Carrot Cupcakes (with Cream Cheese Icing)

This recipe hasn't remodeled for cup-caking purposes - so, if you wanted to make a  full sized cake, or muffins? all you need to do is a adjust the cooking times and you're good to go!

The recipe is adapted from the one Moll Katzen features in her Moosewood Cookbook I've played around with the quantity of sweetener, the kinds of spices and halved the recipe overall. Finally I topped these little babies off with my delicious cream cheese icing (which I'll feature in another post...) and little icing carrots (I'd meant to use the walnuts I'd omitted from the batter - but I got carried away!)

Aren't they the cutest?!

I took them with me on a picnic where they were very well received. Flavoursome, moist and not too sweet (a trick of that mysterious icing) because they contain both wholemeal flour AND carrots they've got to be good for you, right?

A delicious cross section...

If you've got the stuff with which you can bake in your flat anyway - there's nothing particularly prohibitive about this recipe... if you're not living in a baking friendly flat - try these when you get home!

If you have to give the cream cheese icing a miss (not always a flat friendly ingredient)  they're almost as good on their own - or a simple drizzle of lemon juice and icing sugar would be a suitable substitute.

Omega 3 and Protein Power Salad!!!

Also know as chickpea salad with feta and (optional) smoked salmon...

it's preeetty... <3

... this inspiration for this salad I picked up from work. The only real requirements (according to me) are chickpeas and feta... that's your "protein power" add salmon and avocado for Omega 3... or just avo if you're vegetarian... or omit both salmon and feta for a vega option (you'll need to play around with the "dressing" a little too... but it can be done!)

Here, we have a can of chickpeas, drained... 50 (ish) grams of feta half chopped, half crumbled, half an avocado and some olives, red capsicum and spring onion that I took to with a knife, somewhat haphazardly - but, hey! that's part of the fun... :)

This dressing is about 2 tsp of mayonnaise thinned down with lemon juice... and re-thickened with that crumbled feta...

A little mint stirred through and some salmon and basil on top and you've got yourself a gourmet little lunch right there!

A more "student friendly" version doesn't involve salmon... and change the dressing to olive oil, lemon and cumin (salt and pepper to taste)...

So this is maybe not a real recipe per se... but it sure does taste good! And is providing a corner stone in my current diet... YUM!

Video: Microwave Brownies

I made a video. It was scary. It is of mediocre quality... but! It is a starting point! And as I get braver and more experienced, I'm sure my video making will improve...

Overcooked and cakey on the edge, total gloop in the middle!

This recipe is usually totally reliable - but for some reason it/I(?) screwed up today... I had fun making it though!


Here're the measurements...


75g butter (unsalted), melted
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/4 tsp each salt and instant coffee dissolved in 1tsp water
1 Tbsp vanilla essence
2 eggs
3/4 cup plain flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1 tsp baking powder

Malteser Slice and Revolutionised Ganache

Malteser Slice has to be one of Boyfriend's favourite things that I make... so much so, that I made some with him in mind for his family Christmas present this year!

The original recipe comes from Birdie's Perch, a tea shop in York via Sam Stern's Student Cookbook which is the most used cookbook in my collection during the year! Originally, I loved his recipes but didn't like his writing style... I've since come to notice that his writing style is very similar to mine (bung this in here, whizz that a little bit, etc) it's kinda y'know chatty... and perhaps I was just jealous that this 12 year old (he's actually a couple of months older than me...) had written several successful cookbooks and I hadn't... then I thought to myself "Well that's more your fault than his, now... isn't it Katherine?!" and therein lies the rather jealous inspiration for this blog... "if  He can do it, so can I!"

Looong story short... Sam Stern is AWESOME, and I thoroughly recommend his student book for all students world wide!

... I'm sure there was a point in here somewhere ... ? ... Ah! Yes! Malteser slice, comes from Sam! He tops his with melted white chocolate and milk chocolate shavings... but I don't really like white chocolate all that much... so I decided that milk chocolate with white chocolate shavings was definitely the way to go!

Then it occurred to me, what about a ganache on top? This, was clearly a genius plan, aside from one, small detail... no cream. Which lead the thought "Cream is basically thick milk, right? So, why not milk instead of cream?" And yes - milk works brilliantly in a ganache! It comes out a little lighter and slightly sweeter (?) than a cream based ganache - but it sure tastes just as good and you can now call it "low fat"! Everything is relative, right? :) Never lookin' back now! - I call it Ganish!

A second change I made to my first attempt of this slice was to make my own biscuits for grinding in place of the called for digestives... I'll upload the recipe some day, but it comes from a chocolate cookbook that Daddy bought me for my half Birthday a couple of years back... I've previously posted a Pecan Pie recipe from that book... Although the chocolate biscuits definitely added another dimension to the slice it is, by no means, necessary! They are just as delicious with plain ole digestive biscuits! (Which I think are similar to Graham Crackers...?)

A sort-of cross-section.

Here, at last, I will post you the recipe!

Taste & Create: Vegan Grains and Greens

Healthy, tasty Grains and Greens!

Yay for alliteration!

This post has been a long time comin'... and despite that I made the dish aaages ago (last year, I do believe...) I just haven't gotten around to blogging it. And now, here I am, once again, pushing the deadline for Taste & Create... that wonderful, monthly challenge where I'm paired with another blogger, this month Ruby of That's So Vegan!, and encouraged to try out a recipe I've never used before...

Now, as you may have guessed from her blog's name, Ruby is vegan... which poses an interesting challenge for me as I am not. Should I go through her blog and attempt to un-veganise a carefully vegan-ised recipe? Or ought I step out of my comfort zone and try something new?

I chose to step out! And here we have, Vegan Grains and Greens, which Ruby had made previously in desperation because her college didn't appetisingly appeal to her dietary requirements.

Ruby uses a "Trader Joes" mix to get her grains... I, living as I do in New Zealand, didn't have that option - so I went for bulghar wheat instead... Make this dish as you will!

Other alterations include: using seeded big tomatoes in place of Ruby's cherries. Although, I dare say that one could stretch to tinned tomatoes outside of season and this dish would work just as well, if a little sloppily...

Also, Ruby's is a Chickpea, Tomato and Zucchini Stir-Fry - I threw asparagus in as well, along with some parsley and mint on top to up the green factor.

Random fact about me: when I was little I would eat "zucchini" but not "courgettes"... the theory being that my Grandparents would serve me "zucchini" and you have to eat whatever your grandparents serve you... eating Parent-food though? That's optional...

I served this alongside baked fish and a red pepper sauce, made by whizzing up 4 roasted red peppers from a jar with 1/4 cup of orange juice... if I were to serve the Grains and Greens as a meal rather than a vegetable/starch side, for me, it would have to be served with this, or some other sauce. Because I'm fussy like that. Yes.

Otherwise this is a tasty, healthful dish - a strong case in the argument that "vegan food doesn't mean boring food"!

Coconut Fruit Salad

Hello... I haven't forgotten about you, Blog... in fact I've been taking photos, receiving recipes cooking galore! I just haven't made or taken time to write about them...

This is a quick shot of my breakfast from the other morning... on the bathroom floor... because I liked the colours! It's Daddy's take on my muesli, natural yoghurt (something I've gotten used to in the last year because it's cheaper that fruity/Greek yoghurt...) and a fruity salad.

The salad being the purpose of today's post. It's inspired by my Ginger, Lime and Pineapple fruit salad dressing, but tweaked a little... for example, instead of grating the ginger, I cut it up reeeal small which meant that when you got a bite of ginger, it wasn't overpowering, but it still nibbled back! I've added a little citrus juice, and coconut for fun too!

The Broke Student's Cupboard Feast

Okay. So, admittedly "feast" might be taking this dish one step (or a leap) too far... but it is an invaluable cupboard scraping meal. As it's based on a Nigella "recipe" (the Exhausted Mother's tea-time special from her "Bites" series) you know it's gotta be good! (I would post a link, but apparently it's not deemed a real recipe and the internet doesn't have a copy yet?)

It's a sort of rice/lentil pasta sauce soup... Nigella tells you to simply bring a jar of pasta sauce and a jar of water to the boil before stirring in a handful of rice, cooking for 10 (ish) minutes and serving to small children with a lump of Parmesan nearly the size of their heads to grate over.

My "ingredient" list is a little more extensive, but the basic premise is the same. I added lentils for protein, and frozen spinach for greens thus making it an *almost* balanced meal...

As with my last post - you need to make sure that you use a pasta sauce you like, as it is the dominant flavour - but other than that go nuts with whatever you have in your cupboard/fridge/freezer...

eg: chick peas, broccoli, pasta, un-veggie-ise it with some chopped ham... or veganise it and leave off the cheese...

The beauty of this dish was that I could not go to the supermarket for almost three weeks (not something I recommend!) and still manage to put a tasty meal on the table... Score 1 for Kat!