edges and gently brushing in to the middle.

 

I applied little balls of pale green fondant to match the flower petals at a few intervals around this layer.

 

Add the string of beads around the bottom of the top tier. Take the flower you made earlier and push a flower pick into the cake. This is a plastic holder for the flower, as you can’t put the wire directly into the cake if you are eating it (if you are using a polystyrene cake dummy that’s fine). You may need to use a little royal icing inside the flower pick to keep your flower at the angle you want.

 

And that’s all! The techniques are not particularly hard (other than the wired flower, that is) but it does take quite a bit of time – we spend three sessions of my evening class on this cake and that was without baking it!

 I'm sharing this with Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker as the letter I have chosen this month is W.