Homemade Goats Cheese And Asparagus Tart

This is the most delicious goats cheese tart, especially with a lovely salad.

Ingredients

1 packet of ready to roll shortcrust pastry.

5 Free range eggs

1 Packet of goats cheese 

1 packet of asparagus

Splash of milk

salt and pepper to taste

Method

1..Preheat the oven to 200oC

2..Roll out the pastry big enough to fit your loose bottom flan tin. (mine is 9 inches)

3..Place the pastry onto the flan dish and press down. If any parts crack or are not big enough just press some more into the space, it'll get covered by the filling anyway.

4..Place greaseproof paper over the pastry and then put on top baking beads.

5..Pop into the oven for about 20 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown.

6..Once the tart base is cooked put it onto the side to cool.

7..In a frying pan, lightly fry the asparagus.

8..Whilst cooling into a jug add the eggs. Whisk and add a large splash of milk. And add a pinch of salt and pepper to taste.

9..Pour the egg mixture over the pastry base (Obviously at this point you have already removed the baking beads and greaseproof paper.

10..Place asparagus over the egg mixture.

11..Chop up or crumble the goats cheese as evenly as you can over the tart 

12..Place in the oven until golden brown... about 20-25 minutes.

13...serve whilst warm ..although this taste just as lovely the next day if there are left overs in a lunch box with salad and potatoes.

Happy Cooking 

Kelly

x x x

Turkey Pie Recipe

We all buy way too much food at Christmas especially meat.  

I'm a vegetarian but the rest of my family are all meat eaters. 

So here's a very simple turkey pie recipe to use up all that left over meat.

Ingredients

1oz Butter

Left over Turkey

1 Onion chopped

10 fl oz Chicken stock

400 g Mushrooms

1 kg Potatoes

3 Tbsp milk

Salt and Pepper to taste

Method

1..Preheat oven to 180oC

2..In a saucepan melt the butter, add the chopped onion and add the salt and pepper until the onions are soft.

3..Add the cream and stock and bring to the boil. Simmer until the sauce is thick.

4..Add the mushrooms and the meat.

5..In a separate pan boil the potatoes until soft.

6..Mash the potatoes, add a nob of butter and a splash of milk.

7..Put the meat and mushroom mixture into the bottom of a dish and spoon the mash potato on top.

(you could add grated cheese over the mash potato)

8..Pop into the oven for about 25 - 30 minutes.

Enjoy!

Happy Cooking

Kelly 

x x x

Christmas Gingerbread House - How To Step By Step!

This is a step by step guide to making and building a gingerbread house ready for Christmas. I would allow yourself 2 days to do this to allow it to set in between steps.

I'm using a lovely cutter set by Lakeland. Lakeland also do lovely gingerbread / chocolate silicone mould sets which I also own and will do another blog post on this later.

So are we ready....

Ingredients

180g Butter

125g Brown Sugar

300g Golden Syrup

500g Plain Flour

1/4 Tsp Salt

1 Tbsp Ground Ginger

1/2 Tsp Bicarbonate Of Soda

Extra flour for rolling

Method

1..In a saucepan melt the butter, syrup and brown sugar

2..In a mixer add all the other dry ingredients and give a stir, add the melted ingredients from the pan and blend to a thick dough.

3..At this point I like to pop the dough into the fridge for 30minutes just to chill. Whilst the dough chills turn the oven on to 170oC.

4..Flour the work surface and all the cutters and then following your cutter guide. Roll out the dough and cut all the pieces out and pop on to a baking tray.

5..Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and firm to the touch.

6..Carefully take each house piece and pop onto a baking tray to cool.

How To Build The house

Using Royal Icing (follow the instructions on the packet) 

It has to be royal icing as it sets hard like an edible glue. 

Use a pretty cake stand or cake board depending on the size of your house.

1..Pipe icing along the base of one of the side panels and use a can or teacup to hold the piece in place. 

2..Next pipe icing along the front panel along the bottom and up one of the sides that attaches to the side panel... prop up again with another tea cup.

3..Next repeat with the other side and then the back of the house. 

4..Leave the base of the house to set firm for about 30 minutes.

5..Remove all the teacups.

6..Next pipe along the roof of the houses and hold them in place for a few minutes. (this can be tricky so have patience)

7..Again leave the whole house to dry for another 30 minutes.

8..Pipe along any extra pieces, with theses cutters there are windows, door and a chimney to attach.

9..Pipe the extra characters gingerbread girl, boy, snowman, tree (or whatever characters you are adding)

10..Now my tip is to leave it for the rest of the day,let it completely set.

Following Day

1..Using royal icing again decorate the house with all your choice of sweets and chocolates. The more the merrier (it is Christmas after all)

2..I like to also add a sprinkle of icing sugar like snow over the house.

Happy Baking

Kelly

x x x

Homemade Tomato Soup

Ingredients

1kg Tomatoes (chopped)

Half a chilli 

1 clove of garlic (crushed or chopped)

500ml of vegetable stock

1 onion (chopped)

1 tsp basil

Pinch of salt and pepper

Method

1..Chop the onions and fry in a little oil.

2..Add to the saucepan the tomatoes chopped up and the rest of the ingredients.

3..Boil until all the ingredients are soft about 30 minutes.

4..Leave to cool slightly then pop into a blender until smooth.

I have some lovely microwave cups from Lakeland which I fill with the soup and then pop into the fridge for when I want some. These soups can be frozen. Fully defrost before re heating on the stove.

Happy Cooking 

Kelly

x x x

Homemade Chocolate Smartie Squares

Super quick and easy treats for big and little kids, and absolutely delicious.

Ingredients

300g Milk Chocolate

300g White Chocolate

2 packets of Smarties

Method

1..Line a square tray with greaseproof paper

2..Melt the milk chocolate in a bowl. If using a microwave cook in 30 second bursts as chocolate burns quickly.

2..Once melted pout into the tin and pop into the fridge

3..Once the chocolate has set, melt the white chocolate in a bowl and then pour over the milk chocolate in the tin. Add The smarties.

4..Pop back into the fridge and once set cut into pieces.

There are so many ways to change this recipe adding different sweets, or flavours of chocolate. 

At Christmas break up a candy cane and sprinkle over.

These would make lovely gifts popped into a cellophane bag and wrapped with ribbon.

Happy Baking

Kelly

x x x

Homemade Rocky Road

This is so popular in my house, and doesn't last a day before the children have eaten it all. Rocky road is so quick and easy to make. Here's how 

Ingredients

400g Milk chocolate (but you can use white or dark chocolate)

200g of Digestive biscuits

100g Marshmallows

Extra options... raisins, smarties, maltesers and at Christmas dried cranberry's are really nice.

Method

1..In a bowl melt the chocolate. If doing it in the microwave cook on 30 second bursts and mix in between. Chocolate can burn very quickly.

2..Break the biscuits up into small pieces, add to the chocolate and then add the marshmallows.

3..Pop into a tin lined with greaseproof paper.

4..Put the tin into the fridge and leave to set

5..Once set cut the rocky road into squares.

You can dust with icing sugar if displaying on a cake stand this looks lovely. 

Or for a Christmas or birthday display add a sprinkling of edible glitter.

For a different birthday cake pile the pieces high on a cake stand and add candles!

Happy Baking

Kelly

x x x

Homemade Jammy Dodgers

These Jammy dodgers are amazing, the biscuit is deliciously light and almost shortbread in taste. Super easy and super quick.

Use a variety of cutters to make the main shape and then depending on the occasion use a shape to cut the middle out of one. 

For birthdays you could cut the age of the child out or an animal shape. For Christmas do Christmas trees or like here stars. Valentines make heart shapes..(you get the idea)

Ingredients

250g Butter

140g Caster Sugar

1 Egg Yolk

2 Tsp Vanilla Extract

300g Plain Flour

Method

1..Mix the butter and the sugar together until light and fluffy. I use a kitchen aid but you can do it by hand.

2..Add the egg yolk and the vanilla extract. give the mixture a stir.

3..Add the flour until all the ingredients come together. You may want to put your hands in at this point and bring the ingredients to a dough.

4..Pop in the fridge for 10 minutes before rolling out.

5..Roll dough out onto a floured surface, the mixture doesn't spread too much so don't make the dough too thick.

6..Using your cutters cut your biscuits out. Remember for each biscuit you need 2 pieces, 1 will have the cut out whilst the other (bottom one) stays whole.

7..Place each biscuit on a tray which should have a lining of greaseproof on. (or a well greased tray)

8..Pop in the oven at 180oC for about 10 minutes. Watch as these can brown very quickly. The biscuits should just be lightly golden.

9..Put your biscuits on a cooling rack until cold

10..Then using a knife jam the 2 pieces together.

You can use a variety of jam flavours, or lemon curd and even chocolate spread.

Happy Baking

Kelly

x x x

Cute Button Handmade Christmas Cards

Everyone loves receiving handmade cards especially at Christmas and these cards are so quick and easy to make. And relatively cheap too.

What You Will Need

Cards And Envelope (Blank Packs)

Merry Christmas Stamp

Black Felt Tip Pen

Selection Of Buttons

Glue Gun ( or super glue)

How To Make Your Cards

1..First stamp your greeting on to the card, if you don't have a stamp then you can write your greeting onto your card.

2..Draw 3 lines from the top of the card to half way down. Draw the lines at different lengths as seen on the photo above.

3..Draw bows at the end of each line. Or glue ribbon bows for an extra glam look.

4..And finally glue gun different size buttons at the end of each bow. I've used plain green and red buttons but you could use any design or colour.

Happy Crafting

Kelly

x x x

My Home

Today I have spent the morning in my kitchen, which is where I spend most of my time each day. 

I have been busy making lots of yummy treats for a charity coffee morning which is being held at my children's primary school tomorrow. The money raised will be donated to Katherine House Hospice 

My full time job is to make lovely cakes for birthdays and wedding and other special events but its so nice to do something for a good cause. 

I have made a few different treats and will upload all the recipes over the next couple of days.

My kitchen really is the heart of my home and I'm a collector of all kitchen gadgets vintage and new.

I love my kitchen table ready to fit all my children around for large family meals, I had this table made for me from oak sleepers... it gets a real bashing everyday but each scratch, and sometimes little doodle just adds to its character. The wallpaper is Cath Kidston (another love of mine) the shelf is an upcycled project and the clock is an Ikea find.

Kelly 

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