super generic girl

the awesomely average life of a girl like all others

Tag Archives: food


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vanilla cupcakes with passionfruit icing

It really must be true what people say about how running leaves you full of energy because, following the run of death, I ended up having a fairly productive weekend.

On sunday morning, I was out of bed by 9am and, since my legs were too sore to go for a run in the morning, I stayed home and got a bunch of stuff done. And then I made cupcakes. These only took me like 10 minutes to make, plus the 15min to bake and the time to let the cupcakes cool down before icing them (if you look at my icing job up there, you can tell I didn’t wait long enough for them to cool down). Anyway, I’m a big fan of anything delicious that only requires about 10 minutes of work so I thought I’d share the recipe here.

For the vanilla cupcakes: mix 125g of melted butter with 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence and half a cup of sugar. add two eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. fold 1 cup of self-raising flour into the mixture and then add 1/4 litre of milk and mix well. bake for 15min at 180 degrees celsius.

For the passionfruit icing, I just used 5 heaped tablespoons of icing sugar (which turned out to be enough to ice 12 cupcakes) and some delmaine’s passionfruit dessert topping that I had already bought for another dessert (that I’ve since forgotten to make). I’m not entirely sure how much passionfruit topping I used but it was quite a bit, maybe one third of the bottle. It was quite passionfruity (what a terrible made-up adjective for a journalist to use, I know) so I think next time I’ll add some butter to it.

Enjoy!


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cupcake mania

 

In the beginning of this month, I decided to start referring to it as Awegust rather than August. Because this has to be the most awesome month of the year. These photos are some of the evidence. Lots of homemade sugary treats, birthdays, a half-marathon (and plans for another one)… and to make it all even more awesome, running the risk of completely blowing up the awesomeness scale, I’m writing this post from Portugal, where I arrived yesterday for a much overdue catch up with family, friends…and summer!

So yeah, July and all the months before that, sorry but Awegust is kicking your butts. September, whatcha gonna do about it?

 

 


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Note to self and to others: a list of things to eat in Portugal (WIP)

I’m going to be home in more or less 50 days. By the time I land it will have been 20 months since my last visit which is just ridiculously stupid. I would describe to you how excited I am about going home but then this would turn into a really long blog post full of crazy-happy yays and squees, capital letters and multiple exclamation marks so I’ll save you from that.

Besides all the obvious things that I’m looking forward to (ie, squeezing all my family and friends real hard until they start wishing I’d just bugger off back to NZ so they can breathe normally again), I’m really excited about the food. Yes, the food. After the people, the food is the best thing about my country, hands down. I mean, it’s beyond awesome and no other country can replicate the level of culinary awesomeness that goes on in that little country, I tell you.

So the other day I started writing down all the things I cannot wait to eat when I’m there. Last time I visited, I thought I wouldn’t need a list and ended up forgetting to eat a bunch of delicious stuff that I can’t get here in Kiwiland so this time I decided a list was in order. Then I thought I should put the list on here so that it can serve two purposes: reminding myself of all those things and, just in case someone happens to be planning a trip to Portugal, they don’t act all crazy like I did last time and leave without trying some of this stuff.

Note that this list is a work in progress and I’m sure there are at least 456,550 other things that I’ll think of before I make my way back to the northern hemisphere. Also, apologies in advance for the lack of accents.

  • pao alentejano (without a doubt, the best bread in the world. Even my kiwi agrees that life without that bread is a tough one)
  • cafe delta (best coffee in the world and lalalalalala I can’t hear you if you disagree lalalalalala)
  • gomas vidal (a particular brand of lollies that are super soft and full of flavour. to die for!)
  • tuli creme (sort of like nutella but about a bazillion and a half times better)
  • chocapic (best. cereal. ever.)
  • grilled sardines (one of the advantages of visiting in summer)
  • snails (again, amen to a summer trip for allowing me to enjoy these, after 3 years of visiting in winter and missing out on them)
  • acorda alentejana (with lots of pao alentejano!)
  • morcela de arroz (again, on pao alentejano)
  • pasteis de nata (the tarts that I keep telling everyone I can’t live without)
  • ovos moles (egg overdose. nothing not to like)
  • bolas de berlim (it’s like what in NZ you’d call a donut but giant sized and with heaps of egg cream inside. to consume on the beach, preferably)
  • farturas (a type of fritters… with sugar and cinnamon – deliciousness!)
  • churros com doce de ovo (churros are pretty well known here… except these ones are super-sized and have an egg mix inside that makes them divine!)
  • sumol de ananas (a pineapple fizzy drink that I haven’t found anywhere else)
  • queijo fresco (on pao alentejano!)
  • rol (is it still available? I read it made a comeback but not sure if it was for a limited time only! One of the ice creams made by Ola – the same brand that in NZ is called Streets)
  • tomatada (a dish made of basically tomatos and egg that you eat with, yeah, you guessed it… pao alentejano!)

(to be continued)


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easiest apple tart ever

Yes, this is another post about food – more specifically, it’s a post about cake (my favourite of all food groups – and what do you mean ‘cake isn’t a food group?’).

A few days ago, I baked my first ever apple tart (tart, not pie – take it easy!). Why, you ask? Well, because I remembered I had found what looked like the easiest recipe ever, even for a noob like me.

Anyway, in the absence of anything smart to say here, I thought I’d share another recipe.

Ingredients:

  • 250g butter (soft but not melted)
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
  • grated rind of one orange
  • 2 1/2 cups flour (self-raising)
  • diced apple (I used a tin of apples I had at home, not sure how many apples to use, perhaps 4 or 5)
  • icing sugar to dust on top
Mix together butter, sugar, egg, vanilla essence and orange rind until nice and creamy. Add flour and mix well. Spread 2/3 of the mix in a cake tin (make sure it’s greased and floured). Spread the diced apple over it and dot the remaining mixture over the top. Bake at 190ºC for about 40 minutes. Let it cool down and dust with icing sugar.

I can’t remember where I got the recipe from, as I wrote it down a while ago and it has been sitting in the “to try” queue.

The result was very positive, even though the bottom was a wee bit burnt (less time in the oven next time, I guess). I’m looking forward to giving it another go, perhaps adding blueberries to it.


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queijadas de laranja

I went a wee bit baking-mad this weekend and, among other things, made these delicious queijadas de laranja, which I had been craving for a while. Queijadas are a Portuguese treat that can have different flavours. These are orange. I saw someone online describe queijadas as cheesecakes but I don’t think that’s quite right. They’re sort of halfway between a cheesecake and a muffin – cakey but really moist inside. Read: delicious!

Anyway, thought I’d leave the recipe I used here because they are so easy to make everyone should give it a go! Awesome with a hot cup of coffee!

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Queijadas de laranja

  • 1/2L milk
  • 175g flour (self-raising)
  • 40g butter (softened)
  • 300g sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • juice and rind of 1 orange
  • optional: icing sugar and/or cinnamon

Pre-heat the oven to 200ºC. Heat up the milk in a saucepan and, once it starts to boil, add the butter.

Separately, mix flour and sugar and then add the eggs. Mix it all, then add the orange juice and rind and slowly add the milk, always beating well.

Pour the mixture into a muffin tray and cook it in the oven for 25 minutes.

You can choose to dust some icing sugar or cinnamon on top, once they’ve cooled down.

NB: these measurements were enough to make 23 queijadas so, all in all, a very inexpensive little treat!

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