Cooking à la Rosie.

Hello my lovely readers!
I hope you are having a lovely week, despite this bitter cold weather we are having!

I thought today I'd share a recipe with you. I take no claim in inventing the recipe (it's from the Tesco Real Food website) but I made it for tea this week, and the mister said that it tasted like Wagamamas! So it was a definite hit! And I think it will be a definite hit with you too, as it warms you through-and-through and tastes very luxurious (although it's a cinch to make!)

Click here for the recipe or read below:

Thai Red Chicken Curry:

Ingredients
1tbsp vegetable oil
500g (1lb 2oz) skinless chicken breasts, cut into chunks
1 large onion, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into chunks
1 stalk fresh lemon grass, bashed with a rolling pin My local supermarket didn't have any, so I didn't use it! But my jar of Thai red curry paste contained lemon grass and coriander in it, so I think the flavours were still there!
2tsp fresh ginger, grated (or use ready-prepared)
400ml can reduced-fat coconut milk
1 chicken stock cube, dissolved in 150ml (¼ pint) hot water
2tbsp Thai red curry paste
1tbsp fish sauce or light soy sauce
2tbsp fresh coriander, chopped, plus extra to garnish

Method

1. Heat the oil in a wok or large frying pan and add the chicken. Cook the chicken until it's browned.
2. Add the onion and the garlic, and cook for a further two minutes.
3. Add the red pepper, ginger, coconut milk, chicken stock and red curry paste. Mix together.
4. Stir in the soy sauce.
5. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 20-25 minutes.
6. Serve with rice or noodles! 

Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the end result as we were too busy tucking into our tea! However, I can verify that it looked exactly like the picture off the Tesco Real Food website! 

I hope you enjoy making this dish, it's really easy to do!

Under a rock.

Well, if you haven't been living under a rock for the past week, you would know that there is a huge, new Kripsy Kreme store at the Metrocentre in Gateshead.

The husband and I attempted to go for a mini-date on Friday night (the day after it opened). I knew it was a bad idea from the start, and I was right. There was a queue of people weaving their way out of the store just to get a glimpse and bite of a delicious doughnut. The drive-thru was as equally packed with cars and we decided that it wasn't our night for Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

So, we went back on a Tuesday morning and had doughnuts for breakfast (DON'T JUDGE US!). They were delicious. The hotlight was also on so we got free glazed doughnuts to nibble on while we waited in the much smaller queue. I was shocked by the 'panic' buying approach people had to the doughnuts, with some people buying multiple dozen-boxes of doughnuts as if they were here for one day only and it was an emergency! Another lady and her friend bought 24 doughnuts each, and then sat down in a booth with a tray filled with doughnuts, where they took a few bites of each doughnut and then just left the rest. Greedy!

Anyway, I come the bearer of great news. Krispy Kreme have officially announced that they are opening a KK Sunderland branch on the 23rd October in the Bridges Shopping Centre and a KK Durham on the 30th October on Silver Street! So you don't have to flock to the Metrocentre to get your hands on doughnuts. It looks like Krispy Kreme are here to stay! Long live Krispy Kreme!

This is huge.

No, I am not pregnant.
Sorry to disappoint.

What I am about to give you is the secret to where I find amazing recipes.
Seriously, you'll never eat bland food again.
It's my secret love. I love just checking out these websites and seeing what tasty treats I am being tempted to make.

I always say that when I have more time I will create all these culinary masterpieces, but for now they are saved away to my favourites file or my Pinterest.

1. Punchfork
This is an amazing food website, and is always constantly updated so that everyday there is something new to feast your eyes on.
link: http://punchfork.com/
Just some ideas to tempt your pallet...

(Roasted Asparagus)

(Quick Tofu Ramen Noodle Soup)

(Red Velvet Cake)

2. Foodgawker

My friend introduced me to this website. It's basically the same set-up as Punchfork, and sometimes their recipes do overlap, but there is so much choice! I'm torn whether to say I prefer this website to Punchfork, maybe, just.

link: http://foodgawker.com/

(Whole Grain Pasta Salad)

(Red Velvet Cookie Shortcake)

(Pesto Cheese Twirls)

3. Tesco Real Food

This website is amazing. I first discovered it after I was reading one of the free Tesco magazines and I used all the recipes from it, I then saw a little caption that said to go online for even more recipes, and whola! I'm converted! The recipes get rated by users, so you know which ones are popular!
link: http://www.tescorealfood.com/recipes/all-recipes.html

(Curried carrot soup with cumin tortilla snaps)

(Banana, yoghurt and toasted oats pots)

(Grilled pineapple with lime juice)

Don't they all look gorgeous? I am such a foodie.
Enjoy!

Food love.

Pancake Day. Shrove Tuesday.
Doesn't it just make February that much more lovelier?
There is nothing quite like smothering nutella/syrup/lemon&sugar across a pancake and then dusting it off with some icing sugar or strawberries!

Try out these different pancake recipes!

1. Hotcakes with apples and blackberries.
These aren't exactly pancakes, but are a great fruit-ier substitute!

(recipe)

2. Coconut pancakes.

These look so tasty and light!

(recipe)

3. Blueberry pancakes.

These always remind me of when I went to America and stayed with a lovely family. I woke up one hot morning to the smell and taste of these. They are gorgeous!

(recipe)

4. Cocoa pancakes.

These have a 5-star rating by 304 people, so they must be good! I will have to try them!

(recipe)

5. Gingerbread pancakes.

I love gingerbread so much, so I think this could be a winning combination!

(recipe)

Also, I've recently started writing for my student newspaper! (I've always regretted not writing for it, and now I finally have the chance!) Check out my articles by clicking on this link and check out this week's Shrove Tuesday special!

Happy pancake flipping!

Kung Hei Fat Choi.

I used to laugh at that Cantonese phrase for 'Happy New Year' as it says 'Fat Choi' and until I got married, I used to be a Choi!

If you ever need the excuse to go out for a chinese, use that excuse today! It's Chinese New Year! (And if any of you are wondering, it's the year of the Dragon!)

Or you could easily cook up some of these lush chinese recipes at home:

1. Char Siu Bao (BBQ Pork dumpling)

recipe link: http://www.closetcooking.com/2010/11/char-siu-bao-chinese-bbq-pork-buns.html

2. Oriental Beef Stir-Fry

recipe link: http://www.tescorealfood.com/recipes/oriental-beef-stir-fry.html

3. Sesame Prawn Toast

recipe link: http://www.tescorealfood.com/recipes/sesame-prawn-toasts-.html

4. Honey Lemon Chicken

recipe link: http://www.closetcooking.com/2009/06/honey-lemon-chicken.html

5. Jiaozi (Chinese Dumplings)

recipe link: http://www.closetcooking.com/2011/02/jiaozi-chinese-dumplings.html

Bubble bubble.

With these dark days seeping away the sunshine, it's always a time when we turn to home-comforts. We get out the pyjamas a few hours earlier than normal, snuggle up in a blanket to read our books and we make good, heart-warming food.

The past few meal times I've been struggling to come up with some hearty, comforting dinners, but I have found my rescue in Tesco Real Food.

In the past couple of weeks I've cooked up two of the recipes found in their free Tesco magazine, and they have both been brilliant!

(1) Sausage and root veg with honey and orange dressing (scrummy link)

(2) Bacon, red onion and blue cheese pasta (yummy link)

Now both of these dishes were inexpensive, and were made from ingredients I had in the fridge/freezer and needed to use up. They didn't take much preparation but were nice hot dinners to have at home. After the success of both of these dishes I decided to follow the advice from the Tesco magazine and look online for more recipes. I've found so many I want to try! Here are a few (with clickable links in pink!):

Fish pie with sweetcorn

Sticky chicken with egg fried rice

Ham, cheese and pineapple swirls

Bacon toad in the hole

Parmesan crumb chicken with winter slaw

And I could go on, but I'd rather you just went to the website and found out for youself! It's gotten me out of a dinner-rut!

Cake.

For my birthday my sister bought me a cake book.
I did not appreciate the book as a birthday gift initially, this made my sister sad.
She therefore baked the cakes in the book and presented me with them.
When I exclaimed "What heavenly delight is this?" she then presented me with my cake book.
This cake book is the best book ever: the hummingbird bakery cookbook.

This week I met up with some girl friends and we baked some cupcakes from the said book. We chatted, ate icing and cake mixture and got covered in icing sugar. It was great fun.

(humming bird bakery blueberry cake)

Now, I think it will be pretty hard to top the hummingbird bakery cakes...everyone who has ever tried one has vowed that they are the most delicious of all the cakes (especially the strawberry cheesecake ones, yum yum) but I really like these unusual cupcakes. I haven't made any yet but I will definitely do it sometime! These wedding cakes are also pretty amazing, I can't believe you can eat them!

I want to have a new goal: to become good at baking and making delicious treats for me and my future husband - but not all the time, so we don't get fat and become fat, cake-eating mommas. So, cake within reason? Yeah...