Cooking Crusade

Hey y’all.

Since going on my ‘bridal diet’ or whatever you wanna call it, I’ve been trying to come up with some low-cal sweet treats I can still keep in my life without feeling too guilty. I’m also planning a huge dessert table for our engagement party in 1 month, so I will definitely need to be super-strict with my treats up until then cos it is going to be a super sweet (ok, calorific) affair. So excited! I have always wanted to do a dessert table It is gonna be off the hook.

These honey & cinnamon stewed apples are simply delectable. They’re also perfectly vegan, low in sugar and sooooo versatile. Yes.. I think I’m in love.

Ingredients.
Six apples (I used royal gala, you can use whatever you like. since you’re not adding a great deal of sugar, probably best to stick with sweeter apples, as opposed to Granny smith apples)
1 large Tablespoon/dollop of honey
1 teaspoon + of ground cinnamon
3 capfuls (yes, that’s how I measure things) of vanilla essence
1 cup of boiling water

Peel, core and chop apples and set aside. Heat a large, thick bottom pot with a fitted lid over high heat. Add apples to pot and dust with cinnamon.

Pour over hot water, add honey and vanilla, stir to combine.

Pop the lid on and leave to simmer for about 20 or so minutes on medium heat, or until apples are fully cooked (but still retain their shape). If you feel that it is a little watery, just add a little mixture of cornflour and water mixed together to thicken it. But whatever you do, do not drain that liquid away! It forms this wonderful cinnamon honey syrup that tastes oh-so fine.

Sure it ain’t as pretty as some other desserts – but it sure tastes reaaal good. (And compared to the rest of my desserts, is probably waaay healthier. lol).

Here are a couple of things you could do with this super-deliciousness.

+ Blend for a delicious baby-food dessert, or as an apple sauce
+ Pop into a baked pie crust for a delectable apple pie
+ Pop into a greased baking dish & cover with a mixture of oats, flour, butter and sugar for a perfect apple crisp
+ Layer between cake batter for apple cake
+ Warmed, with a big dollop of vanilla bean Greek yoghurt (I am loving the black swan brand at the moment)
+ Makes a mean smoothie + aforementioned vanilla bean Greek  yoghurt + soy milk (or regular.) I bet a banana wouldn’t go astray in there either..
+ OR, do what I do and pop it on your morning breakfast cereal. I betcha it would go great on French toast.

So dear readers, how was your weekend?
I spent it watching terrible movies. I watched Agent Cody Banks (epic cliche), Sex in the City 2 (awful, just so awful. Kind of ruined the characters and the series for me – each line and joke was soo contrived in a false attempt to be charming but just came out.. grating and irritating. Even 99% of the fashion was hideous) and Burlesque (Christina needed about twenty thousand years of acting classes before she took that movie. Dang, girl).

xx

Christine

I love throwing together easy, simple ingredients to make a delicious dinner for myself and my fiance.

On this particular night, I wanted to make something Moroccan spiced to go with my new cous cous craze and this is kind of what I came up with and Mike and I were pretty pleased with the results. Definitely going to keep this one around for time to come! I love throwing things in the oven and then coming back later and dinner is pretty much done. It also gives you an opportunity to clean up all of the mess that you created (which I tend to do quite a lot) in the process.

Ok! Lets get started.

Ingredients: Serves 2.
4 chicken thighs (this makes a big dinner! if you are a girl, like me, you may just want 1 chicken thigh for yourself. keep the remaining in the fridge to slice for a sanger. brill!)
2 teaspoons of moroccan spice
1 teaspoon of garlic powder (optional)
1/2 a cup of plain flour
some olive oil.

Line a baking tray with some baking paper and preheat the oven to about 180 deg C. In a small bowl, blend together flour and spices.

Rub your chicken thighs with about a teaspoon of oil or less per thigh.

Dip each thigh into flour/spice mixture until thoroughly coated and place on baking tray.

Repeat until all chicken is coated.

Chicken after abou 1 hour – golden brown.

Bake in a hot oven for about 1 hour, or until golden and crispy. Occasionally turn then about every 20-30 minutes to evenly brown them.

You could take them out at 1 hour and they would be fine, but if you have some extra time, 1.5 hours turns the thigh meat into a dark golden, lovely colour and the meat literally falls apart.

Chicken after 1.5 hours – dark golden brown and.. amazing.

Serve with cous cous and steamed greens and most of all.. Enjoy!

xx

Christine

Hey y’all. How is everyone doing?

As you can imagine, I have wedding on the brain right now. I picked up a Cosmo Bride magazine yesterday and I was bombarded with all the things I’m supposed to be thinking about.

Engagement party, photographers, hair and makeup, dresses, reception invitation list, actual invitations, actual reception venue, honeymoon locations… It’s all making me a teensy bit mad, but hey.. It’s gotta be done, right? At least I feel like we’re making a little bit of progress (in the way of research anyway.)

I’ve also joined a gym and made major changes to my diet in an attempt to fit into a bridal gown.. I’ve given myself a good six months to drop the kay-gees (or kgs haha) before I go dress shopping. I’ve been told that dress-makers are going to absolutely freak on me, but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do! Besides wanting to get into shape, I honestly do not think I could plan this whole wedding in under 12 months without having a mental breakdown – all this planning is giving me a serious headache!

Anyway… This post is an indication of what you almost definitely should not be eating when you’re on a crazy bride-diet. Bakerella calls these Thaank you Betty! brownies, but I kind of call them ‘deadly brownies.’

I have to say.. Every single time I have baked these I have received nothing but compliments. I’ve been told these are the best brownies I’ve ever made (on several occasions). And its true. They are completely amazing. It’s a combination of brownie AND cookie (AND chocolate ganache.) Something about the cookie dough and the brownie batter melds together to marble together in this amazingly wonderful fudgy, dense, incredible way to create something completely magnificent.

The best thing about them is how absolutely easy they are to make AND they cut down on clean up (people with no dish washers shout “hooray!”)

You only need a few things.

Ingredients:
1 brownie box mix; My favorite box-mix by FAR is White Wings. I’ve tried all the other brands and I swear by this one – been using it for years with great results every time. I fail to make a brownie this good – shame, right?
1 box mix of cookie dough Oddly enough the Betty Crocker brand far outweighs the White Wings cookie dough, which I have also tried. Weird, right? I guess you need the best of both worlds to make this one.
PLUS the ingredients to make the box mixes. From memory, the brownie mix requires 1 T of water, 2 eggs and 1/4 oil (i always use melted butter) and the cookie dough needs 1 egg and something like, 1/3 cup of softened butter.

PLUS you will need some chocolate ganache.
1 cup cream + 250 grams of good eating milk chocolate (I just use the Coles Belgium chocolate brand and it’s gooood.)

To make the chocolate ganache, boil the cream in a saucepan until bubbling. Pour over chopped/broken up chocolate in a bowl and leave for about 30-60 seconds (until chocolate is melted) and stir together. Wow! You just made chocolate ganache. Give yourself a pat on the back. Now take a spoonful of chocolate ganache and contemplate how good chocolate is. Then put the ganache in the fridge and stop eating it. Seriously. Stop. I said stop eating it! Thank you. Allow it to cool for a good hour. You could make this a day beforehand if you were feeling particularly productive.

(PS: In case you didn’t know this, chocolate ganache makes a mean chocolate milk, mixed with cold milk or a beaut hot chocolate with hot milk. OR drizzle it over vanilla ice cream for the perfect chocolate topping.. It can even be used as frosting for a cakes. Ohhh chocolate ganache how you thrill me with your many uses!) Yep. It’s true. Chocolate ganache is a magical substance.

To make the brownie slice, whip up the brownie batter and pour into a greased and/or lined brownie tray. Mix together the cookie dough and then drop in large chunks of cookie dough into the batter. Not too big, I just like to break off a little bit with my fingers and distribute them randomly in the batter. Bake in a hot oven (about 160 degs, don’t wanna overbake these babies) for about an hour or until the cookie dough starts to brown (and the brownie batter is cooked – test with a cake tester – it should yield moist crumbs.) Cool completely. Pour over chocolate ganache and refrigerate until completely set. Cut into slices and serve.

Ah-mazing!!

If you need any more convincing about these brownies, I took some on a picnic.. And the next thing I knew .. I was engaged. Coincidence?

.. I don’t think so.

Oh and just a little side note: if you noticed that the chocolate ganache looked like it had a couple of air bubbles in it, its because I put this slice in the fridge with some plastic wrap when it was setting and the air bubbles created that weird effect. I didn’t really notice until later but it was fine to spread to even out the texture.

Hope you are all having a wonderful week!

xx

Christine

PS:

These freeze beautifully. Pop slices between squares of baking paper and then wrap in cling wrap – perfect for those days you just need a quick and sinfully sweet pick-me-up. Though I don’t drink it, I imagine these would be great with a coffee