Cheese, Wine, Cider and Beer

My friend paul messaged me last week declaring that he needed cheese and wine, so I thought we may as well recreate the time two years ago where we all ate too much cheese and felt super ill. Everyone brought different cheeses, so there were loads to try and probably far too much for 8 people. Jack brought babybels and cheese strings, he was also responsible for picking up plates, nuff said!

I picked up the Royal Windsor from Morrisons, I assume it's in because of the Royal Wedding, but I just wanted it because it was a weird colour! I also got some brie and smoked cheddar because those are my favourites. Then I went to Waitrose (super market of dreams) with Mike to get his cheese and the cheese counter guy was recommending us loads of cheeses and wine to go with them, although it fell on deaf ears because I was drinking cider and Mike was on the beers. Anyway this cheese guy was awesome, and told us that cheese was a more expensive habit than smoking and that he thought the recession was down to people quitting smoking because of the smoking ban. It's an interesting theory, he claimed it was becoming widely recognised.

It was a fun night, despite what this picture of everyone might depict. I only managed to take one and I cut Dreams and Phoebe out by accident! I can't wait for the next one, but I remember why I left it two years. Total cheese overload!

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Simone's Frittata

Simone brought a new vegetarian cook book the other day and wanted to make a sweet potato frittata that she'd found in it. So yesterday we decided to make it for lunch, the only problem was that it didn't exist, we searched the book about 3 times and checked the index and it definitely wasn't in there! So instead we just invented a new one with the only things we had left in our cupboards (we're poor students waiting for the loan to come!) and surprisingly it was a success!

To make it we used:

A glug of olive oil

1 Sweet potato sliced thinly

1 Red onion sliced

1 Red pepper chopped

6 eggs

As much grated cheese as you like

Firstly we put a good glug of olive oil, the sweet potato and onion in a large frying pan and cook, covered on a medium heat for 10 minutes. Then add the red pepper, season well and cook for a further 10 minutes until all the vegetables have softened. Beat the eggs in a large bowl, pour the vegetables in and mix well. Then put all of the mixture back into the pan and cook for about 5 minutes. When the bottom is cooked place the pan under the grill to cook the top for a few minutes, when it's fairly browned top with the cheese (and black pepper if you want) and leave until the cheese is bubbling. Serve with some salad (if you have any) and enjoy!

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Cake Pops/Balls

I'm a bit late jumping on the cake pop bandwagon, they even sell them in Starbucks now, but better late than never right? My mums having a bake sale at her nursery again next week and I thought these would be perfect for the kids!

I found the instructions on Bakerella but definitely wasn't brave enough to try the cupcake shapes yet, so me and Simone got to making some cake ball pops. We used a devils food cake mix and betty crocker chocolate fudge icing to make the inside. You could make your own cake and frosting from scratch, but the process is quite lengthy so I wouldn't recommend it!

After we cooked the cake and let it cool we crumbled it up and mixed the frosting in to make this weird mud like mixture and rolled it into balls. After that we chilled them in the fridge for about 3 hours, ready to be dipped in chocolate.

We tried our hardest to make the pops, but they just did not work! I think the balls were too big for the sticks so they just kept falling off. Only two of them actually worked so we gave up and decided to just makes cake balls instead!

These turned out much better and were easier to dip in the chocolate and cover in sprinkles!

It was a fun experiment and I hope I can make the pops work for next week, but I think I'll try smaller balls and bigger sticks!

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Southbank Chocolate Festival

My first ever food related post was about the Southbank Chocolate Festival last year, so I thought it was only right to carry on the tradition and go again this year. I stayed with my vegan friend Emma at her house in Greenwich and promised to make her a nice vegan meal, we ended up having this...

What a good friend I am! But on to the Chocolate festival, last year was all about finding raw and interesting chocolates. This year though was all about indulgence, I decided that I could buy 3 things for myself (if I could I would have brought loads!) I ended up buying the Mocha Madness from Lucky's, Salted Caramel lollys from Paul Wayne Gregory (the guy at the stall said they we're the best confectionary in the UK, and since trying one of the lollys I agree) and a Raspberry and a Chocolate beer from Meantime. I know there's 5 things in the picture, but I'm counting the beers as 1, and the oreo cheesecake was for my boyfriend so it doesn't count :)

Every stall at the festival had something different and even though its small there is a lot to see! My favourites pretty much remain the same and for the same reasons, interesting products, good quality chocolate and attractive packaging! Even though I didn't buy from two of them, my favourite stalls were Lucky's

Artisan Du Chocolat

I finally got to try their tobacco chocolate and it was as good as I'd imagined, sweet with an unusual aftertaste!

and Rococco

So all in all it was an amazing day, the sun was shining and not only did I get to look at chocolate for most of the day but we also had a really nice walk along the Thames. As well as food and cocktails in Las Igunas! I will definitely have to carry on the tradition and go again next year. (sorry about the poor quality of the pictures, I couldn't be bothered to lug my slr around!)

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