Figs from the Oven: a Recipe

As I mentioned, I've been watching a lot of cooking shows lately and it's inspiring me to make some nicer meals myself. When I spotted some gorgeous figs at the greengrocer's I knew they'd make a perfect lunch.

Next time I host a party, I'll be sure to bring these ladies out! What a nice and healthy treat!

And they're actually incredibly easy to make. Here's how:

• Cut your figs cross-wise.
• Put them in an oven dish.
• Gently push some of the goat's cheese into the space you made by cutting the figs.
• Pour some honey over it.
• Sprinkle with some pepper.
• Pop in the oven at 400ºF/200ºC for about 15 minutes.
• When they're nearly done, put your bread in the toaster to make sure it's all ready at the same time.
• And then just enjoy!

First Try Pumpkin Pie + Recipe

Though pumpkin pie seems to be a pretty big deal in the US, you hardly ever hear anything about it in Europe. But due to my deep love of pumpkin, cinnamon, ginger and so on, I really couldn't resist making my own lovely pie. I don't think I even baked any other proper pie before, but this was delicious!

So delicious, that I thought I'd share the recipe with you:

First up, make sure you have a base. I used my favorite sand cookie recipe and used it to make the bottom and edges of the cake.


Then make the filling:


-Beat 2 eggs.
-Add about 500ml/2 cups of pureed pumpkin to those eggs.
-Mix in a teaspoon of cinnamon, one of fresh ginger and half a teaspoon of salt.
-Add about 180ml/ 3/4 cups of honey and 3/4 cups of coconut milk.
-And finally stir in 2 tablespoons of coconut shavings.


If this has a bit of a milkshake consistency, fear not! It will come out of the oven just right.


Bake at 230*C/450*F for 15 minutes and then at 175*C/350*F for about 45. That's it!

Enjoy!

Lily's Favorite Autumn Recipes

My dear friend Lily, who will be back with a giveaway later on(yay!), has sent me her top 3 of autumn recipes. All delicious ideas of things to bake with pumpkin. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Spice Latte Cheesecake

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Pumpkin Cheesecake with Sugared Pumpkin Seeds

Hannah's Spiderweb Cookie Tutorial

Hannah from Made By My Rabbit made you all a cute, easy and delicious tutorial. And it's perfect for Halloween too.

Hi there, Here is my biscuit recipe for scary spiderweb cakes!!!

It is not a fancy thing. Basically whisk up a batch of sugar cookies or buy them!

A quick recipe is:

240g butter +180g sugar mix them together until fluffy. Then mix in a beaten egg. Add a couple of drops of vanilla essence. Mix in 280g plain flour until dough like. Then roll and cut out into cookies!!!

Then make some glaze icing. Take a cocktail stick and dip it into some food colouring. Dip it into the icing on the biscuit and draw a little spiders leg. Be careful not to use too much colouring as it will run.

And there you have it! Spider web biscuits!

Also, don't forget to check out Hannah's blog. She always has amazing tips and recipes, knows the most amazing illustrators and has a passion for adorable toy cameras.

Clare's Sweet Mint Hot Chocolate

As it's getting colder, we can enjoy hot beverages again! Clare is sharing a delicious recipe with you, so you'll be prepared for winter, or to try already.

Sweet Mint Hot Chocolate

{source, but edited}

What you need for a warming drink before winter sets in:

50g of dark chocolate ❣ 250ml of milk ❣ a couple of hardboiled mint sweets (like Fox's Glacier mints or similar!) ❣ sugar!

What to do:

Bring the milk to boiling point in a pot and add one or two of the mint sweets, depending on how minty you'd like the drink to be. Stir on a high heat setting until the sweets melt and mix with the milk. ❣ Bring the heat down and grate the dark chocolate in until it melts ❣ Stir in some sugar to taste (you won't need too much as the sweets would help with sweetening!) ❣ Serve in a cute mug while wearing a thick knitted cowl and some mittens ;)

Alternatives : Instead of mint sweets, try clove or cinammon...or any hardboiled sweets! I highly recommend trying caramel and mint together!

You should also pop over to Clare's blog Borderline, as it's always filled with amazing posts! And if you haven't already, you would also want to check out the PhotoShop tutorial she did here earlier this month.

Amber's Zombie Cake Tutorial

Amber has made a great Halloween tutorial. I just can't get over how real and amazing this delicious cake decoration looks!

My friend and I put together a surprise party for our friends 20^th birthday last year and the theme was Halloween Horror. I had cake duty and created an awesome zombie cake that would be great for any Halloween party.

What you’ll need

• Cake Mix of your choosing
• 1 container Chocolate Frosting
• 3 containers of Vanilla Frosting
• Red, green, and black food coloring
• Teddy grahams
• Oreo cookies
• Milano Cookies
• Aluminum Foil
• Zip-lock bags
• Piping bag with decorative tips *optional

For this cake I used two 8” round cake pans but it’s just as easy to make it into a sheet cake. Bake cake according to instructions on the box.

While the cake is baking you can start decorating the teddy grahams and Milano cookies.

• Lay out a sheet of aluminum foil to put the cookies on.
• Mix a small amount of vanilla icing with some red food coloring.
• Put the icing in a zip lock bag and cut a tiny bit of the corner to create a piping bag.
• Pipe on the eyes ears of the teddy grahams and set what left over “guts” icing to the side.

Do the same with the chocolate icing but don’t make the cut too big because you’ll be using it to write on the Milano cookies. Decorate the graves with RIP or names like Edgar Allan Poe or “Bloody Mary”. For the soil just smash Oreo cookies in a zip lock bag.

• If you decided to do the two 8” round cakes put a layer of chocolate between the cakes.
• To create the ghoulish green icing simply take a can of vanilla icing put a few drops of green (about 3-4) and mix well, then do one or two drops of black. Keep adding drops until the color is a greenish gray. The icing on the cake does not have to be perfectly smooth.
• Now place your “graves” on the cake and sprinkle the Oreo crumbs in front of them. Place your teddy grahams as if they are coming out of the graves, walking around and on the side of the cake.
• Take that left over “guts” icing to add to some of the teddy grahams.
• This is optional but if you have any remaining chocolate take the piping bag and a decorative tip and put a nice edge around the cake. Otherwise you can use the rest of the Oreo crumbs to put around the bottom of the cake.

There you have it an eerie but delicious zombie cake!

Also, check out Amber's blog The Owl's Den to keep track of her great ideas, amazing finds and the occasional outfit posts. She also has a really cute jewelry shop on Etsy.

Recipe: Green Tea Frozen Yoghurt

I'm really loving matcha (green tea) powder and I've been experimenting a lot with it lately. Here's one of my favorite recipes so far.

It's a very simple but delicous green tea flavored frozen yoghurt with raspberries. It makes for a nice snack on a hot day or a unique dessert for a little dinner party.

You'll need:

• a mixing bowl
• frozen yoghurt(though it'll work with regular ice cream too)
• matcha powder
• frozen raspberries(or fresh ones if you prefer that)
• white chocolate sprinkles

Put some ice cream in a bowl, add some matcha powder to taste. You can mix it easily with a fork. Pour in seperate bowls. Put some frozen raspberries on top and sprinkle with white chocolate.

Enjoy!

Tweet

5 Minute Recipe: Green Tea Cake

Last week I promised a cake recipe that is delicious with the shake I made then. So today I'll be explaining how to make a super quick and easy as 1-2-3 green tea cake with oatmeal and honey. Delicious!

Mix together:

-4tbsp flour

-4tbsp sugar

-2tbsp matcha(/green tea) powder

Then add:

-1 egg

-3tbsp milk

-3 tbsp oil

Mix well, put in a fun silicone mold, sprinkle some oatmeal and some honey on top and microwave for 3 minutes.

Let me know if you try it:)

Feel Good Food: Banana Almond Shake

A few days ago I figured out a new drink, I think it's delicious and it was high time for another recipe!

It's a banana almond shake and goes so well with the cake below. It's just a little sneak peek but I'll post the recipe of the cake soon.

Ok, what you'll need for the drink: (serves 2, or 1 huge glass if you'd prefer that)

-almond milk

-1 banana

-1 stem ginger ball in syrup

-a little bit of cinnamon

-2 to 3 tbsps oat meal

Now I don't really know the exact amount of almond milk, but if you'll put in all the ingredients and fill it up with the almond milk until it's enough to fill two glasses you'll be golden.

I really like this drink and love the foam layer on top too, it makes me think of cappuccino(maybe I should try if this can be served hot?).

Feel Good Food

Baking is lots of fun, but it also takes up a lot of time and that does stop me from doing so at times. But when I read you could easily make a little chocolate cake in the microwave I tried it immediately. This was the result:

I just love this squirrel cake mold. It's from France and I bought it over the summer. It took me till now to try though.

This cake was made with some Milo instead of cocao, but it tasted really good. Later I've also tried it with some chocolate sprinkles mixed in and even some chocolate syrup. I love that it's so easily adjustable and that it's plenty for two to eat from. Here's the basic recipe:

Put in a bowl: 4 tablespoons of flour, 4 tbs sugar and 2 tbs cocao, mix together.

That crack an egg and add it to the mix along with 3tbs of milk and 3 tbs oil, mix well and (put it a mold if you like) microwave for 3 minutes.

Super easy and super quick! Now you can just whip up a chocolate cake when you have an unexpected visitor. Awesome, right?

Feel Good Food

Apart from making all sorts of warm lunches and one really basic dinner instructed by my mom I had never really tried cooking. But now I discovered a Japanese cooking channel on YouTube called Cooking With Dog(don't worry, it's just with a dog sitting next to the woman cooking, they don't teach you how to prepare one).

I was addicted instantly and saw most videos a bunch of times already. Immediately I started planning dinners and went to buy all the ingredients for all sorts of dishes.

First things I made were the Japanese sweets Tofu Dango with different toppings. This is the instruction video:

It is the most healthy Japanese candy and it was quite easy to make and tasted very good

I also thought it was time to properly make sushi, so I got sushi rice and even Dashi Kombu the seaweed they steam it with.

Here's my california roll and salmon filled onigiri.

Apart from that I also prepared a few side dishes. Japanese style spinach omelet and my absolute favorite: honey seasoned pumpkin! This is one of the best things I have ever tasted and it wasn't hard to make at all.

I slightly changed the instructions, because I didn't want to deep fry it. Here's the altered recipe.

You'll need:

• Kabocha, which is a pumpkin like these(it might be hard to slice, but it's worth it)
• Honey
• Roasted black sesame seeds
• Vegetable oil

Cut the pumkin into pieces ( I made them about 1" by 2").

Put them in a plastic microwavable container along with some water.

Microwave for 4 minutes.

Take the skin of(it's easier to do so after it's boiled) and cut in half.

Put a bit of oil into a pan and bake till the become a bit golden brown on either side.

Pour a bit of honey over it and sprinkle with the sesame seeds, mix to evenly spread it. Do this according to taste.

Enjoy!

So this was the entire menu of my very first dinner, not bad right? Do you recall what you first made?

Next up will probably be Udon and Mochi. Have you ever tried your hand at Japanese cuisine? I'd love to hear about it.

Feel Good Food + Recipe

Bagels are getting more and more popular here and I am loving it. There's a bagel place quite close to my home that I visited today. Apart from a bagel I ordered a nice drink made with carrots, oranges, ginger and royal jelly. It was delicious.

When I got my food I was too excited to take pictures, I'll try to keep that in mind, so you don't have to see my half devoured food next time. But it was just too good to wait! Here's the bacon, goat's cheese and pine nuts bagel.

The past few days have been filled with delicious food and drinks. I even tried out a new idea for a smoothie.

After working out I'm always a little hungry and one of my favorite things to make is a smoothie. Often with bananas and sometimes strawberries too, but yesterday I made one that's a little more exciting.

For two large glasses you'll need:

Milk

2 tablespoons of Yoghurt

a handful of Strawberries

a handful of Blueberries

1/3 Mango

1 Banana

2 teaspoons of Coconut shavings

4 overflowing tablespoons of Oatmeal

1/4 teaspoon of Cinnamon

First off put the oatmeal, coconut and cinnamon together in a glass, fill it up with milk, stir it a little and let it sit there.

Cut the fruit up into smaller pieces and put them all in the blender. Add the yoghurt. And then the oatmeal etc. Fill it up with milk till about 75 cl.

Voila! Push the button and you are done.