Dinner: Spring Chicken

A bit to sloppy for my liking. This 'Spring Chicken' is more like a 'Winter Slop'. I don't know if it was the pea's or the lettuce leaves on top but something made this soup... oh wait what? It's not a soup?... I will not, I repeat will not be making this again... no offence or anything. Dad on the other hand LOVED it... joking. I'm going to America soon with our family friends the Coopers I'm so excited but I don't think I can get much cooking in SORRY! But when I get back I shall be starting off with a movie and 'Sunshine Soup'.

Have a good holiday :)

Breakfast: Cinnamon Plums with French Toast

Today I had Issy back in the kitchen to help me cook one of my favourite of all time: FRENCH TOAST! Yuuummm...

Apart from the massive mess I made and the cranberry juice not thickening that well, it was amazing defiantly a favourite recipe.  A funny incident that happened was that I came back with the shopping i.e the bread for the french toast, I picked it up and looked at it more closely, there was something differnt about the bread, after about 2 seconds I realised I had picked up Sour Dough instead of regular bread... great.


Tip:
Next time I make this I'm going to use FRESH plums, the canned ones are too hard to work with, they just end up splooshing everywhere.

Dessert: Sweet and Salty Crunch Nut Bars

WARNING: Anyone allergic to peanuts, chocolate, sugar and happiness do not eat, there for there is more for me. 
Anyone who likes the taste of sweet, salty and crunchy mixed into one will love this rich chocolaty slice. 
Tip:
Next time I will put more Crunchies in as we where a bit low on them since the 'Chrunchie eating fairy' came for a snack the other night... Dad.
Once set, the idea is to have small pieces at a time or you may find yourself at the hospital with 

your blood sugar level through the roof. 
Sadly for me I am not a chocolate expert, it's something I REALLY have to work on! I did in fact burn the chocolate a little bit (shame on me) so it did have a bit of a burn't flavour.


I know I owe you guys a movie and I promise I'll get around to it, I've just been so busy lately and haven't had time, if anyone has an idea for a movie let me know.

Dessert: Red Velvet Cupcakes with Buttery Cream-Cheese Frosting

These little beauties didn't turn out as red as we hoped... actually barely red at all as we didn't have ANY red food dye or as Nigella calls it 'Christmas-red paste food colouring' so these supposed to be red velvet cupcakes turned into sunny caramel cupcakes as I added yellow food colouring to replace the red. A mistake I made when I was whipping together the butter and the sugar was that I didn't melt the butter for long enough, so I made some sand like stuff. I pulled the cubes of butter that hadn't combined yet, out and put them back in the microwave. The cream-cheese frosting was amazing, it made the perfect texture, so when you bit through both the cake and the frosting you got this mouth full of flavour, it was perfect. I would defiantly make these cupcakes again, but I wouldn't leave them in the oven for as long as I did.

Don't ask why I put grapes in this photo, I thought it looked good :)

Dinner: Ham Hock and Broad Bean Salad

Lets just say if our family opened a cook book looking for something for dinner I doubt very highly that we would stop on the ham hock and broad bean salad and go "Wooowww!"

This salad really isn't to our likings as dad isn't a big fan of offal or anything that looks remotely like the animal did before. The salad was actually okay, it was fresh, green and the meat was really tender but isn't on my list of 'Must Cook Again'.
...Can't wait for pork knuckles

Dinner: Ham Hocks in Cider

I had a bit of help from mum with this one as I was a tad busy with homework but may I say, Ham hocks are GROSS wrinkly things that kind of make your want to chuck up your lunch after handling them, especially when in submerged water. So basically after 2 hours of cooking these little babies are ready to do whatever you want with them, make some stock, maybe even some ham and leek pies and you can't forget good old ham and pea soup, but mum and I decided to Ham hock and soya bean (or broad bean) Salad... simple fresh and really green (that's new). That will be my next blog as for now I will continue to talk about the Ham Hock and its creepiness. The Ham Hock comes from the lower leg it can also be called the 'hough'. Interesting... lets see how that Salad turns out...

Dinner: Cheesy Chilli

Australian definition of 'Chilli': the small red hot-tasting pod of a type of capsicum used forflavouring sauces, pickles, etc

English definition of 'Chilli': A cheesy, meaty mess.

Personally I didn't like it but mum said it was okay... i have a feeling she lies.

It just wasn't the nicest of all meals, the cheese stuck to the spoon and had a kind of gaggy flavour to it, mum kind of liked it and I'm not really sure if dad had any but, it really wasn't that pleasant so I don't blame him if he didn't try it.  I was expecting a mince dish without chunks of sausage and cheese floating around in it, but oh well, it over now I don't have to make it again.


A quick change of subject but a girl from my school who used to be in a wheel chair started up this campaign for 1 million smiles, smiling was the one thing that gave her hope and now her goal is to get everyone across the world to smile on this one facebook page. Click on the link and help her reach her goal and to get more information: http://www.facebook.com/pages/One-Million-Smiles/134156283326732?sk=wall