Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Mexican Beef Salad

It's like mega hot here at the moment, and I don't know about you, but I certainly don't like coming home from work on a stinking hot day and spending hours in the kitchen whipping up a hot meal for tea. So to that end I've been trying to come up with cooler ideas for dinner, I mean we have been having salad with everything lately so I was thinking kind of like a salad in disguise so as not to distress Mr B. This one had the potential to go horribly wrong, on one hand it incorporated two of his favourite things, beef and mexican, but on the other hand there were beans involved, I knew I was walking a fine line but sometimes you just have to take a risk and this time, it paid off....Plus I mean we all like a fuss free mid week meal do we not!?


This recipe easily makes enough for 4 as a main and can be served hot, warm or cold, how's that for versatile!!

All you need is:

400g butternut pumpkin, peeled, cut into 1cm cubes
500g extra lean beef mince
35g packet taco seasoning
400g can red kidney beans, drained
310g can corn kernels, drained
1 green capsicum, diced
4 spring onions, thinly sliced
1 tspn crushed garlic
mini tortillas to serve

Cook the pumpkin in the microwave with 1/4 - 1/2 cup water for 5-7 mins or until softened.

Meanwhile, in a fry pan over medium heat, cook the mince until just starting to brown. Add the taco seasoning, garlic, capsicum and onions and cook for a further 3-4 mins.

Remove the pan from heat and stir through the pumpkin, kidney beans and corn.

Serve with tortillas and most importantly, enjoy!!

Mrs B xx

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Cheesy Salami Rolls


I first saw this recipe literally only 2 days ago here at The Girl Who Ate Everything's blog and Mr B happened to be sitting next to me at the time.

Worst


Mistake


Ever


As soon as he saw that cheesy goodness, he was hooked, if not slightly obsessed....and I knew what I would be cooking this weekend! But I'm so glad I did, these are so easy and delicious and it's another savoury thing which should keep Mr B and the ladies at work off my back about the potential on set of a sugar coma for a touch longer!!


All you will need is:

2 sheets of puff pastry (cut each sheet in half and then cut each piece diagonaly in half to give you 8 pieces in total)
120g salami
8 sticks of cheese (cut just shorter then the longest end of your pastry)

2 tbspns butter
1/2 tspn crushed garlic
1/2 tspn italian herbs

Pre-heat your oven to 150C and grease a baking tray.

Now take one piece of your pastry and on the long side place 3-4 pieces of salami and top with a stick of cheese. Roll the pastry up so you finish with the little pointy end just tucked under neat and place on the baking tray.

Repeat with remaining pastry, salami and cheese.

Once all your little rolls are on the tray, combine the butter, garlic and herbs in a mixrowave safe dish and heat on medium for 10 seconds - just enough so you can mix it all in together. Use a pastry brush to brush the top and sides of each roll with the butter mixture.

Bake for 15 mins or until puffed and golden.

If you wish you could serve these with some tomato chutney or even spread some over the pastry before you add the salami and cheese.

Great little lunch box treat or afternoon snack and the best part is they take next to no time to whip up!

Hope you all had a fabulous weekend!

Mrs B x

Friday, January 27, 2012

Caramelised Banana Crumpets

So whilst being a married couple may not feel a whole heap different to being an un-married couple, I firmly believe in starting something the way you intend to continue. And I intend to be a damn good wife, I want Mr B to feel like the luckiest guy alive because he makes me feel like the luckiest girl alive :)

So here we are, 3 weeks in and things are going pretty well, honestly we should have got married a long time ago if I'd known it would be like this! Maybe it is just the honeymoon phase, but I don't care, I like it. And to celebrate all things going well I made Mr B this specky brekkie :)


Caramlised Banana Crumpets

These aee so quick and easy and talk about making your taste buds get up and do a happy dance, they are to die for!!

All you will need is:

60g butter
1 tbpsn maple syrup
1/4 tspn cinnamon
1 large banana sliced
2 crumpets
2 tbspns brown sugar

Now if you can, the night before you make this combine the butter, maple syrup and cinnamon together in a bowl and place in the fridge. Doesn't matter if you can't though, it can easily be done in the morning :)

In a fry pan over medium heat, add the banana, 1/3 of your butter mix and the brown sugar. Leave to caramelise for 5-10 mins stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, throw on a cup of tea or a pot of coffee and chuck your crumpets in the toaster.

When the crumpets are done, spread with the remaining butter mixture.

The bananas should be done by now, they will be nice and soft and the caramel sauce will be thick and golden. Spoon the bananas over the crumpets and pour over any remaining sauce. See what I mean about being quick and easy!?

Such a decadent and delicious breakfast and without a doubt the new favourite in our house! If you really wanted to go all out, you could top with a dollop of cream too :)

So what are you going to do to show your loved one you care this weekend?

Mrs B x

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Toffee Waffle Ice Cream Cake


Tuesday is not a nice day, the weekend just gone is still fresh in your mind, the weekend to come is so far away and sprawled out in front of you is the remainder of the week, tauting you with it's work and routine and general nastiness...

I think Tuesday is a good day for an ice cream cake....

Ice cream fixes everything....

Except for an ice cream headache.....

Let me tell you about this particular ice cream cake....

It has layers of english toffee ice cream and waffles drizzled in a rich toffee sauce....see you're feeling better just thinking about it aren't you?


And the best thing is, it's so easy to put together!!

All you need is:

2L english toffee ice cream
1L vanilla ice cream
1/2 cup of condensed milk
1 tbspn brown sugar
2 tbspn cream
200g frozen waffles

Let the ice cream soften on the bench while you make the sauce.

Combine the condensed milk, brown sugar and cream in a microwave safe dish and cook in 30 second bursts until it is thick and golden in colour.

Now in a large bowl mix the two ice creams together. Don't let it completely melt though or it will re-freeze all icy...

Now line a tin (roughly 9cm deep and 20cm square) with cling wrap.

Spoon roughly 1/2 of the ice cream into the tin and flatten out.

Top with 1/4 of the toffee sauce and a layer of waffles and 1/3 of the remaining toffee sauce.

Repeat.

Now place in the freezer overnight (or if you really can't wait like Mr B, about 4 hours should do). Remove from the tin and spoil yourself, enjoy it with a dollop of whipped cream and a sprinkle of chocolate!



Mrs B x

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Cheesy Salami and Pesto Muffins

My quest is finally over....

For several years now I have taken a battering for being almost without a doubt the cause of Mr B's diabetes, high cholesterol and future toothless-ness....now let me just say that Mr B is perfectly healthy...., this is all more like 'one day when I get diabetes, it's going to be your fault' kind of thing, but usually these complaints are made while he has a mouthful of fresh brownies so I try not to pay too much attention. In my defense however, I have offered to make him mini quiches to take to work but he has issues with eating cold cooked egg, I've offered to make savoury muffins but he pulls faces, I've tried making several savoury loaves (and some semi-savoury but he just won't come at it.

So earlier this week I was making these muffins to take into work and thought I would make a few mini ones for Mr B in one last effrt to find something he would eat...now granted he hates pesto so the odds were against me...but when presented with one smothered in butter fresh out of the oven, he not only took it, ate it, but asked for one in his lunch the following day! Now part of me wanted to dance around and pull faces and remind him that they are basically everything he dislikes, but part of me realised it was best to just shut up and be thankful!


These really are very easy to make and great lunch box treats - I think the butter is definetly optional and personally prefer them without it.

All you will need is:

50g salami thinly sliced
50g fetta crumbled
1/2 cup grated cheese
90g (roughly half a jar) of basil pesto
50g semi dried tomatoes diced
2.5 cups self raising flour
1.5 cups milk
100g butter
1 egg
1 tbspn caster sugar
1/2 cup oil

Pre-heat oven to 150C. I got 12 standard size muffins and 12 mini muffins out of this recipe so depending on what size your making, grease the appropriate trays.

Melt the butter and sugar together in the microwave (say 30 seconds on medium heat)

Whisk the egg into the milk and combine with the butter.

Pour over the self raising flour and mix in the oil. Stir in the salami, tomato, fetta, cheese and pesto. The mix will be very thick, but only stir until everything is just combined.

Drop tablespoons of the mixtue into muffins trays. Bake for around 20 mins or until golden and a skewer inserted comes out clean.

These can be served warm or cold with or without butter, but I highly recommend trying one straight out of the oven!!

Hope you are all having a fantastic weekend :)

Mrs B x

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Our Mini-Moon

So after a long and much needed snooze, Mr B and I (Mrs B!) set off on our mini-moon. We are off to Europe later in the year, but thought we would treat ourselves to a week travelling our gorgeous state, because let's be honest, no one wants to go back to work 2 days after they get married!


All packed up and ready to hit the road!


Our first stop - Stanley! In this photo is The Nut, would you believe we walked up that? I did believe I was going to die several times on the way up, but the view from the top was so worth it!


This is Dip Falls - about 15 min drive out of Stanley - I have a fascination with waterfalls and these were just so incredibly beautiful


Words to live by Mr B!!


This old restored boat shed can be found at Cradle Mountain on the Dove Lake walk, see that Lake, Mr B and I trekked all the way around that, it was so very cold (possibly due to us packing totally inappropriately for cold bush walking climates!) but the scenery was spectacular and so worth it!


Plus we got to have a little picnic in the car when we got back!


I think over the course of the trip we went through a total of 9 mazes! This photo was taken when we finally got to the centre of the Westbury Maze. A few days earlier we were at a place called Tasmazia which is basically one giant maze and inside that are 7 other smaller mazes! So complex!!!


Our next stop was Coles Bay and first on our list of things to do was taking the kayaks out for a paddle and a fish!


We also did a 2 hour walk into Wineglass Bay while we were there, the view as you come out of the bush track onto the Bay is one of the most incredible things, I've never seen water so blue.


So we decided to make camp and have another picnic!


And just around the corner was Honeymoon Bay - how fitting!! And it was without a doubt the most stunning place we visited.




On our last night we had dinner at a restaurant called Madge Malloys. It's a fresh seafood restaurant right on the bay and really, when you can literally see the boat your dinner was caught on from your table, it's pretty cool! I had calamari and Mr B had trout, seriously good food!


Little bit sad to be on our way home, but still ridiculously happy!


And some of the goodies we managed to come home with from our trip!
Local whiskey cream, lime honey, raspberry honey, vanilla honey, cajun honey, bush dust (seasoning), and honeycomb!! Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!

Lots of Love

Mr and Mrs B x

Monday, January 16, 2012

Introducing Mr and Mrs B xx

Yep, that's us....Mr and Mrs B.....we finally made it to our big day and the whole thing was perfect. I really mean that, I spent 6 hours baking the wedding cupcakes the day before, it took forever because the kitchen was so hot the frosting kept melting off them, then I spent the night before the wedding sleeping on a tiny couch so my neck hurt, I was up at 5am to go to the hairdressers with Mum and the bridesmaids, the press studs on my dress broke when we were getting ready, then the straps on my dress broke during the reception, but you know what, none of that mattered at all. The day really was perfect and from the moment I walked through the doors and saw my gorgeous man waiting for me right through to when I finally fell asleep in his arms, neither of us stopped grinning once!


There were sexy cars....




Gorgeous girls and guys....


And one stupidly happy couple :)






And the cake not only came together beautifully but it tasted incredible, it was definetly worth the many many trial runs we went through!




My Mum and Dad and bridesmaids Allie and Ali really were amazing throughout not only the wedding itself, but the weeks leading up to it as well, such incredible pillars of support and strength that I couldn't have done without :)

And two very handsome boys, Brad and Jade, who stood by Mr B and did fabulous jobs as groomsmen.

And last, but certainly not least, my Mr B, for being everything to me and showing me a whole new world and a whole new level of love xx

Mrs B xx

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Butterflies....

....my goodness, my stomach is churning, my palms are sweaty, my brain is a big ball of fuzzy mush and on one hand I feel ill but on the other hand I would like to curl up with the biggest mug of hot chocolate and the largest block of chocolate I can find...and a good book too of course :)

You see after three years of ups and downs and stress and joy, this weekend, in two whole days, I marry the man of my dreams.

Everything is planned, everything is done, all that is left is for me to make the cake tomorrow, to decorate the reception venue tomorrow night and then that's it...once Saturday gets here it is all out of my hands, I just hope everything goes well, I hope it's as beautiful as I've imagined, I hope I don't fall over walking down the aisle, I hope he thinks I look stunning, I hope it's everything he has dreamed of.

The ladies I work with put on a beautiful morning tea this morning, they really spoil me, I am lucky to work with such amazing people who have really taken me under their wing. They even made me a cake that said Emily loves Tynan!


So there will be a short break whilst we are away, but I will be back in about 10 days with photos galore and I'll have most of my brain cells back so I'll be diving head first back into the kitchen!!

See you all soon,

soon to be Mrs B xx

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