Love Your Freezer Part 2: Vegetables & Herbs (General Tso’s Chicken & Frittata)

Yesterday I shared how I use frozen fruit to my advantage. Today I am going to share the way I use frozen vegetables and herbs with a recipe that highlights the best of both and another that is a family favorite!

When I was at University I used to treat myself to a General Tso’s Chicken from the local Chinese restaurant on the occasional weekend night I had to work late. I was shocked and appalled when I couldn't find General Tso’s Chicken on any menu here in the UK. So, I have tried a few different recipes trying to find the one that reminded me most of the one I used to get at home and this one so far has most resembled it!

This recipe really showcases frozen herbs as it uses 3 of the most common when it comes to making Chinese food: garlic, ginger, and chili! I also use frozen broccoli! 

General Tso’s Chicken:

3 tbsp corn flour

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

vegetable oil

3-4 chicken breast, cubed

400g frozen broccoli, blanched

rice, cooked according to the package

sauce:

1 tbsp corn flour

120ml/4oz cold water

1 tbsp frozen chopped garlic

1 tbsp frozen chopped ginger

1 ½ tsp frozen chopped chili

3 tbsp honey

2 tbsp soy sauce

3 tbsp Chinese rice wine

Combine the corn flour, salt, and pepper and coat the chicken cubes in the flour and leave to one side.

To make the sauce combine the corn flour and cold water and mix until there are no corn flour lumps. Then add all the chopped herbs, honey, soy sauce, and rice wine and mix until combined. Set aside.

Heat a splash or two of vegetable oil in a non-stick frying pan. Shake any excess flour off the chicken cubes and fry in the oil for 4-6 minutes. Add the sauce mixture, leave on a medium to low heat until the sauce has thickened. Make sure the broccoli is well drained before adding to the pan and coat in the sauce.

Serve with rice and enjoy!

I always have frozen spinach in my fridge because spinach is easily hidden in food and it’s super good for you. It works great it in Bolognese, curries, and as a side for almost any chicken dinner. However it is particularly great in this frittata from Jamie Oliver’s Save with Jamie.

Sweet Potato, Spinach, & Feta Frittata

2 sweet potatoes, roasted

200-300g frozen spinach

½ tsp ground nutmeg

6-8 large eggs

splash of milk

70g feta cheese

40g cheddar cheese or red leister, grated

Roast the sweet potatoes with a little bit of oil and salt in a pre-heated oven at 190C for about 50 minutes or until soft and smushy.

About 10 minutes before the sweet potatoes are done start the rest of the frittata by frying the spinach with a splash of oil, salt, and nutmeg.

While you are waiting for the spinach to wilt and the excess water to evaporate beat the eggs with a splash of milk. Once mixed crumble in half of the feta cheese and half the cheddar cheese, mix until combined.

The sweet potatoes should be out of the oven by now and slightly cooled.

Once all the water has evaporated take the pan off the heat, pour the eggy mixture into the pan. Sprinkle chunks of the soft sweet potato (skin, no skin up to you) all over the mixture and top with the remaining cheese.

Place in the already heated oven for 13-15 minutes. It should be nice and fluffy when it’s ready to come out. We cut it into wedges and serve with hotsauce and a fresh green salad!

What recipes that use frozen vegetables or herbs do you make on a regular basis? Are their any freezer tips or tricks you use? I’d love to hear them, please leave a comment below!

notes: In association with Sainsbury’s for their campaign Love Your Freezer. General Tso’s Chicken recipe is adapted from The Chew: Food. Life. Fun. by the cast of The Chew. Sweet Potato, Spinach, & Feta Frittata is as it says before adapted from Save with Jamie by Jamie Oliver.  

Happy Birthday Mr. President

In May of 1962 Marilyn Monroe sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to the President of the United States in a sexy sultry way that has made history.

First it was one of her last public performances, but mostly because of the alleged affair between her and JFK.

Not gonna lie I love a good conspiracy! Did they have an affair? Did JFK have anything to do with her death? We will never know!

If I don’t step away I can drive myself crazy with that sort of stuff. So, I will leave the conspiracies to theorists and I will get on with the cake making!

I am a little behind in posting this cake, it was about a month ago that a friend’s son was turning 21, and he requested this cake for his birthday.

The cake was a marbled vanilla and chocolate tray bake with a layer of buttercream before the top layer of white sugar paste.

Our friend gave me the stencil- that was super useful! So, with the stencil and my cake painting knowledge from Sprinklebakes I made this:

It is a simple design, but it has a bold stylish effect. The color pastes were gently mixed with a little vodka to make it easy to spread out and it turned out exactly how we all wanted it too!

I also gave them a pan of chili brownies because they were the same friends that requested chili brownies and told me they weren't hot enough! So, this time I added a bit more chilies to the brownies and they said they did have a bit more of a kick to them! I guess I will have to up my game again! 

Not Hot But Spicy Brownies

Once the word gets out that I’m a baker I get a lot of requests. Usually I’m happy to oblige.

These brownies came out of one of those requests.

I know Chocolate Chili Brownies aren't something new to the baking world, but I thought I’d experiment with my favorite brownie recipe.

After much deliberation I decided to try these with a chocolate that already had chili in it. 

Now because of that decision I couldn't be sure how hot they would actually be.

That is why I only sliced up one chili to decorate the top and added the chocolate buttons. I didn't want it too hot!

The feedback from the requester and others who tried it said that it was a very good brownie. 

But. 

There is always a but. They were just not hot enough! So, in my worry that they would be too hot, I didn't make them hot enough! 

 So, I will need to attempt them again. But until then here is how I made …

Not Hot, but Spicy Brownies

300g Chili Chocolate (I used Lindt’s)

250g salted butter

400g light brown sugar

4 large eggs

140g plain flour

50g cocoa powder

1 chili, sliced

35g chocolate buttons (optional)

Preheat oven to 180C/gas4 and line a brownie tin (8x11) or an 8in square pan with parchment paper.

Very gently melt the chocolate with the butter and sugar in a medium saucepan. Just before the chocolate is completely melted, take off the heat and gently stir until it’s completely melted.

Then add the eggs one at a time to the melted chocolate mixture. Sift the flour and cocoa powder into the pan and stir until just combined.

Then pour the mixture into the prepared tin/pan. Scatter the sliced chilis and the buttons over the top of the brownies before baking for 35 minutes. If you want them a little gooier only bake them for 30 minutes.

Cool completely before cutting into squares. They are good for 3 days in an airtight container not that they will last that long!

Outsider Tart, Chiswick {bakery tour}

I have been a fan of the David’s the owners of Outsider Tart since I bought myself a copy of their book 2 summers ago. I have stated more then once my love for their book Baked in America. I even traveled to Oxford to get them to sign it. So it's a bit odd that this was my first visit to the shop, store, café, bakery, all of the above?  

Thursday after my day at Cake Boy (see previous entry) my friend Lauren, picked me up and to avoid rush hour traffic hung out at Outsider Tart for a bit. It was on our way back to Berkshire, not that I needed an excuse to visit!

The day before I had tweeted them @OutsiderTart and asked what I should try as my birthday treat. I had a reply saying I should ask for him (David) when I got there because he was working on an ice cream sandwich.

Before I get to the ice cream sandwich can I just say that if you are planning to visit Outsider Tart you should go on Thursday night because it’s Chili Night and the chili was amazing! It was accompanied by the best corn bread I think I have ever had. Or at least the best I have had since I left Indiana in 1998.

Back to the ice cream sandwich…it was good! It was gorgeous! The vanilla ice cream middle was the perfect balance to the rich chocolate cookie outside. I hope they decide to add it to the menu! 

Thank you so much David for letting me try it out! I hope to visit again soon!!

Weird and Wonderful Pancake Toppings!! {Guest Post}

Pancake Day is a few short days away. It is one of those days that always seems to creep up on me. I see all the pancake ingredients and pans for sale by the end of January and tell myself not to forget. I usually end up forgetting. Last year I ended up buying a few pre-packaged pancakes from M & S!! Which is silly as I usually have all the pancake stuff in the cupboard! Sometimes it comes down to time. 

Other people I know are all over Pancake Day and prepped and ready to go days in advance! If you are one of these people and looking for something fun and new to add to your pancakes Holly Arnold, Editor of Good to Know Recipes has a few ideas on how to top your pancakes!!

Once you've topped your pancakes you can send a picture on over to goodtoknow recipes and enter to win a prize! Full details here! Enjoy! ~ Lisa

Weird and Wonderful Pancake Toppings

By Holly Arnold, Recipes Editor, www.goodtoknow.co.uk

Pancake Day is coming and it’s time to talk toppings. While traditional lemon and sugar is always a winner, the simplicity of pancakes lends them to many interesting topping combinations and I've found that some obscure mixtures really do work together.

You've probably all heard of baking ham in Coca-Cola, but a really delicious idea is to add a fizzy drink to your pancake batter. Cream soda, Fanta and Dr Pepper all work really well and they taste super delicious when you serve them with ice-cream for a double sugar hit.

If you don’t like things too sweet, how about introducing a touch of spice? Chilli and chocolate is a tried and tested combination, which also translates well to pancakes. Toss a little cocoa powder in the batter with some chopped chilli or chilli powder and see who can handle the heat!

My next suggestion may seem bananas but it really does work! The Americans love to combine bacon with maple syrup, but if you add slices of banana to that duo, it tastes even more sensational.

As well as getting creative with toppings, there’s plenty of scope to get creative with decoration as well. I made this burger pancake in an instant – sandwiching two chocolate chip cookies between the pancakes.

Before you can start on your crazy combos, make sure you have a good pancake recipe - the rest is then up to you. Happy flipping!

notes from me: If you are in need of a pancake recipe please follow the link above! And if you're interested my silly post on M & S pre-packaged pancakes! Thank you Holly for the lovely guest post!! Hope to have you again sometime!! 

update: picked myself up a copy of the current mag! Inside there is an article titled "Stacks of Pancakes"! Plus plenty of more fun and creative ways to spruce up your pancakes here!!! Also if you happen to be an iPhone/iPad user you can take cake recipes with you every where! Check out their goodtoknow Cake Corner app!! 

Chilli Corn Bread!! {bonfire night}

We've had a quiet bonfire night/weekend, but food has not been compromised! Yesterday I made really yummy easy quick chili from Nigella's Express. I needed something to accompany that chili and that's where the chili corn bread steps in! 

I found the recipe for the corn bread in the November issue of Delicious magazine. I didn't think that one finely chopped chilli would make any difference in flavor, but it's perfectly distributed through out the loaf. It was very good and a perfect accompaniment to chili, baked beans, tomato soup, and all sorts of different savory dishes! 

60g unsalted butter, melted, plus extra for greasing

250g cornmeal or fine polenta, plus extra to dust

250g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp fine sea salt

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

4 medium free-range eggs

300ml buttermilk

300ml whole milk

1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 220C/fan200C/gas 7. Grease a 1 litre loaf tin with butter, then dust with the extra polenta.
2. Mix the dry ingredients and make a well in the center.
3. In another bowl, whisk the eggs with the buttermilk, milk, and butter (make sure the melted butter isn’t too hot when I added my chilled buttermilk and milk it solidified everything turned out okay but it was weird looking) then pour into the well in the dry ingredients and mix.
4. Stir in the chilli, and then scoop into the tin.
5. Bake for 40-45 minutes until golden and starting to come away from the sides of the tin. Serve warm and with butter!

Per-Serving (based on 10)

293kcals, 10.5fat (5.1g saturated), 9.8g protein, 40.9g carbs (3.1g sugars), 1.5g salt, 1.8g fibre

Red-Velvet Cupcakes!! {Mexico Theme} #AugustBreak

To make these cupcakes double this recipe!!

I made these for my father-in-laws co-worker!
I was really pleased with the way the frosting turned out!
Red-Velvet's are generally loved by all! Hope they go down well!!