Advent Day 24: Last minute Cranberry sauce

Merry Christmas Eve! It's nearly that day! We've had a busy few days travelling round visit people. Today though we had a lazy day, we popped to the shops (not as crazy as I thought but still hard to negotiate) and prepped all our food for tomorrow.

One of the things I prepped today was our Cranberry sauce, we love cranberry sauce and if we buy a jar we go through it at lightning speed! So I decided to try making some for our dinner!

So I thought I'd share the recipe with you as a little last minute addition to our table and maybe yours..

It's really simple and you'll need;

500g cranberries fresh or frozen,
200g sugar,
200ml orange juice.

Pop your orange sugar and sugar together in a pan and bring to the boil on a medium heat.

Once that is boiling slightly and all your sugar has dissolved add your cranberries.

If they are frozen they will take about 5 minutes to cook through, fresh ones around 10 minutes.

Once some of the cranberries have burst and your sauce is starting to thicken up turn off the heat and leave to cool on the hob.

This will last in your fridge for about 1 week but I know in our house it'll be more like a few days!

All our things are prepped and in their pans ready to go right in the oven tomorrow and we've got our chicken prepped and beef ready to go in the slow cooker. I'm very excited about our Christmas dinner!

Merry Christmas, I hope you have a lovely day with the people you love!

Katy x

Easy Saturday Quiche

So here is a super quick and easy quiche recipe for your Saturday evening or for a quick sunday lunch you can whip out and enjoy.

The flavour I've chosen is tomato, cheese and pesto. These are some of my favourite simple flavours and we had all these things in the house. If you want to make this with different ingredients just replace them in equal measures.

Ingredients:

Pre packed shortcrust pastry,
4 large eggs,
400ml milk,
100g tomatoes,
100g grated cheese,
1 Tablespoon green pesto.

Firstly roll your pastry out to slightly bigger than your tin. Leave a little around the top of your tin but trim the excess off.
Take a fork and stab gently into the pastry to stop it from puffing up too much in the oven.

Take your 4 eggs and add salt, pepper and some basil. Then whisk and add to your milk in a jug.

Slice your tomatoes into small chunks.

Next take a spoon of pesto and spread it across the bottom of your pastry.

Add your tomatoes and cheese on top of that.

Put your tin on a tray and pop into the oven, before you push it all the way in grab your liquids and add to the pastry until almost completely at the top.

Bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes or until the middle stops wobbling. Leave it to cool and then enjoy for lunch or dinner. This will keep in the fridge for 1 or 2 days so eat it quick.

Katy xx

Banana Chocolate Muffins!

Once again I had left over Bananas! So I thought I'd whip them into a quick muffin recipe.

Banana and chocolate together are one of my favourite pairings, banana for the goodness and chocolate for the naughtiness! 

To get started to you'll need: 

225g Self Raising flour

100g Caster sugar

1 Teaspoon baking powder

1/2 Teaspoon salt

150g Cooking chocolate - chopped into chunks

1 Egg

6 Tablespoons milk

2 Tablespoon melted butter

300g Mashed bananas

Also your baking equipment like; a baking pan, mixing bowl and scales. 

Start off by measuring out your flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and chocolate into a bowl.

Mix these together to cover the chocolate in flour and create a well in the middle.

Next put the mashed banana, milk, melted butter and egg into a jug and mix together well. 

Add the wet ingredients into the bowl and mix until combined. Try not to over mix as that will stop your muffins from rising properly. 

Spoon into your muffin cases and put in to the oven for 20-25 minutes. 

Take out of the tin and leave to cool, then enjoy! 

I'd recommend a cup of tea as the perfect accompaniment for these guys.

Katy 

Shortcrust Pastry

I've had a pack of shortcrust pastry stuffed in the freezer for months. But we're moving soon and I knew I needed to do something with it soon or I'd have to throw it out and I definitely didn't want to do that. So one Sunday afternoon I decided to bake up a storm.

First make:
Quiche, specially mushroom and cheese. I used this simple recipe and just switched out the ham and onion for my own choice of ingredients.

Next up....
Jam tarts! I always remember making these with my Mama when we had left over pastry so I thought I'd throw some together. Pop some pastry circles in a muffin tray with some jam on top, bake for 10 minutes and ta-da! Easy-peasy jam tarts!

My favourite use of the day was definitely apple pie. So simple and super yummy! Chopped and pealed apples with some sugar and cinnamon popped into your pastry case, put your lid on the top and crimp the edges. Cut two little holes in the top to let the steam out and stop a soggy bottom. Bake for 35-40 minutes. 

Enjoy with ice cream or cream or just nice and warm on one of the many rainy days we have here in England. 

Enjoy!

Katy

Silver Wedding Anniversary

These two people are the most wonderful parents and this past week they celebrated 25 Years of being married. So this weekend we headed home to celebrate with my lovely family.

On Saturday we headed out for Italian which was delicious and such a nice evening catching up with my godparents and Gran. 

Who doesn't love dessert served in a cute teacup! 

Sunday was afternoon tea at my parents house, my Mama went all out, there was meringues, mousse cake, brownies, biscuits and so much more. I created the signs and the display especially for them and we covered the room and yard in bunting handmade by my Mama.

Got to spend the afternoon chasing after these little cuties! My lovely wee cousins, who aren't so wee anymore and love to stuff their faces with cakes. 

Dad, Mama, Ben, Me, G.

Back Row: Ben, Me, G, Rick, Mary, Dad, Mama, Gran, Eileen & John
Front Row: Macie, Simon, Elsa & Jackie. 

It was such a lovely weekend spending time with my family and celebrating my parents and their amazing 25 years. Here's to them and another 25 more years.

Katy

Chocolate Chip Courgette Bread:

Last week I spotted that the lovely Beautiful Mess girls had made courgette bread, or zucchini as they call it, and remembered I had two courgettes just sitting in the fridge. I'm not a huge fan of things like carrot cake and thought that this was going to be similar but I actually found I loved this and couldn't taste the courgette, just plenty of chocolate! 

This recipe makes 2 loafs from a tin that is 8x4 inches. 

Ingredients: 

100g Unsalted Butter, 

200g Sugar,

2 Eggs, 

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract, 

250g Flour,

40g Cocoa Powder, 

Pinch of Salt, 

1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder, 

2 Courgettes grated 

and

100g Chocolate Chips.

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees. 

Firstly grate your courgettes and place in a sieve to drain the excess liquid.
Squashing down the courgette with the back of a spoon to help get rid of any extra water also helps so that the batter isn't too wet.

Mix together the butter, melted, and the sugar until combined and cool. (So as not to cook the eggs in the next step.)

Next add in the eggs and vanilla extract and mix. 

Pop the flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder in a bowl combine together. Then add liquid ingredients and stir until smooth. 

Next add the chocolate chips and courgette into the chocolate batter and mix. If you think the mixture is looking a little too wet from the courgette add a tablespoon more flour to even it out. 

Pour half the mix into your loaf tin and save the other half for after this one has baked, or if you have two loaf tins then pop them both in together. 

Pop your loaf into the oven for 50-60 minutes. Check it towards the 45 minute mark by popping a cocktail stick in the middle, if it comes out clean then your loaf is ready, if not then give it another 5 minutes and check again. 

This is delicious sliced with a little butter and a cup of tea. And a little better for you than normal cake what with all that courgette in there.

Enjoy!

Katy