MICROWAVE CHOCOLATE BROWNIES
I’ve made a lot of Chocolate Brownies over the years. I’ve misplaced my favourite recipe and tried many others, some quite good, some too rich or sticky and some didn’t really impress. Recently I made a tray of Chocolate Brownies to set for afternoon tea and was then asked for the recipe. Began a serious hunt for my favourite recipe. Although I was unsuccessful, I have culled my recipe books by at least half, even the beautiful ones I thought I might use on day.
So, I went looking online. Online recipes are the reason I wasn’t using most of my recipe book collection! If an online recipe is a success, I print it and keep it in a book or I bookmark it to refer to later. This works well for me.
My search results included a recipe for microwaved Chocolate Brownies. I was intrigued and gathered the ingredients and made it. Quick, easy and I had all the ingredients in the pantry. I don’t know what golden caster sugar is but substituted caster sugar. I also used 100gm of dark intense 91% bitter chocolate, although the recipe called for 75gm of any sort of chocolate, because the block weighed 100gm and who keeps 25gm of leftover chocolate? I know where that would have disappeared to in no time!
Cooked as directed and left to cool. Sliced into twelve generous sized pieces. It is a really delicious slice, not too gooey, not dry but way too easy to eat. The bitter chocolate is just the right balance. Not ‘fudgey’ like so many other slices, but I prefer the bitter flavour and cake-like structure of this brownie.
https://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/microwave-chocolate-brownies.html
OTHER COOKING
Meanwhile, I was cooking other meals for the next few days. I made a spicy meat sauce to eat with tortillas for dinner. I make the spice mix instead of buying little packets. At dinner time I added bowls of grated carrot, fresh baby spinach leaves, chopped lettuce, grated cheese, tomatoes and salsa so we could make our own tortilla.
This is the mix for homemade Taco Flavouring. Quick, easy, economical. Combine
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- ¼ teaspoon of each garlic powder, onion powder and dried oregano
- 1 ½ teaspoons of ground cumin
- 2 teaspoons paprika
- salt and pepper to suit
I mix and store it in a screw cap jar in the pantry. Add about 2 tablespoons of the Taco Mix to 500gm (1.1 lb) of meat. I make three times the above list of ingredients at one time as it keeps well.
We knew we’d be down at my Mother’s place all day Saturday and would be late getting back, so I used the slow cooker to make a hearty beef casserole. I started browning cubed beef, adding onions and garlic before putting that into the slow cooker. Made a gravy from the pan juices, some beef stock and tomato concentrate plus Worcester Sauce. Thickened it a little with plain flour, added some grated black pepper and poured over the meat. Tipped in thawed, frozen vegetables plus some cubed potatoes and left it cooking for about seven hours.
Everything in the pot, lid on and seven hours later, a hearty, hot dinner.
Put some of the slow cooker beef casserole in the freezer and served the rest when we got back from down south. While it was warming, I cooked some shredded cabbage with a drizzle of oil and some cubed bacon. Almost instant dinner.
The other dish on the menu was Toad In A Hole. I know, funny name, but a traditional English recipe my husband has made before and I like to encourage him to cook! He was closely overseen by our son, who has been staying with us for a week while he was completing a course. Our son is a very good cook and gave advice. He also made this luscious gravy to have with the Toad In The Hole.
Shelled a pile of prawns for lunch one day and wondered how prawns are prepared commercially. Turns out they’re lined up on a roller which removes their heads, then splits the shells and spikes from below remove the shell in one piece. Pondered the pile of manually removed shells in front of me, once I’d cleaned my hands under running water followed by rubbing them in a cut lemon.
Went looking for uses for prawn shells. I soon discovered some people suck the prawn heads clean. Eh, no, didn’t appeal, so kept looking. Soon discovered fish stock recipes. Put the shells and heads, or you could use any other fish bits ( total 500g) into water (6ooml) with a chopped up carrot ( should have a chopped stalk of celery, too, but I’d run out.) Boiled for 20 minutes then left to cool before straining it and putting the liquid in a jar in the freezer. I am still considering the numerous online recipes which called for fish stock.
Lots of warming foods to keep us going and the base for some soup. I also have vegetable stock in the freezer.
As always when the family are together, go have yum cha. Luscious little steamed treats. Our favourite yum cha restaurant is always packed, so we get there early and line up. It’s worth it!
