Cakes on a Train!

I am no longer a teenager...

...Time to grow up?

LEMON AND YOGHURT MUFFINS

Ingredients
100gm Butter (melted)
1 Egg
1 cup Plain Unsweetened Yoghurt
1 cup Sugar
2 medium sized lemons (zest and juice), you could use more if you like a really lemony flavour
2 cups Plain Flour
3 tsp Baking Powder
Pinch of Salt

Directions
1. Grease muffin tin and preheat oven to 180 C.
2. Combine melted butter, slightly beaten egg, yoghurt, sugar and juice and zest of lemons in a bowl.
3. Sift in flour, baking powder and salt.
4. Mix until ingredients are just combined (do not over mix).
5. Divide into muffin tin. This recipe makes 6 large muffins or 12 small ones depending on the size that you want.
6. Put into oven and cook for 15-20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

This recipe is super easy and they taste delicious. The yoghurt makes them really soft and moist. Mmm, serve with extra yoghurt and you are set :)


Note: The great thing about this recipe is it can be used as a standard muffin recipe. Just replace the yoghurt with a cup of milk, and the lemons with a cup of any kind of fruit you want really: blueberries, banana, peaches, oranges and a few tablespoons of poppyseeds or my personal favourite raspberry and white chocolate! Then you have a whole lot of different kinds of muffins! YES! FANTASTIC!

This entry is dedicated to a poor hungry student in the Netherlands :P

This casserole is so simple and it is made with canned stuff but i'll be damned if it isn't delicious (I made it when I ate meat). The flavours are crazy but when you devour it, somehow it works! This recipe was given to me by a family friend, hurrah!

Ingredients
Approx 3lb Chicken (Cooked, just cube and saute it)
1 tin Asparagus
1 tin Mushroom Soup
1 cup Cream
1 tsp Curry Powder
Few drops of Tabasco Sauce (optional)
Grated Cheddar Chesse
Paprika

Directions
1. Put asparagus in the bottom a a casserole dish
2. Add chicken making sure it is in bite sized pieces.
3. Make sauce by bringing mushroom soup, cream, curry powder and tabasco sauce to the boil slowly stirring constantly.
4. When boiling pour sauce over chicken and asparagus.
5. Top with grated cheese and sprinkle with paprika.
6. Put into preheated oven at 200 C or 400 F for 20-30minutes.
7. Serve with rice and other vegetables.

GO TO IT. Tell me what you think!

CUPCAKES ARE THE ANSWER.
So I was feeling a bit mopey today and decided to bake something. I chose cupcakes and they turned out DELICIOUS. Delicious enough to share with all you lovely people. Here goes...

Ingredients
250gm(1 cup) Butter Softened
4 Eggs
1 1/2 cups Sugar
2 1/4 cups Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
1 cup Milk
1 cup Chocolate Bits

Directions
Preheat oven to 190 Degrees C
1. Combine butter and sugar in large bowl and beat until light and fluffy.
2. Add eggs one at a time (eggs used for baking are optimum at room temperature, but this isn't a big deal).
3. Sift flour, baking powder and salt (sifting not only removes lumps but aerates the dry ingredients making the mixture fluffier!).
4. Add flour and milk to the creamed mixture alternately in small amounts. Leave a little flour and make sure you put the flour in last (otherwise the mixture will look curdled).
5. Stir in chocolate chips.
6. Fill cupcake cases (I used them two thick) so they are 2/3-3/4 fill (my first ones overflowed because I filled them too high. Be careful with that).
7. Put them in the oven and set the timer for 15 minutes (they may take longer than this but its always good to check at this point).

Here is a nice pic of mine after I got them out of the oven at this stage... Lets call them a work in progress


Next comes the fun part! No, not eating them. ICING them!
Whenever I make icing I do not use a recipe so I'm going to guess the measurements with you here.
In a bowl combine 2 tablespoons of melted butter and 2 cups of icing sugar. Add hot water stirring constantly till it resembles a thick icing mixture (not too runny). Add a few drops of food colouring and you are done! Ice and decorate your cupcakes to your hearts content! I used pink icing, green icing and hundred and thousand sprinkles. Be creative!
Here is my finished product:

This recipe makes about 24 cupcakes, so you may want to half the recipe if you dont want so many! Have fun!

Because I am awesome at making breakfasts (and modest), I will share with you how to make a niceee eggs benedict.
It will be lengthy and I apologise for that but it is a little bit tricky in places!

( Are you ready for an EXTREME BREAKFAST ADVENTURE? )

The Hollandaise sauce is probably good for about 3 servings of Eggs Benedict so you can just adjust the recipe to how much you want to make.
Sorry this may not be accurate but this is how I do it and I tried to explain it as carefully as I could. If I have missed anything, let me know!
YAY FOR EGGS!

Someone has complained that I have not updated this in a while, and I really want to but I have been so busy at the moment. Hope this partly makes up for it.
Jimmy this is for you. Maybe you can ask one of your flatmates to cook the rice though :P

Chilli Tofu with Peanut and Coconut Sauce

Ingredients
Peanut Oil
Sweet Chilli Sauce
Cubed tofu
Peanut Butter
Capsicum (and/or other veges such as carrot, zucchini, mushrooms etc)
Tin of Coconut Milk
Soy Sauce
Garlic and Onion
Spinach leaves/corriander

Directions
1. Fry one chopped onion and a clove of garlic in a few tablespoons of peanut oil on medium/high heat.
2. Add tofu and fry till golden.
3. Add capsicum and other veges (not spinach).
4. Add coconut milk, sweet chilli sauce, soy sauce and peanut butter and let simmer for a while until creamy.
5. Add spinach and corriander leaves last, serve with rice or noodles and enjoy.

This is a really simple dish that you can make quickly but it tastes delicious.

P.S Noone has actually told me they've used one of these recipes yet so big sad face to anyone who reads it. BIG SAD FACE.

Ok so everyone raves about these things, but seriously guys YOU ARE EATING THEM FROM A PACKET. Packet tortillas taste like poos. They really do, dry, dry poos. Don't do that to yourself. And if you like those, then the real deal will blow your mind. I mean seriously, its only flour and water! Not difficult :)

Ingredients
3 Cups of Flour (You can do a mixture of whole-meal and plain if you want, I recommend 2 plain and 1 wholemeal)
1/4 Cup Oil
Enough water to make a dough mixture

Directions
1. Put your chosen combination of flour into a mixer, slowly add oil, it will be kind of crumbly.
2. Add water slowly until it becomes a doughy mixture (all the flour is mixed in and it sticks together, but not TOO sticky). If you stuff this step up you can always add more flour or water till you have it right.
3. Knead the dough for a bit to ensure it stays together nicely.
3. Cover in glad-wrap (cling film) and refrigerate for about an hour.
4. Unwrap and divide into however many tortillas you need. This recipe makes around 12 average sized ones.
5. Dust a little flour onto your board and then roll out tortillas individually so they are nice and round.
6. Heat up griddle pan to low-medium heat.
7. Cook for about a minute on each side (these do not take long to cook).
8. You are ready to fill them with whatever filling you want.

These are really good with lots of fresh salad veggies, salsa, chillis, a bit of sour cream and your meat or vege mince type thing of choice. Home-made ones are fresher, a lot more moist so you dont have the trouble of them cracking apart when you try to fold them, plus its just a whole lot more fun making things from scratch. Right?

Ok, so there are plenty of recipes out there with complicated guacamole involving salsa and sour cream and whatever else, but trust me on this one, this is the best tasting guacamole I have ever tried. AND ITS SO EASY. So if you have some avocados that are looking a little squishy, try it try it try it! You will not be disappointed. It has something to do with the sourness of the lemon and sweetness of the chilli and the texture of the avocados. Delicious :)

Ingredients

Avocado (As many as you desire)
Lime Juice
Sweet Chilli Sauce (Both to taste, but a reasonable amount)

Directions
Combine and mash until smooth. Add chopped corriander (optional).

This makes bland old rice nice and tasty. Contains lots of yummy spinach that gives us vegetarians some good old iron.(Vegan also)

Ingredients
50ml Vege Oil
1 Med Onion (finely chopped (bruinoise!))
3 Cloves Garlic (finely chopped)
1tsp Cumin Seeds
1cup Basmati Rice (rinsed and drained)
1 2/3cups Vege Stock
4cups roughly shredded Spinach Leaves
1/4cup Chopped Mint

Directions
1. Heat pan, add oil, onion and cook until golden. Add garlic and cumin seeds and cook for 1 minute.
2. Add rice and stir until covered. Pour in vege stock. Bring to boil, reduce to low heat and cover with a lid. Boil for approx 15 minutes or until rice is tender and most of the stock is absorbed.
3. When rice is cooked, stir in shredded spinach leaves in batches. Stir for a few minutes while the spinach cooks (this doesn't take long). Season with Salt and Pepper. Stir in mint and serve immediately.

Can easily be used as an accompaniment to any meal. Check it out!

Heres a nice little vegan dessert recipe I found that you could also make Gluten free and all those other things if you want.

Ingredients
1 cup Rice Flour
1/2 cup Plain Flour (but I don't see why you cant just use all plain flour if you do not have rice)
3tbs Caster Sugar
1/2tsp Ground Cardamon
Pinch Salt
3 Ripe Bananas (Mashed)
2tbs Sunflower Oil (and extra for frying)
3/4 to 1 cup Cold Water
2 Bananas sliced
Soy Icecream or Yoghurt to serve

Directions
1. Plain rice flour, plain flour, sugar, Cardamon & Salt in a bowl. Make a well in the centre, add mashed bananas, sunflower oil and stir. Add enough water to make the mixture a smooth batter.

2. Heat up fry pan on a medium heat, add a little oil and spoon in batter into pikelet-sized pancakes. Cook for about 3 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Repeat until all the mixture is used.

3.Serve in stacks with sliced banana sandwiched in the middle and icecream or yoghurt on top. Golden or maple syrup could go nicely with these if you have a sweet tooth. Alternatively, I recommend frying the sliced bananas for a little while, this caramelises the sugar in the banana and makes them sweet and gooey. YUM!

Enjoy :)

Right, so I had this for dinner and it is so good that I just have to share.
Disclaimer: My Dad taught me how to make this dish and he is in no way Italian so it is pretty much just his version of it. If any purist wants to get up in my grill (HAH!) about it, dont.

( It is quite a long recipe so I have put it here, CLICKY CLICKY )

Ok so this is my first written out recipe from memory, so if I have missed something, please tell me, and if you need specific measurements, I usually don't work that way but I can attempt to give you figures. Otherwise I would be super stoked if someone tried it out and told me what they thought! Happy eating!

I have kind of decided that I may as well put this thing to good use.
I need to start some kind of recipe book, and this would be an ideal place to put it; I can access it anywhere, and I can share recipes easily!
So, hopefully soon this bare page will be full of delicious things that you can cook.
How exciting.