The barbeque was fantastic. Great company of course, and lots and lots of food. And alcohol, I might add, haha! But yes, there were only 6 people and we ended up having 3 full platters of meat, which had chicken legs, sausage, and burgers on them! Needless to say, we couldn't finish it all, but it was fantastic! I ended up eating 2 burgers, 2 sausages and a chicken leg, and that's pretty good for me, as I am very tiny.
That was Sunday night, I believe, and then Paul cooked on Wednesday night because Monday night we went out for pizza at Pizza Express in Woking, which was amazing, and Tuesday night we had dinner with some of his work friends at a Indian buffet place, which was pretty tasty! I should really start taking pictures of my meals out as well. Silly me.
Monday night however, Paul made a pasta with minced meat and cheese, which was very tasty. I chopped some onion and garlic for him and we threw that in a pot with the minced meat with some red wine and chili flakes, boiled pasta in another pan and threw it all together before shredding parmesan and cheddar ontop, when it was then baked in the oven. I threw together a large salad with tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, onions, celery and rocket, and that was basically our meal. It turned out great!
Now tonight was by far the most exciting night for cooking. We had more chicken to use up, so we decided to go with a one-pot Italian chicken dish that was very easy to make! It only took about 25 minutes start to finish! Then, I decided I wanted to try my hand at baking a cake, so I decided I was going to make an almond torte with whipped mocha cream frosting. Doesn't that just SOUND orgasmic? Trust me, it tasted even better.
I decided to tackle the torte first, as we had a few hours to dinner, and the chicken pasta dish wouldn't take long to cook, and should be cooked right before serving, ideally. So, I took a blender and blended 4 eggs together with 175mL (3/4 cup) of regular sugar. Then, I added 250mL (1 cup) of whole almonds. Paul and I had accidentally bought salted ones, so we rinsed them thoroughly and it was better. I blended those in to the eggs and sugar until they were pulverised before adding only 30mL (2 tablespoons) of flour and 2 teaspoons of baking powder. We blended that together and poured them into 2 8"cake pans to cook. Oh, and the oven had been preheated to about 180*C and the cakes only took about 10-12 minutes to cook until they had risen nicely and were set on the counter until they were cut out and placed on a cooling rack.
While they were cooling, I emptied 375 mL (1.5 cups) of heavy whipping cream into a mixing bowl along with 125mL (1/2 cup) of sugar, 50mL (1/2 cup) of unsweetened cocoa powder, 2 tsp of vanilla and 1tbsp of instant coffee. Being the stubborn girl I am, I decided to hand whisk the mix. This seemed like a daunting task at first, because it took a bit longer to thicken, but the result was FAR more... personal, I should say, and I think it must've made it lighter as well. If you wanna recreate this recipe, you are allowed to use an electric beater, but I just preferred doing it by hand. Gotta give your food some TLC (tender loving care)! After the cakes cooled I frosted them and garnished the with some extra almonds.
We left it like that while we started on the main course. What had happened was I had chopped a large white onion and 8oz of button mushrooms, along with a clove of garlic before hand and after heating about 2tbsp of olive oil in a large pot, I dumped them all in, in the order they were listed before mixing them about. After that, I added 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into bite size pieces into the mix along with a tbsp of Italian herb seasonings and some red chili flakes (which the recipe didn't call for, but I added them anyway). Then after that had been mixed together for about 3 minutes I added 1/2 a cup of chardonnay wine to the mix, stirred for about a minute before adding a can of Italian-style stewed tomatoes, 14oz of chicken broth, and a little bit of water to the pot before dumping 8oz of egg noodles into the pan. That was brought to a boil until the pasta was lovely and the chicken was cooked thoroughly, and then, it was served! :D
Everyone really liked this meal and it was super easy to make. Oh, did I mention we had a LOT of frosting left over even after I'd lathered on the frosting, so Paul and I were FORCED to get spoons and eat it up. This is not recommended as a two person job, maybe get some friends to help, cos my stomach HURTS. But it was an awesome meal, and there was absolutely NOTHING left of it. You could even hear people scraping the last bits of it from the pot, and their plates. No greater compliment to a cook than that!
Oh, by the way, I got the recipe for the torte from Evelyn Raab's Clueless in the Kitchen, and the recipe for the chicken/pasta dish from Cheap.Fast.Good! by Beverly Mills and Alicia Ross. All other meals were purely off the top of our heads.
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