put some music in your food

I first had this meal at a family party. My uncle's family is from Jamaica and they have introduced us to a lot of Caribbean food. I was bought Levi Roots' cook book as a present. I have changed the ingredients and how it is cooked slightly but it is still delicious. The sauce is described as a 'gravy' because it is water based but it's full of flavour from the seasonings on the chicken.

 

Get the chicken ready at least half an hour (I usually give it a few hours) before you are going to start cooking to give the seasonings time to flavour the chicken:

• Juice of one lemon
• half a tea spoon of salt and half of pepper
• two table spoons of Everyday Seasoning
• two tea spoons of Chicken Seasoning

Add a little oil to a pan and start to cook the chicken. Once it is nearly done add the vegetables. I use 2 onions, 3 spring onions, 2 cloves of garlic, 2 peppers and a chili. Once this is all cooked, add a pint of water. Once the water has boiled, leave to simmer for roughly 15 minutes (I usually leave to simmer whilst the rice is cooking). The you're done.

 

I think the hardest thing about this meal is getting the Everyday Seasoning, but I have found that quite a few Sainsbury's have it in stock.

cliff's ribs sauce

I think you'll agree that we had beautiful weather at the weekend. Like most Brits, as soon as the sun shines we bring out the BBQ. I thought I would share with you a brilliant recipe for ribs. This recipe will forever be knows as Cliff's Ribs Sauce. Cliff is one of my friend's uncles who has recently sadly passed away from cancer. He invented this amazing sauce which we use every time we cook ribs.

Cooking the ribs:
- boil the ribs for 30-45 minutes.
- drain and leave to cool.

Sauce ingredients:
- 460g of tomato ketchup
- 80g of butter
- 1 tea spoon of white/normal pepper
- 3 table spoons of red wine/white vinegar
- the juice of 2 lemons
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 4/5 drops of tabasco
- 4 table spoons of sugar
- 2 table spoons of worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 an onion
Put the sauce in a pan and bring to the boil. Simmer for 10 minutes.

Once the ribs and the sauce is cool, mix together and leave for as long as possible before reheating.

Reheat the ribs covered in sauce on the BBQ.

cupcakes and butter cream icing

 6oz of sugar and 6oz of butter.

 Mix together and add one egg.

 Slowly add on 6oz of Self Raising flour.

 We added a little bit of Semi Skimmed milk because our mixture seemed a bit dry.

 Put them in the over for between 15-30 minutes, until golden. We poked a tooth pick inside to see if any of the mixture stuck to it. If the mixture sticks to the tooth pick it means they need to cook for longer.

Butter Cream Icing

 We used 4oz of butter and 8oz of Caster sugar.

 We mixed it together and added purple food colouring.

 We used a pipe to decorate the cakes.

 :)

 Vikki had bought baby item moulds. We pushed icing in to the mould and out come the amazing shapes.

 And then they were done :) they were really yummy too!

Cardigan - eBay : Top - Primark : Jogging Bottoms - Primark

For some people, baking is simple. For me it seems to be near enough impossible. My friend Vikki makes amazing cakes. We are both attending a baby shower tomorrow and so I thought I'd help her make the cupcakes, and I am pleased I did. I even made a batch of the cupcakes myself. They were really delicious! Enjoy!

iced coffee

I was addicted to Iced Coffee in Australia. Since my local Starbucks stopped selling my usual Double Espresso and Milk I was a bit lost. I decided to make my own Iced Coffee. It was actually really nice and I'm pleased that I will be able to get my coffee fix.

Use the normal amount of instant coffee you usually use. I used 3 teaspoons. Add about 2 to 3 inches of hot water. Add ice straight away, this will make the water cool down really quickly. Once cool, top up with as much milk as you please; as you can see I use quite a lot :] enjoy!

when life gives you lemons

I made homemade lemonade for Easter. As it was a busy day I didn't have the time to take pictures, so I made it again today.

You need 3 or 4 lemons.

You will need a cup of caster sugar. The first time I made this lemonade I used golden caster sugar but either will be fine.

Squeeze the juice out of the lemons. At this point I didn't worry about the pips coming out because I put the lemon juice though a sieve.

To make the sugar syrup you need to put the caster sugar in to a pan. You need to put the same amount of water in to the pan as well, so use the same cup. Heat the sugar and water together until the sugar has gone. The water will be a clear but cloudy colour.

Put the sugar water in to a jug and sieve the lemon juice in to get rid of the pips and pulp. Top the jug up with water or to desired strength.

Put the jug in to the fridge or freezer for at least 30 minutes so it is nicely chilled. Serve over ice and enjoy. ♥