Category Archives: Food Friday

Poached egg & mushroom on tomato & pepper couscous

I had the idea of making eggs benedict with a large mushroom instead of the muffin. Then I decided to make it into a larger meal and this is what happened. It’s pretty easy and takes about 30 minutes from start to finish.

Poached egg & mushroom on tomato & pepper couscous with hollandaise sauce (serves 2)

Egg mushroom bacon couscous

Ingredients

  • 1/4 pint volume of couscous
  • 1/2 pint boiling water
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • Small handful of basil leaves
  • 1/2 ramiro pepper
  • Handful sundried tomatoes
  • Two large portobello mushrooms
  • 4 rashers of streaky bacon
  • 4 eggs (2 for sauce, 2 for poaching)
  • 80g salted butter
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1/2 tbsp white wine vinegar (any white vinegar should do though)
  • Small amount of fresh chives
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Method

  1. Preheat oven to gas mark 6 / 200C / 400F
  2. Add boiling water to couscous. Chop and add the basil and lemon juice. Cover.
  3. Cut ramiro pepper in half lengthways and deseed.
  4. Put mushrooms and pepper on baking tray and cook for 10 minutes.
  5. Add bacon to baking tray and cook for a further 10-15 minutes (depending on how crispy you like your bacon).Mushroom pepper bacon
  6. Meanwhile, add remaining lemon juice and vinegar to a saucepan and simmer.
  7. Separate two of the eggs. Put the yolks into a bowl and save the whites for something else, like meringue.
  8. Whisk the eggs, and slowly drizzle in the hot lemon juice and vinegar while whisking vigorously.
  9. Melt the butter in the saucepan you just emptied. Don’t worry about cleaning it.
  10. Meanwhile, take the pepper out of the oven and coarsely slice it and the tomatoes and add to couscous.Tomato pepper couscous
  11. Start warming plates and put a pan of water on to boil.
  12. Gradually pour the melted butter into the egg mix again whisking vigorously. Leave in a warm place.
  13. Add a splash of any type of vinegar to the pan of boiling water. Turn down to simmer. Stir in a circular motion, then when almost still, break an egg into the middle.
  14. Spoon half the couscous mix onto each plate. Get the tray out of the oven and add a mushroom to each plate.
  15. By this time your first egg should be ready. Remove from pan, drain and place on top of a mushroom. Cook the second egg.
  16. Pour half the sauce (will be runnier than normal hollandaise) over the egg. Place the bacon on top and sprinkle with chives.
  17. When the second egg is cooked, repeat.
  18. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
  19. Eat and enjoy!Poached egg & mushroom on tomato & pepper couscous

Food Friday 2 – Quick and Simple Mocha

I really love mochas. They’re one of my favourite hot drinks. My favourite so far has been from a small shop called Caracoli in Winchester. I’ve bought some of their ground coffee and I’ve been trying to make my own mocha. I’ve had varying levels of success, but have never quite made a mocha I love. Recently though, I’ve managed to get pretty close. So here’s my recipe for a quick and simple mocha.

Ingredients (per person)

  • 125ml strong coffee (I use a blend from Caracoli but use whatever you want)
  • 125ml milk (I use semi-skimmed, but whole is also good)
  • 1tbsp double cream
  • 20g dark chocolate

Method

  1. Warm the milk in a saucepan or microwave until it’s almost boiling
  2. Add the chocolate and cream to the milk and whisk until melted
  3. Pour in the coffee and whisk a little more
  4. Pour into mug, and add sugar if desired
  5. Enjoy!

It’s really simple and really yummy. You can replace some of the milk with cream, or add more chocolate if you want, but I find my recipe works best if you’re trying to lower calories without sacrificing too much taste. Enjoy your simple mocha!

Have you made something yummy this week? Do you have a recipe you want to share? Join the link party below. All I ask is you link back to my blog.

[linkparty id=”2″]

 

Food Friday 1

As you may have noticed, I use WIP Wednesday to help link to other blogs. I thought it might be fun to do the same for food. So, as I already have Food Friday, I thought it’d be a good time to start this.

If you’ve made anything delicious in the last week that you want to share, add your link to your post about it here. All I ask is that you link back to my blog somewhere in your post. If this proves successful, I may start setting some challenges to help as inspiration. How does that sound?

[linkparty id=”1″]

Food Friday – Cooking Fails

Everybody has cooking fails. In fact if you don’t have cooking fails, you aren’t trying hard enough.

Sometimes the fails work out for the best. Like the time I didn’t realise the type of lid had been changed on the Season-All. I expected a light sprinkle, and I got about a tablespoon full, straight into my cauliflower mix. Thankfully, that was actually about the right amount, and a light sprinkle would probably have been nowhere near enough.

Sometimes the cooking fail is really a fail. Like the time my friend thought she was using the ginger powder, and instead had cinnamon. That was a weirdly sweet meal, and not in a good way. And the cake she made that was so dry it soaked up a whole bowl of custard and was still dry. And like the time I tried cooking pasta in a creamy sauce, which split and was disgusting, and I still haven’t worked out why.

There are probably countless cooking fails I’ve made, so I won’t list them all. What are some of your amusing cooking fail stories?

 

Food Friday – Bakewell Pavlova Biscuit

I had a couple of egg whites left over from making a sauce, so I decided to get inventive. It worked, and the cherry bakewell pavlova was what came out. Thank Nick from udellgames.com for the name!

Bakewell Pavlova Biscuit

 

Recipe (16 Servings)

Ingredients:

Biscuit:

  • 90g room temperature butter
  • 60g caster sugar
  • 110g plain flour
  • 2 tsp almond extract
Meringue:

  • 2 egg whites
  • 55g caster sugar
Topping:

  • 40g room temperature butter
  • 160g icing sugar
  • Splash of milk
  • Glace cherries

Method:

Pre-heat oven to gas mark 4 / 350F / 180C (take off 20 if fan assisted).

Biscuits:

  1. Cream together sugar and butter.
  2. Add almond extract and flour and stir until a crumbly dough.
  3. Mold into balls then flatten. Place them onto a greased baking sheet.
  4. Bake for 5 minutes.

Bakewell pavlova biscuits 1

 

While biscuits are baking, Meringue:

Bakewell pavlova biscuit 2

  1. Whisk egg whites until firm.
  2. Add sugar and whisk thoroughly.
  3. Once biscuits baked, pipe meringue in two layers around the outside of each biscuit.
  4. Bake for 15 minutes then leave to cool on cooling rack.

When the biscuits are cool, Topping:

  1. Mix butter, icing sugar and milk to make butter icing.
  2. Pipe into meringue.
  3. Top with half a cherry.

Enjoy your Bakewell Pavlova Biscuit!

Bakewell pavlova biscuit 3