Je Goûterai - I will taste
28.6.12 - 52 recipes done!
Next target, 104 recipes to reach by the end of the year!
I woke up this morning at 8:30, contacts still in, make-up smeared across my face and hair stinking of sick. It was not a good morning. I guzzled myself a couple of glasses of water, took out my lenses, texted people apologising for the previous night’s behaviour and went back to sleep for 3 hours.
On next waking up, I lied in bed for about an hour playing super Mario on my DS and hid under my covers from the world, it was time…. I needed to face the music and somehow stand up.
I made it. My feet touched the ground and I felt as if I had aged 50 years in seconds. I was hunched over, shuffling around to find my glasses and was shaking from the hangover. I needed to eat or there would be another repeat of last night’s awful end.
Holding myself onto the banister, I made my way down stairs to the kitchen. I usually have poached eggs when I’m hungover, fresh, healthy and filling. I had no eggs. I remembered I had bought myself an issue of Women’s Health the other day for something to read on the train back from London (will post about this trip soon!) and there was a section of Healthy-super-foods for breakfast, one of which was a refreshing looking smoothie. I never have them either so I decided to give it a try!
Serves one
250ml of semi-skimmed milk or soya milk (I had light soya c: )
1 banana chopped
2 tbsp good quality cocoa powder
2 tsp honey
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Stick in a blender (or a jug and use a hand blender) and blend.
Took all over 2 minutes and created a deeply rich, smooth drink. The bitter chocolate was hushed by the sweetness of the banana and the honey. Depending on what kind of honey you use, you can bring different dimensions of flavour to the smoothie too. (If you’re vegan you can replace the honey with something like Agave Syrup) And it was so healthy! You get a bit of fat from the milk but with tons of protein too, potassium from the banana and a naughty bit of chocolate heaven. It was a life saver. It completely settled my stomach, got rid of the shakes and I feel 100 times better. Now I’m hungry again so gonna have something solid to eat! haha
(Sorry there isn’t a photo…. I couldn’t function properly this morning let alone gather the energy to pick up my camera and take a decent picture.)
No. 79: Tortilla with Huevos Rancheros – 27.2.13
I have a game for my Nintendo DS called ‘Cooking Guide’. I hadn’t used it in ages so thought I’d have a look through some of the recipes. I found this lurking in the recipes of Mexico and it was so simple I had to try it. I went straight to the shop to get tortillas and had them ready for breakfast.
Serves 1 (Because, to be honest, most of us are alone in the morning…….. I think……) You will need a frying pan with a lid!
1 tbsp olive oil
100g Whole tomatoes, tinned
1/8thof an onion
Dash of Chilli Sauce
dash Olive Oil
1 tortilla
2 eggs
pinches of salt and black pepper, to taste
Finely chopped flat leaf parsley (op)
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Peel and finely chop the onion. Add the olive oil into a sauce pan and fry on a medium heat until softened.
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Add the tomatoes, breaking them up with your spoon as they cook. Season, cover and simmer for 10minutes over a low heat, remember to stir the mixture as it cooks so it doesn’t stick or burn.
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Once reduced, remove from heat, stir in the chilli sauce and set to one side.
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Brush some oil over a frying pan and heat on low. Crack each egg into a bowl.
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Place the tortilla in the frying pan and spoon over the salsa and pour the eggs on top. Season with salt and pepper and cover with the lid.
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Cook the eggs until set, slide onto a plate and garnish with parsley.
This was a fiery way to start the day! I added a little more chilli sauce for good measure on top which was delicious! The warm salsa contrasted so well with the creamy runny yolk. The tortilla crisped up in the pan and by the end of it, I could pick it up like mini pizza slices. It was such a simple and hearty way to start the morning. My only downfall with this was the original recipe. It said to only partially cook the eggs, it came with a photo of the ‘final outcome’ and the most part of the egg was raw. Hell no am I eating eggs like that, no thank you. Just make sure the white it thoroughly cooked when you come to eating it and it’ll all be a-okay!
Oh. And Yes. That is a double yolked egg in that picture, suck on it.
22.2.13: Breakfast of 2 fried eggs and some pan fried balsamic cherry tomatoes c:
I know sometimes it feels like I only ever post photos of eggs but I don’t care.
My Beautiful Breakfast Eggs :)
Recipe can be found on my new food blog ^.^
Colourful cooking yesterday morning c:
Breakfast :)
Just some malt wheaties, soy milk and half a chopped banana with 2 poached eggs and some winter fruit squash :) yumyumyum!
Breakfast 22.7.12 : Crumpets, fruit salad and fruit juice :)
No. 55: Spring Onion Pancakes with Poached Eggs – 21.7.12
I came across this recipe whilst looking at cheese recipes on the BBC Food website, there was a section for recipes including Cottage Cheese so I was intrigued to have a look! I found this recipe for pancakes incorporated with cottage cheese and spring onions which is topped with a creamy sauce and a poached egg. I had nearly all of the ingredients and had quite a bit of time this morning to kill during the hours I waited to find out if I had to be in for work or not. Don’t be too scared about this long list of ingredients you need! Most of you will have these as majority are store cupboard ingredients which you or your parents will have :)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/springonionpancakesw_93774
Serves 4
For the Pancakes
150g self raising flour
1 tsp bicarb of soda
1 egg
50g butter melted
250ml milk
125g cottage cheese
4 Spring onions finely chopped
pinch of salt and pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
For the sauce
2 tbsp oil
1 onion, peeled and finely sliced
50ml white wine
1 tbsp grain mustard (I used Dijon which worked fine)
250ml double cream (I used half fat crème fraiche because that’s all I had! It worked fine too!)
½ lemon, juice only
Pinch of salt and pepper
To serve
200g Spinach, cooked
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
50g butter
4 eggs, poached to serve
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For the Pancakes, mix flour and bicarb together in one bowl and in another, combine the egg, butter milk and cottage cheese.
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Combine the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until well combined. Then fold in the spring onions and season to taste with the salt and pepper.
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Heat the oil in a frying pan and pour 2 tablespoons of the mix into the pan to form round pancakes. Cook for 2-3 minutes on each side and repeat until all the mix is used up
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For the Sauce, heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the onion for 2-3 minutes or until they have softened then add the wine and cook until nearly it has nearly all evaporated.
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Stir in the mustard and cream and season to taste. Cook until the liquid has reduced by a third then add the lemon juice to taste.
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To Serve, mix the spinach, butter and nutmeg together and finish it off with a bit of seasoning.
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Place a pancake onto each plate, top with some spinach then a poached egg and spoon over the sauce.
So I hadn’t used Spinach. Whilst eating the meal I knew there was a flavour missing. The sauce was delicious, sort of like a Béchamel sauce and I like to make mine with dijon mustard and nutmeg. I was missing some nutmeg as I hadn’t made the spinach so hadn’t added the nutmeg dimension which went with that part of the recipe. I now have slightly become increasingly obsessed with anything cooked in white wine. The wine used in the sauce was very subtle but worked so well!
There were a few little issues with this recipe. One was my timing. By the time the sauce and eggs were done my pancakes had gone cold! And two, was the amount of oil used to fry the pancakes. It was unnecessary. The first pancakes I made where greasy and just yuk! I drained them on some kitchen roll but it didn’t help too much! However all the flavours worked really well together! The cottage cheese gave little creamy bursts within the pancakes, whereas the spring onion gave a fresh crunch.
Overall a really lovely breakfast but don’t leave anything out, use less oil and make sure your timing is swell!
Saturday:
This was the one day I didn’t have poached eggs for breakfast, I felt I needed a change so went for the full English. For the rest of the day I wanted to go for healthier options and ended up carrying on my day with vegetarian dishes which were all delicious
For Lunch I wanted to show Ryan the island and go to Gorey for lunch but it was pissing it down. We waited in the pouring rain for our bus for around half an hour and upon arrival, it carried on past our stop because it was full. I wanted to cry. We ended up heading back into town and went to a reasonably priced café called Café Society. It was dark and raining outside so I wanted something warming and comforting to help the mood so went for the soup of the day, Sweet Potato and Parsnip soup with slices of white and brown baguette . The soup was nice, wasn’t too sweet neither did it have an over powering parsnip taste, it could have been a little thicker but the main thing I wanted to talk about was the bread. Well not the bread, the butter.
Each morning at breakfast we have toast with those little butter portions and jam (English butter) and with my baguette was Jersey butter portions. You could instantly taste the difference. The colour was a richer and darker yellow, it was so much more creamier and I had forgotten how perfect it was. Dipping it into the soup and feeling it melt from the heat of it when biting into the submerged piece was heavenly. If you ever get the chance to have Jersey butter, preferably salted, try it. Simply on bread or toast, a jacket potato or on some Jersey Royals, perfection.
We later went for dinner with our friend Bruce/Hollie and her boyfriend Patrick at this restaurant named The Green Olive which I think used to be a Vegan and Vegetarian restaurant but now had expanded to having poultry and fish dishes on the menu. I decided to pick a dish from the specials menu; there were loads of lovely looking fish dishes and a gorgeous looking duck dish but I wanted veg veg veg! I went for the Butternut Squash and Sun Blushed Tomato Risotto with Honey Roasted Parsnips and Carrot and Parsnip crisps on top (along with a big unnecessary bunch of Rocket on top). It was amazing! It was so creamy and sweet from the squash and the tomatoes were rich and deep in flavour. It was nice to have the honey roast parsnips on top as they added extra texture as well as the crisps which almost melted when eaten with the risotto. The risotto had been perfectly cooked and every texture and flavour was perfectly combined!
Thursday:
Breakfast: We were staying at a B&B throughout our stay in Jersey so had breakfast at our hotel. One of my friends had told me the restaurant at our hotel was meant to be really good so I had kind of high expectations at breakfast. First day I had Poached Eggs on toast. It came as 2 eggs, half a grilled tomato and half a slice of toast. Yes. Half a slice. Which had gone soggy from the eggs. So I was a bit disappointed at first however we were given lots of toast with the breakfast on the side which I used instead. Almost every single day I had Poached Eggs on toast; they were amazing. They were perfectly cooked, the white was gorgeously thick and the yolks were runny and oozed out over my toast. They were the most perfect poached eggs I have ever eaten and had them every single morning bar one day. The were delicious.
Lunch: After a cycle to St Aubins and a wander round town, it came to lunch time and we were starving. We didn’t want to spend too much money and ended up going to a restaurant/bar named ‘Bliss’. There’s a Bliss club in Bournemouth but it didn’t seem to be the same chain so we went inside for our lunch.
We both ordered the same thing, a Club Sandwich which came with chips however we were pleasantly surprised that it came with home made crisps!
Which were disappointingly not seasoned but when I added a pinch of salt and pepper they were delicious! I’ve never had home made crisps before so it had been a nice surprise! The sandwich itself was well executed, as every flavour within the sandwich worked with each other. It contained chicken, caramelised onion marmalade, thin slices of Chorizo and Pancetta, and Rocket. Just to say, right now, I hate rocket although the little amount in the sandwich actually worked really well with all the other ingredients
