Grad Ball and its food

Hello my beauties, or as my new Russian friends say, Здравствуйте мои красотки!! 

I told you I'd just finished university in my very first blog and I had my graduation ball last weekend. It was held at Silverstone Race track, home of the British Grand Prix, and as a die hard F1 fan it was a brilliant experience. There were pictures of drivers and cars from times gone by all over the place which was really lovely and I loved getting my hair done and getting all dressed up for the occasion.
My course (Creative Writing) was the only course to get 100% positive feedback in the National Student Survey and as a reward we were given three bottles of G.H. Mumm Champagne for free but since there's a few non-drinkers on our course, there was only four of us drinking it which led to some crazy dancing.

We arrived to a champagne reception and a professional photographer so we had some photos taken together.
We were then led down to the banqueting hall which looked out over the race track.

The theme of the evening was 'around the world' and so each table was a country - we were Morocco. The centerpieces were giant martini glasses with a intricate colourful umberella on top, which we all posed with for photos.

The meal was really nice. We started off with a smoked ham hock and chicken terrine with wild mushrooms with a golden raisin puree, beetroot relish and caper and truffle drizzle, followed by chicken breast served with rosemary gnocchi, sweetcorn puree, onion and cabbage cassulet and a red wine sauce. For desert we had a cherry and chocolate bomb - a hard chocolate casing filled with cherry ice cream, cherry compote and whole cherries, served with vanilla ice cream.

After dinner we were led through to the evening room which was laid out with different areas representing different countries. Where was a Indian market area with lots of baskets filled with vegetables and things, a Chinese garden area with red paper lanterns hanging in trees and then a Middle-Eastern area with long, low couches and ornamental shisha pipes.

We had some pretty good musical acts - Tinchy Stryder, Miss Dynamite, Jaguar Skillz and some DJ's from MTV. We danced for hours, between champagne top-ups.

I'd like to thank Northampton University's Student Union for putting the whole night together as it was a huge success and I doubt they'll get much thanks for it. 

I'll post a new blog sometime this week, possibly more baking and some family-friendly dinners. See you then!!

Provencal Pasta Bake

This little gem is half taken from an old magazine clipping my mum has in her weight watchers folder and half my own adaptation. Whilst it's called Provencal pasta bake, it's flavours come from all over Europe - Spanish chorizo, Italian mozzarella and the whole dish has the colours of an Italian flag but I feel it's still a french dish and it's my blog so what I say goes.
Make up a double amount of my basic pasta sauce - three carrots, three sticks of celery whizzed up in a mini chopper with a red onion and two cloves of garlic. Put this all in a pan with a slug of oil, a tin of chopped tomatoes and a sprinkle of dried oregano. Half a teaspoon of salt will counterbalance the acidity of the tomatoes. Cook on a medium heat for five minutes. 
Add a tablespoon on tomato puree and the same of ketchup. A heaped teaspoon of green pesto in the absence of fresh basil and a vegetable stock cube finish the sauce. Leave it to simmer for twenty minutes with the lid on, stirring every so often. For this pasta bake I also add in about two tablespoons of finely chopped chorizo (if using a whole sausage, about a 2 inch piece), a sprinkle of cayenne pepper and a half a teaspoon of herbs de Provence. 
The original recipe called for chicken thighs which I swapped for turkey breast. I diced my turkey breast into small, bite size chunks and then added them to a pan with a teaspoon of basil pesto and fried them on a medium heat till cooked through. Add the meat to the simmering sauce to let the sauce permeate the turkey.
Cook enough pasta for 4 people in boiling salted water (always, always salt your water. You're not actually eating all that salt but without it your pasta, regardless of the sauce, will be bland).
Once the pasta is cooked, reserve a cup of the cooking water, drain the rest and put it back in the pan. Add the sauce and turkey and give it all a good stir, adding some of the pasta water if it all looks a bit thick.
Tip this whole lot into an oven proof dish and top with a scattering of black olives, globs of mozzarella and dot with little blobs of basil pesto.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until it's golden and bubbling. Serve with a salad and try to imagine yourself sitting on a sun drenched veranda, sipping an ice cold glass of rose wine looking out over a vineyard. Bliss.

Baking!! Classic sponges and a healthy flapjack.

Howdy Bloggers!
Apologies for the wait on this one - I was supposed to write this yesterday since it was national baking day (oh yes) but I had an appalling migraine and the idea of looking at a screen for an hour was horrific.  
But here we are on my favorite of all cooking related topics: Baking.
I adore baking. Always have done. When I was a child my Nana (a baking Goddess) taught me the basics of sponges, shortbread, pastry and meringues, culminating in a classic, Lemon meringue pie. A desert nobody in my family, including me, can replicate to her standards. 
As I got older I used to do my own experiments. After a trip to our local Ben's Cookies, I perfected my own version of a white chocolate and cherry cookie and after many, many failed attempts I turned out a perfect chocolate fondant. 
I have my little specialties - my carrot cake is second to none and also I make a damn good Christmas cake but since it's only Dad and I that eat fruit cake, it's only really his opinion that I've gathered there.
Today I'm going to share my classic sponge mix and give you variations on it to jazz up any occasion.
A Victoria Sponge is a skill you can take right to the bank. EVERYBODY loves cake. This is a fact. Anybody that says they don't like cake is either lying to themselves or they have only ever eaten shop-bought plastic, rubbish cake. 
The key to a good sponge mix is your ratio. In my cake mix I have 150g of butter,  self raising flour and sugar to three eggs. Therefore it's easy to work out that every egg is worth 50g of the other three ingredients. 
So there's your basic 4 ingredients. To make 2 18cm round sponge cakes you'll need:
150g self raising flour
150g caster sugar
150g soft butter/margarine
3 free range eggs
1tsp baking powder
A few drops vanilla extract.
Pre-heat your oven to 180oC (160oC fan assisted)
Grease and line your tins - I use loose bottomed tins as it's much easier to get the cakes out afterwards.
Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl, holding the sieve up high to get lots of air into the flour. Then simply add in all the other ingredients and beat well together. 

(I used to faff around creaming the butter and sugar together first, then adding the eggs and then folding in the flour, but in all honesty it makes no real difference to the finished cake.)
Spoon the mixture evenly between your two greased tins and smooth the tops.

Bake in the pre-heated oven for 20 minutes until you can put a skewer in the center of the cake and it comes out clean (no raw mixture on it) or until you can lightly press the center of the cake and it comes bouncing back up.
Leave the cakes to cool slightly before removing them from their tins. When they're completely cold, sandwich them together with a glue of your choice (I went for jam) and dust with icing sugar.

BAM!! Sponge cake - done. 
Now the fun part. You can flavour this cake with pretty much anything you want. Vanilla is your basic. You could use other extracts like almond or you can add fruity zests like orange or lemon. Chocolate cake just needs 50g of cocoa powder in the mix while coffee cake needs a few table spoons of very, very strong, cold, black coffee added to the mixture (three or four good teaspoons of instant coffee dissolved in a small amount boiling water and left to go cold).This is the coffee loaf cake I made for my mum to take to the fete. I topped it with a coffee buttercream - standard buttercream with a few tablespoons of the cold strong coffee added:

I made a really lush orange cake for a friend - three layers of sponge cake with orange zest sandwiched together with orange buttercream and topped with orange glace icing which I allowed to drip artfully down the sides. Needless to say after this triumph I was called upon many times to bake for friends birthdays.
My friend Abbie and I have baked cupcakes for our villages many summer parties - for the Royal Wedding we made a Union Jack out of red, white and blue cakes and for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee we made a crown of cakes, creating jewels using edible glitters and luster dust.

Now, I can hear you all yelling, "Becca! You're on a diet! How can you eat cake?" 
Well, truth be told, my dear bloggers, I can't. However, I have discovered a way of making a delicious flapjack without the use of golden syrup. Yes, the whole reason flapjack is so tasty is because of that gorgeous golden gloop (channeling my inner Nigella there), and I won't lie to you, it's not as good as the real thing. But then again, when is anything low fat as good as it's full fat counterpart? Never, that's when. But this is still pretty good, and it even has a little bit of chocolate in it. 
The secret here is..... wait for it ..... dates. Yep, those dried up fruits that are used to make sticky toffee puddings so damn tasty.
For these flapjacks you'll need:
150g reduced fat butter (I used Lurpak lightest)
150g soft, stoned, ready to eat dates
3 tbs apple juice
30g pecan nuts
50g dark chocolate chips plus extra to scatter
225g porridge oats
Pre-heat the oven to 180oC (160oC fan assisted)
Grease an 18cm square tin with butter.
In a food processor, whiz together the dates and the apple juice until pureed.
Melt the butter. Add in the oats, nuts, chocolate and the date puree and mix well. The chocolate should melt in the heat of the butter.
Press the mixture into your greased tin, scatter over the reserved chocolate chips and bake for 20 minutes.

These don't have as much of a chewy texture as regular flapjacks but you can eat a couple of squares of this without feeling like a big fat fatty.
There you go my lovelies. Beginners baking. I think you'll soon be able to handle my Soggy Belly Chocolate Fudge cake but while I'm on this diet I can't bring myself to make one only to give it away. I'll see what I can do for you though.
I hope you've enjoyed my recipes and please send me any comments or questions you might have!! 
Much love!!

Basic pasta sauce and its possible variations

Since I'm on my Slim Fast diet I'm trying to be creative with my 600 calorie meal and the other day I was bored and, being the creative foodie I am, I decided to have a play around in the kitchen. 
There was nothing exciting in the fridge since it was the end of the week and we don't go shopping till Friday, so I took some of the old carrots and celery and whizzed them up in the mini chopper with a red onion and two cloves of garlic. Put this all in a pan with a slug of oil, a tin of chopped tomatoes and a sprinkle of dried oregano. Half a teaspoon of salt will counterbalance the acidity of the tomatoes. Cook on a medium heat for five minutes. 
Add a tablespoon on tomato puree and the same of ketchup (this adds a really nice sweetness and a tangy-ness  that you won't get form the puree alone). A heaped teaspoon of green pesto in the absence of fresh basil and a vegetable stock cube finish the sauce. Leave it to simmer for twenty minutes with the lid on, stirring every so often. 
Serve with pasta - I'm not a missive fan of wholewheat. It's fine in a pasta bake when there's lots of sauce but if it's going to be served like this then I like a half white and half wholewheat - Sainsbury's do a good one.
Tonight I've made meatballs to go with the sauce too - pork mince mixed with some chopped chives, breadcrumbs, an egg, a red onion (finely chopped and sweated down) and a pinch each of salt, pepper and paprika. Roll them into balls the size of walnuts and grill until cooked through. Add to the sauce and simmer for a few minutes to let the flavours mingle and then serve with the pasta.
Basic pasta sauces can be adapted, changed and served in different ways.
I use it with the meatballs in a tapas dish- add a teaspoon of smoked paprika and very finely diced chorizo sausage to the sauce.
It can also be used as a base for a ragu - just add some browned beef mince into the sauce at the same time as the tomato puree and change the vegetable stock cube to beef.
Another idea could be to put browned chicken breasts into a oven proof dish, pour over the sauce, top with thinly sliced potatoes, sprinkle with grated cheese and bake for half an hour until golden and bubbling.
So there you go. Pasta sauce has many, many uses, many more than I've mentioned but I've tried to pick more unusual ideas. 
I'll post a photo of my finished meatball dish (it's simmering currently) so you can see how mine looks.
Pasta sauce is a good place to start cooking as some you can buy are hugely expensive and full of artificial preservatives and flavourings.
I'm hoping to do a bit of baking this Sunday (low fat of course) as I haven't done any in a few weeks.
See you then! 

Proper Cottage Pie

As a first year student, I once bought a ready-made cottage pie and it's safe to say I NEVER bought one again. The potato was soggy and grey in colour and the meat and sauce was grim - the mince was sparse (even in a Asda Extra Special pie) and the sauce tasted like cheap beef gravy only without any seasoning. 
I only made it a couple of times whilst at uni since, to do the dish properly it's very time consuming.

To make my really rich, meaty cottage pie you'll need:

2x290g beef steak mince

I red onion

2 garlic cloves

2 carrots

3 celery sticks

6 chestnut mushrooms

1 tomato

1 carton tomato passata

1 beef stock cube

1 tsp vegetable bouillon 
250ml freshly boiled water

1 tbs tomato purée

2 tbs ketchup 

2 tbs HP sauce

4 tbs Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp dried herbs 

For the potato topping:

4 large floury potatoes 

2tbs butter/margarine

4tbs milk

Salt and pepper 

Begin by prepping the veg - peel the potatoes, cut into small chunks, put them into a saucepan and cover with water. Wash and finely dice the carrot, celery and mushrooms (don't worry about peeling). Skin, de-seed and finely chop the tomato. Finely chop the onion and garlic, either by hand or in a mini chopper. 

Brown the mince in a heavy based pan in a slug of oil. Once browned transfer to a bowl.

Add the veg and sweat for ten minutes till softened. Add the meat back in with the tomato puree and the passata. Dissolve the beef stock cube and the bouillon in the boiled water and pour in, stir in the ketchup, brown sauce, Worcestershire sauce and the dried herbs. Leave to simmer on a low heat for at least 30 minutes until the sauce has reduced.

Taste for seasoning - you may need to add more salt, pepper or any of the sauces to get the flavour just right to your taste. 
At this point turn on the heat under the potatoes and allow to boil away till soft.
When the potatoes reach mash-able softness, drain them, add in the milk, margarine and seasoning and mash to a perfectly fluffy consistency  slightly runnier than normal mash so it's easier to spread.
Pour the sauce into a deep oven proof dish. Spoon on the mash and spread over the top (don't worry if the sauce peeks through the potato, it all adds to the homemade appeal). Create some kind of pattern on the top of the potato, partly for decoration and also to create crispy bits while it's in the oven.

Cook the pie for 20 minutes until the sauce is bubbling up on the potato and the top looks browned. Serve with vegetables of your choice. 

And there you have it, a low fat, vegetable packed cottage pie. Hope you enjoy!! 

Making burgers Becca style

Hey there, little short one from me today since I forgot to put this into my blog on BBQ's. 
Making burgers is a really lovely thing to do. Yes you can buy really excellent quality burgers in supermarkets these days but I really cant think of anything better than the sound and smell of homemade burgers on a barbecue in summer, or even in a frying pan. 
You can put absolutely everything in a burger. You can use different meats, herbs, spices, binding agents and flavours.
Basic burgers are simple to make and really delicious. To make 4 good sized burgers, you'll need:
400g lean beef steak mince
1 small red onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon sunflower oil
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
To start off you'll need to very finely chop the onion and garlic, either by hand or in a food processor (I have a Kenwood mini chopper which makes light work of chopping and keeps your eyes tear free).
Heat the oil in a frying pan and slightly sweat the chopped onion and garlic until nice and soft - do not colour it. Leave it to cool down.
In a mixing bowl lightly beat the egg and add the salt, pepper and parsley. Adddin the minced beef and the soft onion and garlic. Mix well together - I use my hands as I find it therapeutic but if you prefer you can use a spoon. Split this mixture into four equal patties. Cover and chill until needed.
To cook the burgers, you can grill, fry or barbecue them. To fry or barbecue, heat your pan or griddle to a medium heat. Put the burgers onto the heat and cook for 8-9 minutes on each side until cooked through. 
Serve with bread rolls, salad and relish. 

You can use all kinds of meats for burgers - lamb, pork, turkey or chicken all work well although turkey and chicken need more moisture to hold them together, such as breadcrumbs soaked in milk.
I like to add more flavours and ingredients to some burgers. I like to add two table spoons of chunky apple sauce to pork burgers as well as shopped sage. 
Fennel seeds are lovely with pork, although personally I would prefer the seeds to be ground to powder. 
Lamb is famously associated with mint and rosemary and these would be lovely but I like to be a bit different and add some lemon zest and oregano to the meat.
You can encase a baby mozzarella ball into your burger for some oozy cheesy-ness in your burgers (I know my bestie, Alex loves everything mozzarella touches so that's one for her) and you can add grated cheeses to any burger mix. My family are massive fans of the Mexican spicy cheese so I crumble a bit into my burger mix which spices the meat from within.
Burger accessories as I call them are limitless. You've got the classics of salad and chips with ketchup and but you can make all kinds of burger sauces using a mayo or yogurt base and any number of spices, herbs and other sauces. I like a mixture of garlic mayonnaise, ketchup and whole grain mustard spread over a warm burger bap (or cob as my friends from Leicester say). 

So that's my quick blog on burgers. Essentially, anything goes. Now why did I not just say that in the beginning rather than ramble on for months?

Work at Weddings and BBQ's

Well hello!!
I have returned with my head full of words and my stomach full of my delicious morning Slim Fast milkshake (summer strawberry today).
It's going pretty well - I've lost 4 pounds in a week so I'm hoping i can continue for as long as possible so I can lose my desired two stone :)
I've had a pretty busy couple of days: I went back to work on Saturday after 5 months on uni and while most things are exactly the same, there are some little differences I need to get the hang of.
We had a venue only wedding on Saturday, which means that the couple hire the venue and bring their own food, drinks, staff, glasses, plates, linens and essentially everything you need to run a wedding. Sadly though, this wedding came close to being a disaster. The staff they hired were a bunch of 16-17 year old girls with sour faces who had no idea what they were supposed to be doing. They turned up late and so we had to sort out the deliveries of the drinks and get the caterers sorted. During the ceremony they were talking loudly right by the doors and during meal service they were disorganized as a group and generally looked untidy with messy hair, un-tucked shirts and muddy trainers.It made us realize how good we are as a team. There was only two of us working as we are not supposed to be doing anything for the wedding other than showing people where stuff is and what they can and can't use but because the hired in staff were useless we were pretty busy in the morning. In the afternoon we spent a while folding napkins into various origami shapes and I spent three hours cleaning candle wax off 6 candelabras with a hair dryer. Then we discovered Alison's car had flat tyre so we were outside pumping it up for fifteen minutes. Never a dull shift.
On Sunday though it was business as usual with all our lovely kitchen staff back on with all of our waiting team ready to roll. 
It was a really lovely wedding - colour scheme of pastel Tiffany blue with lots of crystals and diamond details. They had the ceremony outside which was really lovely and they had a harpist playing which set the mood perfectly. They had a really lovely, simple menu of a brie and red onion tart, followed by a parcelle of chicken with a leek and bacon stuffing with a brandy cream sauce and finished off with a pavlova. I always feel you're better off going for a simple, classic menu at a wedding. I often see couples who have tried to please everyone and have given the guests a choice but more often than not this leads to confusion both among the guests who cant remember what they ordered, and in the kitchens when we try to serve a table where they're having two beef, three chicken, four lamb and a vegetarian. It's a massively expensive way of doing things and, in my opinion, unnecessary. It's not about your guests and weather or not they like lamb or if they eat beef, it's about you and your husband/wife.
I ended up doing an 11 and a half hour shift on Sunday since I was there from 8.30am and because I haven't worked there in 5 months I haven't got used to the burning pain in my feet I get after a few hours so driving home changing gears was a whole new level of pain.
We're having some lush weather at the moment (I'm currently sitting in my favorite chair in the garden although sadly I'm having to sit under the parasol so I can see the screen) and so we've had a couple of BBQ's. Yesterday I marinaded some lamb chops in lemon, garlic, oregano and olive oil and left them for four hours. They were so juicy and the lemon really tenderizes the meat. I also made a couple of salads, one pasta one cous cous. I use trofie pasta and a homemade green pesto (use a food processor - large bunch of basil, a lump of Parmesan  grated, a handful of pine nuts, two garlic cloves and a glug of olive oil) although a jar is just as good but add some freshly chopped basil for freshness. Cook a standard mug full of the pasta to al dente and drain. Chop a large handful of baby cherry tomatoes in half and add then to the pan with the hot pasta. Stir through two table spoons of the pesto, transfer to a serving dish and chill until needed.
For my cous cous salad I put however much dried cous cous as I need into my serving dish with half a tablespoon of Boulion stock powder and the zest of a lemon, then pour over enough freshly boiled water to just cover the cous cous. Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel and allow to steam for ten minutes. Meanwhile, lightly toast a handful of flaked almonds and a handful of pumpkin seeds in a dry frying pan until the almonds are lightly golden and the skins on the pumpkin seeds have split open (they make a very satisfying popping sound). Stir the cous cous with a fork to separate the grains and add in a handful of golden sultanas. Stir in the nuts and seeds and then just before serving sprinkle over a tablespoon of chopped coriander. 
I love a good marinade and I do different things for different meats. For lamb I use a lot of lemon zest, garlic and oregano with a splish of olive oil. Pork likes strong flavours so I do a squirt of tomato ketchup, a teaspoon of seedy mustard and a tablespoon of runny honey. Chicken is good with just some sweet chilli sauce or I also like to just chop of loads of fresh herbs and some olive oil. 
At the moment we have my Nana staying over as well as my brother and his girlfriend so as a special treat for desert we've got a kind of disassembled pavlova. Nana makes perfect meringues and British strawberries are just coming in so I had Annie hulling the strawberries and we got some raspberries too and lashings of cream. Perfect end to a Tuesday of beautiful sunshine!!

Here I am, writing away in the sun!