Halloween treats

Just sharing the cupcakes (aka Slime cakes) and some small bread rolls I made up for D to take along to a local community organised 'fright night' last night. They were both last minute knock ups otherwise I might have got some special Halloween sprinkles for the cupcakes - oh well, maybe next year!

The cupcakes

 These were chocolate cupcakes - I always use Dutch cocoa which is a far superior cocoa to the standard cocoa in the supermarket, gives a lovely rich flavour and colour. The buttercream icing/frosting has natural green food colouring. Both D and G rated these very highly! I had extra cupcakes which I left unfrosted, while the frosting looks better for presentation it's too sweet for both my boys! I usually don't pipe too much on top as some folk do for this reason.

Bread rolls

The pumpkin shaped bread rolls were delicious and easy to do, just a little bit of time involved to make from scratch (same applies for the cupcakes!). I found the inspiration on Pinterest (of course!). Lots of ideas for some amazing looking food.

How was your Halloween? What special food do you make?

The new blender

After a bit of research I've purchased a new blender to make green (and other) smoothies. I decided on getting a Ninja Nutri blender. They have a few in their range, but I opted for the Auto -IQ one with a 1500w motor and it has a large pitcher blender jug as well as 3 sipper cups of various sizes. It is GREAT! You just put the ingredients in the cup/jug, fit it to the motor base and press the button. EASY!

Having a lot of fun experimenting with ingredients and steadily working through my green smoothies recipe book.

Asparagus time

I'm harvesting our first asparagus spears from the garden right now. It's been a while since these were planted and I've patiently waited 2 seasons so that the plants can get established. This has meant letting the spears grow fully (they develop feathery foliage) and then die off before I've trimmed the dead plant matter away. The spears grow rapidly - I harvest a few most days. I should be able to continue harvesting for about 4-6 weeks so far as I'm aware.

Some of the plants did not survive so this year I planted out another 10 'crowns' - and we will have to wait for about 3 years until these ones are producing.

Here we have dinner of rump steak, mashed potatoes and fresh homegrown asparagus baked in the oven with garlic and parmesan.