Summertime Nom nom nom's

Now having a pinterest account for some time now you'd think I'd have saved where I found this recipe wouldn't you?
No you probably know me well enough now to know that I wouldn't, that I would see it, think ooooh that looks not only yummy but really easy to do. Thus store it away in my head and have it pop back up again when I least expected.
Yeah that's the Taz you know so well. ;)

So anyway I didn't invent this recipe, I don't even know what the proper name for it is BUT I do know that it is delicious and wee one agrees.

There are only 4 ingredients, well 5 if you want to include the bread. ;)



I don't have quanities I'm afraid. I just used my eye and thought "yeah that looks about right."

* So take a large bowl and pour in a good glug glug glug of olive oil.
* Chop up a bunch of spring onions, finely.
* Chop up a good couple of handfuls of toms, I used cherry vine ones but you could use nice big ones, especially if you've got some home grown - more on that later.
* Take some feta cheese and crumble up. Again no quantity but I guess it depends on how big a bowl you are making.
* Mix up together with the oil and leave to sit for as long as you like, or not long at all if you're like me and wee one and just wanted to eat it straight away.
* Slice up some nice fresh bread, we used a French Stick.


Take yourself out in the sunshine, sit down, take a slice of bread and smoosh it into the dish.


And enjoy!


Added bonus - wee one spotting that the end of the bread was a heart shape, the end to a perfect meal.

Cupboard cooking

Take...

1 chopped onion, peel off and cut away the dodgy bits if it's been lying about in the cupboard too long.
A couple of crushed cloves of garlic, if the fresh stuff has shrivelled up in the cupboard hunt for the jar of lazy garlic you know is in there somewhere.
1 tin of chopped toms or if they're not chopped as mine weren't just use a knife and chop them up yourself.
A squirt of tomato puree, cut the tube open as you would toothpaste to get that very last bit out.
S+P, Herbs to your own taste or whatever you can find in the cupboard.

Simmer away in a pan until you have your very own lovely tomato sauce.


Cooked with a bag of Quorn Mince found stuffed at the back of the freezer when you were doing your clever inventory.

Now either make up the packet of cheese sauce again found in the cupboard or make up some fresh cheese sauce with some flour, milk and that hard bit of cheese that was in the fridge that nobody seemed to be eating.

If you're me then realise you've no pasta sheets then take the left over tortilla's from the bread bin and use in place of said pasta sheets.


Then get on with some fancy layer work.

A bit more of that grated cheese because of course you'll have remembered to hold some back for the final topping.

Pop in the oven for 20-30 minutes, I can't be more accurate than that I'm afraid as I kind of lost track of time and just judged it by eye. This style of cooking makes my small people giggle as the timer bell inevitably goes off when we're already sat down and starting eating.
Anyway I digress....
Serve up with a lovely salad and there you are..

A healthy, frugal yummy meal from things you already had in your cupboards/freezers/fridges - see told you those lists would come in handy eh? ;)

Baking, bargains and blogger awards

Get me with all my B's :)



Award - Lets be Friends

Samsara has passed this Lets be Friends Award to me. Thank you hon!

The award says: “These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers.

Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”

So here goes dinosaurtoes , Flossie and Tom , ShabbyChick , cocoa and blankets , Alex ,
MarmaladeRose , Twiggy ,
Deanna

Remember the other day how I was saying I am not very domesticated well check this out. Today me and eldest small person did baking.
She made these lovely blueberry muffins,


and some ginger cookies.


Both taste devine. Wee one was out playing at a friends but when she got home and saw the goodies her little eyes lit up.

And yes I did say we did some baking although technically I'd have to say that my 21st Century gadgets did most of the work.
Firstly I made my first ever Lentil Soup and used my Slow Cooker for the first time. Ok the picture probably isn't the most appetising but honestly it's a much nicer colour in real life and it tastes gorgeous. Wee one is not usually very adventurous with soups but she had a massive bowl and is already planning on having another bowl tomorrow.


And my ever faithful bread machine baked me some sun dried tomato bread. This recipe is another first. A friend brought me up one of her loaves last year or so and it was lovely so I've always wanted to try and make it myself.


As you can see the loaf was a bit big for my machine so maybe next time I'll reduce the ingredients a bit.

See the lovely goodness?


And that yes that blurry hand is wee one helping herself to go with her soup.


And my final B. The bargains. How could I resist these mugs from Matalan. Each was filled with sweeties and wrapped up with a pretty bead flower. And the best bit? Reduced to £1.71 each.


Am sitting here watching Underworld: Evolution having just watched Underworld. Good old FilmFour you sit down to watch just one and suddenly you find yourself still sitting up at 1am in the morning and there's still 15 minutes to go.

Mrs Domesticated I ain't

but I did spend much of today doing housewifey things, mainly ironing.


2 hours of ironing. Ewwwwww. As I think I might have mentioned once or twice before now I do NOT like ironing. But I do have one Mother who loves ironing and she is coming to stay with me for 3 weeks as of next Wednesday. That means no washing or ironing for 3 weeks. She takes over that chore willingly while she's here. Maybe that's how she thinks she can do her bit and I am certainly not complaining. That is one thing that we can get on about no problem, she wants to do it and I let her. :)

So it would seem that my Custard Shortbread looked enticing enough to warrant people hinting that they'd like the recipe. So here you go.

Here is the recipe for the Custard Shortbreads:

185 g butter
⅓ cup icing sugar
1½ cups plain flour
⅓ cup custard powder

Cream butter and icing sugar, add sifted flour and custard powder, and a dash of vanilla. Mix well. Form into balls and place onto greased oven trays and press with a fork to form biscuits. Bake in a moderate oven for about 15 minutes.


I actually got the recipe from spoonfullofsugargirls

I make mine slightly different in that I put all the ingredients in the food mixer and keep whizzing it until it forms into a clump. If you've never tried this trust it does really work. It kinda of looks like breadcrumbs for a long while but then as if by magic it comes together. Then if you prefer you can roll it into a long sausage shape and just just off slices to place on your baking tray.

Let me know if you try them out and how you like them. :)

I was lucky enough to win a bag of sewing things from Anglesey allsorts' ebay shop. She is one super fast poster too. I think I received it the day after I paid for it. :D
And what a lovely bag of goodies it is. I'll be sure to pop back tomorrow and share with you all the loveliness.

Anglesey Allsorts lives in a beautiful part of the world and it's not a million miles away from where I grew up on the North Wales coast. Infact I have many memories of day trips all over Angelsey as a child. Did you know that Anglesey is home of the longest place name in the UK.


You'll notice that they very kindly but a phonetic version underneath so the tourists can at least try to say it all.

It is considered to be the longest place name in the world but in actual fact that is a place called.
Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit, meaning the 'City of Angels', is known to the locals as Krungthep Mahanakhon. The rest of the world knows it as Bangkok, Thailand. However, it is not recognised by the Guinness Book of Records as the longest place name as it is not used on a daily basis by the locals.
Mind you everyone I know who can say the UK one shortens it to Llanfairpg so you could argue that that's not used on a daily basis either.