That's if you use a mix Cherry. For lump free gravy without using a mix, make a roux.

Melt a tablespoon of butter in a pan. Add a tablespoon or so of flour. Whisk this over meduim heat until it gets pasty.
You can cook it a little longer until it dries out and starts to brown if you want the gravy to be darker or let the butter brown slightly before you add the flour, being careful not to let it burn.
Then you add your meat drippings and some water(A little at a time).
Cook this at a slow boil until it gets thick enough, using the whisk to scrape the pan and stir it in.
This recipe can be used for a whitesauce with garlic, onions or leeks over vegetables or pasta. (obviously with no drippings added)
You can make a sauce this way and use cheese as the flavoring for over macaroni for mac and cheese.(I like onion with mine.)
For a larger amount of sauce or gravy, increase the amount of butter and flour to start. You would be suprized though at how much water you can add to the tablespoon of flour and butter and still have it thicken.

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Be who you are say what you feel, those that mind don't matter, those that matter don't mind.

A tiny variation of sam's lovely recipe above:

If you're making roast dinner with vegetables and you boil or steam the veg - instead of tap water, use the vegetabley water from the pan. Even if you hardly cook your veg the water will still have a bit more flavour than just regular water. It adds a little... jay nay say kwa (LOL!)

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La Specialite de Ches - Beans sur la toast.

1. Take 2 slices of bread and put into a toaster or under the grill. If grilling remember to turn the bread over once the first side is a golden brown.

2. While the first stage above is underway, prepare some butter (put it on the table) and also begin the preparation of a can of baked beans. (Open it - tins nowadays may have a ring pull, or you may need to find a tin opener.)

3. Empty the baked beans into a microwave safe bowl and cook in the microwave for 1-2mins depending on amount and power of oven. (If you don't have a microwave then you're screwed... I think you can do something with hobs or pans or something, but that's far too complicated for me.)

4. Spread butter on toast (just one side)

5. Pour beans over buttered toast.

6. Slice the bread in half and serve with a bottle of beer for that extra touch of class if you have dinner guests.

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Baked beans and beer? God. You're like above A class Ches.

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Making Gravy seems to be such hard work.

I much prefer this stuff - 40 seconds in a microwave and you have perfect sauces in a range of flavours.

<- <- CLICK ME <- <-

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And a range of preservatives (and probably too much pepper) with combine to make me ill :(

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*Holy mother of bump* Hehe :P

Wow, this thread fell pretty low.

Anyway, I was wondering.. has anyone ever tried making homemade fudge? Or am I the only fool here? :| AJ almost had a fit at the thought of me even suggesting that I make it.. thinking that I'll ruin it for life and no one will eat it ever again Which could be a possibility, but I'd say I'm a good cook generally. And I'm up for the challenge :D

But first.. I've seen a few different recipes, so it's hard to actually *pick* one and hope for the best. So I thought I'd ask if anyone here has tried making it before and what your recipe consisted of? I wanted to start off with an original or vanilla one, but I'm open to anything, really - well, providing it doesn't have alcohol.

Mr nerdy loves his fudge.. so I wanted to be (dorkishly) romantic and make him some.. 'cause buying it can get pretty boring. So I wanna experiment. :X

Ok.. tons of fudge recipes out there. You can do it the old fashioned way witha chilled marble slab or you can do it the quick and easy modern woman way.

I choose the quick and easy and everyone raves about my fudge. Little do they know I get the can of sweetened condensed milk and follow that recipe... lol!

This is from the Nestle Sweetened Condensed Milk can

Estimated Times:
Preparation - 6 min | Cooking - 5 min | Cooling Time - 2 hrs refrigerating | Yields - 36
Ingredients:

• 2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
• 1 can (14 oz.) NESTLÉ® CARNATION® Sweetened Condensed Milk
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
LINE 8- or 9-inch square baking pan with foil.

COMBINE morsels and sweetened condensed milk in medium, heavy-duty saucepan. Warm over lowest possible heat, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat; stir in nuts and vanilla extract.

SPREAD evenly into prepared baking pan. Refrigerate for 2 hours or until firm. Lift from pan; remove foil. Cut into pieces.




Yummy! Try it out!

Anyone like Mexican Food?

Disappearing Guacamole

6-7 ripe* avocados
1 - 8oz package cream cheese
1 medium to large tomato diced
1 small to medium onion diced
1 small can of diced roasted green chiles
garlic salt to taste
pepper to taste
dried or fresh cilantro(optional)

Skin and debone the avocados setting one bone to the side. Put the prepped avocados into a large bowl with an airtight lid. Using a potato masher, mash the avocados a little bit then add the cream cheese. Mash until it is of the consistency you like. The less you mash the chunkier it will be, the more you mash the creamier it will be. Add the tomato, onion and chiles, mix till incorporated. When adding the spices it is best to add some then taste then add more if you like. Taste will be best in an hour or overnight stored in the fridge. Keep it from changing colours badly by putting the bone halfway in the middle of the mix before storing. Some people use a teaspoon or 2 of lemon or lime juice to retard discolouring but I think it drastically changes the flavour. It can always be remixed to hide any discolouration when ready to serve. Best served with corn tortilla chips and/or topped on mexican food. Will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days in an airtight container, but I doubt it will last that long.

*ripe avocados are green-black to black and give slightly to a press of the thumb. If its brown and feels hollow in spots or alltogether, its no good. Green and hard avocados are never yummy and will take about 3 -5 days to ripen in a brown paper sack in a warm place. Always pick similar looking avocados when using immediately or ripening.

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Heh this is silly of me but... I'm requesting a cooking tip? :/ I would give one, but I really have none to offer, as I'm a horrid cook.

Is there any good frosting recipes out there? Or does all frosting pretty much taste the same? I was wondering if I could make my own vanilla frosting instead of just buying the store-carton ones (since my sister doesn't like chocolate frosting, pfft).

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Credits go to Demented for the pie!

I don't really follow a recipe... but this one is good for cookies or cakes. Make it slightly stiffer for cookies and creamier for cakes. This recipe would be enough to frost a regular-sized cake.

2-3 Tbsp Butter or Margarine, softened to room temp
3 Tbsp or so of milk (I never measure, just kind of splash it in)
1 tsp or so of vanilla

Beat to creaminess.

Add in 2-3 cups of powdered (confectioners) sugar.
Beat in

If it is too thick- add in more milk
If it is too thin- add in more sugar

After it is mixed, then stir in food coloring.

I'd like to share my special Christmas recipe with everyone...

1. Lift phone

2. Ask for an invite to Chrimbo dinner at the mother-in-laws.

3. Wait about a week....

4. Voila! Christmas dinner is served.

Merry Christmas xx

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Here's a holiday contribution but Ive made it at other times of year.

Sweet Potato Bread

2 cups all purpose flour(better: bread flour)
3 teaspoons baking power
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup chopped pecans, walnuts or slivered almonds
3/4 cup raisins
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 tablespoons milk
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
about 1 1/2 - 2 lbs sweet potatoes; 1 cup pureed

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Bake(best), microwave, or boil sweet potatoes till cooked. Peel and puree them. Set aside. In a mixing bowl add everything but the puree, butter, milk, eggs and vanilla and thoroughly incorporate. In a separate bowl slightly beat the eggs then add the puree, butter, milk, and vanilla and stir together. Then, add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir to thorougly incorporate till the batter is relatively smooth. Pour into a buttered/greased(spray works too) large loaf pan, Bundt pan or 13x9 cake pan and bake for 30 minutes(cake pan) to an hour(Bundt pan). Toothpick inserted should come out clean.

You can also use self-rising flour but omit the baking powder & soda and add 1 teaspoon salt. 1 cup brown sugar can also be used instead of white sugar and changes the flavour a bit. You can also add some cinnamon or pumkin pie spice. Ive done this recipe so many different ways and actually you can use a different base ingredient than the sweet potato... pureed raw carrots, apples, pineapple or 4 mashed bananas are all nice and the same recipe works for all of them, even grated zucchini! You can also change the nut, for example, if you use pineapple, you can put macadamias in. Pine nuts are wonderful as well. Using 3 eggs instead of 2 makes it fluffier. Wanna make a chocolate banana nut bread(my creation), add 6 tablespoons unsweeted cocoa powder and up the sugar to 1 1/4 cups and omit the raisins, of course. Hope you enjoy making this for friends and family as much as I do.

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Hmm - never saw an avocado with a bone in it........

I just had grilled cheese on toast with a slight variation

2 big slices of bread
Some avocado
Some semi-dried tomatoes
Some cheese

Grill one side of the bread.
Turn it over and spread avocado on it
Roughly chop the semi dried tomatoes and bung them on top of the avocado
Bung it back undr the grill for a minute
Chuck the cheese on top and grill until it melts or until it starts to go brown if you like it a bit charcoally

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lol... bone = seed... Weve always called em bones in my family.
.................................................. .

Tips for making great salmon....

Using spices heavily will make salmon taste great as well as turn the top of it nice and crusty.

I use seasoned salt, garlic power, onion powder, pepper and parsley flakes in that order and put it on liberally unless it happens to be a rather thin peice of salmon which is rare. I top the salmon with one pat of butter then bake it in a pie tin with a half inch of water or halfway up the side of the salmon at 425 degrees for up tp 20 minutes. Dont overcook the salmon and you will be very pleased. Make a rice and vegetable side and voila.

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See now that sounds nice and it seems oh so easy.... fancy making fudge now nerdy, I'm on a break until some time next week

btw Sam, yields 36 what exactly? Mouthfuls of fudge? Sorry for the dummy question

Anyway, I have something to add.... Macaroni and cheese!
Not just any mac and cheese, it has more stuffs in it!

Creamy cheese sauce:
flour
salted butter
milk
cheese
salt and pepper for flavouring.

I add loads of pepper cos I love it and personally I think it livens up the whole meal. There is not specific quantity for the ingredients, I just chuck everything in and make enough depending on how much many I'm cooking for. There should be enough sauce to almost fully submerge the macaroni.

To the cheese sauce add sausages. Yes, sausages! Not whole. First cook them then slice them into nice bite sizes (don't be stingy!) How many you add depends on the amount of mac and cheese you're making and how much you love sausages.

Then separately fry up some sliced onions in some butter, no flavouring needed. When this is done, add it to the cheese and sausage sauce.

Boil some macaroni, whack it in a tray, add the cheese sauce mixture and bung it in the oven. I tend to stick it in the oven on high cos I like the top of my mac and cheese to be crispy.

I estimate everything by eye and it comes out perfectly. I don;t bother faffing about like Delia or Gary Rhodes; sorry, no time to count strands of grated cheese, macaroni or specks of salt and pepper :p

If you're vegetarian, then veggie sausages go really well too, I advise Linda McCartney sausages cos they're nicely flavoured.

This is to die for! :D not literally... :|

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Here's a German recipe. Very tasty!

Ingredients:
2 shallots
300 grams mushrooms
50 grams white breadcrumbs
2 eggs whites
parsely, nutmeg, marjoram
garlic
400 grams potatoes
12 pork medallions
100ml cream
a little butter, salt and pepper

Pre-heat oven to 180°

Finely chop the mushrooms and shallots and then fry them. Once fried, put them into a bowl to one side to cool.

Peel and thinly slice the potatoes. Rub a metal oven dish with garlic, and put the sliced potatoes in it, so that the bottom of the dish is covered. Pour over the cream, season with salt, pepper, marjoram and nutmeg. Pop the dish into the oven for 20 mins.

While the potatoes are in the oven, add the egg whites, breadcrumbs, salt, pepper and parsley to the mushrooms and shallots and mix it all together.

Briefly fry the pork medallions in oil to seal them (they should still be a bit pink inside) and then take them off the heat.

Once the potatoes are done, take them out of the oven, put the pork medallions over the top in a layer, and spread the mushroom mixture over the top of that. Pop it back in the oven for 15 mins. Serve with fresh green beans.

This dish is reeeeeeeeeally worth making, it's so yummy!

EDIT: To answer Nay's question beneath - I'd say 3 hungry tummies, or 4 tummies with a nice portion of veg and maybe a bit of dessert :P I make it for two sometimes and we always get a ton of left-overs.

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That's a lot of medallions there, Vik! How many hungry stomachs can you fill with that recipe?


Here's a little addition to your normal tomato soup, whether it be powder-based, from a tin, or made completely from scratch.

Get yourself a can of tuna
And a jar of olives (I prefer green, and you can even get ones with some kind of filling. Just make sure they don't have stones in them)
And a fresh basil plant (you won't regret buying it -- though you can add dried basil too)
And finally some pepper

Make the soup like you always do. When it's just about done, take the olives and the tuna and put it in the soup (sans liquid from the can and jar). As much as you like. Grind some pepper. Put the soup in bowls/plates. Chop up the basil leaves and put them on the soup.

Enjoy :)

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Wow, I'm bringing this one back from the dead!

Ever had the situation of too much bread, going stale really fast? Here's your answer!

Bread Soup

150g left-over bread
1.5 liters veggie stock (cooled)
60g butter
1 onion
2 egg yolks
Salt, nutmeg, chives
handful of flour
100ml cream

Thinly slice 100g of the bread. Melt butter in bottom of a pan, throw in bread and fry for a min or two. Add onion, fry for another min. Coat with the flour and stir. Add veggie stock, stir around, and simmer for 30 mins, covered.

Beat egg yolks in bottom of soup tureen. Add cream.

Once the simmering is done, pour the contents of the saucepan into the tureen and mix together. Add the remaining 50g of bread (cubed), and the salt, nutmeg and chives to taste.

Eat! Yummier than it sounds.

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This is a great salad.
If you are serving for guests toss all the ingredients together just prior to serving. I love this salad and eat it several times a week so I store the dressing (refrigerated), in an air tight jar and add it to my salad just prior to eating. I also store the toasted noodles and nuts in an airtight container. Both will keep for several weeks.

Crunchy Green Salad

1 head of Romaine Lettuce
1 head of Broccoli
1 bunch of Green Onions

Prepare normally for a salad.

Dressing

1 C. sugar
1 C. Oil
½ TSP salt
3 TBLS Soy Sauce
½ C. Apple Cider Vinegar

This can be blended, mixed, or put in a plastic baggie to mix. Blend until sugar is dissolved.

Topping
2 PKGS Romaine Noodles
¾ C. Slivered Almonds
½ C. Sunflower Seeds

Spray cookie sheet with Pam
Break up noodles on sheet (discard seasoning packet)
Put almonds & sunflower seeds on too

Bake @ 400F until noodles are golden brown (turning occasionally) About 10 minutes or so.

Toss salad with dressing
Sprinkle on toasted noodles and nuts on top

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Does anyone have a recipe for Butterscotch tart......like they used to make at schools?

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I dunno.. which school did you used to go to? Lol, sorry, I don't know any, anyway XD But speaking of school.. *sigh* my primary school had the best school dinners, ever! None of this ready made stuffs that schools serve nowadays (God, I'm making myself sound ridiculously old!). I miss school dinners. If I could, I would love to get hold of some of the recipes that they used to serve. *sigh*.

Sorry, I just had to spam!

When I can be bothered, I'll add in a recipe for citrus pouched salmon with spaghetti (and other stuffs). Inspired by a healthy living dish that I bought from tescos, lol :)

Does anyone out there love to cook, well here is a small gift idea when your invited to a christmas meal in the future.
Its so simple but looks really effective.


Buy a large cheap xmas pudding
Buy some cooking chocolate i bar will be enough.
White icing in a tube x1
Glazed cherries in green and the normal red.
Get a pretty decorated christmas box any size you care to fill.
Or a small tin you dont mind giving away.
Lastly some small cake cases, the smallest ones you can find, as many as you need ect.

Right cook the christmas pudding in the microwave, when done break it all up in to a mixing bowl so its consistancy resembles crumble mix.
You may have to mix it with your CLEAN hands to get the texture right.
Next melt the chocolate in a bowl either in the micro or over a pan of water.
When melted pour it in the xmas pudding mix, then stir in to a mixture that can then be shaped by hand.
Next make balls out of the mixture to fit your cake cases.
Then squeeze your tube of icing out in to a saucer and stir it a bit to get in room tempreture so its managable.
Then carefully add a icing top to each of your mini puddings makeing it look as real as you can to an iced topped pud.
The next stage is the time consuming part, cut your red and green glazed cherries in to little leaves and cherries eg tiny bits to decorate the top of your ouds to look real christmasy.
Then when all done leave to cool in the fridge
When ready to go to a friends place for dinner or a xmas visit simply put your mini choccy puds in the box or tin you have got with a light sprinkling of icing sugar to add decor.
I did this christmas 2008 and people simply loved them, so this year im doing them for the kids school bazaar all boxed ready for people to buy good way to raise money for the school.

Darn it all Nerdy, I want you to post your salmon recipe!!! I made salmon with spaghetti once and I didn't enjoy it at all.

Mmmm... Christmas puds sound yummy.

Penny - that salad sounds great.

Not a recipe, but a tip that really is great - to spice up your spag bol sauce, add whatever hot spices you like, plus a teaspoon of honey. Somehow the honey turns a boring spag bol into a 'this is the best spag bol I ever had' spag bol. lol

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Anyone have a good 'recipe' for pre-dinner drinks?

I was thinking along the lines of some kind of punch, preferably containing champagne.

Anyone know a good one?

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