Bake

This month Ihave finally been able to focus! My mood has always been sensitive to the weather, but the last couple of months the weather has been particular bad and so has been my mood. I have finally got some outside help, to get me to focus and care and during my month of clarity I cooked areceipe everyday. I finally cut a vintage 50s fabric to make into a full skirt. And I baked my staple Chocolate butter cake to be wheeled out at birthdays, betrays and crap interview. The Man requested his birthday cake to be heart shaped and chocolate. The cake is easy to make and very moist because of the milk, water and amount of butter it contains. The chocolate icing keeps it together, still lovely. I picked the receipe up from the website allreceipes.

Get Cooking!

I have started on the Atkins journey again and this time I am doing it well, 80% properly anyway. I have been making a few recipe of the site, such as Chicken Curry. However I have become bored of having Ryvita as my bread, so with the power of the internet I discovered the 24/7 low carb diner blogspot and in particular this recipe http://247lowcarbdiner.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/mr-peanut-sandwich-bread.html I decided not to make the bread as I don’t have bread tins so thought I would use muffin tins. The 1st batch came out awful too much vinegar and very flat pic 2. I decided to tweak the recipe using the same ingredients I did for a pancake. I used about one teaspoon of peanut butter to one egg and 1/3 of a teaspoon of baking powder. I left the vinegar out and added honey, cinnamon and vanilla extract. I have to say I prefer the use of peanut butter over ground almonds and this will become a breakfast favourite and staple in the battle of the bulge. Pic 1 is the winning result! Im actual enjoying doing the Atkins now.

Bath- Last Day

Fudgetastic




Bath Monthly Vintage Fair
Bath Vintage Fair is a monthly occasion I was in love with this particular stall they had some great vintage men's 50s jacket. Unfortunately when I got there I saw a flyer for an even better fair that was happening on the same day! I was gutted. There was a few places for vintage in Bath, i visited Scarlet Vintage, the flea market on the Saturday but I saw very little and it was petite sizing. I was give the tip to go to Clifton for anique shops you can pick up a bus from Bristol or Frome bus from Bath can take you there, but I had run out of time.
To find out more about Baths undercover vintage fair visit
http://vintageandantiques.co.uk/



I also have bought some shirt clips and 2 tie clips but I seem to miss place them.

Sally Lunn Tea Room






The Sally Lunns Bun was too die for, I didn't eat in but a takeaway was just as nice.

I stayed at a Hostel called St Christopher Inn which was cheap and cheerful and the food wasn't bad either. Cost for 3 nights was £52.

Can you Guess?

Ice Cream At the Seaside from Scoop and Crumb.


Dinos at the Shopping Centre.












Brighton

New You- Day 1

Three weeks ago I picked up in the library The Dukan Diet, I have already heard about the book when it was first launched " the new Atkins" they screamed. I have done the Atkins and it worked for me helped me to lose the access weight and more before I stabilised at weight half between a weight lose of 2 stone. First I want to lose some of the fat, then if my job interview is successful also hit the gym for toning. I am starting the diet just as I have a vacation as the water requirements make it hard to do it while at work and a week before my night out so no drinking but diet drinks.

I am looking to lose 2 stone, acquired another stone during another stressful year. Already I changed my habits reduced the number of sweets by 3/4 (achieved no weight lose), increased my food budget ( disposable income now lower).According to my health form is £7.90 a week, so it will take 3 weeks to make the cost of a single dental treatment according to the NHS. Eat a lot of yogurt daily,for the sweet cravings. Already my workwear is looser, in time for a replacement.

First stage is Attack Phase last 1-7 days

Foods you may eat are
Fish and Seafood (tinned Tuna
Meat no skin (lean cuts, except Duck and Goose)
Offal
Yogurt (fat free, natural, fromage frais) limited on fruit yogurt
1 Oat bran gelatin (oat bran,egg, quark or natural yogurt)
Loads of water
Tea and coffee with skimmed milk
Small amount of condiments (gherkin/onion slices)

I'm guessing the cost of the first stage if I had to buy full price food items would be £15-20. So far I have spent £15 but that has been for more then a week food includes some spices and food bags.
I'm must admit it took me a while to figure out what was natural flavoured yogurt as everything is labeled low fat, bio pot and probiotic. I guessing low fat is okay, as I have been eating it regularly and achieved inches weight loss.
But Asda has been doing all the yoghurt's types I can eat at half price. Once you get over the first and 2nd stage the cost of the diet will become less.


Breakfast
2 Eggs
1 fat free Muller yogurt
sugar free gum

Coments: Sometimes I have a craving for eggs and beans and it tastes amazing. Egg on its own, not so much. At 11am my stomach was feeling uncomfortable too much yogurt I imagine and not enough bran.


Lunch

Mackerel in a bag
Some low fat yogurt from a pot

Snack
Oat bran gelatin

Dinner
Chicken

Dessert
Fromage frais( rediscovered that I like it and a particular flavour because it taste like apple banana pie.

A unnaturally long post, couldn't do without pictures.

Supermarkets Go All Patisserie

You know I love cake.
Nothing like a piece of good cake and a cup of tea on a rubbish day. Well it seems the Supermarkets too have realised this, and they have up the ante in the cake wars. Now for some strange reason lots of Milkshake places have emerged yet very few contenders to the Gregg's Bakers throne.
Tesco stocks cream Whoopees and Asda has recently jumped on the wagon with its new Indulgent Treat Line.
After my bad experience with stale red velvet cake from Selfridges, I thought I would try some of those Supermarket cake lines.
Desperate for cupcake fix, I tried the red velvet cupcake (£1.75) they looked great but tasted artificial, I then tried the Mississippi Mud Pie Cupcakes, again they looked great had a chocolate taste but that weird artificial sweetness again. I moved onto the loaf cakes, first Banana Chocolate cake loaf (£2.69?), tasted like banana foam sweets, with that weird tasting chocolate coating. I then tried the Lemon Drizzle cake Loaf, surely they could get that right? And they did base was moist with the normal slightly acidic lemon flavoured icing with lemon shavings.


image courtesy of asda magazine

To introduce the new range of indulgent treat Adsa had 25% of single cakes so for £0.60 I tried the Mini Toffee Cake, which was very nice and moist with buttercream icing my favourite. The next day I fancied another cake, the cookies had all gone but why not an iced doughnut, after all most supermarkets fail epically in this. I picked up a lemon glazed doughnut with a lemon curd filling (£0.38) it tastes very similar to a lemon Krispy Creme doughnut and much nicer then the Mini Toffee Cake.
So does not only Asda do the freshest cookies and pastries it does mean little cakes a well. Think I will enjoy my weekly sweet fix so much more.

image courtesy of asda magazine

Taste sometimes changes with Age

As I got older my food tastes have changed, I like beetroot, dont mind porridage but do I still hate Dominos pizza? A new store had just opened and for a £1 why not? Happpy to note they have someone who makes the pizza bases but I only saw her make one during the 15 minutes I was there and it was extra large size.
The sauce is dodgy tastes like really cheap pasta sauce without the sweetness, cheese very plastic, the only good thing was the crust.

Puffs Away

What do you do with a reduced roll of puff pastry, some dried out red onions, passata and a chunk of cheese?






Pear and puff pastry pie, surprising not that nice.

Its not a real home until its been Baked in!

I have now fully transported myself to the new digs. After 6hrs of cleaning the kitchen I can now bake, without the worry of getting food poisoning.
So what did I bake! Profiteroles
I guessed the measurements so the first batch didn't rise enough, the second did. The cream mixture didn't thicken enough but with the help of a fridge it did. I substituted the chocolate for a lower coca % which with the quantity of chocolate sauce was too sweet.



Profiteroles Recipe
75g of plain flour
150g Butter
300g of at least 50% coca chocolate
1 tablespoon of granulated sugar
300ml of double cream
2 large free range eggs

Pre heat oven to 220C, grease two sheets of baking paper, sprinkle with water.
Melt 50g of butter with 150ml of water with a pinch of salt, boil fast.
Remove from heat then tip in flour and beat with a wooden spoon, set aside for 15minutes.

Gradually beat in eggs until shiny and glossy, spoon onto baking sheets with a wet spoon. Bake for 25minutes or til golden, pierce side and cook for a further 5 minutes.

Heat50g of chocolate in a pan with the sugar and 100ml of water, simmer for 10 minutes.

Whip the cream until it peaks add with the chocolate mixture.
Slice the cooled profiteroles and spoon the chocolate cream mixture in.

Melt the rest of the chocolate over a bowl of water to create the chocolate sauce to serve which can keep for 2 weeks. Decorate the profiteroles.

Thursday browsing

I love cake! And my favourite place to buy cake is from Selfridges in London, really I was there to decide whether I should spend £10 on OPI nail colour Barefoot in Barcelona. I didn't buy it but I saw some skinny types tucking to huge slices of cake. Have you ever watched the 1950's film Pollyanna? Well in the fairground scene, theirs a shot of kids being cut huge slabs of cake, that's how big it was. Unfortunately the red velvet cake didn't taste as nice as it looked, and it was too soft for me to try and cut it into two pieces.

Of course I had to visit Gillian at Alfie's Antique market and couldn't resist purchasing my vintage gold plated french ring. The way I see it, I'm trying to support the vintage economy, last week I went to Angel, Islington which used to be a vintage paradise, but now most of the sellers have had to move on as the landlords have sold their rental space to developers. Their used to be an arcade but know its some posh American brand import clothing line, too boring and preppy for my liking, but I was shocked the arcade had been turned into a shop.


Like Dita I would match rather have vintage jewellery that's big and fake rather then tiny and real, but then again I like the fact they took so much time to make it look like the real deal.