Em Don't Diet!

Now we all know I love my food, but even although I cook full fat dishes, I eat healthily. I try to have a balance in my food. It's not all cake and buffalo wings – which for the record where nice separately but not sure about them together. I don't believe in diets. I believe in making healthy, balanced choices. My sister on the other hand is the diet queen. She has tried them all. This month she is waxing lyrical about some sort of 'Total Body Modification' diet. I can't eat around her. I give up. No matter what I put into my mouth she has something to say. It causes bloating and gas. That triggers depression. This causes nutrients to be absorbed incorrectly. These foods don't digest and turn to rancid fats. If I hear much more I might never eat again! Her main concern is processed food, which I actually don't eat that much of in the grand scheme of things. I cook with fresh ingredients where possible.

I really don't believe that these diets are healthy. My sister is currently eating only fish, eggs, yoghurt and sauerkraut! That's not a balanced diet. Thankfully I know my sister and she will get fed up in 2 weeks and eat some pizza before hopping on whatever diet bandwagon passes next. However, it does worry me that in the long run she could be doing a great deal of damage to her body. I don't know much about the Body Modification Diet, it's not one that's been doing the rounds in my social circles, but I do hope my sister learns sooner or later that she just needs to choose healthy options in her food.

Moldy Cupcakes!

My boyfriend keeps on talking about my post the other day about mold! He keep telling me how yucky moldy cheese is and how Im revolting for eating it. Fair enough, each to their own right? BUT, get this... he then asks if I can make him and his buddies some snacks for watching sports tonight! Now as per yesterday's post. I need no encouraement to use my new kitchen, so I was happy to oblige. I suggested a few different snacks including chicken wings and cupcakes, and he replies,

'Sounds great sweetie, but will you make that blue cheese dipping sauce for the wings?'

Wait! What?

BLUE CHEESE?

So I smile sweetly and ask 'I thought moldy cheese was skanky?'. He nods. 'What exactly do you think blue cheese is made of?'. Light bulb moment …. 'Oooooooh!'

Anyway, I wander off shaking my head and set up the laptop on the counter to look up the recipe. I come across THE most adorably appropriate cupcakes EVER!!!!

Buffalo Chicken Wing CupCakes

That's right... it's a cupcake, it's made with hot sauce, it's topped with a chicken wing! Since I'm making wings anyway I'm gonna make them! I'll do some vanilla too just in case but I definitely wanna try em.

Ingredients

CAKE

• half cup of hot sauce
• quarter cup of unsalted butter
• half cup of crumbled blue (moldy) cheese
• 1 cup of brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 cup of flour
• a spoon of baking soda

Frosting

• 2 ounces of blue cheese
• half cup unsalted butter
• 2 cups powdered sugar

Method

Prehheat the oven to 350 F and set up 10 cupcake liners. Put the hot sauce and butter in a pan and heat until melted. Gradually add blue cheese until melted. Now remove from the heat and add in the sugar. Leave the mixture to cool while you mix together the flour and baking soda. Combine the two mixes and divide between your cake liners and bake for 20 minutes.

For the icing, mix the blue cheese until smooth, then whick in the butter. Once it is light and fluffy gradually add the powdered sugar to create frosting. Pipe onto the cupcakes and add a chicken wing! (OR just eat with frosting!)

When Kitchen Dreams Come True!

I love to cook. It's how I relax! However, I did used to get frustrated trying to cook in my crappy kitchen. I had hardly any counter space, no garbage disposal and the stove was a little bit temperamental. However, no longer am I plagued by these issues because... I. Have. A. Brand. New. Kitchen! Yay!

It is a thing of beauty. I am more than a little bit in love with it! I won't lie, the process of actually having it installed was a bit of a nightmare! We lived on takeout and microwave dinners. But, it was most definitely worth it! I now have all the counter space I could ever want and lots of beautiful rosewood cabinets. The built in stove is fantastic – all the burners work! I have lovely sink with a little built in garbage disposal! Everything in Em's world is beautiful right now!!!

I know I will be cooking even more than ever because it's so light and airy and beautiful in here now! I keep thinking of things I can cook and bake just to freeze or give to my friends! I think I'll start with baking some cakes!! 

Stir Fry On Standby

I am a huge advocate of meal planning. I always plan at least 2 weeks in advance, but usually four weeks. However, we all have those days that we just don't fancy what's on the plan, or we got home late and can't be bothered with that complicated sauce you intended to serve with the chicken. These are the days which are meant for stir fry!

I always make sure I have certain staple foods in my pantry and those include soy sauce and egg noodles. If you have those you have the makings of a stir fry. you can add whatever you like to a stir fry. Chicken, beef,prawns, veggies it's all fair game. Just use your intuition about what will taste good. My favorite is prawn. I always have a bag of prawns in the freezer  and those will defrost in about twenty minutes in a basin of water. But you can use whatever is lying around. If you were meant to have chicken in white wine sauce then chop up the chicken and some veggies and chuck them in a pan with a dash of soy sauce and flash fry on a high heat while stirring continuously. Have your dried egg noodles cooking in a pan of boiling water and add a little stock cube too for additional flavor. Mix together and you have a delicious meal in minutes!

The best thing about one of these impromptu stir fry dishes is that you don't need a recipe! It's all intuition. A dash of this, a handful of that make smart choices and you can't go wrong!

Good Mold Vs Bad Mold

We have all heard about how dangerous mold can be right? So what's the deal with moldy foods that taste so good? Let's talk about Gorgonzola people? How good is that? But at the most basic level it is moldy cheese! I set out to investigate why certain molds are not just safe to eat but also delicious!
The basic answer is that there are good molds and there are bad molds. The good molds provide things that are actually good for us for example Penicillin, Black Tea and blue cheeses like Gorgonzola. All blue cheeses are made with a specific type of mold : Penicillium Roqueforti. This mold is created by leaving rye bread loaves in the caves of Roquefort along with the ripening cheeses. When the bread becomes completely moldy, it is powdered and the resulting power is injected into the cheeses. This results in those green-blue veins of mold you see growing in the cheese. Other cheeses such as Brie and Camembert also have mold, but it is a white surface mold.


Bad molds on the other hand are known to secret toxins such as mycotoxins. These are poisonous and can eat away at human tissue. Mold is known to cause skin irritation, respiratory problems and other illnesses of varying degrees of severity.


The main issue is that mold growing on your food (by which I mean food that isn't intended to be moldy) is growing in an uncontrolled environment. You have no idea which species of mold are there whereas with blue cheeses etc, you know it has purposely been infected with safe mold.
Best throw out that moldy bread and stick to your Gorgonzola!

South African Potjiekos

One of my favorite things to make is stew. I know that seems really boring, but it's not! There are so many different things to do when it comes to stew, different types of meat, different vegetables, the choice of stock or a sauce, even the addition of seasonings can really make a huge difference to the flavor. One of my favorite types of stew is called Potjiekos.

I first discovered Potjiekos while traveling in South Africa a few years ago. The dish is traditionally prepared outdoors in a traditional type of cast iron pot with three legs. In fact. the name Potjiekos literally translates to "small pot food". I loved the stew so much that I bought one of the traditional pots to bring home with me (let'snot even talk about the excess baggage fee for a cast iron pot!). It's usually set directly on a fire, but I just set mine on the barbecue and it works just fine!

The dish made it's way to South Africa from the Netherlands in the 17th century where it became popular in small villages because it could be cooked from small amounts of many ingredients. The Voortrekkers would cook Potjiekos on their travels adding whatever wild game they shot to the pot each day. The same pot was used every day, just replacing the bones with new ones and adding more meat to the previous day's leftovers.

This is my recipe for Potjiekos, I don't claim that it is entirely authentic! But, it's my inspired version of this South African dish.

Ingredients

• Cooking oil
• 800g of lamb
• 2 chopped onions
• 5 sliced carrots
• 1 cup of sliced green beans
• 10 pattypan squash
• 250g mushrooms
• 10 baby potatoes (peeled)
• 3 cobs of corn cut into thirds
• 1 bottle of beer
• Chutney

Method

Heat the oil in your heavy pan and fry off the meat and the onions until browned, then add the beer (or red wine if you prefer) and top up with enough water to cover the meat. Leave the meat to simmer for an hour or two until the meat is tender. Add in the potatoes and the corn (and any other veggies which take a long time). Mix the mushrooms and chutney together and layer on top of the other ingredients. Cover the pot and leave to simmer for another 30 minutes. When the veggies are halfway done add in the rest of the mushrooms and the carrots, beans and pattypan in layers on top and continue cooking for another 15 to 20 minutes. Season to taste and serve with rice. 

The secret to great Potjiekos is that you must NEVER stir it! It should come out in layers! Tender juicy meat topped with steamed veggies. Enjoy!!