I mentioned in one of my summer blogs that since I'm living in a house this year I'd have the opportunity to cook for myself every day. Cooking is one of my favourite things to do - so creative and relaxing at the same time! This semester I started off slowly and have worked up to some fun stuff. I've already got so many plans for next semester's cooking it's ridiculous.
One of my fellow foodies and best friends, Gen, is my person to go on food excursions and discuss my latest cooking efforts with. We recently started talking about going out on some 'tummy indulgence' - hence the title of this blog. We've even named our food babies! She's crazy talented - makes pumpkin pie from scratch (no pre-made mixture for her!), has an ice-cream maker etc. Well she jokes that because she's Asian she has to take pictures of all her food - funnily enough this habit has caught on and now I'm photographing stuff I've made. I thought I'd post some pictures from this semester and get in a foodie frenzy. Ahhh yum yum yum!
Bread. I have always wanted to learn how to make bread. I don't know why it always seemed like such a wholesome idea? Well this term I decided I'd take up that challenge and I haven't been able to stop making bread since. I'm still shocked every time it rises in the oven! There is also nothing more rewarding or yummy than eating your own, freshly baked, warm bread - plus the kitchen smells amazing afterwards! I've only started with basic plain bread but my housemate wants to try honey and apple bread - doesn't that just sound immense?
Butternut Squash Mash. A number of my friends are vegetarians so I'm conscious of cooking for them and how delicious the food is when they cook for me. I think with vegetarian food there's much more of an effort to work with flavour so it always tastes so much better than if you were making vegetables to go with meat. My friends have got me on to experimenting with different veggie dishes and this is one of my favourites - butternut squash mashed with feta, nuts and coriander. You can eat it as a mash or make veggie burgers out of it.
Prawn and Coconut Laksa. Laksa is a spicy noodle soup that derives from Singapore - people have played about with it a bit so you get lots of different types. Again, the title makes it sound so complex and exotic but it's pretty easy to make. It's simply noodles, prawns, vegetable stock, coconut milk, coriander, spring onions and ginger. This dish has become my new comfort food - especially in helping survive freezing Scottish weather.
Oreo Truffles. I only started making these this year and now they've become my sort of 'thing'. It's always fun to make large batches and send them out to my friends. I did this a couple of weeks ago when everyone had deadlines and it was a lifesaver! They're so quick and easy to make it's insane. They're also so addictive that I have to hide them from myself.
My First Christmas Dinner. This year I made my first christmas dinner for some of my housemates. It tragically felt like a big step on the growing up scale! I've watched my parents make christmas dinner and helped with the easier parts for so many years that it felt odd to be in charge of it. Still it turned out pretty well - nothing disastrous happened and everyone lived so I'd count that as a success?
Banana and Chocolate Bread Pudding. This picture was taken before I baked it - it looks rather slimy and gross otherwise! Bread and Butter Pudding was something my mum always tried to make me eat as a child - I don't know why I always had horrible images of it in my head as something that adults ate? Well I thought I'd give it a whirl and see what happened. It turns out it's become one of my new cooking obsessions. My friend accurately described it as being like 'eating a giant toastie'. The recipe I use has soya milk so now I can make it for my mum (she can't eat dairy) to apologise for ever doubting her taste!
Star Wars Treats. I had the opportunity to do some very creative baking for Greenpeace this semester. I just joined the St Andrews Greenpeace Society this year and have been having such a good time. It feels so good to be active and part of a team where you feel like there's real meaning to what you are doing. Greenpeace currently has an ongoing campaign against Volkswagen for their funding of the activities of groups lobbying against emission laws. The campaign was Star Wars themed which meant that I got to get creative in the kitchen. It took me a day to produce everything for the campaign and it was ridiculously fun. I ended up making: chocolate and raspberry Deathstar cupcakes, red velvet Princess Leia cupcakes, oreo truffle Ewoks and lemon biscuit Yodas.
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