Quick & Easy Fruit Ice Cream

Quick & Easy Fruit Ice Cream

I saw this on Jamie Oliver's 30 minute meals and had to give it a go. Here is the link to the recipe on his site

Ingredients

Ingredients

• 200g of frozen fruit
• Link to Sainsburys - Cheapy Cheap Frozen Berry Mix (13/01/13)
• 250g of low fat natural yogurt
• Link to Sainsburys - Cheapy Cheap Low Fat Yogurt (13/01/13)
• 2 tablespoons of honey
• Link to Sainsburys - Rowse Honey (12/01/13)
• Link to Sainsburys - Cheapy Cheap Honey (13/01/13)

As you can see this filled 3 small glasses. I would say each glass is the equivalent of somewhere around 2 or 3 scoops.

Using the ingredients we used it comes to £1.07 for this batch, using the cheapest Sainsbury's honey £1.01

Method

1. Put the honey and yogurt into a blender and mix

   

   Put the honey and yogurt in a blender

   

   Blend the honey and yogurt
2. If your fruit is quite large and is likely not to get smashed up in your blender put it in a food processor first, otherwise add to the blender (I found this out after I took the photo, fruit the size I had didn't blend properly)

   

   Add the fruit to the blender

3. Serve, its a little softer than regular ice cream, but very fruity!

Mushroom, Carrot & Onion Stir Fry

Mushroom, Carrot & Onion Stir Fry

Dafni has been quite impressed with some of the noodle dishes I've been making recently. We've had the week off and when at home I've been making noodles with something for lunch, mainly because they are quick and easy.

I've been mostly using some egg noodles but today Dafni wanted the rice noodles, and here is what I did.

I have to say the egg noodles fair better than these rice noodles did, they are much thinner and stir better, and don't go so soft.

Ingredients

• 200g of Rice noodles
• 6 mushrooms (about 100g peeled and chopped)
• 1/2 a red onion (about 60g peeled and chopped)
• 2 carrots (about 140g grated)
• Some salt, pepper, oregano and dried crushed chili to season

Makes 2 quite generous portions.

Method

1. Set a pan of water (about 1 litre, enough to cover the noodles) boiling for the noodles, once boiling add the noodles

   

   Packet of rice noodles

   

   Rice noodles boiling in the pan
2. Peel and chop the mushrooms & onion and grate the carrot.

   

   Peeled and chopped mushrooms (& stalks)

   

   Peeled and chopped onion

   

   Grated carrot (I just scrub the skin, but peel if you like)

3. Set a wok heating and add enough oil to cover the bottom (we use olive oil because Dafni is Greek, and that's the only oil we have) and then add the mushroom, carrots, onion and the seasoning to the wok.

   

   Add the mushroom, carrots, onion & seasoning to the wok

4. Fry the ingredients, mixing regularly until they are slightly browned

   

   Fry the ingredients until browned

5. Add the noodles to the wok and mix regularly

   

   Add the noodles and keep mixing

6. Once the noodles have taken on the colour and flavour of the other ingredients and have started to brown plate it up and enjoy!

White Chocolate Covered Chocolate Truffles

White Chocolate Covered Chocolate Sprinkles

This is an add-on to our previous post Chocolate Sprinkle Covered Chocolate Truffles. In order to make them from scratch you will have to start there and then follow the link at the appropriate point to come back to this post and coat them in white chocolate.

Ingredients

• 100g of White Chocolate for every 12 Chocolate Truffles
• Chocolate Truffles made using our previous recipe

To cover the truffles made in the previous post you will need 500g of chocolate without re-using the waste, re-using the waste will cover approximately another 4 Chocolate Truffles for every 100g of chocolate.

Method

1. Part fill a pan of water (so when you place a pyrex bowl on the pan it won't touch the water)

   

   Part fill a pan with water

2. Break up the chocolate and add to a pyrex bowl (otherwise it will likely crack like the one shown that I mistakenly thought was pyrex)

   

   Break up the chocolate and put in a pyrex bowl

3. Place the bowl on top of the pan and bring the water to the boil, then turn down, stir the chocolate from time to time until it is melted.

   

   Put the bowl on top of the pan and melt the chocolate

4. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper to stop the chocolate sticking to the tray.

   

   Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper to stop the chocolates sticking

5. Place the Chocolate Truffles on a fork and dribble chocolate on it with a spoon, we held it over a bowl as to not contaminate the white chocolate in the bowl.

   

   Using a fork to support the Chocolate Truffle dribble chocolate over the Chocolate Truffle

6. When you are finished put the tray back in the fridge to set the chocolate (yes the tray gets messy!)

   

   The finished Chocolate Covered Chocolate Truffles ready to go in the fridge

7. If you wish you can re-use some of the wasted chocolate and cover an additional 4 chocolates for every 100g of chocolate.

   

   The extra chocolate, slightly coloured by some of the melted chocolate truffle

Chocolate Sprinkle Covered Chocolate Truffles

Chocolate Sprinkle Covered Chocolate Truffles

Just to be clear ... we don't eat chocolate truffles for dinner! These could make a good gift or desert if you have people coming round, or maybe just a sneaky snack when you feel like something sweet.

Inspired by the following recipe on bbc good food:
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/182606/chocolate-truffles

Just before christmas Dafni made some Kourabiethakia (shortbread biscuits with almonds, Dafni covers them in chocolate, but the following recipe covers in sugar http://greekfood.about.com/od/cookiescakes/r/Kourabiethes-Greek-Shortbread-Cookies-With-Confectioners-Sugar-And-Almonds.htm) but messed up melting some chocolate and it wouldn't set properly. So we decided to have a go at making chocolate truffles with the remaining chocolate. Predictably the first batch were VERY soft as we followed the bbc good food recipe with the already slightly soft chocolate.

Anyway, on to chocolate truffles v2!

Ingredients

Ingredients

• 4x100g bars of chocolate we use 2x dark and 2x milk of the super cheapy cheap sainsburys chocolate
• Link to Sainsburys - Cheapy Cheap Dark Chocolate (11/01/2013)
• Link to Sainsburys - Cheapy Cheap Milk Chocolate (11/01/2013)
• 80g of unsalted butter (clearly not that whole tub in the photo!)
• Link to Sainsburys - Lurpak Butter (11/01/2013)
• Link to Sainsburys - Cheapy Cheap Butter (11/01/2013)
• 300ml of extra thick double fresh cream
• Link to Sainsburys - Extra Thick Double Cream (11/01/2013)
• We used chocolate sprinkles as the topping, the 65g tub we used covered 24 truffles
• Link to Sainsburys - Silver Spoon Chocolate Sprinkles (11/01/2013)

These quantities aren't quite what the goodfood recipe asks for, but they are close and convenient for what was being sold in the shop!

These quantities made 57 chocolate truffles, however the pack of sprinkles only covered 24 of them. The remainder we are going to cover with chocolate in a later post.

Using the items we did each chocolate sprinkle covered chocolate truffle costs about 10p in ingredients.

The first part of the recipe (before cooling them in the fridge which should be for at least 4 hours) takes about 10 mins, the shaping and covering in sprinkles takes about 30 mins.

Method

1. Smash the chocolate in the packet, its much easier and less messy than breaking it out of the packet, and put it in a bowl, the chocolate should fill no more than half the bowl otherwise things are going to get messy!

   

   Break the Chocolate into a bowl

2. Add the butter and cream to a pan and melt over a low heat until the cream starts to simmer

   

   Add the butter and cream to a pan

   

   Gently heat the butter and cream until simmering

   
   
3. Add the cream to the chocolate and mix
   

   

   Add the cream and butter to the chocolate

   

   Mix the chocolate, butter and cream and leave to cool and put in the fridge overnight

   
   
4. Leave the mixture to cool and then put it in the fridge, good food says to leave it for at least 4 hours, we left it over night.
   *note* after making them this time I realised it would've been a better idea to pour this mixture into a shallower container, roughly the depth of the balls you intend to make.
5. Once that the chocolate has set remove it from the fridge.

   

   The chocolate is now hardened, to make nice shaped truffles we used the melon baller shown

6. Prepare a bowl of boiling water to dip the melon baller in (you could probably use a teaspoon but might have to put more effort into shaping them)
7. Tip the chocolate sprinkles into a bowl.

   

   Put the chocolate sprinkles in a bowl to make adding them to the truffles easy and less messy

8. Scoop out balls of chocolate then roll them in the sprinkles (if you plan to cover them in chocolate, just put the Chocolate Truffle balls on the baking tray). You will find it much easier if you dip the scoop in the bowl of boiling water after each ball otherwise they will start sticking, if the water stops steaming boil some more.
9. Once scooped and sprinkled place them on a baking tray to cool in the fridge again. Dafni and I worked on this bit together, I shaped them and placed them on the tray then she took them and rolled them in the sprinkles and put them back on the tray.
10. Once you have scooped out the top level you may need to flatten out the remainder of the chocolate.

    

    The top layer of the bowl is now gone

    

    Remove or flatten the top layer to make a flat top again
11. Continue making balls from this layer, I found that as I used a rounded bottom bowl I had to transfer what was left into a flat bottomed bowl, I then squished it up into the corner.

    

    I moved the remainders into a flat bottomed bowl

    

    I then squished it all up one end so I could continue making the balls
12. We found that the sprinkles didn't cover all the balls this mix made. We have decided to cover the rest in melted chocolate. You can now make White Chocolate Covered Chocolate Truffles, just follow this recipe but don't cover them in chocolate sprinkles before putting in the fridge then follow the other post.

    

    Here are the finished (bottom) and unfinished (top) chocolate truffles

Inspiration from Jamie's Italian, Cardiff

On Monday the 7th of January (Dafni and I had the week off) we visited Cardiff and ate in Jamie's Italian.

Although a little expensive (it came to about £45 for 2 starters, 2 main courses and 1 desert) the food was some of the best we have ever had. Not too fussy and tasting great.

Of all the food we ate the two starters interested us the most as food we could attempt at home (our mains were basically selections of meat)

• POSH GARLIC MUSHROOMS ON TOAST
• Charred wholemeal levain rubbed with garlic & olive oil, topped with pan-fried wild mushrooms, chilli & flat-leaf parsley

• CRISPY STUFFED RISOTTO BALLS
• Smoked mozzarella & porcini arancini

At some point in the near future we will find similar recipes and have a go at making our own, until then this page is going to be a reminder for us to try them when we get a chance. We'll add links from this page to the posts when we attempt them

We Made A Blog

So just a little introduction.

For over a year Dafni and I (Ben) have been meaning to start writing a food blog. We both love food and trying our hands at something new. I am a keen amateur photographer and Dafni enjoys photography, though she doesn't really take many herself.

So our food blog is going to feature my photography of what we cook, either photos as we make it or just of the finished product, as well as recipes, methods, tips and tricks we have come across.

We will be using recipes we find and like the look of, as well as recording things we make as we go along.

Although I am from England, Dafni is originally from Greece, and so there is likely to be a bit of Greek influence in some of our meals. We don't have any real preference to what style of cooking we like or don't like. Simple dishes with a good taste are what we enjoy no matter where it originates.

We look forward to sharing the food we make with you.