Top Tomato!

Hello again!

I have not posted anything for a few months now (shocker) and my only excuse is that I have been home from uni for the summer; I am back now and ready to bring you more homemade goodness! I am sadly writing this from bed as I have been struck down with the dreaded freshers flu, so the recipe I am bringing you today is one from last week when I was firing on all cylinders, enjoy!

Easy Peasy Italian Sauce

This recipe is brilliant for pouring over pasta or using as a basic pizza sauce, and it uses just 4 simple ingredients. I usually find using a whole tin of chopped tomatoes will serve about 3 people as a pasta or bolognese sauce.

Basic Ingredients

- 1 tin of Chopped Tomatoes (NOTE: Peeled tomatoes are different as you need to chop them up yourself. Supermarket Value packs of chopped tomatoes are perfect to jazz up for your sauce)

- 1 onion, peeled and diced (roughly). I usually buy more onions than I can get through before they go off, so I dice them the day I've bought them and freeze them ready for use

- 1-2 cloves garlic, crushed (or finely chopped if you don't have a garlic crusher)

- Herbs (fresh or dried); basil, oregano OR 'Mixed Italian Herbs'

- Optional; Salt and pepper to taste

Variations (best for sauces)

- Chopped Mushrooms/pepper/carrots/courgettes; these help the sauce go further and are fab at helping give you more of your 5-a-day

- A healthy glug of Red Wine; this makes the sauce extra specially rich and will dress up your meal perfectly, you can either buy a small bottle of red wine, cooking wine or use whatever wine you're drinking with your meal anyway!

How do?

- Warm a splash (1tbsp-ish) of oil (I use olive oil or vegetable oil) until it starts to sizzle or spit. 

- Add the chopped onion and garlic, let them cook for a couple of minutes but don't let them brown.

- Add your herbs and stir them into this; mixing these ingredients before you add the tomato helps release the flavour into the oil. You can tell because you'll be able to smell the ingredients!

- Add your chopped tomatoes, mixing them thoroughly with the onion/garlic/herbs. Allow to simmer.

You have your basic sauce.

If you are using mushrooms add them to the oil/garlic/onion the same time as the herbs to help them cook. Any veg you are adding should be added at the same time as the tomatoes, just make sure you simmer the sauce long enough for the veg to cook. As for the wine, add anytime once the tomato is in, just make sure you stir it well!

For a Bolognese

My preferred way to make a Bolognese is in the oven (just as my mama always makes) as opposed to on the hob. I find the flavour is completely different and a lot richer (especially with wine). The meat itself melts in the mouth it's so tender! To do it in the oven simply add all your ingredients to your mince in a casserole dish (with a lid) and cook on about 180°C for 1-2 hours, stirring occasionally. A few of my friends swear by adding a dash of golden syrup to a bolognese, I have never tried this however as I find it tasty enough without! Dolmio Original Bolognese Sauce is great if you haven't all your ingredients, as it contains 100% natural ingredients and no artificial 'stuff' in it.

For a Pizza Base Sauce

Cook on the hob as mentioned above, but try to strain a bit (not all!!!) of the juice from the chopped tomatoes off. Add a healthy squeeze of tomato paste also to thicken, and if you find it is still a bit too runny try and reduce the sauce, or add a bit of cornflour/water paste.

Naturally, whatever you use this sauce for it should be served with grated cheese; especially Parmesan! 

Enjoy experimenting with these variations! x

Aldi haul

Okay so I'm forever seeing fashion and beauty hauls on both blog sites and youtube alike, so I thought I would do my own haul; this time of all the things I bought in aldi that were defo not on my shopping list! Seriously I only went out to buy; bread, milk, potato waffles, cereal and washing up liquid. Not exactly a big shop. This is why me and Aldi have a love/hate relationship, as I love the bargains but end up buying too much. Anyway, I ended up having to buy another bag for life when I was there to just to accommodate all the extra stuff I bought! So here it is....

 

Hobby Case

If you haven't seen my blog post about my jewellery making endeavors this one might seem a bit random. At £2.99 this was a real bargain, as any crafter knows you can never have enough craft storage. This one is handy as it has different sections and a removable tray.

Various Condiments etc

These were a real bargain, and you could expect to pay a lot more from a main supermarket! So in order of appearance;

Rainbow Pepper Mill - 99p

Smoked Sea Salt from Cyprus - 99p

Extra Virgin Olive Oil with Tomato and Basil - 89p

Ground Cinnamon - 49p

Packet Mixes (shame on me)

These were too tempting to leave. You can actually smell the Toffee cake mix through its paper packaging, and it smells HEAVENLY. Just add water and vegetable oil and voilà, a scrummy cake for very little; the mix having only cost £1.49.

Peppercorn Sauce is something i've never made, mostly due to lack of ingredients (poor student kitchen :( ), but being a lover of steak this was a must have at only 99p

Fresh Pod

Cooking for only one most of the time, I rarely get through whole peppers in one sitting. Half a pepper ends up back in the fridge, the edges go soft or dry, and the whole thing loses its' freshness. This pod promises to keep these stragglers fresh and firm. They also had pods for onion and tomatoes in their respective shapes, I chose the pepper one because it was the largest and there's nothing to stop you putting an onion/tomato in it!

Glass measuring jug

I was really pleased with this as I've been wanting a glass measuring jug for ages, as at the moment I've got a flimsy plastic one that 

only goes up to 300ml and you can barely read. This one is Pyrex-esque and is dishwasher and microwave safe. Budget safe too at £2.49.

Lunch box with cutlery

I have to go on many fieldtrips as part of my degree and always seem to forget to take a lunchbox with me, resulting in squidged sandwiches in the bottom of my backpack. This one's great as it has different compartments for salads and sandwiches etc, and the cutlery clipping into the lid prevents them from snapping in transit. £1.49

Last but not least....

Recipe book selection

These were an absolute bargain at £1.99 each, with the RRP being £8. They had others available in store too. I've been looking for a decent soup book for a while, one that covers the classics like chicken noodle as well as more contemporary soups. The other two are presents, and are great guides especially for students.

So that's the haul. I also bought something else which I can't post yet as it is a birthday present for someone! I spent £24 in total INCLUDING the things I went out to buy in the first place. More than I intended to spend when I left my house, but nonetheless pleased.

Happy Eating/Cooking/Crafting and shopping x

Thou shalt have a fishy in a curry dishy

Well. It has been faaar too long since I posted on here, especially as I promised you more foodie goodness over a month ago! Well, as I said last time my boyfriend came to visit for a week in February and I was planning on trying out lots of lovely new recipes on him (the way to a mans heart is through his stomach after all!). The recipe below is what I had planned to make for our valentines meal the night he was due to arrive, the day after valentines day. Anyway, I got a phone call midday on valentines day telling me to look out the window....turns out he'd planned all along to surprise me and arrive valentines day! Of course my reaction was "well I've not got anything in for dinner!", but alas he had already booked a table and sweeped me off my feet for one of the nicest 3 course meals i've ever had, and certainly the most romantic. So this is the meal I made as our second valentines! 

Fish Curry

This recipe is based from one in 'Step by Step Curries' by igloo books, one of my January sales purchases from The Works (I spend way too much in that place!). For anyone just starting out in making curries I defo recommend this book, it's easy to follow with step-by-step pictures, and from my experience I can say the curries are very tasty!
I halved the recipe as it serves 6.

ISBN: 978-0-85780-689-5

 
It's a simple but very tasty curry to make, and can be made as mild or as spicy as you like. I didn't just use shrimp, I also added a fish-pie mix of fish with some baby sweetcorn to give it a bit more substance. The mixed fish sort of disintegrated into the coconut milk as it cooked, making it thick enough to spread over some naan bread. For those who aren't a big fan of coconut you may still like this as the creaminess is offset by the curry spices and white wine. The recipe did say to add saffron and fish stock, however as I am a poor student I cannot afford saffron, and the fish I used made the fish stock a bit redundant really!

The thing about this recipe that I am most proud of myself for achieving is the part with the tomatoes. You're probably thinking what is the big deal. Trouble is....I HATE tomatoes! I love tomato soup, ketchup, tomatoes in sauces etc....but to me they are an ingredient that needs to be smothered in herbs and garlic and, more often than not, cheese. So the fact this recipe asks you to soak 2 in boiling water and peel/deseed them was a big ask of me, but alas, I did it! I instantly scrubbed my hands so I didn't get any tomatoey juice anywhere, but I did it, yay!
 

 So here's the finished meal, served with rice and naan bread. It was warming but not overly spicey, and very moreish! I defo recommend this. I can tell you me and my boyfriend were practically drooling over the smell of it cooking! I suppose if you're not a big fan of fish you could substitute in chicken or quorn/veg if you're a veggie lover.





I have some lovely new recipe kits from thespicery.com which I'm hoping to start using in the next month or so, and look out for my first restaurant review, exciting stuff!

Update. Plus Food.

Turns out my timing for starting a blog was pretty poor as I have been non stop the last few weeks! So since I last posted I've been busy sorting out lots of wonderful issues with my house (not fun), but on the plus side I got my ears pierced (finally manned up) and have just had my haircut so it now has a lovely fringe.
One of the reasons why I wanted to start this blog was because in recent months I've found a real passion for cooking, especially Asian/foreign cooking. One of my FAVE films is Julie and Julia, based on a blog in which the former works through Julia Childs' 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking' in just one year. Living in a student house and being on a budget restricts me from tanking through a recipe book in a particular time, so I thought I would instead post as and when I've cooked something particularly tasty. My boyfriends coming to visit next week and have loooooads of delicious food planned for whilst he's here, so I should hopefully get some yummy foodie pics to post after that! 
Until then.....
Some recipes/improv food I've made recently

 A quick and tasty lunch; bacon noodle salad. I tend to use supermarket brand instant noodles without the seasoning, fry up some bacon, cut it up and mix it in, then mix in some lettuce. Rocket is a tasty alternative to basic green leaves. Use a seasoning of your choice, I either use Knorr Aromat or Soy Sauce (low salt).

 An absolute fave of mine, and a real treat when tiger prawns are on special offer; Indonesian style Stir-fry. It's simple; fry up some mange tout, baby sweetcorn, red pepper and onion, toss in the prawns (cook for longer if raw), add a sauce of your choice and voila! Serve with noodles or rice. You can get lots of ready made stir fry sauces, I'm a big fan of Blue Dragon sauces myself. They are not too difficult to make from scratch, it just depends if you want to stock up on the different spices. The sauce i've used here is a supermarket own one called "Nasi Goreng", but is essentially soy sauce, garlic, fish sauce, onion and chilli.

Who doesn't love a good pizza? I bought a packet dough mix from the store for very little, and then went all out on the toppings. This particular one was inspired from my trip to Sorrento a few years back, the toppings being mostly parma ham and a VERY generous helping of fresh mozzarella. The tomato base itself was very simple to do. I boiled down a value tin of chopped tomatoes with some onion, garlic and oregano; a mix that gives that truly authentic Italian taste. I know you're probably dying to know why on Earth I've ruined a perfectly good pizza with a bunch of green stuff. Well the green stuff in this photo is actually Rocket (you may have noticed I'm a fan), it's slight peppery taste really complements the other toppings. It also happens to make a fantastic BLT.

Check back for more yummy recipes soon enough! x

Getting back into it

I've made jewellery on and off for maaany years now, but never seem to got round to making any last year. Three weeks into 2014 and I've already made five pairs of earrings and a necklace, here's hoping it continues!

If you are interested in purchasing any of the items below, please comment!

The first thing I made this year whilst cuddled up with a film (The Great Gatsby I seem to remember), was this woven necklace in deep reds and blues. The pendant is a large glass structure in similar shades of blue, set with blue and red flowers in the glass

Over two further crafting sessions (again in front of the telly) I made these five pairs of earrings

 These two pairs are drop earrings comprised of glass beads with flowers set in them. Both are made using silver plated earring hooks












The next two pairs are a similar wire wrapped style, with glass beads at the centre of the wire. I make these in a variety of colour combinations, I chose these colours as they are fresh and delicate ready for when Spring is (finally) here





















This is DEFO my favourite style of earring to make. They're slightly more fiddly to make, more so than the wire wrapped ones above, but I think the finished results is worth it. The flower/beads used are all plastic, making them extremely lightweight and comfortable to wear. Again I make these in a variety of colour combinations, all of which match the spring/summer theme.