Oreo Brownies

Oreo Brownies

For the brownies:
125g lightly salted butter
45g cocoa
2 eggs
225g caster sugar
60g self raising flour
1/2 pack of oreo cookies

For the icing:
230g icing sugar
55g butter (room temperature)
4 tablespoons extra double cream
1/2 pack of oreo cookies

Preheat the oven to Gas 4/350 F/ 180 C

Grease and line a 20cm/8inch square cake tin.

Gently melt the butter. Take off the heat and stir in cocoa until blended. Set aside to cool.

Whisk eggs until light and fluffy. Gradually add the sugar, then stir in the chocolate mixture. Sieve the flour into the mixture and gently fold in.

Crumble the oreo cookies (crumble all the cookies; you will need the rest later for the icing). Add half of the crumbled oreo cookies to the brownie mixture and gently fold in.

Pour the mixture into the tin. Bake for 30-35 minutes oruntil just cooked thin and springy.

Set aside to cool.

For the icing, beat the butter until soft and add the icing sugar and cream. Mix together until light and fluffy. You may add extra cream if necessary.

Mix in the rest of the crushed oreo cookies with a spoon and spread over the cooled brownies.

Makes 15 - 20 oreo brownies

Churros (a spanish doughnut)

Introduction

Churros is a bit like doughnuts, in that the recipe is very similar, but instead of a pre-formed shape, Churros is piped into hot oil and thus takes the profile of the piping nozzle. Churros is traditionally served hot at breakfast and made to order, with thick hot chocolate. For those like me, it will fill you up and you are likely to leave lunch until the late afternoon.

Ingredients

Olive oil for frying

Vanilla caster sugar and icing sugar for dusting

Dough:

100g self-raising flour

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

55g butter

3-4 eggs, beaten

Method

Gently heat the butter in 175ml of water until the butter has melted, then bring quickly to the boil. Immediately remove from the heat and quickly add the flour in one go and beat vigorously until smooth. Return to the heat for around 30 seconds, still beating. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly. Gradually beat in the eggs until mixture is a smooth, thick glossy paste.

Using a deep fat fryer or a deep frying pan, heat the oil to the point that a drop of dough mixture, when dropped in, will rise to the top and fry rapidly (around 190 oC).

Spoon the dough mixture into a piping bag, with a nozzle of choice (ideally no wider than 1 cm) and pipe a length of mixture into the hot oil, using a knife to cut off the mixture at the required length. Be adventurous in the shapes formed with each length: spirals, rings even horseshoe shapes. Fry for about 3 minutes, turning over once, until golden brown. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to drain off the excess oil and dust with the sugar mixture. Serve hot.

Arroz con Pollo (Chicken and Rice)

Background

Arroz con Pollo is a typical spanish dish, you could say it's a staple dish for a spanish family, and is commonly found in spanish restaurants. This dish should really be seen as the foundation on which to build up on, adding a wide range of ingredients to create ever exotic dishes. Spain's best export, Paella, shares this same foundation adding various seafood like squid, mussels and prawns, but the composition can change depending on the region.

It goes without saying that the perfect accompany with this dish, and dishes derived from it, is a good ice-cold Jerez sherry, a dry Fino or an amontillado. If sherry is too much for your palette, it is around 20% alcohol by volume, then a regular dry white wine will suffice.

Ingredients

1 Spanish Onion (finely chopped)

2 Cloves of Garlic

4 Large Chicken Breasts (halved) or Chicken legs

1 Large Red Peppers

1 Tablespoon of Paprika (smoked or normal)

1 Teaspoon Turmeric

1 Can of chopped tomatoes

350g Risotto rice (paella rice, arborio rice)

1/4 Teaspoon Saffron threads, crushed

1 1/2 Chicken Stock

150g Frozen Peas

Method

Using a large flat frying pan, cook the chicken in a little oil for around 10 minutes, until golden brown all over. Remove and set aside. Add the onion, garlic and pepper to the pan and gently cook for around 10 minutes, until the vegetables are soft but not burnt. Stir in the paprika and slowly add the tomatoes over a medium heat.

Add the rice to the pan and on top of the rice add the turmeric and slowly pour in the stock. Quickly bring the mixture to the boil and add the saffron. Return the chicken to the pan and simmer until the rice is just tender and the chicken is thoroughly cooked. Add the peas. Once cooked, remove for the heat and cover and leave for about 5-10 minutes for the rice to re-absorb the liquid.

Variations

This dish works particularly well with spain's finest meats, like Chorzio sausage and Serrano ham. For a seafood variation, prawns and other things that swim in the sea can be added. Because these ingredients are quite delicate and so could become ruined during the cooking of the rice, its best to add them after the rice has been added and when the dish is simmering.

Experiment! try different ingredients like broad beans and different seasoning.

If you are drinking a good Jerez sherry to accompany this dish, then one common variation that works well with seafood, is to add a splash of sherry to the stock during cooking. The salty taste in the sherry adds that 'seafood' taste to the dish.

WANTED!

I have had a particular request for cup cake recipes from a friend who got a cup cake maker for Christmas. Any out there, especially if unusual...

Tea Loaf

this is a weightwatchers recipe which can be adapted to normal, non calorie counting members of the population with the addition of a thick layer of butter on each slice...

take
125g brown sugar
125g mixed fruit
250 ml cold tea
soak the above overnight (or, if in a hurry, just stir together)
add 
300g self raising flour
1 beaten egg
and mix well together
bake for 1hour, 15 mins
at 160 degrees C/320 degrees F/433 Kelvin/Gas Mark3 in a 2lb loaf tin (silicon one is best)

This freezes very well, but if in the vicinity of any bods, won't last long as very more-ish. It can be easily adapted by adding different fruits, nuts etc.... If any STU readers do this please add variations in the feedback. That is asuming there are people out there reading? Still looking for contributors...

New postings

Good films corner. You know fairly wholesome ones that aren't kiddies but not an 18.

Breakfast Munching Muffins

useful if you always end up going out the door without breakfast in your tum cos you're running late...

100g/4 oz ready to eat apricots, chopped
4 tbs orange juice
2 large eggs
142ml carton soured cream
100 ml/3 1/2 fl oz sunflower oil
85g/3oz golden caster sugar
300g/10oz self raising flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
50g/2oz crunchy muesli
12 heaped tsp marmalade

FOR THE TOPPING
50g/2 oz light muscovado sugar
2 tbs sunflower oil
50g/2 oz crunchy muesli

1) preheat oven to 190 c/gas mark 5/ fan oven 170 c
2) beat eggs, mix in soured cream, oil and sugar. stir into the apricot mixture. put the flour, baking powder and muesli in a large bowl, then gently stir in the apricot mixture. don' t overmix.
3) spoon into 12 muffin cases.dip thumb in a little flour, then make a deep thumbprint in each muffin. fill with marmalade.
4) combine topping ingredients and sprinkle over top of muffins. bake for 25-30 mins until well risen and golden.

Weight Watchers Lasagne Verde, serves 4

this actually tastes good despite the lack of yummy calories...

250g/9oz lasagne
For the filling
450g/1lb frozen peas
125ml/4floz vegetable stock
low fat cooking spray
2 garlic cloves, chopped finely
225g/8oz courgettes, diced finely
125ml/4fl oz white wine
small bunch of fresh mint chopped
500g/1lb2oz frozen spinach, cooked
200g/7oz quark cheese
a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the topping
2 medium eggs
4 tbs skimmed milk
300g/10 1/2oz low fat plain yoghurt
100g/3 1/2oz low fat soft cheese
50g/1 3/4oz reduced-fat strong-flavoured Cheddar cheese, grated

1) cook the lettuce with the peas and the stock in a covered saucepan for 20 mins over a low heat
2) meanwhile heat a large frying pan and spray with cooking spray. saute the garlic for 2 minutes then add the courgettes. stir fry for 4 mins over high heat until courgettes brown slightly. add wine and boil rapidly until all but a few tablespoons have evaporated. add mint, toss and remove from the heat.
3) in another pan, gently heat the spinach and Quark, add the nutmeg and seasoning.
4) preheat over to GM6/200 degC/400 degF. Spray a 30cm/12inch oven-proof dish with cooking spray then line the bottom with lasagne. mix the cooked lettuce and peas together with the courgette mixture.
5) cover the bottom of the dish with a layer of vegetables in their juices, then top with lasagne and repeat twice more. finish with a layer of lasagne.
6) beat together the topping ingredients, except the cheddar cheese. pour oven the lasagne, sprinkle with cheese and bake for 30 minutes until golden.

7 points per serving/580 calories per serving

Spanish Hot Chocolate

2 cups Full Cream Milk

4oz 70% Cocoa Chocolate

1/2 teaspoon Instant Coffee

Pinch of Nutmeg

Add all the ingredients to a saucepan over a low heat. Once the chocolate has melted the heat can be turned up because the milk needs to reach boiling point so it can be frothed. Remove from heat and whisk it strongly till frothy. Heat again and then whisk again - it should be frothier this time. Serve in a couple of mugs.

This is a lovely drink during those cold winter nights. It must be stressed that you need to use proper FULL cream milk, the fat helps develop the texture of the drink. Cinnamon can be used instead of nutmeg

encouraging words...

Saving faith is the heartfelt conviction not only that Christ is reliable, but also that He is desirable. It is the confidence that He will come through with His promises and that what He promises is more to be desired than all the world - John Piper


The kingdom of God belongs to the spiritually destitute. All who are genuinely saved have realized their own spiritual bankruptcy; thus they knew they could not enter based on any worth of their own. In the final analysis, the kingdom belongs to everyone who has been, like the tax collector in Jesus' parable, "even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, the sinner!" (Luke 18:13) - John MacArthur

http://www.new-testament-christian.com/dailybiblereadingplan.html

This takes you to a link where you can download a plan to read the whole Bible in a year. We've got these at church at the moment. You read 2-5 chapters a day depending on which book you're tackling. Each day is divided into a different section of the Bible so you're not starting from Genesis and reading straight through from there.

Getting organised, planning menus and shopping

I'm trying to get more organised with menu planning and shopping. I've set up an EXCEL spreadsheet with one tab for menus for each month and another tab with individual recipes. This has the key ingredients listed. Now, if you do Sains online, there is a facility to paste a shopping list in and it finds the ingredients. So you can take each of these recipes and get the items into your shopping basket that way. Very handy if, like me, you're prone to forget to buy the key ingredients! Might not plan ahead more than 2 weeks (and that includes freezer meals of larger portions) but because a record is being kept, over time I'll be able to come back and use the menus again.

We'll see how it goes but at least a start at getting organised and moving away from the default meal setting of pasta and red sauce with veg. There is a section called quick and easy (but please not beans on toast!) if you have any ideas to go in there.

Thought for the New Year

Sharing the useful has food of all kinds and here is some "good food"...

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself the Name,
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.
By Whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
Salvation is of Christ the Lord.

St Patricks Brestplate