Recipe Cards

I find a lot of my recipes on the internet. If I have a particular ingredient I want to use, like if I have some bananas that are going brown, then I'll google 'banana recipe' and see what I fancy. I save the recipes I like in a draft email and cook from the laptop screen which isn't ideal. Especially when there isn't enough clean kitchen work top to put the laptop on and I have to keep walking across the kitchen to find out how much flour I need.

So I decided to print out the recipes I've found online and use repeatedly. I know this isn't a revolutionary idea, but this post is more about sharing some of my favourite recipes, and it might give you a nudge to do the same.

I designed my recipe cards in Publisher and made them roughly A6 size, because, as I mentioned, I do not have an abundance of work top space. Typing out the recipes gave me a chance to make alterations where needed. For example, there's a few recipes that I alway make half as much so I listed the ingredients at half the original quantities instead of having to calculate it each time.

I added a few coloured shapes purely for aesthetic reasons.

I printed out the cards, cut them up, and - here's the important part - laminated them. Now they're wipeable!

I punched a hole in the corner of each card and attached them together with a metal ring. Doing this will mean they take up less space than having to keep them in a box.

Here's some of the recipes I chose to print out:

Baked Oatmeal

I read about baked oatmeal on a blog and looked up a recipe for it as I was intrigued. I like the idea of porridge as a warm, filling breakfast but I have an aversion to sloppy food so it's a no go. A baked version is perfect; all the goodness of oats but with a texture that's almost like flapjack. I throw in whatever dried fruit I have and always make extra to freeze for a quick, special breakfast on a work day. Or when we've run out of milk for cereal.

Chocolate Orange Tart

I found this recipe when I was looking for a way to recreate a delicious chocolate dessert that I'd had as part of an afternoon tea in Cambridge. I made up the filling from this tart recipe and piped it into little plastic shot glasses. I highly recommend it.

Banana Pancakes

A prime example of needing to use up black bananas. These pancakes are suprisingly filling and with bacon, as the original recipe suggested, they made for a delicious breakfast.

Chicken Pie

My boyfriend and I are all about this pie. We've started buying a whole chicken to roast and then making this pie with the leftovers. The second time we made it we decided to add stuffing and cranberry sauce since it was around Christmas time and it was a game changer! 

Banana Flapjack

Another way of using up black bananas. And the recipe doesn't use eggs which is good because we don't regularly buy them.

Vegetable Pikelets

I think I found these when I was looking for healthy snacks and have made them many times. I usually go for a combination of grated carrot, courgette and spinach. My boyfriend likes them with a sweet chilli dip. I've also made sweet versions with apple, sultanas and cinnamon.

The great thing about these is that they're freezable. I think they're best when re-heated in the toaster.

What are you favourite recipes?

Cornflake Cookies

For Christmas I made my boyfriend an advent calendar using variety pack cereal boxes, which meant we had 24 little packets of cereal.
The Frosties soon disappeared over a few mornings as my boyfriend's breakfast and we've made one batch of chocolate crispie cakes (and we'll do more once Tesco decides to restock it's own brand milk cooking chocolate). But that still leaves us quite a few little bags of cereal.

In order to try something new to use up a few bags I found this recipe for cornflake cookies. I looked through a few recipes online but chose this one as it put cornflakes in the cookies mixture, not just on the outside so I thought that would use up more, and because it included chocolate chips and sultanas for extra flavour and what's not to like about that?

Once the cookie dough is made you roll blobs (technical term) of it in cornflakes. I found this part a bit tricky. I wasn't sure what kind of coverage I was meant to be going for and maybe my mixture was a bit wet as a lot of cornflakes stuck to it.

Regardless of the correct cornflake corverage these cookies were yummy and did not last long. The cookies have a bit of a cakey texture - not a bad thing - and the cornflakes become chewy rather than crunchy. The chocolate chips and sultanas are welcome additions and I even think I could've done with putting more of them in the mix.

Bring and Share Desserts

As I said on Sunday last week my friends and I had our Bring and Share Christmas Dinner.

For a look at past dinners click here.

We always split up the meal so each person brings something and this year I was given desserts.

I made an apple crumble, Christmas cookies and a chocolate cake.

This was the recipe I used for the apple crumble. Just some notes I jotted down from my Mum's instructions.

I'd never made one before but I think my first attempt when pretty well.

It was just your standard apple crumble, but I added some dried cranberries in with the apple for a festive touch.

I used a simple sugar cookies recipe for the Christmas cookies and made some into snowmen...

...and some into snowflakes complete with a sprinkling of edible glitter. Because it's Christmas!

There were also some angels, stars and Christmas trees.

The cookies were a big hit with my friends wrapping up the left over ones to take home.

And finally the chocolate cake.

I used this recipe and it is a winner.

I finished it off with some dark chocolate curls from Jordans Mill.

Jordans as in the cereal company, so these chocolate curls are the same ones you get in the chocolate Country Crisp.

We had way to much food so some of these came back home with me - but my family weren't complaining!

Banana Flapjack

We still have an abundance of over-ripe bananas so as well as the muffins, we now have flapjacks.

I used this simple recipe from Netmums which is just oats, bananas, brown sugar, syrup, butter and raisins.

In a recipe I've used before it said to soak the raisins (I also added sultanas) in boiling water first, which I did this time. I makes them a bit juicier.

My family concluded that this recipe could have done with an extra flavour.

They don't taste bad, they could just do with a little something something.

If I'd have had my head in the game I would have added some mixed spice like I did with the banana muffins.
But I didn't have my head in the game. Because Steel Magnolias was on tv.

And because there's fruit in them you can totally have two pieces at once and not feel bad about it.

Banana Muffins

My friends and I always buy too much food for things like picnic lunches, and shopping for Centre Parcs was no different. I ended up taking home the leftover, well travelled, bananas only to find that my parents already had a lot of bananas at home.

There was only one thing for it.

Banana muffins.

I used this recipe which I followed exactly, except for adding some mixed spice for an extra flavour. I left them in for exactly 30 minutes so the top has a nice crust.

I added sultanas to the last few just to try it out and they're a good addition so next time I'll add them to the main batter.

What do you do to use up brown bananas?

Any good banana bread recipes around?

Courgette Cake

My parents like to grow courgettes in the garden.

Then they like to go on holiday and leave me to look after them.

This year I didn't forget about them and then find some were way over a foot long.

I picked one at the appropriate size, I think. I'm not actually sure if this is a good size because I don't like courgettes all that much which is why I decided to make cake with it!

I'd never tried this recipe before, but I have eaten the cakes that my Mum's made with it and I think I did a pretty good job.

(This recipe is from somewhere on the internet but I've just typed out the printed copy we have)

Ingredients:

60g raisins

250g courgettes [2 or 3] weighed before grating 

(I've just properly read this bit. My one courgette was something like 340g before grating. Once I'd grated it and strained the excess water it was exactly 250g. Oh well, extra courgette!)

2 large eggs

125ml vegetable oil

150g caster sugar

225g self-raising flour

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda.

1/2 tsp baking powder

Oven 180c/Gas Mark 4

1) Grate courgettes and remove excess water with a sieve.

2) Cream eggs, oil and sugar together.

3) Add flour, bicard and baking powder.

4) Stir in courgette and raisins.

5) Bake for 30 minutes as a whole cake or cupcakes.

I made 12 muffins and put the rest of the mixture in a loaf tin.

They taste good guys, nothing like courgettes, and you can legitimately eat more of them because there's a vegetable in them.

Gotta get that 5 a day somehow.

Cupcake for One

Last week my sister spent a long time helping me with my CV and things so to say thank you I made her this cupcake!

You know that bit in Bridesmaids where Kristen Wiig makes and decorates a single cupcake.

Well I wanted to do that, so I googled single cupcake recipes and came across a recipe for a single funfetti cupcake on Chocolate Covered Katie

There's loads of single serving cupcakes and other desserts on there. Well worth checking out.

Everything is measured in tablespoons and the key is using oil instead of egg, because it doesn't make sense to just use a bit of any egg.

When I was mixing the ingredients it was looking a bit doughy so I added more milk so get a better batter consistency. 

Then I tried making it again, following the recipe exactly and I think the cupcakes came out pretty much the same. This just meant that I could have one as well as my sister.

Putting sprinkles in a cupcake is awesome.

The taste is different to a regular cupcake, but still delicious.

I'm excited to try out some of the other recipes on the website.

Best Cookie Ever?

When I was in Nashville I had The Best Cookie Ever.

I'm pretty sure it was the best.

No others from my cookie-eating history stick out as the best.

And, I only had half of it. I only needed half of it cos it was so full of awesome!

(And I was sharing it with my sister)

Here's a fun video of me describing my lunch, which included the cookie, in my best southern accent.

We had an hour to kill before seeing the Kings of Leon. What else was I supposed to do!

(Southern-me cracks me up. Also, who remembers when I didn't have braces?!)

The other day I thought I'd like to do some baking, so I flicked through a recipe book and landed on oat and raisin cookies. And then I thought, 'what if I could make them like the Nashville cookie?'

This is what I came up with.

Note: I was trying to replicate the flavour, not the look of the cookie. Clearly.

I remembered the Nashville cookie tasted of mixed spice and had visible carrot in it.

The recipe I was using had neither of those things, but I put them in anyway!

Yep, I'm a recipe renegade!

The cookies didn't turn out too bad. I'm definitely on the right track.

I think next time I could afford to put in more mixed spice and more carrot.

Also more butter because they were a little crumbly, but the recipe called for 4 tablespoons of butter and I like to be more precise and use grams or ounces like a normal person.

Here's the recipe if anyone is interested:

4 tbsp butter

125g caster sugar

1 egg

50g plain sugar

1/2 tsp salt

(I've just realised I forgot to put in the salt. I didn't miss it)

1/2 tsp baking powder

175g porridge oats

125g raisins

I added: 1 small carrot, grated, and many shakes of mixed spice

15 minutes on Gas Mark 4

What's your Best Cookie Ever?