JAM JAM here comes the man, hot damn!

So a couple of weeks ago, my mum had this big bag of damsons and as she was off on holiday, they found themselves in my sticky mitts. Hurrah. Of course, me being me, they sat around the flat for a good few days and so some were unusable but the rest went into JAM!

I've never made jam before so I wasn't sure how well it would come out. I had about 500g of plums in the end, so into my pan they went with 500g of unrefined sugar (I've heard that jam sugar is not worth the extra money!!), 125ml of water and the juice and zest of a lemon. Then I just boiled it up until it reached the right consistency. I only know this from watching Delia, but basically you put a plate in the fridge, then drop some hot jam on the cold plate, leave it to cool a minute and then push it with your finger. If it goes wrinkly it's ready. If not, boil some more.

It took about 40 minutes altogether and the result was really good! I got 2 jars of jam out of my batch - lucky for me, cuz I only had 2 empty jam jars. I had visions of making the Vegan Brunch scones to put it on but instead, I have mostly been eating it on toast, with peanut butter!



Maybe I'll get around to making those scones one day.

This post is lacking in green!! hahah. I try to mostly eat healthily during the week but the pics are usually a bit boring so I don't bother posting them. Sometimes on Fridays, my diet goes to shit! Case in point.... Hot Damn & Hell Yeah's Country Fried tofu, with a garlic knot, mash and sweetcorn.

And Sunday brunch. Tempeh bacon, seitan sausage, bread roll, roasted tomatoes and tofu scramble. I took a leaf out of Vegan Dad's book and left out the veggies. I also added some black salt, but only a pinch. I think it could have done with a bit more.

This was dinner one night this week. I was hungry and so it had to be quick. I cooked some rice with some leftover tomato sauce that I made out of a big bag of tomatoes my mum gave me. I added some fresh coriander and made some baked tofu to go on top. Pretty good for a quickie!

This one was dessert for when my friend came over for dinner on Tuesday. It was supposed to be 2 of them but one was ill, which means I still have half this pie in the fridge! It is a work in progress, I haven't got it right yet and I'm not sure the flavours go perfectly yet. It was a ginger snap biscuit base with a banana filling (the 'nanas turn it brown, ick) with dried banana and stem ginger to decorate. It was ok, I burnt the base though!

oh and this is what happens when Maz serves up seconds while I make tea.....

I didn't take a pic of dinner, it was a stir fry. I wanted something light and low cal as we were having pudding. I kind of wish I did take a pic though as there were loads of veg in it and it was pretty. Ah well.

I still had half a block of tempeh left after making the bacon. So I dug out Veganomicon. You know, I've had this book ages and have only made 2 or 3 things from it. So I decided on the hot sauce glazed tempeh and corn-jalapeno gravy. Although it was actually just corn gravy as I left the jalapeno out, also, i only added 3/4 of the corn before blending and the rest in afterwards cuz I love the crunchy texture of corn.

I have to say, glad I left the chilli out of the gravy because holy cow, this tempeh is one hot spicy mama!! I left the cayenne out of it as well - thank god!! I dunno if the hot sauce in the US is a different thing to over here, or if I'm just a big wuss?? But I used sriracha and man it was soooo hot!!

I like spicy food but I think next time I make this I'll cut the hot sauce back a bit!

That's all for now. Tomorrow I'm off to Brighton for my best friend's hen night and I'm sooo excited. I'm on cupcake making duty so expect pix of those next time, along with dinner pix from Terre a Terre! Squeeee!!

Laterz

xXx

Wonky Donkey

This weekend gone was my Dad's birthday and we went out for a lovely Italian meal, then back to their house for cake. He asked for a black forest style gateaux, just like Mum always used to make him. Except now cake making duties have been passed to me which means the double cream has been 86'd and replaced with chocolate frosting.

I put cherry buttercream in between the layers, along with cherry pie filling. The cherries could really do with being fresh ones for the top as these ones were a bit saucy and it was totally wonky (despite my cack-handed frosting job) as one side rose higher than the other on one of the cakes! Mum's cakes were always perfect looking and I still don't know how she did it but she used to pick the whole thing up, once covered in cream and roll it in chocolate flakes!!

But anyhoo - as retarded as my version looked, it tasted seriously ace.

I doubled the basic chocolate cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. The buttercream was simple buttercream with some of the sauce from the cherry pie filling mixed in. The chocolate frosting I didn't weigh but it was pretty much the same as I used for this cake, but with a bit less liquid, so it was a bit firmer.


Inside shot.... the flash washed out the pretty pink colour of the icing!!


The next morning I got up and baked ginger muffins and some pancakes for everyone for brekkie. My dad decided to make a fairy cake with a muffin and the leftover cherry pie filling. I thought it was awesome so I took a pic of it!

Iron Man, Iron Man, does whatever an iron can ....

So here it is, my first entry into the Iron Cupcake challenge. I’ve seen this on a few blogs and it looked like so much fun I had to take part! (Details of Iron Cupcake can be found here.)

This month’s ingredient was basil. I spent ages trying to come up with ingredients that would compliment basil and not make my cupcake taste like a salad gone wrong. What I came up with was lime & ginger.

The smell of these is gorgeous but also weird because cake just shouldn’t smell of basil!! But they are surprisingly delicious and I would make them again!

I had grand ideas of a topping made from almonds but it just didn’t work the way I wanted it to, so I went with a buttercream flavoured with fresh lime, fresh grated ginger and a basil leaf dipped in chocolate and a big glob of green food colouring for good measure. I’m really happy with the way they came out!

Here is my submission:



Sal’s Basil, Lime & Ginger Cupcakes
Dry Ingredients:
2 cups plain flour
1 cup caster sugar
Zest of 2 limes
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ cup crystallised ginger, chopped
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp dried ground ginger
Wet Ingredients:
Juice of 2 limes
¾ cup non dairy milk
⅓ cup sunflower (or other light) oil
2 tbsp ginger jam
½ cup basil (not packed just lightly placed)
1 tsp vanilla extract
Frosting:
¼ cup vegan margarine
¼ cup vegetable shortening
3 – 3½ cups icing sugar (depending on the desired consistency
Fresh lime juice (up to 1 whole lime)
2 tsp fresh grated ginger
Green food colouring (optional)
Optional Decorations:
Slivers of lime zest
Basil leaves dipped in melted, dark chocolate

Method:
Preheat oven to 180C/350F.

Mix together all the wet ingredients, including the basil and blend with a hand blender until smooth as you can get it.

Mix together the dry ingredients, then pour the wet ingredients in and mix until just combined, don't overmix.

Pour into muffin tins and bake for around 25-30 minutes, until a cocktail stick comes out clean. Cool in the tins for at least 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack until completely cold.

To make the frosting, cream together the margarine, shortening and icing sugar with a fork. Add the lime juice a tbsp at a time, until desired consistency is reached. Add the ginger and food colouring bit by bit and beat with an electric hand beater till the icing is fluffy and smooth. Pipe or spread onto the cupcakes and add a chocolate basil leaf if required.

Here’s a bonus pic as well.... I split the batter between a muffin tin and a sheet pan and cut a couple out with a square scone cutter, to make a couple of square cakes. I sandwiched these together with buttercream and then decorated the top with stars of buttercream and a chocolate basil leaf.

The winner of this month’s challenge gets prizes provided by Etsy Artist METAL SUGAR so be sure to head on over and have a look, and don’t forget to visit the sponsors of the challenge too:

HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS
HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson
JESSIE STEELE APRONS
CUPCAKE COURIER
TASTE OF HOME


Voting starts Sunday over at NO ONE PUTS CUPCAKE IN A CORNER - so go vote for me! Pretty please. And if you want to sign up for next month’s challenge go on over to http://ironcupcake.blogspot.com.

Cooking to: Chemical Brothers - Brotherhood

That’s probably it from me until I get back from holiday, so hopefully I’ll be posting pics of delicious foodz from Cyprus in just over a week.

xxx

Just gimme 1 rib. I'm pretty hungry!

What I love most about bank holiday weekends is having time to cook awesome food. I started with turning this lot .....

Into this.... This is veggie hash with some pesto grilled portobellos. I got the inspiration from THIS recipe. Mmm mmm, it was seriously good!

Lunch on Saturday - I made the quick creamy tomato & basil pasta from veganyumyum again but this time I had the basil. Twice in one week - this recipe is a good one!! Awesome with tiger bread! :)

I also made granola. I felt the need to put goji berries in something as I have a massive bag of them and haven't used them in ages!



I also made ginger & lemon muffins. They have a double dose of ginger from ginger jam and fresh root ginger in them. They are good but I think they need to be even more gingery so I'm going to try again so I can post a better recipe!


Finally, onto today's dinner. I have been eyeing this recipe for ages and finally had time to do it. They are Susan's Barbecue Ribz from the Fat Free Vegan Kitchen. They are REALLY good except that I think the 25 minute baking time was too long (in my oven anyway) and they stuck to my griddle pan like shit to a blanket! I have half of them left to experiment with again tomorrow, I think I just need to use the grill or a better pan to cook them in. I had some homemade barbecue sauce in the fridge already to use up. This isn't the best picture I'm afraid but I was hungry! You can't see from this angle but they do actually quite look like ribs!

Cooking (today) to: Del Amitri - Change Everything