Cadburys Creme Egg Brownies

I found this recipe after someone shared it on Facebook, and I knew straight away that I would be trying this recipe out. You can find the recipe here.

With this recipe, luckily I had most of the ingredient already. Only needing to buy the Creme eggs and cooking chocolate. You may have heard me talk before about money saving, on this occasion I was able to get both items from Aldi, which made them quite a bit cheaper than me having to go to a different supermarket.






I put the creme eggs in the freezer for about 10 minutes, while I was making the brownie mixture. I had seen people commenting that the eggs melted during cooking. Once the mixture was made, I poured it in the prepared baking trays, and then pushed the creme eggs down into the mixture, and in to the oven they went. I was nervously checking them as they cooked, and the eggs held their shape, much to my relief.

Once out of the oven, I allowed them to cool before I made the white icing for them. Before I put the icing on the top I marked wear the eggs where, so I knew where to cut once all the icing and chocolate topping had been added to the top of the brownies.

Once it had all set, them came the moment of truth, cutting the brownies. My marking had worked so each brownie contained half an egg and the eggs had held there shape. The white and yolk in the eggs had melted a bit and reset, but on the whole I was pretty pleased.

I discovered that leaving them out at room temperature to go a bit gooey before eating was a must and they were very good :-)

Deep Pan Pepperoni Pizza

One of my favourite meals is a fresh large deep pan pizza from the pizza counter at our local supermarket. However, the last few months they have had a supply issue for their large pizza bases, meaning limited or little choice, so an unhappy Lucy.

After complaining to Tim (he does well to put up with me), he suggested I just made my own from scratch. Why didn't I think of that? The first and hardest task of this operation was finding a reasonably priced 14 inch deep pan pizza tray, as none of the high street stores seemed to sell them , luckily Ebay came to the rescue and my new pizza pan was on it's way.

So with Ingredients ready and pizza pan delivered I was ready to go. I started by making the dough, I'm not that experienced at using yeast to bake so it took a while to get the dough right and a while longer to kneed the dough. I left it for an hour to rise and it seemed to do what it was meant to do so I was quite happy.

After the dough was rolled and and placed in the bottom of the pizza pan,it was time to add the topping. As well as pepperoni, I also added some green chillies to give it a bit of a kick (that they did, must remember to cut the up smaller next time!).

I had purchased a mozzarella ball instead of grated mozzarella for the top of the pizza. I did try to grate the mozzarella ball, it worked reasonably well but will remember to get grated next time. With that on the top along with parmesan shavings it was ready for the oven.

15 minutes later and I was very happy with the result. The base had risen pretty well, and the pizza was nicely cooked.

Now to test it, the base was so light and much nicer that the shop purchased ones (think I might be converted to homemade pizzas every time). The topping was also just right, not too much cheese and nicely spicy.

Two for One - Fish Parcels and Fish Pie

Benefits of Bulk Buying

As we all know the cost of food an be expensive, especially if like me you are only cooking for 2 people. The larger bags of fruit and vegetables tend to work out cheaper per kg, when you compare them to the smaller bags.

But will you use a full larger bag of vegetables before they go off and then you have to throw them away? If this is the case what you saved by buying a larger bag, you have just lost by having to put some on the compost heap. Good for the compost not so great for the bank account.

You will see as I do more posts on the blog, that I like to buy the larger bags of vegetables and then I will have a cooking afternoon on the weekend and use similar ingredients to make a couple of dishes. Then what we don't have for dinner that day I can put into portions and freeze for an easy meal in the week when I have less time.  This has the advantage of using the vegetables that I buy, but it also saves just a little bit on electricity if the oven will be on to cook one dinner, why not put another in at the same time? It saves the oven having to be used twice, so saves me a few more pennies along the way.

Fish - Two for one

This weekend just gone, I really wanted to make some fish recipes. I do like fish, but it is one of the ingredients that I think I don't cook enough of so wanted to make a couple of fish dinners. I had some cod ready to use, large bags of potatoes, carrots and leeks, and also some left over filo pastry in the freezer.

I had seen a recipe in a cook book for Halibut Filo parcels, I wasn't going to go out and get halibut especially for this, so I figured the cod would work just as well. I sliced the carrot and leeks into small thin slices and cooked for 5 minutes in a bit of lemon juice and some vegetable stock until they were just tender. I got 2 sheets of filo pastry, brushing some melted butter between them, and placed the cooked vegetables in the middle with a piece of cod on top of this.

Ready for the oven

Following this I folded the pastry over to make a parcel, brushed the outside with butter. I also put some of the pastry off cuts on the top, again brushing them with butter. It was now ready for the oven, 180 degrees for about 20 minutes.

Bonus of fish pie

As the oven was on, and I had the extra fish and vegetables, I also decided to make a fish pie. I just cooked the vegetables for a few minutes to soften slightly. Poached the fish in some milk. Put all these in the bottom of a Pyrex dish. I used the milk from the poaching to make a white sauce, mixed it into the vegetables and fish. Then covered with mashed potato and this cooked at the same time as the parcels.

Parcels ready to be served

I was pleased to have cooked the parcels for our dinner that day. The fish pie was an extra, which was enough for two meals for both of us. This was divided up and is now in the freezer ready for when we need it.

Have you got any Fish recipes that you love to cook? Feel free to let me know

Welcome!

Hello to everyone who has found my blog.

This is a whole new adventure for me. I came to be here after my other half Tim (who writes his own blog) suggested I write one about something that I enjoy and that I like to talk about. As I am very much a foodie, this seemed like a good area for me to blog about.I like to talk about food, look through cook books and I love to be in the kitchen trying to make something new.

I plan to write about everyday cooking, or anything else I make or see that I think other people might be interested in.

So now just to start with my first proper blog post....