Almost at 1000!

We're almost at the next milestone... 1000 page views! I am so pleased that this blog has taken off well, and that I've had this many views on just 15 posts!

It's so close to the 500 views milestone just a couple of weeks back, so thank you, and I hope you keep coming back for more!!

Emily xx

Pizza Wraps!

I discovered this a while ago and since then, I haven't stopped making them. The name is self-explanatory really... it's a pizza in a wrap! You can add anything you want into them, and eat them on their own or with a side (like chips) so they're perfect for any meal. Plus, they only take about 10 minutes to make!

What you need:

• A wrap - I use large ones so I can fit everything onto it
• Tomato puree
• A sprinkling of cheese - depends on how much you like
• Preferred fillings

Step 1: Chuck everything on!

Preheat the oven to about 200°C.

Lay the wrap on a big plate to stop all the fillings falling everywhere. Alternatively, use a baking tray, as you'll need that later on anyway.

Start by squeezing a blog of tomato puree into the centre of the wrap and spreading it all over. As you can see, I didn't go right to the edges on mine - I put everything fairly central so it was easier to wrap.

Sprinkle the cheese onto the passata, and top that with any fillings you have. I tend to put half the cheese down first, then most of the toppings with the rest of the cheese. It all melts together that way!






Step 2: It's pizza origami time...

Carefully fold two sides of the wrap in towards each other, so it looks like this. This is where you need to start controlling the ingredients, or it could get very messy... trust me, it's happened far too many times!

The two sides should stay down fairly well, because the ingredients will stick to each other. If not, the next fold will stop them coming apart. It's like pizza-wrap origami!

~ Top Tip ~ 

If you find that the folds aren't sticking too well, try using a few blobs of tomato puree as glue!

Fold the bottom of the wrap over the top of the two folds you just did, so it looks like this. It should reach to about the middle of the wrap, leaving room for the top half to fold over next.

You're almost done!

Finally, fold the top of the wrap to meet the bottom fold. Use some tomato puree glue to stick the wrap together, as this part won't have much filling on it. If it's not sticking very well and keeps wanting to pop back up again, carefully pick up the wrap and flip it over so that the opening is on the bottom.

Transfer the wrap to a baking tray and put it in the oven for 5 minutes. The wrap should feel crispy when you tap it gently with a fork. If it doesn't feel crispy enough, put it back in for 2-minute intervals until it browns and crisps up. If you have master-wrap-flipping skill, you could try turning it over and toasting the other side for a few minutes!

So there you have it... a pizza wrap. Very easy, quick, cheap and you can eat it for any meal. Perfect student food! I made mine with homemade crispy potatoes... another little recipe for those coming soon!

Thank you for reading, and I hope I've made you hungry...

Back to Uni Soon...

Good afternoon!

Since being home for two weeks, I haven't done any of my own cooking (being home is always a good excuse to have everything done for you, *wink wink*) so I haven't had much content for the blog... but I'm back to uni life tomorrow so there will be plenty more to post! 

Thank you for being patient, and Happy Easter!

Sausage & Sweetcorn Pasta Bake

As a uni student, one of the quickest and easiest things to cook with is pasta. But it gets a bit boring sometimes, so making it into a pasta bake is the perfect way to make pasta interesting! There are so many things to add into the recipe, but I made mine with sausage and sweetcorn. Two of the biggest requests from my survey are more blog-style chatty posts, and more meal recipes. So this will hopefully cover both of them!

Pasta bake just isn't the same without the amazing cheesy topping!

What I used... 
These are very rough ingredients as I tend to measure by how much I fancy eating...

• Penne pasta - I measure it by pouring the right amount into the bowl I'll serve it in. Remember to pour a bit less into the bowl than you'd like, because it roughly doubles in size when it's boiled!
• Approx 4 tbsp sweetcorn
• 3 sausages (And I'm not afraid to say that yes, I used Asda Smart Price sausages... they worked fine!)
• Enough passata to mix into the pasta well (usually comes in a carton, with the consistency of smooth tinned tomatoes, like soup! See the photo below)
• A handful of grated cheese

When I got all of the ingredients together, I preheated the oven to 180°C. I placed my three frozen sausages on a baking tray which I covered in foil first, to stop it getting too greasy from the sausages. The sausages took about 30 minutes to cook, so I began preparing the pasta after about 15 minutes.

I poured the pasta into a saucepan and covered it with hot water from the kettle. I then set the pan on the hob at a high heat and sprinkled some salt into the water - salt water boils at a lower temperature so the pasta cooks slightly quicker. Don't add too much though - I did once, and my pasta tasted salty. Not nice, unless you aim for salty pasta.

To test when the pasta is cooked, stick a fork into it to see if it feels soft. If you still can't tell, eat a bit. It might be briefly horrible if it's still a bit hard, but it's the best way to tell!

I cut slits through the middle of each sausage to let
the fat escape

When the sausages were cooked and the pasta was near-enough done, I took the sausages out of the oven. I used a fork and a sharp knife to cut them into rough chunks.

I used a colander to drain the pasta and tipped it back into the saucepan when drained. I then turned the hob down to a low heat, placed the pan back on and poured in about a quarter of the carton of passata onto the pasta. I used a spoon to mix it all together, added the sausage chunks and sweetcorn and mixed them in.

When it was all nicely mixed, I poured the mixture into a glass roasting dish ready to go in the oven (still left on from the sausages).









I made sure the pasta was spread evenly in the dish and sprinkled the grated cheese on top.

The time to leave it in the oven for depends on how melty you want the cheese, and how crispy you want the surface of the pasta to be. I like mine very melty and very crispy and brown, so I put the dish in the oven for about 20 minutes. There is no need to cover the dish with foil because it will melt and crisp up better without it.

After 20 minutes, the pasta was ready to serve! I made enough for 2 portions so I left half to cool and ate it for lunch the next day. Forward planning as a uni student is always good.






Pasta bake is so easy to make and is a great alternative to simple pasta. You could add more vegetables, different meat such as chicken or mince (bolognese pasta bake is amazing!), fish such as tuna or salmon, cheese sauce instead of tomato... the list is endless! Experiment and have fun!

Shortbread for Vegans!

Right at the start of the blog, I posted a recipe for shortbread. This is the same recipe, but this time the butter has been substituted for a vegan-friendly version. This was made by Twitter user @Dont_ask_why, who followed my recipe and changed bits. Thank you for sending the photo and visiting my blog! 

As this recipe has already been posted, I won't post it again. For the original recipe, click here. 

For the vegan-friendly recipe, the butter was substituted for coconut oil with a 1:1 ratio (use the same amount of coconut oil as you would butter). It's as simple as that... one substituted ingredient! Also, to add something different to the shortbread, some cinnamon sugar was sprinkled on the top. 

So, this just goes to show that there are always different options to experiment with recipes and make them your own. If you have made or experimented with a  recipe that worked well, please email a photo and a description to minimcwitch@gmail.com or tweet it to @minimcwitch, and I will feature them on the blog. Thank you!

THANK YOU!

Emily's Cooking Club has reached 500 views... and sailed right past it!!

I know compared to a lot of blogs it's not a massive achievement, but for me it is. Especially that I've only had the blog for less than a month, and really just started it to keep all my recipes and ideas together. Thank you for visiting and reading, and a lot of thank yous to people who keep coming back! I must be doing something well :D 

Emily xxx

Early Easter Cakes!

Hello everyone! It's been a few days since the last post, and I'm in the mood to take a break from assignments and post another recipe! I know it's a couple of weeks until Easter, but I finish uni for a 2-week break tomorrow and I'm in the mood to post a recipe for cute Easter cakes! This recipe is extremely easy and makes about 12 good-sized cakes.

Little Easter cakes... perfect for gifts (or keep them all for yourself)

What you need:
An easy way to remember this recipe is by the numbers '4442', and you'll see why...

Mix those ingredients!!

• 100g/4oz butter (softened)
• 100g/4oz caster sugar
• 100g/4oz self raising flour
• 2 eggs

...such an easy recipe to remember for the future!

For the buttercream:

• 140g/5oz butter (softened)
• 280g/10oz icing sugar
• 1-2 tbsp milk
• few drops of food colouring (optional - I didn't use any)

What to do...

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C / Gas 4.
2. Mix together the butter and caster sugar until smooth and creamy.
3. Add the flour and egg, and mix. I usually add a bit of each at a time; I add a little flour, then an egg, and mix together. Then I add the other egg and the rest of the flour and mix that. By mixing in less flour at once, it's slightly less messy!
4. Distribute the creamy mixture into 12 cake cases (or a few more if needed).
5. Bake the cakes for 10-15 minutes, or until golden brown.
6. When cakes are baked, take them out of the oven and leave them to cool on a wire cooling rack. Make sure they are completely cool before adding buttercream.

To decorate...

Mix together the ingredients for the butter cream until smooth and creamy. This is the chance to add anything into it, like food colouring... I like to add sprinkles into the buttercream sometimes too! 

"Look at me, I'm cuter than all the rest..."

I used a teaspoon to blob the buttercream onto the top of each cake. You could use a piping bag to make cute swirls and patterns on the cakes, but I decided to go for the 'blob' approach instead. I then added 2 little mini eggs onto each cake and sprinkled it with some pink and white decorative balls to finish it off. 

This recipe is so easy to make and doesn't take long at all. Plus, you can have fun with the decorating! You could change the decoration and add chocolate chunks, edible decorations such as butterflies, or non-edible decorations such as fluffy yellow Easter chicks! I'll be making some more Easter cakes when I'm at home next week, so make sure I post a photo of how to use the cute little chick decorations.

Have fun, and thank you for reading! Also, if you've got a free two minutes, please fill out this very short survey to help me improve the blog in the future! :)