Palmiers for Breakfast

I love palmiers, I had my first in gorgeous Tuscan Italy under the sun. Visiting the leaning tower, spending the evening listening to street musicians at Ponte Veccio and chowing down some beautiful fresh seafood pallets and Florentine steak. Foodies paradise! Palmiers are a great way to cook your own breakfast, fresh and fast when we're rushed in the early morning. Pack these in a small bag and take them for snacking during the day too.

Drunken Chocolate Soufflé

A week later, not much has changed with me! But recently got a new job with the local Go Karting centre, we had a staff championship Grand Prix yesterday. An hour down the road to Bristol for our regional heats and it's pretty safe to say I came dead last. Yeah, I thought it was going to be a friendly few laps around the track. Boy was I wrong, I got up to the changing rooms and half the lads strolled up with a duffel bag filled with their own jumpsuits and helmets. Oh crap. This is going to be pretty serious. I looked at another recently hired guy and said, it's just me and you. Head to head. It's going to be a free for all. It was, I gave it my all and didn't spin out once! But as an overall centre we won!! So hey, round 2 next week I best get some practise in no?

Anyway to the soufflé, I was attempting to make a gorgeous chocolate and mango tarte with a luxurious chocolate and caramel ganache. I failed terribly at the first hurdle of home made custard mixing in a fresh mango puree. If anyone has a good recipe or tips for this please help me out! I was left with a lumpy brown mess... so that went in the bin. Waste?! I wanted a new challenge and gave up on the mango. This is incredibly easy and I was so shocked that I actually got a good rise from it! Score, smile returned to my face at last. I hate defeat. This recipe only takes 4 ingredients and if your an avid Baileys drinker you've just saved yourself a trip to the shops.

Ingredients:

3 Egg whites

35g Dutch press cocoa powder (unsweetened)

30g Caster sugar

40ml Baileys (or liqueur of choice)

Prep: Using 1 tbsp of cocoa powder and 1 tbsp of sugar. Grease the ramekins and dust with cocoa sugar mixture. To evenly coat. Preheat oven to 190 degrees.

Recipe:

1. Mix liqueur and cocoa powder in a small bowl.

2. In a separate bowl whisk egg whites adding sugar in parts to form stiff peaks. This is roughly 6-8 minutes using an electing hand mixer.

3. Once stiff (You can try the over the head trick if your confident enough!) Spoon half the mix into the choc mix and fold in using a figure of 8 motion.

4. Once mixed in well add the remaining egg mix and repeat.

5. Spoon into ramekins and bake for 13 minutes.

Top Tips: 

 - Be sure to completely coat the ramekins with butter and cocoa sugar mix! This will help the rise.

 - Completely mix in the eggs. No streaks or marbling. This will again effect the rise and flavour, leaving patches of tasteless egg white.

 - Do not knock or disturb the air you've built up or you'll get a flat blob.

This is best served within the first 2 minutes after removing from the oven. This leaves such little time for any other decoration. So if you have something in mind make sure you have it ready! I just dusted with icing sugar because I didn't think they would actually work, hence the lack of photos! They needed a little whip and my usual photo shoots, but there was just no time haha! They look a little grubby on the edges but that never effects the taste eh ;)

Until Next Time xo

Dont forget my giveaway is closing soon, win 4 pieces of diva jewellery! 

Click here to enter.

Chicken in 15 minutes

I've been obsessed with Jamie's 15 minutes meals recently. Fast food, but healthy food. I seem to have no sense in planning my meals, I'm either spending ages planning a meal and waiting around to get hungry or just in a complete rush and end up having something crap to eat like a pasty. This wouldn't be so bad if I'd made them myself and froze them or something.. (hrmm maybe I'll give that a go actually!) But if you didn't already know, most store bought pasty's can hide up to around 30g of fat per pasty. Yeah! If you've been following my twitter  then you'll know I've been walking a lot recently and it's so painful to feel refreshed and fit then eat something greasy and well not that flavourful. This trick I got from watching Mr Oliver. It's something I maybe wouldn't do to every meal! But it's just amazing for a faster cook.

Faster Than Domino's

So I thought if all those Pizza places from those American films can get a pizza to you in '30 minutes or it's free...' Either what sort of pre-made crap are we eating. OR I can do it in 30 mins..

No but really, I just thought I'm hungry for pizza. Haha. This recipe is so simple and literally takes only 30 minutes. I think it's relatively healthy, well a lot if your comparing it to any fast food place's food.

The best thing about pizza is that there are no rules! You can pretty much do what ever you want, so this just makes it even easier if your a student or just in a rush getting home. All you need are things you have around the house that take your fancy at the time. 

Take 200g plain flour

1 sachet of yeast

150ml of warm (Not boiling water)

Mix until a thick goey dough forms.

The key is to not add any more flour, even when your rolling.

Then just make a sauce with tinned tomato's, whatever seasoning you like, then into a blender.

Add toppings - cook for 15/20 minutes at 200 celsius. 

What do you think? Maybe I'll try doing a few gourmet mix match recipes? But for now, this was just so quick and simple!

Until Next Time xo

Busted

Have you ever walked around the high street and found some gorgeous stuff, but its just way out of your price range. But you think hey, I'll treat myself. Walk next door and find the item you just bought for cheaper? Well in most cases these businesses import from large factories so you could find duplicates everywhere?! And I'm going to give away a secret to you. eBay. There are so many independent small shops and wholesalers online that offer these items at ridiculously cheap prices. 

I found this gorgeous antler bracelet when I had a 'stocking fillers' notification, I immediately put it into my basket and continued browsing before going to pay. Then I thought about it and realised how quickly I'd been sucked in by these constant emails and notifications to spend my money on impulse! Having a quick look on eBay within a few minutes I'd found loads more for half the price including shipping. The left picture is £10 and the right is £6. Great advice? 

Another example, clearly you can see a difference in quality with the extra beads and genuine silver. But as fashion jewellery that comes in and out of fashion very quickly, its perfect! I got this with free delivery, granted it took 20 days to come as it was direct from the supplier in China. But for £1 I'm not complaining. This was my best kept secret so be careful who you tell about this! Happy shopping.

Until Next Time xo

Quick and Delicious

After having one of those days where your just so busy you forget to eat or mainly just don't have the time? We got home and realised how hungry we were and couldn't wait for a take away or to even cook a big meal. So instead here is another fast recipe meal!

For the starter:

Using some ready made fish goujons (cheating I know!) put in the oven on 200 degrees for 15 mins.

Simply wash off some lettuce and stack roughly on a small plate. 

Chop some avocado, red pepper and dress with olive oil, salt, pepper and a wedge of lemon. To add a bit more flavour I sprinkled some oregano too, but its still delicious without.

Main:

Even more simply, fry the steaks in olive oil with a slight seasoning of salt and pepper with some garlic in a shallow pan.

Slice tomatoes in half and fry lightly with bacon. Grill chips in the oven alongside the goujons.

Garnish and serve. 

A very basic recipe, I think when your rushing you should have some quick and easy things in mind and in the freezer to avoid the fast food. I've fallen into that trap many times before! What do you think? Something you would try, I personally think it looks like a lot more effort than is actually needed. Which is also great.

Heres a great tip for testing your steak. Touch the tip of your thumb to the finger which stands for the wellness of your steak. Then touch your steak (remember its hot) and compare.
Until Next Time xo