Beef Wellies

For Easter dinner, I decided to give a recipe a try that I've been eye-balling ever since my sister made it for Christmas dinner back home (*cough* without me *cough*). Its from the Masterchef Australia show, and its a slightly different take on beef wellington, using crepes to keep the pastry from getting soggy from the mushroom pate. She got me hooked on watching the British version of the show, which I've begun amassing recipes from that I want to try as well (including a corn and feta polenta topped with grilled aubergine and courgette.)

Note the large bottle of wine third from the left at the top. Was 3/4 gone before the wellington even came out of the oven.

First you make the chive, tarragon and parsley crepes.

You only really need four crepes for the recipe stated on the website but it actually made about 9-10 so you'll end up with some leftovers. I intend to use mine for eggs in the morning with some roasted tomatoes. 

This is the mushroom mix. Soaking the porcini mushrooms left an odd smell of dog food in the flat, but tasted delicious! Unfortunately the pate ended up looking a bit like dog food too....

Not quite Alberta beef, but it'll do.

So you brown the beef...

...and wrap it with the ham, covered in mushroom pate.

Make a neat little parcel...

...wrap it in the crepe, and toss in the freezer.

After freezing, you wrap them in puff pastry, freeze them again, then throw them in the oven.

Include some easter chocolate in the form of kinder eggs and mini eggs (which actually have cheap crappy chocolate in them, unlike the Canadian ones, where the chocolate is much creamier... Stupid UK.)

Didn't get a beaver toy this time, but a frog that squirts water from its brain. Sam got a weird little blue blob that sort-of bounced...and a maze.

After waiting a rather large amount of time, snacking on leftover crepes, chocolate, and wine, it was finally ready!

Sam had insisted on making eyeball designs on them...

The final result! It was great. The porcini mushrooms left a fairly strong flavor, with the crepe and ham fairly unnoticeable, but the beef was nice and tender, and the pastry quite flaky. Now the true test will be how the leftovers hold up. 

So the final verdict:

3 hours of prep + 2 people's manual labor + 30 quid's worth of ingredients = one damn fiiiiinnneee meal

Boldly Venturing into the Vegan

 I'd seen this recipe before going to Greece, but it seemed like such a lot of work, I kept buying the ingredients, putting it off and using them for something else. Finally, I'd decided to hunker down and just try it. This recipe probably had the most prep work out of any I've made, but with very tasty results. Its a vegan version of moussaka with roasted tomato sauce and a whole lotta vegetables. To prepare myself for being in the kitchen for 3 hours, I also tried re-creating the Greek coffee I had while on vacation, using this set of instructions and the coffee I'd picked up from the grocery store near our hotel.

and yes, I realize that by putting parmesan crisps on top, I ruin the whole vegan-ness of the recipe, but I'm a poor student and need to make full use of everything in my fridge. 

Lessons In Avoiding Your Dissertation

The 5,000 word draft for my dissertation is due Thursday, which also happens to be the day before our Easter Break starts, which also happens to be the day before I am due to fulfill the top to-do on my bucket list (a.k.a Greece.) Needless to say, I've been hibernating in my room all weekend in an attempt to get at least the majority of those 5,000 words transfered from my brain and onto my Mac, so I can attempt the next hurdle of finding myself a swimsuit before my flight departs Friday morning.

Staring at a computer screen for hours on end leaves you with two things; fuzzy eyeballs and pins and needles in your legs. So what do you do to get yourself up and moving and away from a possible slow death-by-pixels? You cook of of course...

It started with a little mushroom risotto Saturday night. Who knew barley took that long to cook! I'd been watching Masterchef during a bit of an afternoon break and decided to attempt a parmesan crisp (the fluorescent orange tubular thing protruding from my barley...) I also grilled a little zucchini, cooked up a caramelized onion sausage, and added a little wholemeal bread to the plate too. 

The following morning, I woke up bright and early to start it all over again to discover my daffodils had bloomed!! (Yes, I bought daffodils. They were a pound fifty at Tesco and I couldn't resist the challenge again to try and not kill my household plants....wish me luck.)

I'd already forgotten to water them once and one of the tips turned a wee brown and Sam yelled at me...

Decided to try something I'd picked up from one of the American food stores in London - GRITS! Looks like Cream of Wheat, kinda taste like it too, but apparently a typical Southern staple. I got the packaged kind that you just add boiling water to but you can make your own....if you care to boil corn in lye on your day off, but if not, I would suggest forking over the few pounds for a box of Quaker ones. 

I first saw grits on that Simply Breakfast blog I love so much. She typically serves them with a fried egg on top, so I followed in her example. Also, in order to clean out my fridge before I leave, I whipped up some whole wheat cheese scones and a piece of bacon too. One big ol breakfast to start the dissertation-writing day off right! 

P.S If you go to the website with the scone recipe, it is actually a vegetarian blog with the most adorable little cartoon on the top... reminds me of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!!

P.P.S Dad, if you're reading this, I really think we should have a nostalgic junk food and B grade horror film movie night when I get home. I vote a little 'Godzilla vs. Mothra', and maybe some of 'The Brain that Wouldn't Die.'

More Adventures in Student Cooking

Like I said, there would be lots of experimentation from that cookbook, and here is another: Cornish Pasties! I've had a nasty little craving for these not-so-little parcels of meat/vegetable goodness that just wouldn't go away, and I decided to try my hand at making them myself. I tried the 'Speedy Shortcrust Pastry' from the cookbook, and it unfortunately came out a bit hard and not quite as flaky as short crust should be, but I might attribute that to my use of olive oil margarine, as opposed to real butter. Butter really does make all the difference.

I made two, and saved one for later (apparently they freeze well too), filling them with a random assortment of stewing beef, swede, carrots, cauliflower, onion, just a little too much garlic, thyme, and potato. My favorite kind tend to involve just beef, gravy and ale, or a mushroom and chicken mix, but I had a lot of veggie ends lying around that looked in need of a home. 

Figured it had been a while since I posted any non-food pictures too, so here's one of the lovely ferris-wheel/fake London Eye that's been set-up in Nottingham's Market Square. Bloody expensive to go on it, so I just admire from afar. 

Also, thought I would share with you that pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie taste exactly the same. Who knew? I was recently watching I Robot with a friend and in it, Will Smith absolutely devours several sweet potato pies and I thought, huh, don't those look good. So I looked up a recipe and sure enough, it has very similar spices to pumpkin pie, and tastes just the same! I made 6 little baby ones, which I'm currently eating with some strange fake ice cream I found at Tesco called Worthenshaws Freedom, which was apparently on Dragon's Den TV Show. 

A Sweet Tart

So here is that lovely cookbook I bought in London. Expect there to be lots of experimentation from it in the next little while... 

This one looked particularly full of cheesy goodness, so I picked up some puff pastry, and amassed all my random loose-ends of vegetables and tossed it all together into a tart. Really easy, just lay out the pre-made pastry (I used a lower fat version of the typical all-butter one), slap a little tomato sauce on it and start laying out your vegetables (I used just eggplant), and lots and lots of cheese. 

For once, it actually turned out looking like it should! Whaddya know!

Chicks and Curry

Tried my hand at making chicken korma from scratch, now that I have developed a love of indian food... Well, it tastes nothing like chicken korma. BUT! It does taste like curry. Thats a start! The recipe had no cream or coconut, which I believe are two main ingredients in korma...so I'm hoping that means it wasn't just a fail on my cooking skills... I also added a bunch of veg because it seems like most curry never has any...

I also made chickpea mushroom burgers to freeze for when I am lazy. Little squishy, but a nice alternative to meat burgers, and would taste great with some yoghurt or sour cream and guacamole.

To Infinity.....and BEYOND!

I've been slacking lately. I'll be the first to admit it. We had several hand ins, very close together, and I holed myself away in my room, surviving off of tea and all the frozen food I've been compiling these past few months. Now, we're starting new classes and I've got a bit of a breather. Also, my kitchen is clean for once and I care to take advantage of that....

...by making COSMIC COOKIES! This recipe, from the organic supermarket in Canada called Planet Organic, includes spelt flour, raisins, oats, molasses, sugar, water, milk, pumpkin seeds, linseed, sunflower seeds, and chocolate. The recipe is available on their website, should you care to try them!

I cut the recipe in half, used regular milk and granular sugar, and despite being quite crumbly, they have a nice flavor and they're not too sweet.

Better than Heinz Baked Beans

While in London, I picked up a fun little cookbook called Sam Stern's Student Cookbook. I wanted something that would be almost a document of all the popular things that people eat here, and that would have recipes of the things I have tried and would want to re-create. This book has everything! From all the popular take-away (pork buns, asian noodle dishes, cornish pasties) to proper home cooked British meals (roasts, pea soup, fish pie) and everything in between. All the student staples.

For my first dish, I decided to try the homemade baked beans and polenta. Absolutely delicious recipe! Although the polenta part called for what seemed like an oddly large amount, but I'd never made it before, so thought I'd stick to the recipe. It said it only made enough for two, so I thought, what the hell. Well, let's say that I ended up eating polenta for the next week straight. It was great...but I don't think I'll make that much next time.

The beans were cannellini and haricot, and you mix them with onions, garlic, tomatoes, veg stock, soy sauce, mustard, worcestershire sauce, and brown sugar. Highly recommended book.

I See London...

Welcome once again to London Town. Sam and I decided to nip over to London for a few days break, in between our two semesters. She ran off to do sightseeing...while I mostly shopped in fancy food stores. So be prepared for more pictures and stories of food.

Sam and I, on the train at an ungodly hour, very excited!

Started off at the Borough Market, which I'd never been to. My, have I been missing out! Food, glorious food!!!

Cheese, sweets, meat galore. We pretty much had lunch solely through the samples we were given. 

I have to admit, I'm a sucker for the smell of fresh bread. I wish they could bottle that and sell it. Cause that would be my room spray. 

I bought this little guy for 50 p at a vegetarian stall. Its a flower pot bread! Wholemeal with sundried tomatoes, it was wonderful. Too bad I couldn't keep the flower pot too...

Sam also convinced me to try oysters, so we got two in the half shell and slurped em back. 

To be honest, they didn't taste as fishy as I thought they would. Later on, she got me to try canned smoked oysters on crackers with cream cheese and I definitely liked that better. The smoke flavor was much nicer than the salty sea water flavor. 

We also grabbed a sea salt and white chocolate cookie, which despite sounding quite nice, wasn't as impressive as I thought it would be. 

We took a lovely stroll along the Thames...

...and I ended up back at the market in the end. 

Another day, we went to one of my favorite shops, Fortnum and Mason. I was on the hunt for steel-cut oats, but we stopped for lunch there. Sam got a chicken caesar sandwich....and I got....

...a cornish pasty! The pastry was flaky and just the right thickness, but I think I enjoy steak and ale pastys more, as opposed to the potato ones. I think I'm in the wrong country, cause I really don't like potatoes as much as all these Brits seem to. 

After having eaten a whole whack of weird and wondrous foods, we opted for a healthy dinner at a place called itsu. This, called a 7 vegetable detox, is really just miso soup with vermicelli and a whole bunch of veggies tossed in. Quite nice. I'm going to try re-creating it sometime. 

They also had frozen yoghurt for dessert, which you could add fruit and granola into. 

Made you look.

On our way to Portobello...

On the recommendation of my sister, I ate a falafel from the Happy Vegetarian falafel stall. Om nom.

Eventually I ended up back at Borough, where I decided to get another flower pot bread, and...

Carrot cake! (with cream cheese icing, of course)

Harrods at night. 

A classy dinner from Harrods food store. One scotch egg and some yoghurt. Eaten on the bench outside. 

Playin Monopoly at the hostel. I was the cheeseburger.

But we got tired and went to bed too fast to really finish it...

Hyde Park, which was right next to our hostel. 

An old tree in the park, that has little figurines tucked into it. 

Duck. Duck. Goose. 

I also decided to take a little bike ride through the park, courtesy of the Barclays bike scheme. Only cost me a pound for a half hour of bike riding bliss. 

Hello gorgeous.

And enter my favorite store: Whole Foods. Oh how I hope to live close to one of you, someday. Some veggie soup, a spelt roll, and a tofu spinach pancake. 

Next pictures are from the Natural History Museum...

Lloyds of London. Also known as the inside-out building. Kinda looks like it belongs in Metropolis...or Tron.

Our hostel was the Smart Hype Park View, which was very close to Portobello, and a good deal all round. Plus there were triple bunkbeds! Sam and I slept on the very tops, of course. Overall, was a lovely trip!