Froggy Dip

A simple lunch idea inspired by a recipe in Annabel Karmel's My Favourite Recipes.

I'm always on the lookout for new meals to try with the girls. I assembled this creation for their lunch and half expected to be eating it all myself, but they loved it!

Of course you could substitute any of the items from the salad for your own preference, but here's what I used:

• carrots
• cucumber
• red pepper
• toasted pitta bread
• mini bread sticks
• houmous dip, with cucumbers and sliced green olives for the face. I've also done this with cream cheese to dip into. Annabel's recipe uses avocado dip.

Battle of the Bangers

It's that time of year again, the Norfolk Food and Drink Festival is in full flow and with it comes the Battle of the Bangers.

This is the third time we have gone to the Battle of the Bangers. It's held at The Forum in Norwich it's completely free and you get to taste some of the best sausages Norfolk has to offer.

It's held in a fenced off area off to the side of the Forum. You are greeted by some very friendly volunteers who give you a voting card and stickers for the children. Elizabeth even got her own voting card this year. Then you can wander around the stalls tasting as many sausages as you like. Just as long as you vote for your favourite at the end.

There were 6 butchers competing this year, you can find out more about them here.

Elizabeth (and Rebecca) voted for The Beefsmith sausages. Jeff and I voted for Icarus Hines sausages. The Beefsmith sausages were, as the title suggests, beef. I much prefer pork sausages, although these ones were nice. Icarus Hines had a few different sausages to sample which was good. Jeff would have liked to have tried their marmite sausages, but they didn't have any on the day.

We always buy some sausages from the event. Icarus Hines didn't have any for sale, but they did have some vouchers for money off buying them at their shop. We bought some Beefsmith sausages seeing as the girls liked them.

Other than the Battle of the Bangers, there were also various food stalls, a tractor for children to sit in and some farm animals to look at so you could get the full before/after experience of your sausages...

A great day out.

This was Rebecca at Battle of the Bangers 2013

And 2014, before tasting....

... and after

Elizabeth enjoyed it too.

Do you want to build a snowman?

Another creation inspired by Nerdy Nummies. This time it's Olaf Ice Creams from the movie Frozen.

Elizabeth was desperate for me to try this creation. I took a look at the video and thought it looked do-able.

What you need:

• A suitable glass
• Ice cream
• Milk or plain chocolate (depending on preference really, I used milk), melted and in a piping bag
• Empire Biscuits (75g butter, 25g sugar, 100g SR flour) shaped into Olaf heads - I found a picture online to make a template to cut around
• Plain white icing for the top of the biscuit
• Orange jelly tots cut in half for the nose
• Matchsticks for the arms. I got the mini matchsticks, which were a perfect size.

Method:

I made a few biscuit heads - in case any didn't work out. Coat the top of the biscuit in white icing, add the half orange jelly tot for Olaf's nose. Once the icing is set, use your melted chocolate in a piping bag to draw the rest of the features. Meanwhile the girls got busy with cookie cutters making and decoraging their own biscuits (and eating the decorations).

To make the snowman, first pipe 3 circles of chocolate inside the glass to make the buttons and let them set.

Add your ice cream, matchsticks and lastly the biscuits and voila!

Mini Burger

Rebecca loves burgers. She loves that Shaggy and Scooby Doo loves burgers too! So I decided to try making some at home.

I based my burger on an Annabel Karmel recipe from My Favourite Recipes. But my husband is not fond of onions, so I skipped that step.

Ingredients:

• 250g lean mince beef
• 40g fresh breadcrumbs (2 slices of bread)
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tbsp milk
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• about 1 tbsp of fresh oregano chopped
• salt & pepper

Method:

• Put it all in a bowl and mix together with your hands. 
• Divide the mixture into 12 small balls. Flatten them slightly. Cover and chill in the fridge.
• For cooking, I put them in the George Forman grill for a few minutes until cooked through.

The recipe for the rolls comes from an absolutely brilliant bread machine recipe book by Annette Yates called Fresh Bread in the Morning. I use the Bridge Roll recipe, but I make them into round rolls instead.

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• Semi skimmed milk
• 1 tsp yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp golden caster sugar
• 500 g strong white flour
• 40 g butter, cut into small cubes

Method:

• Break the egg into a jug and beat it slightly. Make the mixture up to 300 ml by adding the milk.
• Add the dry ingredients to your bread machine, followed by the butter, then the egg/milk mixture. Set your bread machine to the appropriate basic dough setting. On my machine the programme lasts 2 hours 20 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 180 degrees (fan)
• When the programme is finished, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead it lightly to knock out the air.
• Cut the dough into 24 pieces. Shape into balls. Arrange on the baking try quite close together.
• Cover and leave it to rise (30 minutes or so).
• Put in the oven and cook for about 12 minutes, until golden brown and cooked through.
• Transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool.

These are really tasty burgers and the rolls are good with everything! The roll in the picture was glazed with an egg, which is suggested in the recipe book. However, I forgot to glaze them one time and found that they were just as nice without the glaze, so I save using up an egg and do without now.

Obviously the chips and sweetcorn are just a serving suggestion... but burgers without chips? Come on!