You know you've had a bad week at work when....

.... you not only decide to totally blow your diet (I HAD lost 2 pounds this week) and bust open your very last bag of nestle toll house chocolate chips (they don't sell them in England) to make cookies....

But you also decide it might be a good idea to stuff half a dozen of them with Nutella.  

Yeahhhhhhh.... fat girl decisions.

I need a new job before I become morbidly obese.

Also in an interesting twist of hormonal imbalances and a moment of enlightenment I burst into tears last night because I decided my job must be punishment because I was a very bad, horrible, judgmental person.  (most notably between the ages of 12-17).  I have since seen the light and am no longer super duper judgemental, but I have recently decided that my karma is bad from my being so awful previously.  I'm on a mission to restore my karmatic  balance, but I'm not sure where to start.  

Do you believe in karma?  Any tips for setting it right? 

PS.

If I have ever been a snooty bitch to you I'm sorry.

Can I get you a cookie?  I have a lot and I'll share.  

Double Birthday Madness

Yesterday was Heidi AND Nick's Birthday!  

Woo hooo double birthday fabulosity!  

I tried to make it Nick's best birthday ever.  

I'm pretty sure his ideal wife is an all singing, all dancing type of domestic/career goddess who gets up in the morning before him, runs him a bubble bath, cooks him breakfast and sends him out the door with a kiss.  Then this woman goes to work making lots of $£$£$£ but not more than him, and manages to cook him dinner and keep an impeccable house at the same time.  

She also irons his shirts.  

Clearly, this is NOT me.  But hey, for one day I can try right...?

At 7:00 am the alarm went off and I jumped out of bed to put these in the oven...

Pumpkin cinnamon buns... mmmm....

While they were cooking I whipped up some icing AND ran him a bubble bath 

(perfect japanese housewife - no?  fyi our current house does NOT have a shower)

After we had breakfast he put on a well ironed shirt and headed out the door with this... 

A pretty sloppy looking Carrot Cake,
and I'll never know if it tasted any good since his colleagues ate it all, 

but considering the fact there is 1.5 pounds of powdered sugar and 2 packs of cream cheese in the icing alone - I'm guessing it tasted alright....

After he went out to work I decorated the house and wrapped his present. 

 Unfortunately, at noon I got a call from the restaurant I was trying to make reservations at to let me know there was no room at the inn.  

boo.  

Massive wife fail.  

We did go out to eat but the food was wack.  

Hello restaurants of Sheffield - why do you all suck?

I thought I'd finally managed to get him a present he'd actually like that was a complete surprise...

but when I gave it to him, he held it for a minute and asked if I got him a tent.

Yes that would be it. 

Do you think that counts as a surprise?  

Because getting him a surprise bday present that he likes is on my bucket list -

 and I don't know if I succeeded or not.

This picture makes me laugh...

Oh there we go Doodle, now you can see!  

She's not allowed on the couch because she is always dirty and couches aren't washable like sheets are, 

but she is convinced that she should be allowed on the couch, 

and we didn't have the heart to kick her off / miss the photo opp.  

Besides, it was her first birthday afterall!

Sideways puppy kisses!

I love this little dog sooo much.  

And I love him too.

Even if we do take the most god awful selfies together... 

Those cinnamon buns appear to have been stuck straight to my chin.

Oh well, enjoy my doobler, internet. 

If only Heidi had a keen eye for photography and opposing thumbs - 

I swear were really not that unattractive of a couple.

Well that's all folks.  

I know I skimped on Heidi in favor of Nick, 

but truth be told she didn't actually know it was her birthday.  

I plan on fixing her up some pupcakes on Monday though.  

I hope you have a fabulous weekend!  

We're off to a wedding tomorrow morning which is sure to be fun!

Foraging

Lately I've been completely into the whole hunter/gatherer scene here in England.  

Emphasis on gatherer.  

Free food is something that I am always a fan of so when you see it just growing in the woods, 

screaming "Eat me I am delicious and free!" fatty's gotta pounce!

I actually picked these on the outskirts of a soccer field while Heidi chased swallows.

Birds exercise my energetic puppy, and I pick berries.

Multitasking at it's finest I think.

The berries were soon turned into this.

Which looks kind of ugly but it tasted good.

Especially when Nick brought home Our Cow Molly to top it off.

I stole the recipe from here.

It worked out pretty well for a quick dessert since we're so busy right now.

ps.  It is mushroom season here in England.  

We see shrooms everywhere and we just bought a mushroom identification book.

We took it out for a spin this weekend and so far we're pretty sure we're going to poison ourselves.

But, fingers crossed, we'll identify some edibles and there will be mushroom hunting adventures on here soon.

Told you I was into gathering.

Turkish Market

We stumbled across this little Turkish market when we were shopping for house stuff the other day.

Then we came home and made a feast out of olives and baklava.  

Everything was delicious.

Markets everywhere are definitely a benefit to living in England.

My response to the market man's question of

Ginger apple, pistachio, or coconut baklava?

Yes, yes, and yes.

What can I say?

This girl likes to eat!

...and my arm fat is now reverberating in the air like my 8th grade teacher at the chalk board. 

Her A$$ was so big you could use it as a table.  

It stuck out parallel to the floor I tell you.
...and it appears I am on my way there.

Hello weight watchers....

Our Cow Molly

Ok so I already admitted Sarah and I are bad influences on each other.

But I must confess - this one was my idea...

Please don't judge.

Our Cow Molly  makes fabulous ice cream right on their farm.

It's the best ice cream I've ever tasted.

Ever.

It's a pretty adorable little shop.  

Speaking of adorable, this little girl lives on the farm.

She introduced us to her favorite cow.

She also likes ice cream.

Note the chocolate covered chin.

I like ice cream too.

I scream for ice cream.

Is there a single picture of me on this blog where I'm not eating?

Don't answer that.

I took thousands of photos so I could make your mouths water.

I had lemon and crystallized ginger ice cream.

A little strange?  Let me assure you it was...

To Die For.

It really was delicious.  

ps.  I am back on the cleanse now.  And I have healthy recipes to share with you soon.

What do you prefer, pictures of ice cream and cupcakes or healthy fresh fruit and veggies?

Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble

Riverford is such a great scheme.  We order a "box" and get to be surprised with fruits and veggies we would never really think to buy.  This week's super fun veggie (or is it a fruit?) was rhubarb.  I was pumped.  My great grandpa used to make a mean strawberry rhubarb pie, so I decided it would be great to reproduce it here and blog about it.  After much investigative work (two emails), it has been concluded that Papa's rhubarb pie recipe died when he did (at the ripe old age of 100!), and it is no longer to be found.  Or else my mom and aunt are just too busy to go hunting for these things and it will turn up somewhere one day... fingers crossed!

Until then, I needed a substitute, and I found one, over at Dessert for Breakfast.  I was totally blown away with her photos and thought, man if this girl is half as good at cooking as she is at food photography this recipe is not going to disappoint.... (seriously, go check out her pictures for some mouth watering food porno).

And woo hoo it sure didn't!  The crumble was sweet, but with just enough salt to contrast the sweetness of the fruit, and a bit of orange zest for extra complexity.

I called Nick on his way home from work (he had a very big, important day yesterday thats why I made this for him, really I swear... ) and I asked him to pick up some vanilla ice cream at the corner store where he gets off the bus... They were out of vanilla, so he got strawberry.  Works for me!!

This is seriously SO good.  I'm not going to post the recipe, because I followed it spot on and you can see it here.

Oh and that ice cream?  I am a little afraid to say this, but my dear Cincinnatians, it beats Graeters... It's from a Sheffield company called Our Cow Molly, and I have never tasted ice cream so delicious.  Apparently they make it with milk and cream from their own cows right on the farm.  Nick and I are planning to go there soon, so I'll keep you posted.  Until then, I will be hiding from my fellow Cincinnatians for saying such blaspheming things against Graeters....

My Peeps are Totally Failures!!

Hi Friends.  I need to apologize.  Last week I promised that I would have an amazing vegetarian peep recipe up and running.  Unfortunately, I've had a few pitfalls along the way.  I attempted to create vegetarian peeps using this recipe and this recipe, from who else - Martha Stewart of course!

Problem 1 : I needed to get my chubby little fingers on a candy thermometer.  Easier said than done.  After a couple days of fruitless searching, I ended up buying one off Amazon.

On Saturday it arrived so I headed to the kitchen with tons of enthusiasm!  I had purchased food coloring and a new piping set and I recruited the husband as sous chef and figured we would have great fun creating new peep animals.  I had an underwater theme in mind - peep octopus anyone???

First I used used my food coloring to color some sugar.  I only had red and yellow... But I do what I can.

Problem 2 : I added the gelling agent to the water.  I used agar flakes, to replace regular gelatin, and substituted them on a one to one ratio.  We didn't realize anything was wrong at this point, but looking back I don't think agar is a direct substitute for gelatin.

Next we boiled the sugar and water mixture, bringing it to the soft-ball stage as Martha instructs.

Check out our stove- how awful is that?

We took it off the heat, stirring, and then using a hand mixer to attempt to form soft marshmallowy peaks.

Problem 3 : Our hand mixer appears to have been made around the same time they invented electricity.  Thus, it doesn't move too fast, and no soft peaks were formed.  We transferred the syrupy mixture to our food processor with the whipping attachment in place, but no cigar.  We got a few bubbles in the syrup and thats pretty much it.

I'm totally devastated.  I feel like I lied to you, and I can't even eat my feelings with fresh peeps.  I just want to bite off their stale and delicious heads like the rest of omnivorous Christian society the week after Easter, but alas, I'm stuck with nothing more than a gooey pot of sugar water.  Martha has never let me down before, so I am blaming my appliances and agar gelatin replacement.  

I hope you can forgive me!!!

ps.  I found some gelatin free mallow recipes, but not for piping mallow, and none of them used agar.  I will be investigating this matter further.

Addicted to Purple

I'm so addicted to purple right now.  Lavender to be exact.  I bought purple nail polish at selfridges, and ate a purple cupcake from Candy Cakes that I stole from Nick (someone bought it for a leaving present for him).  Isn't it cute?  It didn't taste like I expected.  It was more muffinish than cup cake-ish.  There were even blueberries inside.

Nick also bought me these purple rainboots at Selfridges.  Have I ever told you how much I LOVE Selfridges?  I know it's all over priced and every time I walk in there I'm getting screwed like the rest of the tourists that shop there, but I appreciate the shop assistants' relentless flattery, even if she is making commission.  That's probably why when she told me, "I'm looking at your style, and purple is DEFINITELY your color,"  I said "Yes you're right!" and walked out the store with ridiculous purple Hunter rain boots, or "wellies" to use the British term.

I don't care though!  I kinda, sorta love them.  And now I'm actually willing it rain.  Rain is SO much more fun with purple wellies.  And they are so very practical for hiking with Heidi, which we will be doing a lot of in our new home!  (More to come on that later - we are moved in though!)

Also, isn't this picture neat?  I saw it on Rockstar Diaries, which I am addicted to probably more than the color purple.  The artist is Casey O'Connell, and the coolest thing is you can buy her paintings on LTL Prints, as wall graphics that you can just stick on the wall, and remove, and restick and do it again 100 times.  Perfect for people like us who are renting and can't put lots of holes in the walls.  Oh and it's only $15.    Don't you wish all paintings were mass produced like that?

Wouldn't it look really great on a purple/grey wall?  

Or am I just getting a little too purple obsessed? 

Valentine's Day Baking Shenanigans

Yesterday for Valentine's Day Nick and I spent the day baking.  We got a lot accomplished.  Look at this spread....

Nothing makes your house smell better than fresh bread.  This is just a basic whole wheat loaf.  The recipe came with our bread machine.

Next I baked brownies for the woman who watched Heidi for us this weekend.  She was a lifesaver.  Our dogsitter pulled out right as I was leaving to drop Heidi off at her house, Nick sent out an emergency email to his entire work and she pulled through.  I even made them homemade.  I've always used a box before but I have no idea why.  These were super easy.  I followed the recipe exactly, and you can find it here.  If I made them again I'd probably mix some chocolate chips into the batter.  Yum.  I hope she liked them.

Finally, I was going to make Nick his favorite dessert, cheesecake, as a valentine's day surprise.  But he decided I couldn't make it as good as him.  So he made it himself.  He's a cheesecake purist, but I needed a little something extra on it, so I added raspberry jam.  I'd post the recipe, but I don't know it.  Maybe if we all ask nicely....?

Please don't judge me for the number of baked goods on this post.  It WAS valentine's day, and the brownies were for someone else (OK I may have sneaked one... or two).  We had so much fun!  We licked the batter and danced like a couple of soiled tweens at a high school mixer.  We didn't do much mushy bull crap, but Heidi and I dedicated this song to Nick when it came on the radio... We'll never let money get in the way.

Egg-cetera!

Dear Friends,

  

It looks like Easter came early this year.  I am writing to you to seek your advice.  I know I usually post recipes for you, but today I need your help.  You see, since we don't have a car in London, we have our grocercies delivered.  We received an order today, and instead of getting a dozen eggs, we got 7 packs of half a dozen eggs.  They didn't charge us for them, so we decided to keep them.  However, now we have 42 eggs!

Do you have any fabulous recipe ideas involving huge numbers of eggs?  What's your favorite way to eat eggs?  Do you like them over easy or sunny side up?  Hard or soft boiled?!  Please do share!

We eat poached eggs all the time.  And I have a feeling we'll go through a few for omelets.  Maybe we'll make eggsalad... But do you have any better ideas?  This seems like a great opportunity for eggs-perimentation.  hahaha get it?.... well I think I'm funny. 

Thanks for your help!

Cheers!

Kelly

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Mousse and Chocolate Ganache

WARNING - If you are on a diet, or even thinking about going on a diet you should not read this post.  The following recipe is calorie laden and may contribute multiple inches to your thighs and gut area.  If you suffer from poor will power, turn back now before this becomes a problem.

OK, glad I cleared that up.  Today is Nick's birthday!  He is at the ripe old age of 27.  Even though we are married this is actually the first birthday I have ever spent with him.  So needless to say I pulled out all the stops. No corners were cut, and calories were left to enrich the cupcakes in full force.  I used whole milk, cream and butter.  Nick requested something chocolately and fruity, and I found a fabulous looking recipe for Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes - there's even a video showing how to make them.  I followed the recipe pretty much exactly, except they used jumbo sized cupcake tins, and we only had regular sized ones.  Also, it took me a lot longer than the 9 minutes the woman in the video took to whip them up.  While these cupcakes look intimidating, they actually weren't difficult at all - just a bit time consuming.  Give yourself a good 3 hours if you plan on making them.


Ingredients


Cupcake Batter


Dry Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup cocoa powder
• 8 oz (2 sticks butter) room temperature

Wet Ingredients

• 4 large eggs
• 6 oz whole milk
• 2 oz corn syrup (aka golden syrup in England)
• 1 tbsp vanilla

Chocolate Ganache

• 6 oz semisweet chocolate
• 6 oz heavy cream

Raspberry Mousse

• 1 cup raspberry jam (note: The recipe suggests you can make jam from scratch, but because the last time I attempted to make jam I completely failed and ended up with blistered fingers, I opted to just buy jam.  I used Bonne Maman Raspberry Jam and it worked like a charm)
• 12 oz cold heavy cream

Garnishes

• Fresh raspberries
• powdered sugar

How to Make Cupcakes:

Preheat the oven to 350 F or 180 C.

Start off by sifting 1 3/4 cup flour, 1 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp salt, 1 cup cocoa powder, into a large mixing bowl.

In another bowl, whisk together 4 large eggs, 6 oz whole milk, 2 oz corn syrup, and 1 tbsp vanilla.

In the bowl of dry ingredients, add 2 sticks of butter, and 1/2 the wet ingredients.  With an electric mixer, beat  ingredients slowly and increase to medium, beating for four minutes.  Next add 1/2 of the remaining wet ingredients, and beat on medium for two minutes.  Then add the last of the wet ingredients, beating for an additional 2 minutes.

Line your cupcake pan with paper liners (these really help to hold it together in the end) and fill with batter.  Bake for 25-30 minutes, ours took exactly 27.

Meanwhile, while your cupcakes are baking, make your raspberry mousse.  In a cold bowl (apparently this helps, I don't know why but I stuck mine in the freezer for a little bit) pour 12 oz heavy cream and beat into whipped cream.  Fold in one cup of raspberry jam.  Be careful not to over mix.

To make the chocolate ganache, boil water in a pot, and place a bowl on top of pot, being sure the water doesn't touch the bottom of the bowl.  Add 6 oz heavy cream and 6 oz semisweet chocolate to the bowl, and heat for 5-10 minutes, stirring to mix it all together.

At this point, your cupcakes will probably be done.   Once they're cooled cut a circular opening into the cupcake - I used a shot glass to make the hole, and then scooped it out with a teaspoon.

Next, add a heaping teaspoon of chocolate ganache into the opening.  Then add 2 raspberries (make sure you put the ugly ones on the inside) and a big spoonful of the raspberry mousse.  Place the caps back on top, drizzling with ganache, and placing a raspberry on top.  Sift a bit of powdered sugar on top to make it look pretty and you're done!

You know, I'm not one to brag, but these were seriously the best cupcakes I have ever tasted.  The raspberry filling is to die for, and provides a perfect tangy contrast to the bitter dark chocolate. Nick really liked them!

And so did his gorgeous colleagues, Jenny and Jenny!

Do yourself a favor and make these ASAP.  If you make them for someone, they'll love you forever, guaranteed.

Happy 27th Birthday Nick!  

Cupcakes : Dessert or Disaster?

So I bought this rosewater stuff in the baking aisle just because I've never heard of it and it seemed intriguing.  I tried to find recipes to use it in but this ingredient was pretty obscure.  I finally found the prettiest little rosewater cupcakes with whitechocolate meringue butttercream and thought this could be promising.  However, I am not the type of person who just whips up cupcakes.  I need an excuse for baking these type of things.  So when Nick asked me to make his assistant something for her birthday I was excited to have a reason to put my baking hat on and give these a go.

Now, another fun fact is that Nick's mum is currently staying with us.  We get along, but at times I feel as if we are passive aggressively fighting to win the title of "ultimate woman" in Nick's life.  So when Nick asked me to bake him cupcakes this triggered an impromptu bake-off between yours truly and the mum.

I was rummaging through cabinets trying to find food coloring, when I came across packets for something called blamanche.  The mum was hovering around me waiting for the opportunity to be of assistance to her son so when I asked her what blamanche was she got very excited and said she would make it for Nick for dessert tonight.

So there we were dancing around each other in our less than huge kitchen, each baking our respective desserts.  Her singing and humming, and me trying to focus on the cupcakes at hand.  I whipped up batter and got the cupcakes in the oven meanwhile she was heating milk and sugar on the stove.  She then added some little packet of stuff to it which turned the milk pepto-bismal pink.  This went in a jello-mold and was placed in a fridge.

I had started my frosting which required egg whites and a cup of sugar to be whisked together over medium heat until the sugar dissolved.  Then I beat them until they were at room temperature.  I then added 18 tablespoons of butter in chunks to form the frosting.  I beat these for ages and it looked like a soggy buttery mess.  The recipe said this might happen but not to worry and just keep beating.  So I took a seat on the kitchen floor and kept on beating to no avail.  It was still soggy and not coming together at all.  I was about to admit defeat award the title of ultimate woman to the mum but as I was sitting there I realized there was still a box of icing sugar in the pantry.  I grabbed it and sat down on the floor with renewed vigor and sifted in powdered sugar in batches until finally half a box of sugar later my frosting looked like frosting.  One point for the wife!  The recipe then calls for about 1/4 of a cup of white chocolate - but considering the amount of sugar I added I threw in the whole bar. After all the doctering up the icing was delish if I do say so myself.  And I had so much icing I made another batch of cupcakes.

So I iced the cupcakes and put some sprinkles on them and put them in the fridge.

After dinner the mum and I served up our desserts.  Her blamanche was quite possibly the most cringe inducing dessert I have ever had.  It was artificial strawberry flavor, not my favorite at the best of times, but it was the texture that really threw me.  Think of milk in jello formation - but with chunks every now and then from where the milk had burned when she was heating it up.  I could barely keep from dry heaving.  I tried to politely excuse myself because I'd consumed so much sugar taste-testing my frosting and I gave mine to Nick who ate 3/4 of the entire pie sized dessert.

My cupcakes on the other hand were rich and sweet.  The frosting was great, though the cake was a little eggy.

When we were alone later that night I had to ask the only non-biased taster who was winner of this unofficial bake-off.  I asked him which dessert he preferred and he gave a non-commital "its apples compared to oranges" type answer.  Can you say BS???  Then I asked him if we were making dessert tomorrow which would he want.  He said none because his stomach was killing him from the amount of blamanche he'd consumed.  Again BS response.  Then I asked him if I was making him dessert next week should I make cupcakes or blamanche.  His response...... "blamanche".

I lost to a pepto-bismal milk jello mold dessert.  The mum wins.  FML.