Walnut Loaf Cake

Slight rant: I was woken this morning by builders hammering about 2 metres from my head at 7am on the dot. WHY is it the law that builders can start at 7 – surely 8 would be a much more civilized time! I am extremely disappointed as I was looking forward to going upstairs and ranting to  the builders about their illegally early starting times – as I was sure it was 8. But I checked online, and 7 it is. ERGH! SO TIRED.

Last week was ABSOLUTELY manic and all I wanted to do every spare moment I had was watch Game of thrones or SATC. I had a dinner party where I made some nice stuff, and I had planned to share that on the blog – but you know after a glass of wine I just couldn’t have taken any nice photos! I will have to recreate the stuff I made!

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Hazelnut, Cinnamon & Chocolate Biscotti (!!!)

When it’s freaking cold. When you HAVE to wear socks in your house to stop from getting pneumonia – even with the heating on. That’s when I like to have a cup of black coffee with a biscotti. Hazelnut biscotti in particular – because I love that warming crunchy flavour of a roasted hazelnut!

Plus my awesome friend Teco is leaving Berlin and going back to Brazil – literally SAD times. Such sad times. He gives amazingly long hilarious speeches with very little actual message – politician worthy! So the weekend was spent drinking, eating, being tipsy, being full – and starting again every few hours. Was fab – but as you can imagine, I am worse for wear. So the biscottis helped. I woke up at about 4am – and ate some more of them… and went back to bed. Am I the only weirdo who gets up in the middle of the night and feels hungry? – not so much hungry as – “tasty”.

Family Traits: Grilled Corn with Chilli and Salt

I have realized that colder weather strikes up a little bit of nostalgia in me – first the rock cakes.. and now this! Every Friday after school, my grandma – we called her Mumma – used to pick us up from school and take us back to hers. She was one of those un-strict grandparents – most grandparents spoil their grandchildren I reckon. Always lots of cartoons and toys.

But she also introduced me to corn on the cob. Such a great snack! And it looks so pretty with the leaves one when it’s been grilled. EVEN if the leaves are a teeensy bit burnt like mine, still looks lush.

Rock Cakes with Jam

This is another nostalgic  (and lazy) bake. Back in school we used to have home economics lessons aka cooking and rock cakes were always a recurring theme. They were what our teacher considered easy, but many of us, at the age of 12, were simply at a loss. Too busy gossiping about what we would wear to the school disco and paying no attention to how long they had been in the oven, they came out like actual rocks. Grey and inpenetratably solid. MMmmmm.

Luckily, since the age of 12, I have perfected the art a bit more. I am not a fan of completely scruffy looking rock cakes, so this is my slightly neater … more “uptight” version. They go really well with some thick berry jam – in fact they go pretty well with anything sweet. Slap some nutella / honey / even fruit yoghurt on it and it will be a dream. And MAPLE SYRUP. Add some maple syrup to some jam and whack it on… you will literally hear a choir singing a melody on your tastebuds. LITERALLY (but not really).

Also – I have recently bought a jar of fluff. My friend Mark used to eat the stuff out of the jar with a spoon and I only bought it for some frosting… but I have to say, it gives me the heeby jeebies to think about spreading it on bread. Isn’t too sticky? Anyway, any advice on how to use fluff as a spread with the greatest effect would be much appreciated.

Orange and Grapefruit Lemonade

Happy Monday all!

My weekend was full of far too much drinking and headacheyness. Fun at the time, brutal the morning after – you know the kind I mean. I was saved by some roast chicken and garlic mayo and watching Trevor Noah and Patrice O’neal. Only just realized that chicken and comedy are the perfect duo for fighting a killer hangover. That and staying in your pajamas all day – even after a shower – HEAVEN.

Now, you may think this drink is inappropriate for the season – most people are moving towards Pumpkin lattes already. And while I am the first the gulp down some tasty hot drinks – got my tea beside me as I write – Citrus is an awesome way to get your vitamin C and fight off those pesky flu and cold viruses. Also, not to go on about hangovers – but fizzy water is amazingly refreshing compared to normal water:  I was so dehyrated I felt like I wanted to drink a lakeful of water and fizzy water gives you that “ahhhhhh” feeling, just like coca cola. AWESOME.

Some friends had been making their own lemonade with lemon juice and fizzy water, so I thought I would make a grapefruit, orange and lemon syrup instead to add to the fizzy water… with a slice of grapefruit and some ice – you are good to go! If you don’t like grapefruit then add more oranges or lemons in their place.

Pork Dumplings

So, I thought I would give these pork dumplings a try – I found them on one of my favourite food blogs Spoon Fork Bacon. Great GREAT recipe and so easy! I haven’t got much time to write a blog post unfortunately but I really recommend their blog for party food ! So wonderful and simple. Also, their photography is the bomb.

If you, like one of my flatmates and my boyfriend, don’t like pork, give it a try with minced chicken or beef. I personally think pork is amazing, especially when seasoned so well, because it has tasty juices that I really don’t think chicken can compete with! My mum also makes amazing dumplings with a pasta making machine and pork. PORKITY PORKITY PORK!

Plum Jam

My grandparents have been telling me that they have some plums for me to make into jam since last week. As a bit of a jam amateur, I hadn’t even heard of plum jam, but apparently it’s pretty awesome. My step grandad was golfing when he found thousands of unpicked plums lying under their tree on the course. Being the resourceful person he is, he picked almost 7 lbs worth – to the point that his golf trolley couldn’t stand up properly anymore under the weight.

It was a bit of a family event – my dad and I sat together and cup all the piths out of the plums. Then it really is the simplest method. I just added a tiny bit of water – not much at all and some sugar – put it on the stove and left it to cook at a medium heat. My grandma, who is a jam expert, explained that as plums have lots of pectin naturally, you don’t need to add any more for them to set nicely.

White and Milk Chocolate chip giant Cookie

I have been wanting to make a skillet cookie for agggges! I finally got the opportunity to do so for a movie night recently. Unfortunately, I only have one photos.. because before I could take any more.. the cookie was swept away and gobbled down like noone’s business!

As I have mentioned before, I still haven’t really perfected my own formula for a cookie recipe as I have with cakes, so I just used the trusty Hummingbird Bakery recipe for chocolate chip cookies and adapted it by adding white chocolate too! It was really delicious, my mouth is watering just thinking about the huge, slightly unacceptably big slab I took for myself. My flatmate said he knows he ate too much because he felt a bit dodgy the next day – sugar withdrawal? -.. but it was totally worth it!