Goings on

Ok so here's what's going on at the moment:

Degree - looking like a strong 2:1
Project - Enthusiasm was sapped by crappy report, but it on the rise again.
Hockey - Leading goalscorer, team not top of the division, though there are divides in the team, making it not as much of a ‘team’ as last year
Gilbert & Sullivan - Has taken over life, only 1 week away, Eep
The Future - Is as uncertain now as it ever has been, curse you father time!

Smoothies with Dave: Cheap, easy and yum.

Kitchen gadgets have a tendency to create more problems than they solve, requiring multiple parts to wash, often with fiddly features that are difficult to get a sponge/brush into, prime example: juicers.

The exception to this is found in the humble, yet stupendous hand-mixer. I suggest you all go and buy one now if you don't already have one as they're ace (especially at fluffing up egg whites, but that's another story)

So yes, smoothies are mega. Ok, so essentially blending fruits removes practically all the benefits of the fibre reducing it to a sugary mess, but what a tasty sugary mess it is. This is a favourite of mine when I want something substantial yet thirst-quenching.

Ingredients:
- hand blender and associated receptacle
- one banana
- orange juice, about a glass
- peanut butter, a hefty tablespoon (chunky or smooth will do)

Do this with ingredients:
- Blitz them with the handblender, making sure that everythings nice and.. blended.

And that is the path to a great smoothie with an interesting peanut twist.




Disclaimer: I adapted (nicked) the idea for this recipe from a smoothie stand. I would post a picture but I didn't take any. Maybe someday soon when I make another yummylicious drink.

Cooking with Dave: Performance-enhancing drugs

This post is spurred by the truly awesome present my housemate just gave me:


Is this not the coolest mug you have ever seen? Of course it is.

So without further ado, I give you the most successful performance enhancing drug, bar none: Tea. Tea has the amazing ability to both sooth an aching mind and reinvigorate it, with just the right amount of caffeine and antioxidants to promote general awesomeness and heightened levels of concentration. Tea must be drunk the proper English way with milk and sugar, anything else and you're a traitor to the empire.

Ingredients
1 x Tea bag
1 x Kettle of boiled water
1 x Awesome mug
Splash of milk
Sniff of sugar

What you do
1) Tea bag in mug. 2) Pour in boiling water, being sure to compensate for the tea bag volume displacement and eventual milk you will have to add. 3) Admire your awesome mug. 4) Remove tea bag (a teaspoon is good for this) 5) Add milk and sugar 6) Stir. 7) Take a good amount of time to enjoy your warm beverage, using it's heat to warm hands and allowing the steam to curl up in your face refreshing your eyes. The refreshing properties of tea are a 50/50 split between the actual chemicals within the tea and the ritual of drinking it, so allow for a good measure of ritual.

Exams

Keeps me going

Cooking with Dave: Nibble away your exam woes

So you're bogged down with revision, mindless note-taking turning your brain into mush while you stare out of the window in despair at the heavenly weather. Ok so maybe not all of us are still bothered by faraway concepts such as 'revision', but we all know when it's time to take a break and bake up a delicious batch of distracting, worry-free cookies!

Ingredients
225 g butter, softened
200 g white sugar
220 g packed brown sugar
2 eggs
250 g all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
245 g oats

What you do:

1) cream the sugar, butter and egg together in a big bowl. If you're going to add chocolate chips now is the time to do it, as leave it later and the mixture is too hard.

2) mix the flour, oats, baking soda and salt in another bowl, add this mix to the big bowl and stir. The resulting dough should be pretty tough and difficult to stir, though if it is a bit liquidysticky thats alright.

3) roll the dough into balls and flatten a little bit before putting them on a tray, then bake for 10 minutes at 190 degrees centigrade. WHABAM!.

Note: even if the cookies still seem like dough when you take them out, don't matter, they harden up nicely. If you overdo the cookies they'll end up like rocks.




p.s I nicked this recipe from allrecipes.com

Cooking With Dave: Lest we wake the slumbering dragon

Today a friend inspired me, harkening back to our colonialist Chinese roots he presented me with a recipe for 'Chairman Mao's Red-Braised Pork' and instantly I knew I had to eat this dish.

"you make pork now"

As it already exists online I am going to be lazy and merely provide a link to it. I urge you all to try it, if not for the subtle yet tasty flavour, for the sake of seeing plain pork turn into a golden source of goodness which, if Chairman Tse Tung is anyone to believe, will help you build your brains.

You can replace the pork with vegetarian fare, such as bean curd, but don't; only girls eat bean curd.

Cooking with Dave: Tea-time inspiration

As requested, here is a little dinnerlicious suggestion for those in a bind. The immoveable pasta bake, the swiss-army knife of foods. Incredibly versatile in that you can stick almost anything in, yet undeniably satisfying and voluminous.

There are two elements to be considered when getting your bake on*, the main contents and the sauce. The following sections are thus split respectively.

Ingredients:
Contents:

A big wodge of cooked pasta (about a face-sized saucepan full)
Whatever vegetables you have (personal favourite: brocolli, peas, onions)
Whatever meat you have available (can be sausages, chicken, pork. Beef isn't known for it's brilliance in a bake so beware)

Sauce:
One to two tins of chopped tomatoes (plus whatever tomato sauce you have left from other meals, hey bolognese would probably work too!)
A small onion
blob of garlic
manly amounts of: mixed herbs, pepper & salt

Method to the madness:

First off: turn on the oven, 220 degrees C. Sorted.

Sauce
Chop the onions itty bitty, fry them in a small saucepan with a dash of olive oil, add the garlic, chopped tomatoes, herbs, pepper and salt. Leave on the lowest heat to simmer while you cook the rest of the stuff.

Rest of the stuff

Cook the pasta until cooked, whilst at the same time frying the meat in a big frying pan. When the meat is looking done-ish throw the vegetables in with them, giving it a jolly good stir. When you are satisfied with the general state of the veggies, throw the ingredients into a large oven-proof dish, pasta first then meat-veg, smothering it with the sauce. Mix it all up and finally grate a healthy amount of cheese over the top of it all and bung it in the oven, leave it there for 15-20 or until the cheese has gone black**.

Note: the tomato sauce can be successfully replaced with the cheese sauce mentioned a few weeks ago.

So now all that remains is to, as the french would say "mange tout".








*Bacon is a ready addition to this meal
*Golden