Notes From The (Witch's) Kitchen- Spooky Butternut Sqaush Soup And Roasted Seeds

 

Hey Ho.

 

xXx

 

Happy Halloween!!!

 

*Cackle cackle!* Who goes there? Ah it be my beloved friends from beyond the grave! Come in, do come in and taste the fiendish delights on offer tonight :)

 

So I spent Halloween evening with my parents and I decided to cook up a little surprise for them. I remember my  mum making pumpkin soup one year and, it being really lovely and quite an easy thing to do, I settled on that.

When I got to the shop there were only butternut squashes left in the pumpkin section, but let me tell you, it was still, if not more, yummy and it made a brilliant Jack'o Lantern too!

 

xXx

 

Spooky Butternut Squash Soup and Roasted Seeds

Serves two to three

 

Ingredients

1 small/medium squash

salt and pepper to taste

1 tablespoon single cream

 

Method

Peel and dice the squash (unless you want to lake a Jack O' Lantern too,

 in which case cut his 'lid' off and hollow him out).

 

With about two cups (here I mean drinking cups, like you'd have tea in!) 

of water, add the squash to a saucepan and simmer until softened.

This may take around 30 minutes, and you may need to add a little more water.

 

Season during the cooking and when done, blend to a smooth consistency.

Add the cream and serve :)

 

So easy!

 

And for the seeds...

 

Pumpkin/squash seeds can be eaten too. Boil them up in salted water and simmer for 10 minutes, then roast on a baking tray with a shallow covering of olive oil, until golden- delish!

 

xXx

 

I hope you like my quickly thrown together costume, and if you're wondering about my nail varnish, it's the shade Sunday Funday by Essie.

 

 

And don't forget to enter My First Giveaway, for your chance to win some lovely eyeshadow from Kiko Cosmetics, you have until Monday ladies!

 

 

 

'Better Than Shop-Bought' Triple Chocolate Cookies

Hello.

xXx

It's been a while since I did any baking, my last masterpiece (ok, ok, but I do feel I should get top marks for imagination at least ;P) having been a car cake to celebrate my beloved's passing of his driving test.

The other day however, we decided to try to recreate some of our favourite shop-bought triple chocolate cookies at home, and seeing as how the results were more than satisfactory, I thought I would share the recipe with you here :)

 It comes via The Pink Whisk so many thanks to her- it was perfect (although we added more chocolate chunks!) and the finished cookies were exactly- if a little better for all the extra love they contained- than our shop-bought favourites.


Triple Chocolate Cookies

Ingredients:
125g butter, softened
115g soft light brown sugar
120g caster sugar
2 eggs, large
60g cocoa powder
165g self-raising flour
100g dark chocolate, melted
100g white chocolate chunks

Makes 24 regular cookies or 12 large.

Preheat the oven to 170c (fan)/190c/GM5 and line 2 trays with non-stick baking paper.

Butter and sugars go together in the bowl and beat them up to an even paste.

In go the eggs and beat it up well again.

In goes the cocoa powder and self-raising flour.

Melt the chocolate.

Beat it in to the cookie dough and then add the chunks of white chocolate and mix again.

The mixture is too sticky to roll with hands so you’ll need to dollop spoonfuls (approx. 1” in diameter for regular, 2″ for large), well spaced on the trays.  I used a small and medium cookie scoops for ease to make regular and large cookies.  The cookies flatten and spread out on baking so you don’t need to press them down.

Into the oven – 10-12 minutes for the regular cookies, 16-18 minutes for the large.  Timings depend on how you like cookies.

Leave them to cool for at least 10 minutes on the tray before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.


They were duly consumed with accompanying glasses of milk whilst we snuggled up to watch The Shining of all things... Thanks Jamie.

Recipe: Leftovers Scrabbled Egg (nicer than it sounds!)

Hey There :)

So, upon opening the fridge the other day I was confronted with a number of leftovers and products that were about to go out of date. I didn't want to waste these, and so I decided to create a yummy lunch incorporating all of them.

some extra ingredients- eggs and salad dressing

din dins ;)

'kitchen office'

It was very yummy and quite healthy I felt :)

I used olive oil in the frying pan, not too much, and watched the heat, as onion can burn quickly if you're not careful. Courgette takes a while to soften and brown, so (unless you like it with more of a crunch) put it in early whilst you're preparing everything else.

Do turn the heat up a little when you add the whisked eggs, to get a fluffy effect, and 'scrabble' quickly. Don't let them burn.

My friend adds milk to the eggs before whisking, for a creamier texture.

Bon apetit!

Have a good evening

xXx