Black Bean Soup

Wahaca Mexican Food At Home cook book - Black Bean Soup

This was amazing, I made the fresh tomato salsa to go with it and served it with feta, sour cream and coriander leaves as it suggested. My only complaint is the recipe didn't make nearly enough! I made it for lunch for 4 adults and there was none left over for seconds at all!!! I will make double next time, it was a great start to my Mexican feast day!

Jerk Pork Grilled Corn & Crunchy Tortilla Salad

Jamie's 15 Minute Meals - Jerk Pork Grilled Corn & Crunchy Tortilla Salad

This was really tasty but not nearly spicy enough, the 30 Minute Meals Jerk Chicken is far better but this is great for mid-week (though of course took me about 45 mins!)

Crispy Parma Pork Minted Courgettes & Brown Rice

Jamie's 15 Minute Meals - Crispy Parma Pork, Minted Courgettes & Brown Rice

It was pretty straight forward to make and tasted yummy but took me about 45 mins, I would make it again though

Vanilla Funfetti Cake With Blueberry Jam, Vanilla Buttercream & Pink White Chocolate Ganache

Olivia's 2nd Birthday Cake

http://bakedbree.com/funfetti-cake

Unfortunately it was a disaster, sometimes it just is!

• The Hello Kitty had a split in the head at the bottom but it was too late to make another one
• The cake was supposed to not rise in the middle as I put extra insulation round the edge of the tin but this didn't seem to make any difference except they didn't rise much.
• The funfetti seems to have disolved in the cake so there are coloured bits but there was no crunch. The cake was very soft inside but had a tough sugar crust so my wire cutter seemed to want to tear the cake apart and a corner ended up coming off.
• The jam seeped where the corner had to to fixed in place with butter cream and made the butter cream look like raspberry ripple ice cream. 
• To fix the crumbling corner and discoloured buttercream I made a pink white chocolate ganache which worked wonderfully well and hid most of the damage. When I put my paper (never again, I will use something else next time) stencil on for the writing it pulled the ganache with it making it look very messy though the ganache was very pliable when trying to minimise the damage.
• When eaten it cut really well and looked nice inside but overall was way too sweet. The blueberry jam (ikea) was the best bit of the hole thing, I wish I had put in another layer of cake and much thicker layers of jam.

I think I rushed it and was out of practice maybe - that just means I need to make more cake!!!

 

 

  

Glazed Pork Fillet with Cajun-Style Pepper Rice and BBQ Sauce

Glazed Pork Fillet with Cajun-Style Pepper Rice and BBQ Sauce from Jamies 15 Minute Meals

I couln't get hold of okra which was a shame but it was a really nice meal anyway. I heated the sauce in the sauce pan and put the sliced pork back into it for a couple of minutes which I think worked really well.

Dairy Free Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

Dairy Free Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies from How Sweet It Is:

http://www.howsweeteats.com/2011/08/puffy-peanut-butter-cookies-with-chocolate-chips/

I have a love hate relationship with this recipe, my sister loves it so I use it all the time and adapt if for her friend (who also request it when they come over) to dairy free but when I want to try a new recipe my sister makes it quite clear she would prefer if I made these again!

Red Velvet Cake for Valentines Day

Red Velvet Cake for Valentines Day from Tea With Bea

It was very lovely but the feedback from my ever-ready tasters was that it isn't as good as when I make the Red Velvet Cake from from the Hummingbird Bakery book - sorry Bea. It obviously worked though as he proposed to me a week later!!!!