Continuing the pasta and vegetarian theme of recipes. This is a mixture of pasta, vegetables and a creamy, cheese flavoured béchamel sauce. Simply delicious!
Amber’s 11th birthday cake
I was asked to make a cake for a former colleague’s daughter who was about to celebrate her 11th birthday. Tina and I worked together for several years but had sadly lost touch since then. Through the power of Facebook, we have thankfully been chatting and catching up again. It also turns out that both our daughters will start the same senior school in September this year so it looks likely that we won’t be losing touch again.
Amber had specific requirements for her cake. It had to be white with bright coloured decoration and just HAD to have a bow! Not one to let a birthday girl down, I rose to the occasion with this two tier vanilla cake.
The top tier was a 6″ round and the bottom was an 8″ square. The bow was made from fondant, which was rolled very thinly and folded, supported overnight to hold its shape.
Home made Humous
I was after something quick and tasty to cook for lunch today so this is what I made.
There are lots of recipes out there for Humous (as well as lots of ways of spelling it!) This is the one that I use;
1 x 400g tin Chick peas, drained and rinsed
½tsp (2.5ml) Sea Salt (or to taste)
3 cloves of Garlic, peeled
4 tbs (60ml) Tahini paste
1 Lemon, juiced
¼tsp (1.25ml) Cayenne pepper (or to taste)
2-4tbs Soured cream
And this is how easy it is to make…
1. Place all of the above into a food processor, apart from the soured cream, and blitz to a smooth paste (this takes a few minutes).
2. Stop the processor after each minute or so and scrape down the sides to ensure that it is all evenly blended.
3. Adjust the lemon juice, salt and Cayenne pepper to your personal taste; adding a little more if necessary. This mixture will still be quite thick.
4. Mix in a couple of tablespoons of soured cream and blend further.
5. Continue to add the soured cream, a tablespoon at a time, and then blend until you achieve the right consistency. Personally I like it to ‘blob’ off the spatula.
6. Serve with hot toasted pitta breads or vegetable sticks such as carrots, celery, peppers etc.