Cous Cous Burgers

I had some mixure left over from my Puff Pies and was wondering what to do with it! So I mixed it with the left over stuffing and some Cous Cous....this is what I came up with....I have eaten way to many...

Ingredients:

Left over pie mix, click here for how to make

Left over stuffing from the pies

About 1/3 to a half a cup of Cous Cous

Tapioca Starch 

Blend up left over pie mix, mix in stuffing and cooked Cous Cous (cooked by adding boiling water till just over covered and wait till cooked through and fluffed up!)

It's a very sloppy mix. So fold into the starch.i made them about the size of the base of a mug at most! Then drop into hot oil. (Be careful!)

Make sure the oil is hot but not smoking. I think it would work even better in deeper oil. 

Make sure you pat with paper towel or a teatowel to get rid of the excess oil. 

Perfect in my lovely bun, click here for how to make. This time I had rolled out the dough and wrapped it into its self so they came out a little over the size of a mug base.

They are not crazy healthly but perfect for party food or along with chips and veg a filling meal! I may have just eaten three....

Coconut and Pumpkin Curry

It's the pumpkin picking time of year, so expect a few recipes for using up your pumpkins!

Ingredients;

1x small to medium sized pumpkin (pre roasted, see my blog about pumpkins!)

1x can of coconut milk

3x peppers (1 red, 1 yellow and 1 green.)

3x spring onions 

1x large carrot

3x sweet potatoes

Black pepper and chilli powder or chillies depending on how hot you like it!

Chop up the carrot and sweet pototoes, pop them in the bottom of the slow cooker.

Fry up the peppers (chopped into large chunks) with the spring onions. (Add a little black pepper.)

I had already chopped up the pumpkin and roasted it in the oven with garlic.

Click here for my blog about it. 

Add the coconut milk to the pumpkins.

Blend up the roasted pumkin with the coconut milk.

Add the peppers to the slow cooker when they have started to brown. 

Add the blended pumpkin/coconut milk to the slow cooker and then add chilli powder to your liking (I used a little curry powder and chilli powder. About a teaspoon of each.) Then cook on low for 5-6 hrs or high for an hour and then low for 2-3. Until the sweet potato has softern. Yum!

Caravan Winter Lay Up

We havent owned Daisy over the winter yet, so this will be the first year she will be 'laied up.'

Having grown up around boats, am used to laying up. Pulling them out of the sea and on to the hard for winter. So I thought I better get some advice on what to do with Daisy so there is still a van left next spring!!

Heating is on, days are getting darker.....its time to pack away the beach toys and get ready for winter! Winter is coming! 

Down here, when it rains, it rains. Deep driving rain and strong winds. So the first and most important point, make sure all leaks, holes possible unsealed bits are fixed! (This is my job next week.....)

You can cover your van. So its protected from what the UK has to throw at it. You must be careful that you get one designed for caravans, that's breathable! A non breathable cover, will create so many problems....and.....damp! Make sure on nice days, you open it up and let her breath. (Even with a breathable cover)

If you can, keep using your van over winter, this is the best way to insure all keeps running as it should. We have booked a winter rally for New Year's! Am so excited, as having young children, New Year and become quite, well, underwhelming. There are other families going with young children, so I know we are going to have so much fun - even if its going to mega cold. I will blog about winter caravanning (if we survive!)

Our first trip out last May, was the coldest I have ever been in my life! I think it was about -2, we opened the door to thick frost on everything in the morning. Even with hot water bottles and blankets, my husband and I where freezing. Oddly the children where prefect all night. I couldn't sleep, due to checking on them! This was in the middle of a field with no electric or heating.....I have booked an electric pitch for New Years! 


So if you cant get out in the winter, what should you do? 

Winter Lay up - Caravan style!

If you do some prep before laying it up for winter, there is less to do in spring when you want to get away with it as soon as possible - for example parking it with the handbrake off (unless on a very steep slope) ensures that the brakes won't be seized on over winter. 


Clear out any food items/perishables (to stop mice being tempted to use your caravan as their winter holiday home!)

Remove and wash any throw pillows, teatowels, quilts etc and store in the house if possible.

Clean fridge, leave the door open.

Remove any valuable items, leave all cupboard doors open, to allow air to circulate.

Give exterior a thorough wash and polish with a quality car shampoo and polish. 

Check all seams and trim and repair / reseal any lose trim or anywhere where water can get in (not with silicone sealer!)

Put winter wheels/tyres on if possible - if not, make sure tyres are fully inflated. Make sure you can still get all your locks on. Insurance companies will not cover you if you took your wheels off, as its not locked! So double check with them or put an old pare on. As they need to be replaced every 5 years, you can often pick up a used pare.

Grease brake rods, inkages and hitch.

Park up with hand brake off (and chock wheels if necessary)

Wind legs down.

 If possible store cushions in house to stop them getting damp or faded. If you cant, make sure they are away from walls, to let the air move around. 

Clean porta-potty. 

Put dehumidifier crystals in bowls at front and rear of caravan to draw out any moisture. 

Disconnect battery and store in garage and periodically charge over winter - never leave discharged for long periods over winter. Store off the ground, on a bench if possible. Not on concrete as will draw out the power.

Put strong wheel-clamps and hitch-lock on caravan and point 'a' frame towards house to reduce risk of theft. Block it in, with cars, or a post. If storing away from the house, insure its still within popping in distance so you can keep checking on them over the winter.

Check caravan regularly over winter and on dry days open windows to air interior. Let it breath. (Great excuse for a coffee brake!)

Drain entire water system, your hot water system/tank and leave all you taps open in the central position in case of a severe frost otherwise any frozen water trapped in the internal pipes with the taps closed can split hidden pipework wide open and you won't be aware until you get a flood at your first outing next season! 

Use caravan as soon as possible in spring or over winter if possible!

Services can wait till spring, when you are getting ready for their first use. (Book this up and they get mega busy and book up fast around May!)

Click here to read about our first winter trip!

Wanna read about how we did up Daisy? Click here.

Puff Pies

So my husband dropped the Nut Bomb! We were talking about Christmas, this will be our second vegan/plant based Christmas. He said he's doesn't really like Nut Roast!!!! Oh no!! I love the stuff and got ok at making it.....now what am I going to do! 

I started thinking about pies. I used to make pies quite a lot but this was pre-changing our diet. Perfect a Christmas Pie, and a nut roast this Christmas it is then!

I need to work on the perfect Christmas pie, so here is my first bash at it-Puff Pie.

I love making my own pastry, but I just have no patience or cold hands for my own puff! I often make my own shortcrust pastry for the bottom and brought puff for the top. Tonight, I just used brought puff (pretty much all of them are dairy free!) Click here for my easy shortcrust pastry recipe!

Ingredients:

2x small sweet potatoes

1 large onion

Half a small leek

1 veg stock cube

1 roll of puff pastry

3-4 vegan sausages (I cooked a pack of 6 and had some left over)

1 pack of apple stuffing (I used maybe 3-4 table spoons of it, loads left over) 

I had lots of the mixture left over, this makes 6 pies. If you keep all the amounts the same but had two rolls of puff pastry you could make 12 pies.

You will need a muffin tin, muffin cases and something like baking beads. (I used dried soya beans.)

Pre-bake the bottoms. Till starting to brown.

Fry the onions and leeks with a little black pepper. When starting to soften add the sausages (mine where Tesco, they have added in egg into their recipe :( they where frozen and cooked from frozen.)

Dice up the sweet potato and add.

Follow the directions for your veg cube, I guessed mine and added 300ml of just boiled water and mixed till it was melted. Then add to the sausages.

Reduce down a little and chop/lightly mash up once sweet potato has soften. 

Pop a bit of stuffing in the bottom, then layer on top the mixture (to much thin juice will soften the bottoms of the pies lots so keep that in mind for when you remove.)

Add a top of pastry and brush on oil. 

Cook till golden! 

I took off the tops and used to table spoons to pull out the pies then replaced the tops. This is just one way of cooking them, so keep an eye out for more pies coming soon!

Served with creamy mash and thick gravy! Yummy!

I made them again, adding in some chopped up swede! 

This time, I used a star cutter. Using three different sizes. The largest, for the base made with my own short pastry (click here for a link to how to make it.) Then two smaller sizes made from brought puff pastry for the top!  It looks a little bit more special compare to a square, a Christmas Star!  

I love the size of these pies, muffin pies! They look a little different and fun in this size! 

Left over pie mix? Click here to make something mega yummy!

Pumpkin Curry

Its pumpkin time of the year!

I love this time of year, blackberries, falling leafs, jumpers, log fires and pumpkins! 

These are some photos of my oldest son's first time picking his own pumpkin! In the next few weeks, we will all be going! I cant wait. So keep your eyes peeled for lots of pumpkin type blogs coming over the next few weeks ;) Going pumpkin picking with mini people is lots of fun and a cheap day out! Even after you have caved and used your pumpkins (as long as lot left till going moldy) you can still get lots of use out of them, making very cheap meals!


From jams to muffins and pies!
What about roasting the seeds for a healthy snack or my favorite pumpkin curry!

I will blog about how to make lots of different things from your pumpkins, but in the meantime, this is my favorite:

Pumpkin Curry!

I batch make this and freeze it down. Been making this for years now and still love it!

Depending on how many pumpkins you have, as to how much you will end up with. You can even chop up a used (as in carved) pumpkin for this.

How to make:

Chop up your pumpkin. (Removing any seeds and inside stringy bits)

Get a large oven tray, and heat oven to 190-200c.

 Roast with garlic, rosemary, pepper and onion. (This should be about 10-20% of the pumpkin amount.)

When starting to brown around the edges, blend with veggy stock cube (you don't need to add this but it does add a little depth of flavour.) then add chilies or chili powder.

Use as on its own as a yummy soup, veg for curry.

Its easy to freze down in batches, add black pepper or more chili to taste. Its so warming and yummy, we have it as a soup for bonfire night. Mostly as a curry with rice, or new potatoes and pees!


When I start making this years, I will add some more photos.

Glow Sticks

Mini people activity: 

My mini people love glow sticks, we take them camping with us. They are brilliant stockings fillers at Christmas and they are so much fun in the bath!!

 

Make bath time lots of fun by turning down the lights and popping some glow sticks in the bath! 

Brilliant for 6+ months onwards, our 6 year old still loves them. (Make sure you keep a close eye as if they brake, they do have nasty chemicals in side them.) Then after the bath they take one each to light their way to bed!

Fab fun! 

Winter Spicy Soup

Now that the days and nights are getting colder. My husband has got a bit bored of sandwiches for lunch. So I though, a good spicy soup would make a good lunch, along with my lovely buns! So here it is, easy slow cooked warm winter soup. I've not made it overly spicy, just warming. So feel free to add some chillis! 

Ingredients:

1 large red onion

2x spring onions

2x green peppers

Half a yellow pepper

Half a red pepper

1 large butternut squash

1 can of coconut milk

1 tin of tomatoes

3 teaspoons of korma paste


How to make:

Chop into large chunks and throw it all in the slow cooker on low over night. 

Then in the morning blend! Soup, perfect to freeze down, perfect for lunch with my lovely buns! 

You can add a little chili powder or chilles to give it more of a kick. Add pepper or sea salt as you like.

If cooking in the day a good 6-8 hours will do. 

Here is how I batch freeze:

Take a soup bowl and pop in a freezer bag, then ladle in the soup. Tie it up and leave it to cool before popping in the freezer.

Perfect to take into work for lunch, cheap, yummy and easy! (You can take them out the night before to defrost and then just re-heat at work or depending on what you have at work, defrost them there. 

  

Pear Honey

The amazing *life changing honey

*ok, maybe not life changing but its flipping amazing...

I've recreated how I accidentally made it last time. I've changed a few little parts, to make it a little easier to get the end result. Its amazing. Looks just like honey, tastes sweet with a twang! Its yummy! Perfect in porridge, or with a pudding. I haven't brought honey in a year now, I really thought I would miss it. I quite like golden syrup but this pear syrup is my new favourite!

Ingredients:

4kg pears

1.8kg sugar

3.5 lts water

1-2 lemons

(I like to make big batches. So if you want to make a smaller batch half the above amounts.)

How to make pear honey/syrup:

Chop off the top/bottom of the pears, and peel them.

Put the water in a very large pot, with the pears, lemon juice, and skins. Bring up to the boil. Boil on a gentle boil. Until soft.

Mash up the pears, in the pot with the boiled water.

I stretch muslin over a colander or you can use a muslin bag. 

Pour the liquid and pears through a muslin cloth into a large bowl or pot. 

Best to leave this over night to drip through. 

You can keep the liquid and mashed pears left over to make tarts (whats left in the muslin.)

Put a small china plate in the fridge, this is to test the honey later. You put it in the fridge now to insure its cold later.

Pour in the sugar, and lemon juice. Once all the sugar has evaporated/melted, bring up to a gentle boil. 

Now for me to get the set right I had to boil it two times. I had jar up the honey, thinking it had set. Only for when it cooled it hadn't! So keep in mind it takes quite a while to turn from water into syrup.

I added in another half a lemon's worth of juice at this stage. So if you are really struggling to get it to change, add more lemon. A little at a time, over doing it could mess the whole thing up and end up with candy! 

Keep siring it, I use a large wooden spoon. It will start to feel heavy on the spoon and leave a coating on it. It will also deepen in colour, turning much darker. That's when I know it's almost there! 

When you want to test it, pour a little on the china plate.

Pop it back into the fridge, has it stayed like water or is it looking more like honey? 

If it's looking like water, keep on a gentle boil and check again in 3-5mins. Keep doing this until it's looking a little like honey. 

When you are ready to jar up, follow my blog for how I do it. I put the jars in the oven while am boiling the liquid. 

This gave me 6 jars, of amazing pear 'honey' syrup. 

It's really just like honey but with a unique twang! 

Vegan and yummy!! 

The first time I thought I had got it to set just right I jarred up 9 jars! So it shows you, the more you boil the less you have but it can take a lot of boiling to get it right. Have a go, it's very gratifying and tastes amazing on porridge!  

Any questions please just shout on facebook, email or twitter.

Remember to tweet your photos #pearhoney 

Short Crust Pastry

A simple basic easy short crust pastry, from tarts to sausage rolls!

Ingredients:

8oz plain flour

4oz dairy free butter

Pinch of sea salt (doesn't need to be sea salt)

2 tablepoons of cold water

Get your flour, 

Butter, 

sea salt and water...

Hand mix, squishing the butter between your fingers into the flour. Until there are no more large lumps.

Mix it until it's all sticking together! Mix till you get a dough. 

Pop it in the fridge for 10-15mins.

Roll out the pastry! 

I love this as its so simple and easy to use! 

Apple Jelly

How to make Apple and Rosemary Jelly.

Ingredients:

1.2 kg mixed apples

1 lt water

450 g sugar

1 lemon

Rosemary leafs, a good hand full. (You can leave the rosemary out, but it does make them look really special!)

How to make it:

First stage

Put the water into a large pot. 

Peel and core the apples.

Shave off the skin of the lemon and then juice it.

Then remove all the seeds from lemon and put the juice, shavings and lemon husk into the pot. 

Add the apples to the pot.

Bring slowly to a gentle boil. 

Once at boiling, reduce down and simmer for about an hour or until the apples are soft.

Mash the apples. Then pour the liquid and mashed apples into a muslin bag or stretch muslin over a colander and position over a large bowl or pot. 

For best results leave over night, to soak through. The liquid is what you need to make the jelly.

Second stage

Put the left over mash to one side, you can make apple sauce with this or an apple tart!

Put a small china plate in the fridge. 

Now mix the sugar into the liquid and heat gently until all the sugar has melted. 

Bring to a gentle boil. It will expand a lot, so a big deep pot is best.

To check if it's ready, take out your plate from the fridge. Pour a little onto the plate, does it run like water or stick like jelly? Boil for a few more minutes and test again until it does.

Once it's ready and not ruining away like water but sticking to the plate, mix in the rosemary leafs. Now its time to jar up! Click here for how I jar up!

A little trick so that the leafs don't all sit at the top of the jar. Is (having made sure the tops are fully on and slowly) turn the jars upside down (remember they are hot) and allow them to sit and start to cool. Checking on them, so they don't fully set like this. For about 10 mintues, then turn back. That way the leafs should sit through the jelly, not all at the top.

This is my favorite, and most famous of all my Christmas gifts. I already have a list of people who are asking for this to be their Christmas gift this year. In fact most of them asked me in January! It tastes amazing. I love it with roast dinners, or with pudding, its lovely with ice cream. Today I had it hot croissants, it has such a beautiful taste! It can be hard to get right, my first batch didn't set, so I added a little more lemon and sugar and re-heated (I had already put it all in jars, so had to re-wash the jars too.) This size batch only produced about 3 jars, so its a lot of love and time on a small amount. But WOW, its worth it! 

It's yummy!! 

No 'Cheese' Sauce

You will need the following to make a yummy dairy free 'cheese' sauce:

1 butternut squash

1 can of coconut milk

1 teaspoon of mustard

Chop up the butternut, and boil till soft. 

When it's soft, drain and add the coconut milk and mustard. 

Bend together. (I used a hand blender.)

Your no 'cheese' sauce is complete and ready to use. Our children love this with macaroni, we call it 'no cheese & mac.' Click here for the link. So easy to make, good for you and cheap too. Make sauce as above and cook up some pasta, mix together and serve! You can also use it to make cauliflower cheese. Yummy!

This sauce is perfect with lots of things, today I've made a lasagna! 

The sauce freezes really well! Perfect to take in your camping cool box, or ready for a quick meal! Yum!