Vanilla Bunny Cookies

Sweet, cute, little bunny cookies I made for my nephew one Easter. He didn't care for them...

Ingredients:

• 2 glasses of plain flour
• half a glass of sugar
• 1-2 tbsp of unsalted butter or margarine
• 2-3 eggs (depending on size)
• Polish vanilla or cream pudding mix (Budyn)
• 8g of vanilla sugar
• 3 tsp of baking powder
• vanilla extract (according to liking)
• 4 tbsp of double cream

1. Mix the eggs with the sugar for about 10 minutes (or until all the sugar is completely dissolved). 
2. Add butter, cream, vanilla extract and mix in together. 
3. Mix the pudding with baking powder and flour in a separate bowl. Add them to the eggs/butter/cream etc. and mix together. 
4. Roll out part of the mixture and cut out small circles. shape ears out of the remaining mix and stick them to the heads. 
5. Put them on a baking tray lined with baking paper and bake until golden (about 15 min at 180 degrees).

Meet the Bunnies:



Hipster Bunny.

Bimbo Bunny.

Politically Incorrect Bunny.

Zombie bunny.

Sunburnt Bunny.

Skinny Bunny.

A bunny decorated by my sister :)

Creamy Broccoli Soup

One of these meals that leave you wondering how something so simple can be so wonderful :)





Ingredients: 

• around 2l of water 
• 2 stock cubes 
• 3 medium potatoes 
• 2 medium onions 
• 1 large or 2 small fresh broccoli (or an equivalent of frozen) 
• 2 dairylea triangles 
• 3 tbsp of sour cream 
• garlic (acording to your liking - I added probably around 10 cloves... I like it when my breath can bring back the dead) 
• salt and pepper to taste 
• Croutons 

1. Boil the water with stock cubes. Add peeled and roughly chopped potatoes, and 2 peeled onions. Boil for about 5-10 minutes.
2. Add broccoli and garlic (at this stage I added around 5 small cloves). Boil until the broccoli is cooked and the potatoes are soft.
3. Add dairylea cheese and cream. Blend together using a hand blender and add more cream/garlic/salt or pepper to taste.
4. That's it! Yum :) Serve with croutons.

Halloween Pasta

Dubbed the Cthulhu Stew :) A seafood and tomato sauce with squid ink pasta and green pasta, perfect for Halloween.

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion , chopped
• 1 garlic clove , chopped
• 1 tsp paprika
• A can of chopped tomatoes
• 1l chicken stock (from a cube is fine)
• A mix pack of seafood, could be either fresh or defrosted  I got a selection of bits and bobs from the local fishmonger (few octopi, whole tiger prawns, mussels and squid rings)
• Tagliatelle Verdi (green) is easy to pick up in any supermarket. The squid ink pasta is much more tricky to come by. If you can't find any, but find a sachet of squid ink, you can always make the pasta from scratch and add the squid ink to make it black - there are plenty of recipes online. Lucky for me, I found the squid ink pasta at Baxter's in Edinburgh for a reasonable price, but Harvey Nichols have a selection as well.

1. Heat the oil in a wok or large frying pan, then cook the onion and garlic over a medium heat for 5 mins until soft. Add the paprika, tomatoes and stock, then bring to the boil.
2. Stir in the seafood, cook for 3 mins more until it's all heated through.
3. If you're adding octopi like me, you may need to simmer them in salty water for around an hour beforehand.
4. boil the pasta according to the instructions on the packet and serve with "eyeballs" :)

For the eyeballs: I used cherry tomatoes, which I halved and emptied the 'insides', and put mozzarella pearls in them. I made the pupils from fresh basil leaves (I cut out circles with a straw).

I also sliced up a carrot and boiled for a couple of minutes, and carved "pumpkins" out of the slices.

Pizza Stick Bones

A really cool snack for your Halloween party to nibble on with all sorts of dips and sauces. And it's so simple and easy!

Ingredients:

• thin and crispy pizza dough mix   OR   a ready rolled thin and crispy pizza base, if you can't be bothered with the mess of kneading.
• salt

1. Shape the dough into thin long 'sticks' and attach two balls at each end.
2. Sprinkle with salt and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper
3. place in an oven pre-heated to 180 degrees until they're golden brown. I probably kept them in for a bit too long, so some of mine are a bit dark, but they were still tasty and perfectly edible :)