Battered Fish & Herb Spaghetti

I wanted to make something different for supper one day, since I pretty much eat the same things all the time. I had fish(basa) in the freezer that had been there for quite some time, so decided to make that. I found a basic recipe for fish batter on All Recipes.com. 1 part milk, and 1 part milk or water. Then I just added some basil, onion powder, thyme, salt, and pepper.

I also made some simple herb spaghetti to go with it. Another recipe I found at AllRecipes.com, and modified a little bit to my own tastes.

Recipe:
1/4 pound uncooked pasta

1/4 cup butter
2-3 gloves garlic, minced
1/2 Tbsp basil
1 tsp thyme
1/3 tbsp parsley
salt and pepper to taste

Melt butter. Add herbs and stir. Mix into spaghetti.

The simple herbs of the spaghetti tasted very good with the fish.


Till Next time, thanks for reading =]

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

I almost always have banana's around the house, and so when they get close to going bad, I always find a way to use them up. This time I made banana chocolate chip muffins, one of my favourite flavours of muffins =]. I ran out of muffin liners, which resulted in having to spread butter on the remaining holes.

The batter was also a lot thicker than I was expecting it to be. Almost like dough, but they turned out excellent =].

I didn't fill all the cups evenly so I got a whole bunch of random sized muffins, but all very tasty.

And this one muffin just looked so perfect =]

Till Next time, thanks for reading!

Rice Krispie Squares

I bought marshmallows quite a while ago specifically to make rice krispie squares, and I finally got around to doing it. I used the recipe that comes on the box, and then I added chocolate on top. I was wanting to kind of drizzle it on, but it wasn't liquidy(i don't think that's a work but oh well) enough. So I ended up spreading it around, which didn't look the prettiest, but its the taste that matters.

I also managed to chip off part of my nail pulling a fudgesicle out of the mold. I was amazed that just the gel chipped, and my natural nail didn't break.

Till Next Time,

Thanks for Reading!

Homemade Fudgesicles

I bought a $2 popsicle mold from Superstore a couple weeks ago, and decided to put it to use. I searched the net for some good popsicle recipes and found one for fudgesicles on Food.com that I decided to try out.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients
1/2 cup sugar
2tbsp corn starch (I used potato starch since thats what I had)
2tbsp cocoa
2/12 cups milk
1tsp vanilla
1tbsp butter

Directions

On medium heat combine sugar, potato starch, cocoa, and milk.  Keep stirring till the cocoa is dissolved, and the mixture is slightly thick. Remove pot from heat, and add vanilla & butter, and stir till combined.

I poured the mixture from the pot to a measuring cup, so it would be easier to pour into the molds. There was about 2 3/4 cups of liquid which filled my mold with just a tiny bit of extra. Place them in the freezer  overnight. To remove them from the molds, I run it under hot water, to melt the outer edge just enough to pull one out.

More strawberries! Seems to be about 3 every time.

Till Next Time,

Thanks for reading!

Scrapbooking and Morning Glories

I finally got around to doing some more scrapbooking. I only did a couple pages though since I wasn't feeling all that well. My morning glories got another flower, they are such a cool colour =D. So here is pics of my scrapbook pages and the morning glories.

Oh and also some more strawberries, the top one was very funny looking, like the bottom didn't get pushed out into more of a point.

Thanks for Reading!

Gel Nails & Strawberries

A friend of my mom's does gel nails, and she needed models to practice white french tips on. I volunteered and now I have some lovely gel nails =D She even added some purple, and stars. She has much improved since the first time she did them on me.

My strawberry plants are doing well, got another bountiful harvest of 3 berries lol. But they were  very tasty of course. They are only coming from two plants, since the other two have not successfully made any fruit yet, they are also from a different place.

Till Next Time,
Thanks for Reading

Swirls & Chocolate

I had found this recipe in one of my mom's cookbooks(a Betty Crocker one I believe), and thought it seemed interesting I had no idea what this was gonna turn out to be. Especially when the description called it a "jelly roll". But it has no flour, which meant my mom could eat it =D. I also decided to have ago at making 'pinwheel' cookies, and I'd say not too bad for my first try. But I will definitely try a slightly different method next time.

1-Separaed Eggs(I used an ice-cream scoop) 2- Egg whites beat with sugar 3&4-Egg yolks beat with sugar

1-3 - Adding the cocoa and vanilla. I thought it looked neat when I first started mixing it.
 4-Folding in the egg white mixture.

1-Everything all mixed together 2-prepared pan 3-'Batter' poured in 4-The baked 'cake'

1-Sifted Icing sugar 2-'Cake' placed on top with wax paper 3-Cake rolled in a tea towel 4- Whipped Cream

1-Cake unrolled ( I don't know why it cracked like that) 2-Melting Chocolate chips with water

 3-Chocoalte Spread over the cake 4- Whipped Cream spread over the cake

And some what sadly I forgot to take a picture of the completed cake all rolled up. But it didn't roll terribly well, but I think there was too much whipped cream. The original recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups, but next time I will use only 1 cup. Even though it wasn't the prettiest looking 'cake' it was very tasty =D.

And for those who want to try this out themselves, here is the recipe:

Chocolate Roll

6 egg whites, room temperature

1/4 cup white sugar

6 egg yolks

1/2 cup white sugar

6 tbsp cocoa

1/2 tsp vanilla

Line greased 10x15 inch pan with waxed paper, and also grease the waxed paper(I used a cookie sheet that happened to be this size, its best if it is slightly deeper).

Beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Add sugar and beat until stiff.

Beat egg yolks with sugar until lemon coloured and light. Beat in cocoa and vanilla. Fold into egg whites. Spread into prepared pan. Bake in 350˚F oven for 15 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean whne inserted. Sift icing sugar over a tea towel. Turn cake on top of towel(while still in the pan). Remove the pan, and peel off the waxed paper. Starting at narrow end roll the cake up with the towel till it cools. When col, unroll and spread with filling. (By the time you make the filling it should be cool)

Filling

2/3 cup Semisweet chocolate chips

2 tbsp water

1 cup whipping cream

Melt chocolate chips together with the water in a small saucepan. Spread over unrolled cake.

Whip cream until stiff, and peaks form. (I added a tsp of vanilla and a couple tbsp of sugar) Spread over chocolate layer, and then roll the cake starting at the narrow end. Keep refrigerated.

And because I already put plenty of pictures in this post, I'll just put one of my pinwheel cookies.

Till Next time,

Thanks for reading!

*Gingersnap Cookies 2.0*

Since the earlier batch of gingersnaps weren't completely to my liking, I decided to try again. I found a different recipe this time with more flour, less ginger, and cloves. I also realized I was probably baking them too long. I baked my earlier ones for 15 min, but all the recipes only say 10. These ones turned more fluffy and soft like i wanted them to be, but I think they could've been baked just a minute or two longer.

Dough rolled in sugar

Cookies just out of the oven

Cookies once they cooled(they got flat!)

And if anyone is curious, here is the recipe for these cookies =D

(very slightly adapted from Allrecipes.com)

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tsp teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup margarine, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 
  
• 2 tablespoons white sugar (for rolling dough in)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then stir in the water and molasses. Gradually stir the sifted ingredients into the molasses mixture. Shape dough into walnut sized balls, and roll them in the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar. Place the cookies 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet, and flatten slightly.
3. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Well till next time,

Thanks for reading!

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day!

(even though this was actually posted a week late)

Just thought I'd share my card design I made for my dad, 

and also pics of strawberries, from my lovely balcony garden.

These were less than an inch big, but very tasty =D

Morning Glories finally got a flower

Till next time, thanks for reading!

*Gingersnap Cookies*

For Father's Day I decided I would bake some cookies. He said gingersnaps were his favourite, so that's what I made. They didn't turn out quite the way I wanted too, but they still tasted good, and he liked them. It seemed like the dough was way too fluffy, normally its stickier, it looked like it had been whipped.

When the cookies were baking, they seemed like they were gonna turn out like I wanted. Being soft and fluffy, not slightly soft and flat, like they ended up being. I even looked up the recipe on line, found the same one, and all the pictures showed fluffier gingersnap cookies.  Alas, thats not what I got but they were still very tasty.

Until next time,

Thanx for reading

Baking & Decorating Sugar Cookies

I'm already getting behind on this, shame on me. LoL

On MONDAY, my friend came over and we baked, and decorated sugar cookies. It was fun of course, especially since I haven't made sugar cookies since December.

Fully Baked Cookies

We also cut out our own shapes

We used all sorts of random cookies cutters, and also cut out some of our own shapes with butter knifes. After cutting a few, I realized dipping the knife in flour worked better to make the edges smoother.

Putting dough on the pan

Icing colours all mixed up

Icing, sprinkles, cookies; all ready to go

We spent around four hours making these cookies. Most of the time was decorating, but thats what happens when you make every cookie unique.

Cookies I Decorated

Cookies Alice Decorated

We also ended up with a little bit of extra icing, so we ended up -of course- eating some of it. We also 'practiced' are icing writing- on our fingers, and on the table. And I managed to get food colouring all over my fingers, hence why my fingers are blue, and red, and green..

Icing on a glass table, great idea eh? I made sure to clean it off before it dried completely, otherwise it wouldn't have been fun to get off. The table (and the floor) were also covered in sprinkles. Im sure the next time i sweep the floor, I'll find sprinkles.

Well till next time, Thanks for reading!

Indigo Ink

As you could tell from my last post, my nails were very chipped, and I didn't feel like waiting till Friday to do my nails. And since I got new polish, I decided to make them match my toe nails somewhat. I used the colour 'INK' from Joe. In this picture, and when first looking at it, it looks more purple, than blue. I would really call it indigo.

Once I put it on my nails, I realized it was way more blue, than purple. But still a nice colour.

One Coat

Two Coats

I liked this colour so much, I almost left my nails just one solid colour. But I ended up adding just a little something to my thumbs - A couple silver stripes:

 I used the Revlon Calcium Gel Nail Hardener as a Base coat, and Nicole by OPI Topcoat.

Till Next Time,

Thanks for Reading!