Restaurant Inspiration

Firstly I would like to start by wishing all our American followers a happy Thanksgiving, hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Secondly - I would like to share my goodbyn for Nancy's "restaurant inspired challenge".

I adore Indian cuisine, I like spicy food ! My favourite restaurant is an Indian chain called the Red Chilli. It didn't take me long therefore to decide on my menu for my "restaurant goodbyn"

I have Chicken Tikka with rice as my main, poppadoms and mango chutney as a side, I've added sliced pineapple as a fruit and a lemon cheesecake slice for desert. A little extravagent for a Thursday Goodbyn but totally delicious - and after all , today is thanksgiving! LOL

Here's how I made the Chicken Tikka, it's super easy.

Have a great day and don't forget you still have a few days to enter our challenge to win your very own goodbyn!

Pineapple Dump Cake Recipe

For JenK and anyone else who has never made one, it's SOOOO easy.

Ingredients:

1 box Yellow Cake Mix
2 cans Crushed Pineapple
2 sticks Butter
1/2 cup Brown Sugar

Mix the brown sugar into the crushed pineapple.  Dump mixture into a baking dish (7x11 or 9x13, dependent on how thick you prefer your cake).  Dump the cake mix over the pineapple mixture completely covering it.  You'll only use about half of the cake mix.  Melt the butter and then pour over the cake mixture until it's completely covered.  Bake in a 400°F oven for approximately 30 minutes or until the top of the cake is golden brown.

I prefer pineapple, but this recipe could be used with any fresh fruit, compote, or chutney.  This is an incredibly quick dessert and is super rich, so a healthy spoonful over a scoop of vanilla ice cream is more than plenty to satisfy your sweet tooth.

Rememberance Day Goodbyn

Today in the UK (and other countries) it is Rememberance Day.

In my family we have a traditional cake that we eat at this time and it's a tradition that has been handed through my family. I believe it was my great grandmother who started the tradition and the family story is that having little in her kitchen cupboard she wanted to create something special for her family to celebrate the lives of those lost (quite a few in our family alone), the first world war being over and she had a very sweet tooth (something I have definately inherited!) and fancied a cake for pudding that evening!! :)

She decided upon a cake with the consistency of bread - for two reasons (1) she was very religious and believed in the symbolisim around bread and (2) she had a lot of kids to feed and a stodgy cake went a lot further and filled those hungry kids up!

It is a tradition on Rememberance Sunday in the UK to lay wreaths at the Cenotaph in London, I am proud that many of my relatives take part in the March as they are still active members of the Royal British Legion.

photo taken from wikipedia

Here is how to make the cake:

You will need: 1 can of pineapple rings, some glace cherries, 10oz/275g brown sugar, 1lb/450g of flour, 4oz/100g butter, 2 eggs (or powdered eggs if fresh not available), 1tsp nutmeg, 1tsp cinnamon, 8fl oz of milk

I apologise for the old school English measurements but you can convert them here if you need to!!

Melt 2oz/50g of butter in a pan. Add in 4oz/100g brown sugar and a tablespoon of pineapple juice from a can. Stir and pour the mixture into the bottom of a baking tin

On top of the syrup in the tin, add pineapple rings to cover the base. The pineapple ring represents the poppy wreath and the red cherry in the middle is a symbol of the blood spilt in the war. Set the oven to Gas 4/180c/350f

Put all the other ingredients into a mixing bowl and mix together to make a cake batter

pour this ontop of the pineapple rings and bake in the oven for about 45 minutes. It should come out looking something like this.... (with a crispy base)

Immediately turn it upside down onto another larger baking tray so the syrup runs over the top of the cake.

You are meant to leave it too cool but at this stage I love to cut a piece and eat it hot with some icecream!

When it is cool you can then add a slice to your Goodbyn and enjoy it for your lunch! :) A nice slice of rememberance day cake!

Also in my lunchbox today is a salad of baby leaves, cucumber, red and yellow pepper, spring onion, leftover breaded chicken and radish. I have some mixed fresh fruit of pineapple, kiwi and blueberry and some beetroot and parsnip crisps!

Just a reminder too - We have a giveaway happening on our blog right now!! You could win a Goodbyn of your own - check it out HERE.

Time for Pizza

We were totally caught off guard with Sunday's time change.  I don't recall getting any warnings about falling back an hour this year.  Maybe we're just not watching enough TV.  An easy cure.

Anyway, time was important this morning because I decided to make homemade pizzas for our lunches and I needed to wake up about a half-hour early.  Jamie set the automatic timer on the oven to turn on at 5:30.  Only thing is, he forgot to change the clock on the stove.  So at 4:30 AM we're up trying to figure out what that smell is.

That smell is . . . an oven that needs to be cleaned.  But I digress.

Dough is so simple to make I decided to make it from scratch this time, which I did before I went to bed so it would be ready to roll out, load up, and bake.  I can't eat processed tomatoes anymore, so Jamie has been perfecting his tomato skills.  He roasted some cherry tomatoes--added salt, pepper, garlic, olive oil, thyme, and oregano--to create a homemade sauce for our pizzas.  After adding some fresh chopped tomatoes, pepperoni and mozzarella this morning, I threw them in a 500°F oven and baked them for 8 minutes and voila!

They are delicious.  If I do say so myself.



I know people will think I'm crazy for waking up early to make pizza.  But it's really quite easy so please don't be intimidated if you want to give it a try . . . whatever time you make it!



Also included in the bento:  Capri Sun Roaring Waters, grapes, orange slices, strawberry, cucumber, celery, and carrot sticks with Ranch dip and pineapple dump cake.

And just a reminder, don't forget about our giveaway.  CLICK HERE TO WIN A GOODBYN BENTO!