Addictions

For those of you that have seen my facebook, I apologise because I promised I'd make a blog about a Baked Alaska. This blog's gonna be quite personal about me though, I hope you don't mind. So here it goes, I guess.

Recently my Mum has decided to try and give up smoking for a third time, she's been smoking since she was 13 so that's a very considerable amount of time spent smoking and for her to try giving up for a third time is a very brave thing, I feel. She's holding out well so far, it's been just over a week since she stopped completely and she seems very determined.
It's difficult to watch her do it though. I can see her bored and I know that she's craving, but there's nothing I can do. 'It's like a small, constant pain' is how she described it and it's heart wrenching to sit here and talk to my friends while I know that although she's downstairs watching Emmerdale, that pain is just poking away at her. Addictions are hard to break...and when smoking is so common it's going to be even harder to break. Did you know that it takes the average smoker 7 attempts to stop? That's 6 rounds of struggling and defeat before you finally manage it.
It's not all bad though, as much as it seems that way. Despite the bad things and the things that bother me (and more importantly that bother my Mum) the goal of this entire thing is a good and beneficial one. If she succeeds (which I very much hope she will) then not only will it be a fantastic achievment for her, but she'll reap the health benefits and some financial benefits.
My Mum is a strong woman and I'd want nothing more than for her to succeed at this because she does truly deserve it, but it's not going to be easy. I just hope that she knows that everyone's here for her and that we all wish the best for her.

Fried Rice (Serves Two)

Well the results are in and you, the people, wanted to know how to make Fried Rice. I decided to make it one day on a random whim after reading about it in a 4 Ingredients Book. Originally I stuck to the recipe like treacle on a spoon, but the key to savoury cooking is to be original, creative and really make the recipe your own.

So although I’m giving you a full ingredients list, do feel free to alter it as and however you like. If you don’t have or don’t like carrots, then don’t use carrots. Peas, broccoli, sweetcorn, whatever you like can go into this rice to good effect.

Something I tried out that produced a particularly nice, slightly spicy, rice was adding ½ tsp of Cayenne Pepper, 1 tsp Chinese 5 Spice and ½ tsp of Paprika during frying. It was purely done on an experimental basis and I rarely use spices or herbs, but it turned out rather well!

Difficulty: **

Pros

The recipe is very easy going

You can use pretty much anything you want in it

Cons

The state of the rice can really affect the end product

Ingredients

185g (1 cup) Rice

1 Beaten Egg

2 Rashers of Bacon (or whatever meat or meat substitute you might prefer)

4 tbsp. Soy Sauce

For vegetables, I used:

2 Radishes
Brocolli
1 Carrot
1 Spring Onion
1 Small Onion
Cabbage

But remember that you can use any vegetables you like for this!

Method

1) Boil the rice in around half a litre (500ml) of water before draining it and setting it aside to dry.

NOTE: If the rice is wet when you come to frying then your fried rice may turn out wet also.

2) Slice up the bacon and fry it in a slightly oiled pan until it is pale in colour.

NOTE: If you’re using onions and/or mushrooms, fry them at this stage also.

3) Add the beaten egg to the pan and stir while you fry to evenly cook and distribute the egg.

4) At this point add any other vegetables you wish and continue frying until the egg and meat you’re using are cooked.

5) Add the rice along with the soy sauce. The soy sauce is what gives fried rice its distinctive colour!

NOTE: At this point add any herbs/spices you would like to.

6) Continue frying and stirring, evenly distributing the ingredients. Once this is done the rice is ready to be served!

TIP: Instead of boiling the rice yourself, an easy alternative would be to use an instant, microwavable pouch of rice. The result is still the same and depending on what kind you use then your ending product could have a whole new dimension to its flavour!

I hope you all try out this recipe, it’s great as a late night snack, as lunch or a side dish to a main meal and the results can be absolutely wonderful. If you’ve got any questions or you want to share pictures of what you’ve made, then you’re entirely welcome to do so and I will reply!

For my next blog I’ll be putting sugar cookies on hold to show you how to make a Baked Alaska really easily and then (because I’m baking a lot of buns for charity events and birthdays!) I’ll be showing you how to make buns as well as demonstrating some decorative techniques. I hope you all read it!

Back to school!

So this week I'm now back at school, though this time will be the last as I'm now in my official last term. That means that there's a lot of work to be done, a lot of work to do and a lot of reviewing of work already done...plus 20 hours of exams for yours truly!
Fortunately for me I spent a large amount of time over the holidays and the past few months writing up notes on all my various subjects, so revising should be a lot easier. This doesn't mean that I'll be neglecting my dear blog though, heavens no! In fact, after a facebook messaging conversation with a rather nice girl it's spurred me on to keeping this blog even more =D

And what does *that* mean? Well it mean that I'll be updating with another recipe at the weekend and it'll either be fried rice (if there are ingredients for it and if anyone wants it) or some of those lovely sugar cookies I linked to a while back. Which would you guys prefer?


I should just add that both of those photos are from the internet and probably won't look anything like that when I make them, but it gives you some idea at least!

Pancakes

A lovely treat that can be enjoyed as something savoury or sweet, pancakes are easy to prepare and cook. The beauty of this recipe, that I learnt from my Mum years ago now, is that you don’t even need weighing scales for it. All you need for the measurements is a mug, or cup of any kind, and the ability to count.

Difficulty: *

Pros:

Ingredients are easy to get

A versatile food

Cons:

They’re easy to burn!

Ingredients

1 Cup Flour

1 Cup Milk

1 Egg

Sweet pancakes: ½ Cup Sugar

For a more American style pancake use self-raising flour instead of plain.

NOTE: Where the list says ‘cup’ you can just use any mug you have at hand.

Method

1) Whisk the ingredients thoroughly to a liquid consistency.

2) On a medium to low heat, pour enough pancake batter into a hot, oiled frying pan to completely cover the base of the pan.

3) Allow the batter to cook until it has become solid and the bottom is a golden colour and then flip the pancake over to cook on the other side.

4) Once the pancake has cooked to a golden colour on the other side it is done and ready to be served.

NOTE: If using self raising flour, you will need to flip the pancakes when they begin to bubble on the top. This may be messy at first and you’ll have to flip them quick, but with practice you’ll find the right thickness to cook this kind of pancake at.

You can serve your pancake however you like with whatever you like, but I love to have mine very classically and simply with jam. Something that I found works well, to add a twist to your pancakes, is to add half teaspoon measures of mixed spice, ginger and nutmeg in with the flour. The flavour that this gives the pancakes reminds me so much of Christmas and I’m sure you’ll see why if you try it for yourselves!

Please comment and/or link to pictures of pancakes you’ve made yourselves, I'd absolutely love to see what you can come up with! Also, sorry for the shoddy presentation of mine, it didn’t turn out quite how I expected…

Plans, Plans, Plans!

I have decided to do around 2 updates a week, whether they're at the start or the end of the week i will try to do 2 new blog posts per week and I'm going to try and make my posts personal as well as food related.

Now I'm the kind of person that quite likes to write, no matter what it is, as long as I have an idea that I can go with. Those of you that know me will also know of my insane obsession with Lady GaGa (those of you that don't, well now you know) and as of an hour or so ago I've managed to fuse the two together with satisfying success!
'The Haus That Monsters Built' is a worldwide fanbase of Lady GaGa fans that are working to create a huge, evolving, creative movement through their fanwork (be it artistic, photographic, written, videod, sung etc.) that will not only unite Little Monsters everywhere but will, in theory at its pinnacle, attract the attention of the media and/or GaGa herself. There are many other goals of the group, such as working with charities to give back to society, but setting it up is the hardest part.
So I applied to be a writer and the creator asked for a sample of my work. The only sample I had on my hard drive was a rant I did for English that was about Lady GaGa (as a challenge to myself I chose to rant about someone I loved/admired) and I took a risk and decided to send that as my English teacher gave me some compliments on it when I first showed it to her. I also attached a new, original piece inspired by Lady GaGa that talked about Fame Obsession. I thought it was slightly risky, sending a RANT about Lady GaGa to a Lady GaGa fan (though I did attach an explanation) but nevertheless, I waited eagerly for a reply.
My risk paid off it seems! Apparantly I raised 'some interesting points', made the woman chuckle and my article shows that I wasn't a crazed GaGa fan that saw her as perfection, but someone who could see her flaws, analyse them and accept them. My Fame Obsession piece was 'especially' loved apparantly, which made me very happy (though it can be improved, which was a thought that had also occured to me). The best part of the email, to me, though was when she said that she wanted me to keep writing and that she would post my work on her site!
Did I say yes? Of course I did! So now I'll be working on GaGa inspired works, non-GaGa inspired works and improving previous work so that I can contribute to the fanbase. Should be fun guys!

On a food note now though, I've already planned that my next post will look at something simple, easy and delicious: Pancakes! (Both American style and English!)
That means you're getting your frying pans at the ready and stocking up on jam (well, I will be at least).
I also had an idea to try my hand at some more intricate cookie decorating thanks to a baker that my friend Rachel linked me to. I don't know her name, only her blog, but the things she makes are just wonderful. Here's the recipe I'll be attempting hopefully in the near future:
Sugar Cookies!
I accept no credit, ownership or copyright over that link or the content within the link =P

That's all I've got to say for now, so I'll end this long post here and I hope to see more readers on here soon! For those of you reading this thank you so much for taking time out of your days to read this, you're my inspiration for this whole blog ^_^

Advertising!

Along with my welcome banner I've also designed an advertising...square (for lack of a better term. Avatar perhaps?) that people can use should they so wish, I'm posting the image here because I know that my friend and fellow blogger Rachel said she was going to use it on her blog. In return, I've used a graphic she's made to advertise her blog.

I'd highly recommend that you all take a few minutes out of your internet lives to read Details In The Fabric, it's a truly great blog that's wonderfully written and provokes so many thoughts within us. You can visit it by clicking on the graphic that's on the right column above the search box, it'll take you straight there!

Revamp!

To those few, regular visitors to my blog, you may notice a number of changes. My reason for this? Well the previous blog was very infrequently updated and I started to feel very guilty, so I backed up all my posts in a word file and redesigned the whole thing so I could start fresh!
Now I'll be updating '2 Oranges & A Banana'.
From now on this blog will be updated regularly (I hope) and will be personal and informative, meaning that I'm gonna post about recipes as well as general things in my life as well. I just hope that you guys like it =

Finally, I'd also like to give thanks to two people that inspired and helped me to redo my blog and they are my dear friends Rachel & Helen. I owe Rachel a lot in terms of her help with my new graphics and I owe Helen a lot because she thought up of the name for the new blog and also made the message I wanted it to have into the poem that you see in the welcome banner. Thank you so much guys ^_^