June 5th 2015 - Hasselback potato

June 5th 2015 - Haselback potato

I have had a couple of these haselback/sliced potatoes pinned to my food section for ages, but never done anything with them.  Until today that is.  The link says oven cook for 45mins add toppings and cook for a further 15mins.  too long to wait when hungry so I nuked it in microwave for 12mins, sliced it, added my cheese n ham and then put in over for 5mins.

Although it was cooked and the skin was slightly crispy I didn't enjoy it as much as I do my normal jacket potatoes done in microwave and then a cross cut in the tops and fillings pilled in.

Here is todays as I had just put in oven and then as I was ready to eat it.

March 7th 2015 - swirl cakes

March 7th 2015 - swirl cakes

Today's pin is 1 I have done before and that is make swirl cakes.  They are very easy to do, using normal cake mix (home made or shop bought) add nothing but what you need for the mix so it is still the creamy/white/lemon colour.  Then add the mixture to cupcake cases as you would normally but before you put them in the oven add a couple of drops of food colouring to ech cake and using a cocktail stick swirl the food colouring into the mixture so you get a pattern.  Then bake as normal.  Once they are cooked you may not see the swirls on the top of the cakes but you will when you bite into them.  I added a couple of drops of the same colours into the icing and added that to the cakes so the red ahve red swirl icing and the blue has blue. (see pics).

There is a reason for my baking and its not a birthday or party (well it is my friends 18th today but thats not the reason.)  Tomorrow we are going for dinner with our neighbours at their house, they are cooking pheasant (which none of us has tried) and a chicken encase we don't like the pheasant.  I was always told you never turn up to a dinner or party empty handed and as I know they are on medication I decided not to go for a bottle of wine but some cakes.  I will take 1 each round there for after dinner.

Heres my pics:

January 6th 2015 - beef casserole

January 6th 2015 - beef casserole

As its cold outside I decided to do a beef casserole in the slow cooker for tea.  All seemed good until I opened the bag of diced casserole beef (from supermarket) to find that most of it was fatty!  I'm hoping that with what I salvaged from the bag along with the tray I also had in freezer is enough to feed us all for tea.  I can safely say I wont be buying the stew pack beef again.  The idea for todays pin came from here.

I don't follow a recipe I just throw it all in.  Into the pot has gone diced beef, diced potatoes, sliced carrots, beef gravy, beef casserole powder, an oxo cube, regea regea sauce and worcestershire sauce.  smells lovely and usually tastes lovely.  I will addd a pic once its cooked!