Simple Carrot cake

I made this carrot cake a little while ago when I really wanted a peice of cake but couldn't be bothered to make anything complicated. Recipes don't come much easier than this, just throw it all together and bake. The cream cheese icing is optional but I love it! Carrot cake just has to have cream cheese in my opinion.
This cake is really moist and full of flavour and is my goto emergency I need cake NOW recipe!


Recipe:
Carrot Loaf
1 large egg.
1 ½ cups of flour.
1 cup of shredded carrots.
½ cup of white sugar, granulated.
½ cup of brown sugar, packed.
½ cup of vegetable oil.
½ cup of chopped nuts.
½ cup of raisins.
1 teaspoon of cinnamon.
½ teaspoon of baking soda.
¼ teaspoon of salt.
¼ teaspoon of baking powder.

Method

Stir together the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and baking powder.
In a separate bowl, mix together the white and brown sugar, shredded carrots, vegetable oil and egg.
Combine the two mixtures, then add the chopped nuts and raisins.
Spoon the mixture into a greased and floured loaf pan (about 8x4x2 inches).
Bake at 350F for about 60 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.
Allow to cool for 15 minutes.
Store in an airtight container overnight.
Serve as desired.

I've won an award!

I've won an award! Hopie from Hopie's Kitchen has given me the Arte y Pico award saying: "Sam lives, cooks and bikes in Leicestershire, England. He writes about all these things in his blog Antics of a Cycling Cook. He loves to cook Mediterranean food; he loves to bake and he even grows some of his own veggies. I love to read his blog because his recipes are the kind of food you could make every day with ingredients you know how to find."

I'm amazed and really flattered, if you haven't already then you should check out Hopie's blog, their are some great recipes and some really god photos. If that's not enough for you she writes the whole thing in French as well as English!

The rules for the award are:
1. Pick five blogs that you consider deserve the award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.
2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
4. The award winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of the Arte y Pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award

So I would like to give the award to,

She Runs She Eats: Christina writes a really interesting blog about her running as well as cooking, her cakes look amazing!

Amanda from Mrs W's Kitchen, posts great simple recipes that use everyday ingredients with delicious results.

Katie from Apple and Spice has some really interesting ideas for making cakes that look as good as a professional baker.

Jill from Simple Daily Recipes has a blog that does exactly what it says! great when you're hungry and there's nothing in the fridge!

David Lebovitz is a pastry chef living in france who writes an interesting and often very funny blog.

Homegrown Rocket (arugula) pasta with fresh tomatoes and bacon

I've always enjoyed growing my own veg, I find it incredibly satisfying to start with a tiny insignificant seed and nurture it into something I can cook and eat. I love watching my plants develop and look forward to the day I can finally reap what I have sown. It is not possible to get fresher ingredients than those I have grown myself and I know exactly what's on them, so there's no nasty chemicals on my plants!!

Unfortunately when we moved house a few years ago we lost our garden, our new house has a tiny garden, this means that a big veg patch is out of the question. I still try though and have managed to grow this beautiful tub of Rocket (I think it's the same thing as arugula) there are also a few carrots growing in tubs and one lonely bean plant!
I wanted to make the most out of my rocket so I came up with a pasta dish in which it featured as the star ingredient. As tomatoes are perfectly in season at the moment (they're really tasty and very cheap) I wanted to use them as well, I also used bacon, Parmesan and a touch of cream to make this dish.

It was delicious, the peppery Rocket really stood out and brought the whole thing alive, I think this is definitely going to be a regular meal at my house although it's only worth making in the summer with the fantastic vegetables that are abundant at this time of year.

Marshmallow Fluff

I've a jar of this Marshmallow Fluff hanging around for ages, the problem is what on earth do I do with it?

Salmon with lentls, anchovies and capers

I got the idea for this recipe from a old issue of GoodFood magazine, it looked interesting and gave me the opportunity to use a box of Puy lentils that I bought a long time ago thinking they might come in useful. Well they finally did, at long last!
The idea is a simple one, lentils are cooked with garlic and sage which forms the 'bed' on which a fillet of roast salmon lies, this was dressed with anchovies, capers, parsley and lemon. I used roast tomatoes as a garnish as suggested in the recipe. I think it looks really classy and the tomatoes add a nice splash of colour where it could have looked quite dull.
Unfortunately it didn't really deliver on flavour which was surprising considering the anchovies and capers, I also thought the portions were way too small even after I had bulked it out with peas.
I think I will try this idea again but it need to have more flavour added and I've not quite worked out how yet...


Recipe here

Tagged!

Christina from She Runs She Eats tagged me with this MeMe, my first ever! so here goes...

1.Last Movie I Saw In A Movie Theater?
I think it was I Am Legend. It's a Will Smith film with zombies

2. What Book Are You Reading?
Down under by Bill Bryson

3. Favourite Board Game?
Once a year we play scrabble at Christmas so I suppose it could be that. Or maybe Monopoly...

4. Favourite Magazine?
Hmm... Cycling Plus is good or maybe a food magazine like Good Food

5. Favourite Smells?
Vanilla pods are amazing, fresh bread and I used to like the smell of petrol when I was little!

6. Favourite Sounds?
Riding my bike down gravel tracks.

7. Worst Feeling In The World?
Failing at something important or disappointing people.

8. First Thing You Think of When You Wake?
Food, food food! I'm normally starving when I wake up.

9. Favourite Fast Food Place?
I don't really eat fast food any more but traditional fish and chips is good.

10. Future Child's Name?
Erm... I haven't thought that far ahead!

11. Finish This Statement—“If I Had a Lot of Money, I’d…
Buy a castle in Italy, I love it there and castles are cool!

12. Do You Drive Fast?
I don't drive, I suppose I can cycle pretty fast!

13. Do You Sleep With a Stuffed Animal?
Haven't for at least 10 years.

14. Storms—Cool or Scary?
Who doesn't love lightening? cool

15. What Was Your First Car?
Never had a car but I would like a DeLorean like on Back to the Future, if I could time travel so much the better. A VW hippy camper van would be cool too!

16. Favourite Drink?
Coffee, coffee, coffee! It's all I drink.

17. Finish This Statement—“If I Had the Time, I Would…
Go travelling across Europe.

18. Do You Eat the Stems on Broccoli?
Yes, I eat all of it. I hate wasting things.

19. If You could Dye your Hair Any Other Colour, What Would It Be?
I have no plans to dye my hair, but I did dye it blue for a day once.

20. Name All the Different Cities In Which You Have Lived.
That's easy! Leicester

21. Favourite Sport to Watch?
Rugby, go Tigers!

22. One Nice Thing About The Person Who Sent This To You
I get lots of supportive comments from Christina which encourages me to keep Blogging.

23. What’s Under Your Bed?
A load of junk

24. Would You Like to Be Born As Yourself Again?
I suppose so, it's not that bad being me!

25. Morning Person or Night Owl?
Love the mornings, I'm normally up by 7

26. Over Easy or Sunny Side Up?
Over easy, I like dipping bread in the yolk.

27. Favourite Place to Relax?
Somewhere in the countryside miles from anywhere.

28. Favourite Ice Cream Flavour?
Ben and Jerry's, either Phish food or fossil fuel they're both really good

29. Of All the People You Have Tagged, Who Is the Most Likely to Respond First?
I'm going to guess Amanda from Mrs W's kitchen but who knows?


Tagging:
Mrs W's Kitchen
Simple Daily Recipes
Hopies Kitchen

Yeasted pumpkin bread

As I've mentioned before I'm trying to use up all my frozen pumpkin to clear some space in my freezer (thanks for all the great ideas I plan to make some soon!). Well in our house we make almost all our own bread, normally just simple loaves with maybe a few seeds in. While I was searching for things to do with my pumpkin I came across this recipe for a loaf of bread made with pumpkin purée. I like to try new and unusual things and this sounded really interesting so, I gave it a go and the results were brilliant. It rose to a huge size, much bigger than I expected, this made for a very light loaf rather than the dense bread I anticipated. The pumpkin gave it an amazing orange colour and helped to keep it really soft. I decorated the top with pumpkin seeds (what else?) and this is the result.Unfortunately I can't remember where I found the recipe, if anyone can tell me I'll gladly credit it to them, but here it is:

Ingredients (for 12 rolls or 1 loaf):

• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of good Active Dry Yeast.

• 1 Tablespoon of sugar

• 1/2 cup of 110 degree (Fahrenheit) milk

• About 4 cups of flour (add more as you need when kneading)

• 1 cup pumpkin canned or home-made

• 1 teaspoon of nutmeg

• 3/4 stick of butter

• 1 egg, beaten a bit

Instructions:

1. Mix yeast and sugar into the milk and let the yeast grow for about 10 to 15 minutes.
2. Combine all the dry ingredients into a bowl
3. Chop the butter into bits and mix it into the dry ingredients
4. Add the egg, pumpkin and foamy yeast mixture
5. Mix everything together until its all combined
6. Next, take the dough and knead it on a floured surface (and keep it floured on top and bottom to keep from sticking on you and the surface) for about 10 minutes.
7. If you are in a hurry you can skip this step but your rolls might not be as good. Set the dough in a bowl and cover with a tea towel for about 1 hour (or until it doubles in size). Indeed, I was in a hurry and skipped this step so please comment if you include it and let me know how it turns out.
8. Punch the dough down and separate into 12 balls.
9. Place the balls on an oiled baking tray (or use a springform pan or glass baking dish) and let them rise for another 45 minutes.
10. Bake the rolls for 30-40 minutes or until they just turn golden at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Alternatively do as I did and put all the ingredients in a bread machine on the dough setting, then continue from step 8 onwards.