My Royal Wedding Survival Kit

I am one of the many thousands of people in this country and around the world who is really looking forward to the royal wedding tomorrow.  Having got married myself only last year the whole wedding thing still excites me.  And to be honest with all the gloom and doom that gets reported on the news from all around the world I think its fantastic to have something happy to celebrate tomorrow.

Anyway, onto the reason for this blog post.  As you may recall my husband is away on a 3 week business / pleasure trip (coming home on Sunday and I cant wait).  He knows how much I have been looking forward to the wedding and to be honest the only good thing about him being away at the moment is that I get to watch the coverage on TV tomorrow for as long as I like.  I told him before he went that I would be getting up and plonking myself on the sofa and I'm not moving until the road sweepers move in to clear up afterwards.

So, while speaking to him on Skype (amazing invention) yesterday I mentioned that I needed to go out and get my self a bottle of the bubbly stuff so I could toast the royal couple.  At this he said to me "do you want a present?"  On his instructions off I went upstairs, in his wardrobe, at the back, behind the shoes to find a box wrapped up in pink paper which I brought back downstairs so he could see me open it via Skype.

Inside was a "Royal Wedding Survival Kit". Inside the box there was union jack bunting, union jack flacks, red & white streamers, tissues, just married balloons, chocolate mini eggs, 2 x packets of crisps, a packet of cookies and a half bottle of Lanson Rose Champagne.

I am so lucky to have such a thoughtful husband.  I know to others it sounds daft but I think its great and now I am all kitted out for a whole mornings worth of watching.  All I need now are my best pajamas.

Thanks Craig, you made my day xxxxxxxxxx

Dinner tonight - Thai Steak Salad

Hubby is away on business at the moment and I promised him that I would eat well while he is away.  I would be more than happy to eat poached egg on toast or toast & bovril but as I promised I have been making an effort.

Tonight I really had a craving for something hot and spicy, and as I love Thai food and steak I decided to make a Thai Steak salad.  This satisfied both my craving for highly flavoured spicy food and a low fat meal. 

So here is the recipe and some photos.

This is some of the spicy dressing ingredients

This is the steak cooking.  Its a rump steak as it has lots of flavour and a nice texture.  I just brush the steak with olive oil and salt & pepper then cook in a searing hot pan until cooked to my liking.  Unfortunately this time I overcooked it.  I like it medium rare but when I took it out of the pan the first time it was still very rare in the centre so I put it back in and accidentally overcooked it!

This is the finished salad.  I have to be honest and say its not as good as it should have been as the ex husband and my son turned up in the middle of cooking so it was all just chucked on a plate. The salad part was literally mixed leaves and cucumber, but I didn't want to have too many other things with the steak.

This was how yummy it was - a clean plate.

6 Tablespoons fish sauce

5 Tablespoons lemon juice

1/4 cup of red onion finely chopped

1 medium tomato, chopped up into very small pieces

2-3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 teaspoons brown sugar (or more to taste)

handful fresh coriander, chopped

1 red chili, finely chopped

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl.

Brush the steak with a little olive oil and salt & pepper then cook to your liking.

Thinly slice the steak and drop into the dressing for a few minutes to absorb the flavours.

Put the steak on top of a mixed salad with whatever ingredients you like.

Sharon x

Baking with my Niece

I don't get to see my sister and her family to often even though they only live an hour and a half away.  Anyway as its a long weekend we have come down to stay overnight.  I thought it would be nice to spend a bit of quality time with my niece by doing some baking.

I don't normally do baking as I have never been very good at it; give me a casserole to cook any day.  Anyway I didn't think cooking a casserole in this weather would be much fun for an 11 year old so cupcakes it is.

We did 2 different types of cakes - Vanilla Cupcakes from the new Hummingbird Bakery Book, Cakedays and Chocolate Fudge cupcakes from an old BBC Good Food magazine.

Gemma had great fun decorating the cakes with all sorts of pretty bits and now the result is  33 cup cakes to share between 6 of us!!!!! I feel a bit full just thinking about it.

Here are some photos of the results.

Spanish Roast Chicken

We eat a lot of chicken in this house, we all love it.  But I have to be honest it can get a bit boring.  I often buy a whole chicken and roast it to have with vegetables, potatoes and gravy and then strip the carcass for a second meal the next day.  I also nearly always make chicken stock from the carcass and put it in the freezer.

Or I will buy a couple of chicken breasts to make either stir fry, curry or fajitas.

I bought a whole chicken last week but I really fancied a bit of a change so I got on the Internet and searched for a new recipe.  I had a look on Jamie Oliver's website and found a recipe for Spanish Roast Chicken.  It had all the flavours we love, lemons, garlic, choritzo and potatoes.  I wont post the recipe as I'm still not sure if I am allowed to but here is a link instead Spanish-roast-chicken

Above are photos of the chook in all its naked glory ready to go in the oven (and yes that is a lemon up its bum!)

And here is the cooked chook.  It was delicious and I will be using this recipe again.  I have to confess to putting some gravy on it which I don't recommend; why cover up all those beautiful flavours.

Try it, you wont regret it.

Sharon x

Hummingbird Bakery, London

I don't often eat cakes and biscuits however one thing I have a weakness for is cupcakes.  A few years ago I discovered The Hummingbird Bakery.  They have 2 shops in London and they make and sell the most amazing cupcakes, layer cakes and various other goodies.  They are proper American style cupcakes with loads of frosting in great flavours.

Occasionally as a treat my wonderful husband does a little detour when he is up in London to bring me home some cupcakes.  Last week after a night away he arrived home clutching the Hummingbird Bakery paper carrier bag with 4 fantastic cupcakes.

The cupcakes come in these lovely boxes to keep then in one piece.

The top picture shows a double chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting and sprinkles and a carrot cupcake with cream cheese frosting.
The next picture shows my favourite Red Velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting  (See cake post below for an explanation of Red Velvet)

Hummingbird Bakery

Next time you are in London go and check it out you wont be sorry.

Sharon x