Quick and beautiful

Did I find that camera again?

Some photos!! Finally!  Some photos means something to put on the blog.  There is plenty cooking going on but often no photos being taken. The reason is not always not finding the camera. It ranges from making time to not having anything to photograph any more because somebody ate it!

Some quick dishes

Sometimes I decide to bake something at the last minute, or I push the boundary of getting a dish done while doing many other things or having to leave the house soon. At other times, I am just coming home and need to cook something for dinner. Inspiration is not forthcoming until some ideas just pop up. Today, I am sharing some of these ideas with you.

Comfort food for an easy lunch or dinner

boulettes viande sauce tomate

Last weekend, I did not feel like sausages for dinner. I am not fan of sausages I must say. We had some mince and while the sausages were cooking (for the children who normally are sausages bug fans!) I just went on making meat balls.  The thing with meat balls is you can really put a variety of ingredients in them.  Some corn on the cob I was boiling because it had to be used ended up in the meat balls, so did some parsley, onion, garlic and more good things.

I simply served it with a green salad (as in lettuce dressed with olive oil&balsamic vinaigar).

Recipe HERE.

Chocolate fondant for a neighbourhood party

We got that invitation for a party which we weren’t sure what to bring or if to bring anything. I decided the children – there were bound to be quite a few – would always appreciate a little chocolate cake.

That recipe was found online a few days before I did it, I just gave it a try. Making:  5-10 minutes.  Cooking time: 8 minutes. It is a bit like a brownies but not so heavy.  The fun bit was for the children to decorate it using tagliatelle and icing sugar.

The recipe can be found where I found it, on ELLE website.

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A recent encounter with Alain Ducasse chocolate cream

I am on this home cooking facebook page where one day I saw and wrote down this recipe from a french chef for some “petits pots de creme au chocolat”.  These are little ramequins of chocolate cream.  This dessert does not contain any cream nor flour or cornflour. It is a creme anglaise with chocolate, good chocolate, and a fair bit of it!

I have now done them quite a few times in the last three month, they are easy to make and so pleasing.  This is the first time I manage to snap a photo of them. Recipe HERE.

petits pots au chocolat petits pots au chocolat

And I had not made these for a while….

These is my tke on the protuguese custard tartlets. All you need is a good puff pastry, a vanilla custard and a little extra butter and sugar!  The recipe is already on the blog HERE. The photos here are the last batch. They smelled so good when we were taking the photos, it was hard to resist!

potuguese style tartlets potuguese style tartlets potuguese style tartlets

C is for Cookies…Choc Chip Cookies

C is for Cookies….The best Choc Chip Cookies

“C is for Cookies, that’s good enough for me
Oh, cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C”
I use these choc chip cookies for many occasions: lunch boxes, presents, travels, picnics, playdates, …

What I like with this recipe is that you can make them very small, bite size like or maxi over indulging size! This recipe describes medium (normal) size biscuits.

Ingredients

200 g of butter, melted
150 g of white sugar
200 g of brown sugar
2 eggs
450 g of flour
1 teaspoon of raising powder (1 sachet if using that version)
300 g of good cooking chocolate chopped with a knife (or use packets of chocolate chips from the shop)

Method
  1. Heat the oven up on 180°C
  2. Mix together the eggs, white sugar, brown sugar
  3. Add the butter and mix well
  4. Add together the flour, raising powder and chocolate chips.  Mix by hand.
  5. Cover 2 baking sheets with baking paper, with a spoon (or with your hands) place on the baking sheet little mounds the size of an apricot,push down very slightly.  Make sure the mounds are not to close to each other (at least leaving space of the size of one mound between two mounds) as they will spread during baking.
  6. Bake until the colour starts to change slightly golden brown. Do not overbake.
  7. Slide the baking paper with cookies on it on the cooling rack. Leave to cool for a few minutes before moving them.
  8. You should expect to need two bakes if using two baking trays at the same time.

 

 

Choc chip c

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