Melting 'centre' muffins

Oh yes, you read correctly, the reason I used the quotation marks is that some of them were melted in the centre, some at the bottom, some at the top, but there was something melt-y in them all!!

The muffin recipe was given to me by the lovely Cathy O'Boyle and the rest I came up with, with the help of the internet as usual.

Ingredients-
Muffins(makes about 6 large ones)-
150g flour
50g caster sugar
1 tsp baking soda
a pinch of salt
50g butter
100ml milk
1 egg
115g milk chocolate
 Some more milk/white/dark chocolate for chunks

Centre-
200g chocolate
200ml single cream


Method-Centre:

1. Melt chocolate in a double boiler or bain-marie (or a bowl over a pot of boiling water).

2. Whisk in the cream until it's smooth.

3. Let the mixture cool, then make it into little sausage shapes the size of the top of your thumb-ish. Wrap them in cling film, put in a freezer bag and freeze solid!

Muffins:

1. Melt the chocolate and butter separately and let cool a little.

2. Mix together the dry ingredients.

3. Mix together the egg and milk.

4. Mix the wet into the dry (including the chocolate and butter) gently and until just combined, don't over do it. Then add as much chocolate chunks as you like, about 250g more is plenty. I tend to just bash up a couple of chocolate bars.

5. Put the mixture into fairly big muffin molds, pouring in half then adding the frozen 'centres' then topping up making sure they are covered.

6. Put the muffins into an oven at 250°C  for about 5 minutes then put the heat down to 180°C for about 15 more. Then take the muffins out and allow to cool.

A few notes needed on these I feel. The center is actually just a chocolate ganache, so when the muffins are cold it is more of a creamy centre, when they're warm though it is melty and nice!Also you may notice I put bits of chocolate on the top of the muffins-not a good idea, because when the centre, is actually in the centre it falls into the melty bit, which is nice, but doesn't look as good!
Oh and obviously if you just make them without the centre, they make lovely chocolate chunk muffins, which are tasty too!

Other than that, enjoy!

Chorizo and Sausage Goulash

Oh yes, I said it, and it's goooooood. Got this off "Something for the Weekend" and I liked how it looks so much that I tried it! Also I made it for my lunch this week, and it keeps wonderfully well, and has a lovely thick sauce to it, that just LOVES loads of bread to soak it up.

It is also one of the shorter-cooking weekly meals I've made in a while, takes only about an hour from start to finish. Not sure it's the healthiest though, but it's not too bad, I've tried to be good on the the days I've it though, cos it's full of yummy/bold things.

Anyway here it is.

Ingredients-
225g Chorizo
800g Beef sausages (or pork ones I'm sure would be lovely, or any sausages for that matter)
1 onion sliced thin
2 cloves of garlic chopped up finely
1 red pepper sliced
2-3 chilis seeded or not again depending on how hot you want it ;)
1-2 tbsp paprika or even more if you like paprika!
olive oil
200ml of beef stock
100g flour
50g-100g sour cream
salt and pepper to taste
a hand full of fresh parsley

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180°C. In a large pot, fry the sausages and chorizo in a small amount of olive oil until they are nice and brown and crispy (try to avoid eating them all at this stage-I almost made that mistake)

2. Take them out and sweat the onions in garlic in the copious amount of lovely red tainted oil (sweat=gently fry until transparent not brown).

3. Then add the flour and fry for a little longer, then put back in the sausages, chorizo, sliced red pepper, chilis and the stock.

4. After you put in the stock then add the paprika NOT before as it burns easily and isn't nice when burned.

5. Then put the pot in oven for about half an hour to 40 mins.

6. Take it out and stir in as much sour cream as you like-depending on how creamy you like it. I used about 50g and it was nice and thick.

7. Add the parsley, chopped, to the top and enjoy!

As I said I had it with LOADS of bread. Think they had it with rice on SFTW, anyway have it with whatever you like.


Let me know what ya think peeps!

Guacamole

OK here's an easy one! Had a craving for it this week, so I made it. Sooooo much better, and cheaper than the one's you can buy, and you add what you like so I just think it's great.

Ingredients-
1 avocado
1 small red onion (gotta be red, white are a bit strong)
1 clove of garlic (or more if you like)
olive oil
salt and pepper
juice of a half to one lime-to taste.
2-3 cherry tomatoes 

Method:

1. Cut the avocado in half and take out the seed (really easy if you just chop the knife into it and pull it quickly out). The scoop out the flesh.

2. Dice the onion into very small chunks and mash the garlic, and chop the tomatoes into small chunks.

3. Put the avocado into a bowl and mash it with a fork...OR... you could be lazy like me and put it in a food processor (with the tomatoes roughly chopped, onions and garlic if you like) and make it smooth, either way about half way through slowly add the oil until it's as smooth as you like, or don't add it at all! I like it as it makes it very smooth.

4. When it's as smooth or chunky as you like then stir in everything else, to taste!

There you go, very easy, and looovely!

Homemade Spring Rolls

So, I had a Chinese take away the other night, over did it a bit, was amazing, lovely greasy food. It's needed every now and again I think! Anyway I thought everything was nice (as nice as deep fried crap can be) except for the spring rolls, they were soggy, and bland, and too fat, and just awful. Then the next morning I saw AWT making them on the telly, and it looked very easy, and I figured if I made them myself I could put what I want in them, and they would be fresh, and hot, and lovely. Not to mention bloody easy :)

Also, at the start of the week I made chili for my lunch, but I'm still not exactly happy with my chili, but when I am, I will post the recipe!

Ooh, and for dinners I've been having pork chops, which I marinated at the start of the week in various things, I use one of them in the spring rolls!

So less chat more recipe!

Ingredients(makes about 8 spring rolls)-
spring roll sheets (from Chinese food shops)
fish sauce
soy sauce
1 pork chop (marinated or not, I did mine in onion, garlic, oil, chili and paprika)
1 tin of beansprouts
1 carrot
salt and pepper

Method:

1. Cut the pork chop into strips leaving a little fat at the end of each strip, or take it off if you like.

2. Cut the carrot into longish strips too, not too long though, as it will get hard to deal with.

3. Put the above and everything else into a bowl and mix well.

4. Put a small amount of the mixture (up to you how much) at the top of the sheet and roll up the spring roll, keeping it tight the whole time. Make sure to tuck in the sides as you go, from the start, and at the end use a little bit of water and flour to seal it. Look up Daily Cook's Challenge from one day last week I think, to see AWT doing it.

5. Put the rolls gently in some hot oil-I did mine by putting about an inch of oil in my frying pan. Make sure they don't touch each other for about 30 seconds, and try not to touch them for about 30 seconds, or they will burst open, and become very greasy. Also make sure the oil is hot enough so they don't become oily, and not too hot that they burn before the pork is fully cooked.

6. Put them on some kitchen paper and I ate mine with sweet chili sauce mmmmmmh!

The spring roll sheets need to be soaked in water for a few seconds before use, and rolling takes some practice. I had these 2 days in a row, and the first day they all fell apart bar one, and the oil was cold so they were greasy. But even with that one practice day, the second time they were much better, can't wait to make them again!!!

Roasted Garlic Soup

If you want to get rid of vampires, or an over amorous co-worker (here's looking at you Tim!!) this is the soup for you. Well I guess if, like me, you just LOVE garlic you could make it too. I really love this soup, I found a recipe for it about 5 years ago, and forgot about it until this week, but I will be making it more often now that I remember how much I love it.

This is a very very simple dish, and I would encourage anyone who likes garlic to make it. I froze some of it too, and had it the day after, and it was just as good, if not better. It's also not too high in fat or calories. Some of the recipes I found have double cream, butter and other delicious but very bold things.

So here we go- Roasted Garlic Soup (4 servings-ish)

Ingredients-
4 medium to large bulbs of garlic
a small onion
olive oil
whatever herbs you like dried or fresh (I used dried rosemary and thyme)
3-4 tbs of flour
1L of water, chicken or veg stock (it's a little nicer with the stock)
salt and pepper

Method:

1. Cut the bulbs of garlic in half and leave them for a few minutes.

2. Put about a half cm of olive oil in a small ish baking tray, and place the bulbs cut side down, put into a preheated oven at about 150°C for an hour or so.

3. Fry the onions in a pot big enough to contain the litre of liquid you will be putting in,

4. When they are done squeeze the cloves out of the bulbs, and put them in the pot with the fried onion.

5. Mop up the oil in the baking tray with the flour and put it into the pot too.

6. Mash the mixture with a potato masher until it becomes a smooth paste, with a medium heat still under the pot so the mixture keeps cooking a bit.

7. Put in the stock and herbs and simmer for about 20 minutes. I also blended it after that to mix up the skin that formed, and smooth it out a bit.

8. Season with the salt and pepper to taste.

So there you go garlic soup-with some toasted cheesey bread!

Surprisingly filling too so it is, like seriously, I was stuffed, and that usually takes quite a bit.
More lovely recipes to come soon!

Poached eggs

Alright, so since my last post I haven't been doing any major cooking, well any worth speaking of anyway, I had my soup for a week, then I went to London for the weekend, and tonight I cooked jerk pork for my lunches for the week. So in short nothing new really.
 
However I have been doing a lot of poaching of eggs these days! My god I love a poached egg, but for years I had a lot of trouble doing this. I've tried 4 or 5 different methods of doing it, and I couldn't find one that had a high enough success rate-bearing in mind I don't poach eggs often enough to get really good at it!

Recently, however, I came across a great method from a certain couple of bikers, with beards! It's simple, doesn't take much practice, and works (for me) about 5 out of 6 times!

Ingredients-
1 egg
a dash of white vinegar


Method:

1. Boil a pot of water with the vinegar and put your whole egg into it gently for exactly 25 seconds if it's straight from the fridge or 20 seconds if it's at room temperature.

2. Take the egg out and let all of the water run off, it shouldn't be too hot, when you can touch it crack the egg and gently put it on a side plate so it stays together-ish.

3. Then make sure the water is boiling, give it a good swirl and slide the egg gently into it, then just cook to taste!

A few points on this one:
-if the egg cracks when it goes into the water I find it doesn't work, also if you don't let all the water and egg mix on the plate (so make sure ALL of the water runs off before cracking). Also it's less likely to crack if it starts at room temperature.
-if you are doing one after another, then if there is bits of white left in the water it will boil like crazy, so fish them out or change the water.
-you can use any vinegar, but if has colour in it the white will take on some if the colour
-be exact with the boiling time

So that's it, a poached egg. Look up the Hairy Bikers doing it, it's dead easy!

Veg and Chili soup

God I love soup! Especially after I saw some program on telly recently that told me that it keeps you fuller than the equivalent solid meal and it was on telly-so you know it's true ; )
So, yes this is my lunch for the week, I love the little bit of chili in my soup, but obviously it works just as well without it. I just love that little bit of excitement in my day!

Veg (and chili) Soup

Ingredients-
1 smallish Butternut squash
5 medium carrots
1 small parsnip(HATE parsnips, but they do add a little something to soup!)
1 small swede (or turnip or whatever you want to call it)
1 onion
2-3 cloves of garlic (I used 5 mmmmh smelly)
2 bird eye chilis
2 veg. stock jelly things
Dried herbs (I used rosemary and sage I think)
Ground coriander seed
Salt and Pepper


Method:

1. Peel and chop all of the veggies (I mean everything above-don't get smart!!) and dissolve the stock in 2 pints of water.

2. Put the squash in a tinfoil parcel with salt, pepper and some herbs,place in an oven at 200°C.

3. Fry the onion and garlic in some olive oil in the pot you are using for the soup (a big one) until they are see through (or brown like I did) then throw in the rest of the veg and keep frying for a bit.

4. Add the stock and a small bit more water (depending on how thick you want it), herbs, salt and pepper to taste. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 40 minutes, or until everything is really soft.

5. The squash should also be done now so take it out, make sure it's soft too, then pelt it in the pot and blend everything (I used my lovely hand blender)

6. That's basically it, adjust the salt and pepper and you're done!

There you go-see soup's easy peasy! Ooooh speaking of peas, I love me some frozen peas. So what I did was-at the end I added a few handfuls of frozen peas, and the heat left in the pot cooked them. I think it's lovely, might not be everyone's cup of tea (or soup, or whatever) but I like it!

That's all from me for this post, tune in next time for more boring cooking! Well I've had my fun, and that's all that matters : )  (please tell me someone got that?)