Meringues

In my last post, I only used the egg yolks from the eggs, so instead of wasting the egg whites I used them to make meringues. They're quick and easy to make (not quick once their in the oven though, make sure you don't need your oven for anything else for a while) and are perfect if you have an insatiable sweet tooth like me.


The recipe
4 Egg Whites
115g Caster Sugar
115g Icing Sugar

Method Behind the Madness
Beat the eggs until they are stiff- when you remove the whisk they should be able to stand by themselves.

Increase the speed of the whisk ( God bless the electric whisk) and add your caster sugar a spoonful at a time. Be careful not to over beat. Then add your icing sugar a third at a time and beat until all ingredients have combined.

Once you've done this, dollop the mixture onto a greaseproof  tray.

Place into your preheated oven 100*C Fan/110*C/Gas Mark 4.


Leave for 1 1/2 - 1 3/4 hours or until they start to go golden brown.

The verdict
Crunchy on the outside, gooey on the inside; they were perfect. Incredibly simple to make, and despite being made of practically just sugar, not too unhealthy for you. I couldn't help myself from having one once they cooled down. Or two. Or five.

Pizza

A friend who did food tech for GCSE told me if someone did pizza for their final piece they would fail since it is so simple, so this seemed like a reasonable place to start. Turns out I would have failed.

The Recipe

750g all purpose flour

1 packet of yeast

2 tablespoons of sunflower oil

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of sugar

1 cup of warm water

(Ingredients changed as I went along, should probably have taken the photo at the end once I knew what I was using...)

Method behind the madness

Mix the oil, salt, sugar, and two thirds of the flour in a bowl. Dissolve the yeast in the warm water, and then add to the mixture. Stir until it starts to come together. Add remaining flour. Continue to stir for a few more minutes. Take the dough out and place on a surface covered in flour. Knead the dough until it becomes elastic-like in consistency. Do not attempt to spin on finger or toss into air.

 Place into the bowl again and cover in cling film, and let it rest for 45-60 minutes.

 My Gran taught me well to clean up as you go along, so take this opportunity to tidy up. If you’re anything like me, there will be a trail of destruction that is in the form of a path of flour, so it’s probably a good idea to clean this up before you get the flour out again. If you want to make your own sauce you will need: tinned chopped tomatoes, half a chopped onion, Italian seasonings, garlic puree, salt and pepper. Unfortunately my local supermarket had sold out of tinned tomatoes and garlic puree, but right next to where they should be was ‘pizza topping sauce’, so thought this should make a reasonable substitute.

Once the dough has had time to rise, take it out of the bowl and separate it into three sections. Role of the first one into a circle, don’t worry about measurements, I didn’t (actually, the recipe said 13 inches, maybe that’s where I went wrong, perhaps you should try to follow instructions more than I did). Pinch the crusts all the way around the perimeter and stab thoroughly with a fork- this is surprisingly therapeutic- and place in the oven for 15 minutes at 220*C, take it out once it’s solid.

 Now, the recipe I followed failed to mention you’re suppose to coat the base with either egg or milk to make it go golden, so my bases looked uncooked, so this is something for anyone using this recipe to try. Once cooked, add sauce, cheese, and toppings of choice. Place back in the oven for another 20 minutes or until toppings appear cooked (or starting to burn in my case).

Once cooked, cut up and serve, enjoy if you can; if you did a better job than me this shouldn’t be hard, the knowledge that it is homemade is usually enough to make something taste good.

The verdict

Pizza bases are hard to make. Don’t let anyone say otherwise. I was making pizza for the family, and they seemed relatively pleased, but I think they were just surprised that I actually know how to use the kitchen. Mum’s pizza had: prawns, olives, jalapenos, fresh basil and oregano; Terry’s had: olives, fresh basil and oregano; mine had; olives, jalapenos, and one pretentiously placed bit of basil.

It was edible I suppose, but I think this is one of those practice makes perfect situations.

Total cost of ingredients: £11.89

Total cost of ingredients used: £6.75

An Introduction

Hello there fellow user of the internet. As you can probably tell, I'm new to blogging, so not entirely sure how to use this. I suppose I'll work it out along the way.

So I was talking to a few friends the other day who are off to university in a couple of months, and then it hit me; in just over a year that will (hopefully) be me. Going to university to me represents independence. A life without parental supervision, where there are opportunities and responsibilities galore. All of this I have to look forward to, and I personally cannot wait for what it brings, but there is one thing I am terrified about: I cannot cook. At all. And I really doubt my future roommates will be impressed with burnt cheese on toast. So I have decided to embark on the journey of learning how to cook. Well, at least to the standard of most students. I have no ambition to become a gourmet chef in the foreseeable future.

So, for some reason, I thought sharing my adventure with the world was a good idea, so that's where this blog comes in. I will be posting recipes, along with my experiences of cooking (how easy I found it, whether it was worth the effort ect,...)here, and hopefully you lovely readers will learn something along with me. If not, you can at least laugh at my misfortune; I can envisage many incidents occurring. Hope you enjoy.