A Valentine's day feast

For Valentine's day my valentine and I attended the beautiful home of Carly and her fiance. With the help of a good friend Donna Hay, they whipped up the most perfect three course meal. I am so jealous at how easy these two masterchefs make cooking seem and when my valentine and I were put in charge of desert, I was super surprised at how delicious and successful it was!

My Valentine of 4 years, Carly (Temperley Homes), Myself and Carly's Fiance

The Valentine's Day Menu:

Leek and Ricotta Tarts

Bacon wrapped beef with red wine glaze

Chocolate molten cakes with raspberry's

Carly (owner of Temperley Homes) ALWAYS puts in so much effort to make everything feel so special.

Leek and Ricotta Tarts


500g fresh ricotta cheese 
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese 
2 eggs 
600g ready-prepared puff pastry 
1 leek, trimmed and finely sliced 
45g butter, melted 
2 teaspoons thyme leaves 
Sea salt and cracked black pepper 

Such a delicious and super easy entree!

Bacon Wrapped Beef with Red Wine Glaze

30g butter
1 leek, sliced
1 tbs horseradish (not actually sure if we used this for our dinner)
4 x 250g fillet steaks
8 rashers bacon
salt and pepper
50g butter
1/2 cup red wine
1/2 cup beef stock
2 tbs redcurrant jelly
salt and pepper 


180C

Firstly, melt butter in a frying pan and cook the leek for 3-4mins until soft. Mix the leek with horseradish.

For each peice of steak, lay out a rasher of bacon. Then top the bacon with the leek mixture. 

Place the leek mixture on the bacon rashers. 

Sprinkle steaks with salt and pepper wrap in the bacon, securing with string. 

Cook the steaks for around 1-2 mins each side in a frying pan (set on high). Then, cook for 10-15 mins in the oven (180 degrees) or until cooked to your preferred taste! 

For the DELICIOUS red win glaze: 

Place wine, beef stock, red current jelly, leftover butter and salt and pepper in a pan. Boil the mixture for around  8-10 minutes. 

Carly made served our delicious bacon wrapped beef with sweet potato mash and green beans. It was SO SO good!


Chocolate Molten Cakes with Ice cream and Raspberries

1/4 cup plain flour
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup almond meal
2 egg whites (beaten)
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
Approx 170g dark chocolate, melted
4 squares dark chocolate 


Combine flour, sugar, almond meal, egg whites, butter and melted chocolate well.


Spoon half the mixture into lightly greased ramekins. Place one chocolate square on top of the mixture in each ramekin and then cover with the remaining mixture. 

Bake for 20 to 30 minutes, once slightly cooled, add the icecream and frozen raspberries. 

And that was our V-day feast! SO Easy and SO Delish!! Enjoy!  

My first fail whale

Ahhh its times like these I never wish I had a blog about learning to cook. I guess that maybe starting this blog has made me think that I would be an amazing cook straight away. How wrong is was.

Anyways, I saw this lovely Coffee Banana Cake in the December issue of Frankie Magazine. I wanted to cook it for agggesss and thought a work afternoon tea would be the perfect time.

So I began.

125g soft butter
1 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup soft brown sugar
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract (substituted with vanilla flavouring)
1 cup very strong coffee, cooled (2 tbsp of instant coffee in 1 cup boiling water)
2 eggs
3 large bananas, mashed
1/2 cup plain greek yoghurt
1 1/2 cups plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp of baking soda
3/4 cup of walnuts (if you want)

Cream butter and sugars together until light and fluffy.

Beat in the vanilla and two tbsp of the cooled coffee.

Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each.

Beat in the mashed banana a little bit at a time.

Stir in the yoghurt.

Sift in the baking powder, baking soda and flour then stir into the mixture (with walnuts if you want)

Pour into tin and bake for 50-60 minutes at 180 degrees. 



Let it cool and then ice the cake with delicious coffee/cream cheese icing (which consists of 3 cups icing sugar, 100g soft butter, 200g room temperature cream cheese, 3/4 tbsp of cooled coffee all beaten up)

End result: to be honest, not great. The cake didn't rise much and it was pretty mushy (i'm guessing too much banana?)

However, my dad pretty much demolished the cake. I had a piece and it was actually pretty yummy apart from the crappy look and total mushy-ness. It was super sweet too so maybe hold the vanilla or a bit of sugar?

Anyways, the first fail was bound to happen so here it is! If anyone else has a go let me know how it all turns out!

Here's to less failure and more success. 

HAPPY BAKING!

A zombie and a zucchini slice

Since I had a super busy weekend, I didn't get the chance to cook something new!

So, half asleep and trying to keep myself awake for a 9pm netball game, I decided I wanted to attempt zucchini slice again.

I've tried it once before and it was yummy but a bit soggy. So I cut out potato and stuck to simplicity.

So here it goes:

2-3 grated zucchini's
2 grated carrots
1/2 chopped red capsicum
Half onion thinly chopped
1/2 cup oil
4 eggs
1 cup self-raising flour
1 cup grated tasty cheese
2-3 slices ham or bacon
Salt and pepper

Mix and bake for 30-40 mins at 180 degrees

End result: Delicious! A little bit soggy still so I am letting it sit in the oven to dry. Nonetheless, much better than last time!