Peanut Brittle Gone Wrong

I have been making Christmas candy by recipes on following recipes I found on Pinterest and I feel a bit sick even thinking about it. Did I ruin everything in that recipe or is that candy just so bad?! I made Peanut Brittle - I have never heard of it before and I was curious. I mean, I love peanuts and I thought it would be awesome to give a treat they have never eaten before to my family members. BAD IDEA! Bud how did that happen? - I followed the recipe carefully!

Peanut Brittle 

I used an easy recipe of making peanut brittle in a microwave and used this ingredients: dry roasted peanuts, white sugar, corn syrup, butter, vanilla and baking soda. I can feel the baking soda pretty strongly and I hate it. I have to through it out.. This things happen, but I feel so bad - I have wasted so many ingredients and my time. I have even bought peanuts in a shell and cleaned it myself, because it supposedly makes this treat taste better. Oh, well. I will have to make something else to fill up this mason jars for this years stocking fillers. If you have any great suggestions, let me know!

Have a great delicious day!

With love,


Maja

Celebration Finger Food

The happiest time of the year is fast approaching! A lot of us are already all in Christmas time preparations, decorating our homes and planning ahead for gifts, upcoming parties and food for family gatherings. Things are a lot easier if you plan ahead, you can buy cheaper and more personal, thoughtful Christmas gifts when you have time to thing about what will make someone in your life happy. Here is my selection of finger food for a perfect event.  

Number 1 - Egg Salad

This recipe is very easy to prepare. All you have to do is boil as much eggs as you like, cut them in small pieces, add mayonnaise, salt and pepper and mix it up together. 

Number 2 - BIG MAC "Secret" Sauce

I love this sauce! McDonald's secret sauce recipe has been exposed :) You need: 1 small onion, 2 cucumbers, 1 cup of mayonnaise, 2 spoons of ketchup, 1 spoon of mustard, a spoon of vinegar and salt. Put all of the ingredients in a blender and there you have it - the "most famous secret sauce"!

Number 3 - Avocado Dip

Blend 1 avocado with 1 cup of sour cream, salt and pepper. 

Number 4 - Mixed Salad

In this picture we used paprika, tomatoes and onions with apple vinegar and pumpkin seed oil.

Number 5 - Pizza Muffins

I make the the regular pizza dough, divide it among 24 muffin cups and put pieces of sliced ham and cheese on top. 

Number 6 - "Kifli"

This one is my speciality - my family always begs me to bake them :) I use 1kg of smooth flour, yeast powder, 2 spoons of sugar and 1 spoon of salt. Mix them all together, add about 3 or 4 cups of warm water and knead for 10 minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic. Set aside in a warm place to prove for 45 minutes until the dough has almost doubled in size. Divide into 8 pieces, form dough into a round shape and cut into 8 slices. Roll up each slice, put them into a pan, brush them with melted butter or eggs and bake on 200 degrees C for 15 minutes. When you take them out, splash then with warm water and cover them with a clean kitchen cloth for a few minutes. They taste the best when still warm.

Number 7 - Cheese and Fruit Sticks

Put pieces of fruit and cheese on a stick - no surprise there :)

Number 8 - Honey Pie (Not really a pie, more of a pastry)

This recipe is Hungarian and I have never made this dessert before, but we always eat it on family events and special occasions. You can find a recipe for it here. Maybe one of these days I will ask my grandmother or mother for their recipe, then try it out and translate it for you. 

What are the the appetisers?

Homemade Chocolate liker, homemade schnapps and regular whiskey.

Drinks?

Fruit flavoured water, juice and coffee.

Enjoy spending time with people you love!

With love,

Maja

Eat healthier with less effort

I love to eat good food and I since I had weight issues in the past I refuse to eat something that does not make my taste buds go crazy! My philosophy is: “Do not gain weight from food with bad taste”. I love eating healthy which does not mean not delicious in my book. Healthy eating means having a balanced diet and there is no room for extremes. There are ways to make a dish that you dislike more to your taste.

If you love fast food.

There are ways to make fast food at home in a variety of healthier recipes. Change the way you shop: instead of white bread choose whole wheat bread and swap white pasta with wheat pasta. There a lot of healthier options for you to supplement your favourite meal ingredients and your dish will still taste amazingly good. Try grilling instead of deep frying and use olive oil instead of butter. One of my favourite dishes to make at home is a great whole wheat bun hamburger with fresh onion, salad and tomatoes. Try to incorporate healthy lifestyle in your everyday life and have fun in the process of discovering new, healthy recipes.

If you love sugar.

Supplement sugar with honey or maple syrup, in small servings. There is a lot talk about using stevia or agave these days, which are all-natural sweeteners. They are a lot sweeter than sugar, so you have to use it in moderation. The easiest way is to simply eat more fresh fruits which contain enough fructose for you to not crave sugar as much anymore.  This way you will also consume lot of fibre, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

If you love drinking soda.

I was never much of a soda drinker, so I am fine with drinking water all the time. Some of you may enjoy drinking soda very much and there are ways to still enjoy a great drink without all of the sugar intake. Make a lot of tea, add honey and lemon or prepare it however you like it best and let it cool off. Pour it in bottles and put it in your fridge and there you have it – a nice refreshing homemade ice tea at all times. The great side of this is that there are so much different tea flavors, you can drink new ice tea every day.

If you dislike vegetables.

We all know vegetables are good for our bodies and minds, because of all the vitamins they contain. If you cannot stand the idea of eating raw or cooked vegetables, mix it in with your other food, so you will not see or taste them. Mash the cauliflower, broccoli or carrots in with you mash potatoes. Put the cooked veggies in your whole wheat tortillas and add some low fat cheese. Put some veggies in your fruit smoothie and you won´t even taste it. Bring in your vitamins in a way your taste buds will not suffer.

You may need some time to adjust to new flavors but it will be worth it. You may discover new dishes which you will enjoy even more than the foods you are used to eating now. Explore the rich world of delicious food and stay healthy.

With love,


Maja

Dumplings with Prosciutto Cream Sauce

 My sister came to visit us for a few days, since we are going to OneRepublic concert tomorrow (just  the two of us) and I made her dinner. I have a hard time every day on deciding what to cook - why is that so hard? I feel like we eat the same things over and over again. I would love to experiment with my cooking more, but it is hard to find something everybody likes to eat, except pizza or pasta, off course. I wanted to make something that she doesn´t eat much at home, so I made dumplings with Prosciutto Cream Sauce that we enjoyed very much. Instead of dumplings, you can use any kind of pasta.

Recipe for Prosciutto Cream Sauce:

2 tablespoons of olive oil
6 slices of prosciutto, cut into 1/4-inch strips
500 ml heavy cream
a bit of chopped fresh parsley leaves
salt and pepper

Cook the pasta or dumplings.

Place the prosciutto in the pan and saute in olive oil for 3 minutes. Add the cream,, salt and pepper to the pan and let the cream reduce by half, 4 to 5 minutes. Turn the fire off and sprinkle with parsley.
Pour the sauce over strained pasta and enjoy!

Served dumplings with Prosciutto Cream Sauce

Prosciutto Cream Sauce

With love,


Maja

Lemon Meringue Pie - Me Baking

I enjoyed watching a cooking show called "MasterChef" last week. That wasn´t my first choice, but since there was nothing else interesting on TV and I was lazy to to something else, I watched it and really got into it. I even got a bit obsessed and since then I have watched Jamie Olivers´ 15 Minute Meals and even Junior MasterChef. I did watch cooking shows before, but not for a few years now, so I kind of forgot how much fun they could be. 

This is the was Lemon Meringue Pie is supposed to look

Anyway, on MasterChef three people were competing in semifinals and cooking something in the first round - I don´t remember exactly what. But then one the worst two had to compete by baking a Lemon Meringue Pie, which impressed me very much. My mouth watered the whole time they were tasting and evaluating it. It looked so good. So off course, the next day I had to try to make it myself. I found a great recipe here and it was easy to follow, no doubt there. But as always, I forgot to buy one of the ingredients - cornflour. So I used regular white flour instead and it was fine. But it didn´t look very appealing, I think. Since I changed an ingredient in the filling, I must have messed something up and it didn´t harden the way it was supposed to. But I have faith that when I am baking it again (and using the right ingredients), I will make be the best Lemon Meringue Pie ever. For now, I have made this mess of a pie (Gordon Ramsay sadly wouldn´t be impressed by this):

Before baking for the first time.

Before baking for the second time.

After baking for the second time.

Lemon Meringue Pie

A piece of pie

The hardest part for me was to cook the lemon filling. I got bored stirring it like crazy and when it didn´t turn out the way it was supposed to, I was bummed. I did really like the taste, though. I give this recipe 5 out of 5 stars! 

With love,


Maja

Lunch For Less Than 1€

Hello,

I have been cooking and baking a lot lately and since food is the biggest monthly cost in a lot of households (except for rent, off course), I have been trying to figure out what yummy meals I can make on a tight budget. I decided to do a little experiment - to spend 25€ weekly on food and I am really curious if it can be made. I think I can manage, but this budget contains breakfasts, lunches, snacks and dinners. Not so easy, huh? I still think you really can find a lot of items on sale and just go with it. Mix it up all together like Jamie Oliver does :) For snacks I will buy fruits and yogurts, breakfasts are made of oatmeal´s or cereal, so it is not much, and we don´t really eat dinner, since we have lunch at 4 PM because we come home from work around that time. Maybe a yogurt or fruit before bed. I hope we can make this work, we will save a lot of money if we do.

Yesterday I managed to make lunch for less than 1€! It was yummy and I was really happy with it. We ate homemade dumplings with tomato sauce. I used 1kg of flower, two spoons of sonflower oil, water, salt, sugar and tomato puree. I could also use whole wheat fower to make it healthier. Making dumplings took me an hour and a half, but I lisened to music and it was not so bad. I was at home yesterday - so I had time. My hands did start to hurt a bit, since I am not used to making these. But I was really happy with the end result and it was worth it! My boyfriend complimented on my cooking and I felt awesome. 

Plus it is really great to make this kind of foods at home - you always know what ingridients you used. So without preservative or additives in you food, which you don´t even know how to pronounce. So that´s a plus.

Dumplings with tomato sauce

Dumplings

1€ down, 24€ to go - a great first day of my experiment! 

Love,

Maja

Leftover No-Chesse-Pizza Rolls

Greetings,

so today I decided to make a yummy pizza for lunch :) It was amazing, if I say so myself ;) But I made too much pizza dough and I also had some leftover tomatoes and ham. I didn´t want it go to waste, so I made pizza rolls, even though I had no cheese left. I had a feeling they would taste great - I was soo right! They were even better then pizza :D 

We ate them for dinner with some salad. 

Before baking

After baking

Enjoy!

When you make pizza or something similar and have a bit of ingredients left, you should make something with them - use your imagination. I mean, if you have a little understanding of which ingredients go together and how things are baked, you should succeed :) 

I don´t use much salt so I was thinking about using jam as a topping. I choose ham and tomatoes in the end, because I didn´t want them to go to waste. But jam or chocolate topping would of been awesome too. I tried that before and it worked. 

What are your solutions to avoid leftovers? We often have leftover food, because for me it is hard to cook for two. I always worry that one of us would be left hungry. I often freeze the leftovers and one of us eats them, when the other is working late. So at least it works for that kind of days. 

I hope you like them!

With love,


Maja

Currant´s Nest Dessert

Greetings,

I found a very yummy dessert these days and it is sooo good! :D So i thought I should post pictures of it. Currant´s Nest with Sugar! :D It is so soft, sweet and sour at the same time.

This is not a long post, I just wanted to say hello and give you a new dessert idea.
I searched for a recipe for this dessert and I haven't found it. Sorry for that. Maybe if one of you guys knows this recipe, I will appreciate it if you send it to me :)

I hope you like it!

With love,


Maja