Rice Pudding

Rice pudding is made for winter. Nothing beats curling up with a bowl of the home made stuff, watching a movie on a Sunday. Its been known on occasion that sometimes I just have a big bowl of this for dinner, I'm not sure this is laziness or pure gluttony.  

Anyway, I made a big bowl of the stuff this week, and I can honestly say it was gone within hours. If you have never attempted to make home made rice pudding before, please do. Its so easy. It also tastes much, much better than the tinned variety, but lets be honest, that not too hard to do.  I cook my rice first in the milk, this is a technique dating back to the 1700's, I find it just makes it creamier.  The recipe is below, enjoy!

I also have to apologise for the lack of posts recently, I've been so busy juggling work, placement and university that I haven't had time to write everything up. I'm back on track now though and there will be a few posts this week to make up for my absence. 

As usual my song of the moment- http://youtu.be/pB-5XG-DbAA

Ingredients3 tablespoons caster sugar, plus extra to taste
120 g pudding rice
750 ml skimmed milk
250 ml single cream
1 stick cinnamon or 1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 vanilla pod or 1 tsp vanilla extract
Cornish clotted cream, to serve
fruit jam, to serve

Pre heat the oven to a medium heat.

Put the rice in a pan and pour in the milk, simmer until the rice is tender. Remember not to boil the rice as it burns and takes away the natural sweetness of the milk. 

Add the sugar, vanilla and cinnamon, then pour in the cream. If using a cinnamon stick take is out before pouring into a own proof dish. 

Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes, checking every 10 minuets or so. Make sure that the rice doesn't suck up all the liquid, if this does happen just add some more milk and stir. 

I was incredibly indulgent with mine, at the end I stirred through some Cornish clotted cream for that bit of extra decadence. Serve with a nice fruit jam, or alternatively, chocolate milk buttons. 

Snickers Brownies & Remembrance Weekend

This weeks baking was a quick Sunday afternoon treat. Brownies are perfect, especially with a little something extra thrown in. I wanted to put something nutty in mine, so went to the shop and picked up some Snickers. The nutty, caramel flavour pairs perfectly with the a classic brownie recipe.  

It's also remembrance weekend in the UK this weekend, so I decided that I should go and see the poppies in the Tower of London before they went. I'm generally underwhelmed by most things, not that I don't appreciate things. The poppies were very poignant. It was actually a little overwhelming trying to imagine every single flower as a person. It was truly amazing. The middle picture is of the book market on the South Bank. It's such a nice spot. 

 Here is the link to my song of the week- http://youtu.be/VHrLPs3_1Fs

Ingredients:

200g Dark chocolate, chopped

2 Snickers bars

250g Butter

65g Plain flour

80g Cocoa powder

1tsp Baking powder

360g Caster sugar

3 eggs, beaten
1tsp vanilla extract 

Preheat the oven to 180°C and line a deep baking tray. 

Melt the butter and the chocolate in a large bowl, the microwave or over a bowl of water is fine. Set aside to cool for a few minutes while beating the eggs and weighing out the flower. Add the beaten egg to the chocolate and butter along with the vanilla extract. Stir in the sugar and beat for a few minutes. Then add the flour and baking powder followed by the chopped Snickers bars. I always save a few pieces to pop on the top.
Pour into the lined tin and bake for 50 minutes, keep an eye on it, as the pieces on the top can catch and burn, if this happens, just pop a sheet of baking paper over the top and finish cooking. 
Leave to cool on a wire rack and cut into pieces. 

Lemon Drizzle Biscuits

Two of my favourite things in this world are Lemon and Drizzle. If there is any lemon based treat I'm there. I will gladly reject puddings, treats and chocolate based goods if there is an option for a food that contains that tangy lemon sourness. 

For those of you that know me, you will know that I do not buy snacks to eat at home. No crisps, chocolates or biscuits. My philosophy is that if I really want something, I have to get off my behind and make it myself. My waist line is thankful that I'm quite lazy. 

I have to admit that these biscuits are a creation of a 'chuck it in and see what happens' moment brought on by sweet cravings. People went back for more though, so apparently they turned out all right. In my head while making these biscuits, I was thinking about a cookie that tasted like lemon drizzle cake, that's probably the closest description I can think of. 

I made mine in a food processor as its easier to wash up afterwards. 

Also please remember to let me know if you make any of my recipes, I love to hear from you. You can follow me on Twitter or on instagram

Ingredients 

1 Lemon (zested and juiced)

50 g Icing sugar

70 g Brown Sugar

120 g Butter (room temperature)

150 g Plain flour

1 Egg

For the Icing

100 g Icing Sugar

1 Lemon (zested and juiced)

1 tbls warm water

To start pre heat the oven to high heat, and line a baking tray. 

Add everything but the lemon zest and juice into a food processor (or bowl) and whisk together until it comes together in a cookie dough consistency. Add in the juice and zest of one lemon until combined. The perfect tool for dishing this out onto the baking tray is an ice cream scoop, if you don't have one, just use two spoons to make dough balls and place them evenly spaced onto the baking tray. I then pressed them down with the back of a spoon and baked in the oven for 10 minutes. 

Once they are starting to brown, pop them onto a wire rack to cool. At this stage I sprinkled them with more lemon juice and let it soak in. 

While the biscuits are cooling, add all of the Icing ingredients into a bowl and mix well. Once the biscuits are cool to touch, drizzle over the icing. A handy tip when doing this is to hold the wire rack over the sink and drizzle the icing on there, as it will drip through the rack onto the work surface creating a mess.

Enjoy! 

Sunday Broccoli & Blue Cheese Soup

This week has been such a busy one, hence the lack of posting until today. I've just started a new placement as part of my university course in a psychiatric rehabilitation centre, so it's been a bit full on. I've spent most of the week following my educator around in a bit of a daze, trying to get my head around a new environment. This week I also attended a Halloween party at work, needless to say there was a lot of Tequila and dancing to thriller going on. (I'm still getting flash backs now) 

This is however, my first weekend off in a long time, so I thought what a better way to spend an Autumn weekend cooking and recovering from Halloween (the two day hangovers have arrived). I took a trip to the local farmer's market and brought some lovely blue cheese from a farm in Kent. You don't have to go a farmer's market, or Kent for that matter, any blue cheese will do. I just prefer a slightly milder one and was too lazy to walk to the super market. 

This soup is so tasty, I think it even rivals my dad's version. It took less than half an hour to make and is all done in one pot.

I want to let you all know that while I was making this soup, I was listening to this - My Song of the Week 

Ingredients

2  Large heads of broccoli

3  Cloves of garlic

200 ml Stock 

150 g Blue cheese

100 ml Double cream

2 tbls Olive oil

Salt & Pepper to taste

Start by heating the oil in a large heavy based pan, throw in the garlic cloves and leave to infuse for a minute or two. Chop the broccoli into medium pieces and put into the pan, adding the stock, salt and pepper. Leave to cook until the broccoli is tender. Scoop the broccoli into a blender, or alternatively, use a hand held blender to liquidise. Add the cream and cheese while blending. I always add a small amount of cheese at a time so that it's not over powering. Keep tasting as you're going, you may want to add more salt, pepper or cheese.