Peppermint Chocolate Hearts

Gotta' tell you, I'm so over seeing a recipe in a magazine and saying "ooh that looks good; even I could do that" and then find that I'm totally misleading myself because of course I can't do it!

As it was with these delicious looking chocolate hearts. They came out in a magazine for Valentine's Day and I've spent the last two months getting very excited about how I'll finally be recognised as clever and creative and all that, when people finally see what a great job I've done.

Wrong!

Making them was easy enough. Melt some milk chocolate, let it set in the fridge. Melt some white chocolate, put some food colouring in, pour it over the milk chocolate, let it set in the fridge. Melt some more milk chocolate, pour it over the white (now green) chocolate, let it set in the fridge.

Then, use a heart shaped cutter to make some hearts.

Okay. What they failed to mention was that after all that setting in the fridge, the chocolate will be so hard that nothing will be able to get through it!

So let me just add the next step. Place chocolate on a table within range of a very hot heater. Turn heater on. Leave heater on for long enough to slightly soften chocolate, but not melt it. Then proceed to use a heart shaped cutter to make some hearts.

So there you go. All done.

Just so you know, I'm never making these again.

Blueberry Muffins

Nice, huh? I will confess, I made them from a packet mix. I will also confess, I made them with the help of my 7 year old and 5 year old children. I could've easily done it myself, you realise. But regardless, I put them into the oven and I took them out of the oven. To me, that means, I made them.

And they taste delicious!

(And yes, they are just a tad burnt!)

God Help Me - I've reached an all-time low.......

I served this to my children tonight.

I was shopping, came upon this on the shelf, thought it looked okay, and bought it. It said it was for kids. To me, that means they'll probably eat it (unlike many other things I've cooked).

So tonight, once again lacking in ideas, I decided to bring it out of the cupboard.

Instructions:

1. Pour pasta into tray.

2. Pour sauce over pasta.

3. Put tray back in box and cook in microwave for one minute.

Oh dear god, I'm giving my children TV dinners.

I swear, this will never happen again.

(Although, they did like it).

Mocha Brownies

Please don't begin to think that I enjoy cooking sweet things. Just because there are two in a row right here in front of you. It's only because I was hungry and mocha brownies were the only thing that I had every ingredient for.

Yes they were very nice, although a little plain. But they do look rather good, don't you think?

Mars Bar Slice

I like Mars Bars. I also like things that are easy to make. This seemed easy. So I thought I'd try it.

It wasn't difficult. Neither was it particularly tasty. Just crumbly, messy and as you can see from the picture, a fairly haphazard distribution of chocolate on top.

Of course the kids ate it. So I guess that's something.

Pumpkin Risotto

As you know, I love pumpkin. I'm also fairly happy with rice and all things rice-related (such as risotto). So it only stands to reason, that I would love this dish.

And guess what?

I do!

Every mouthful, every grain of rice, every piece of onion, and every glump of - hang on - glump? I don't know what a glump is, but it seems a fairly accurate word to describe a piece of mushy pumpkin. Every glump of pumpkin was perfect.

Don't tell anyone. But I ate two bowls!

Vegetable Tagine with Olive and Parsley Couscous

I know. I'm impressed too. Until I made this, I didn't even know what a tagine was! I must admit, I'm still a tad confused. According to my research, a tagine is some kind of an Egyptian or Morrocan dish that you cook in, not actually the name of a food. So I can only guess that the word can be also applied to a recipe that you would prepare in such a dish.

Anyway, not knowing a thing about what I'm doing has never stopped me before, so I decided to give it a go. The main drawcard about this recipe for me was that at the very top of the page, it said "You will need a piece of pumpkin weighing approximately 600g for this recipe." Now I love pumpkin, so any recipe that uses 600g of it is good in my books.

This one was relatively easy to make. Cook up the vegetables, add the spices, cook the couscous and mix it all in together. See those cute little chickpeas in the photo? How sweet are they? Very tasty too!

Of course, the offspring would have none of it, so I whipped up a spaghetti with leftover lamb pieces from last night's Mediterranean Lamb Casserole. How good am I? Making not one, but two separate dishes in one night!

I just might be getting better at this. That could be a worry!