Homemade pizzas

A week or so ago I had my girlfriends over for an easy dinner before heading to the movies. I decided to make pizzas because I had plenty of time to make the dough and think of some yummy toppings! we had lots of different flavours including pumpkin/pancetta/olive, zuchinni/salami/tomato/fetta/, pesto/garlic prawn, and a cheesy/garlic one. they were all super yummy and we all enjoyed them- there wasnt much leftovers so thats always a good sign! i would have to give them a 9/10- not sure how I would feel about going back to takeaway pizzas now, nothing beats the homemade version. They are so much healthier and really do taste 100% better!

Cupcake practicing 2...

more fun in the kitchen today! half the cakes are vanilla and the other half are choc mud. I ate a chocolate mud one and they were delicious- super moist but not too rich. Still learning how to use the piping bag so its quite rustic but at least i'm improving!

Cupcake practicing...

In a few weeks a friend and I are making a birthday cake for a 3rd birthday, and we are doing cupcakes. I want to get some practice in because its really hard to get them just right! Today I found lots of problems along the way...they rose way too much (I wanted a flat top) so I chopped off the tops so I could ice them the way I wanted. The icing wasnt that good either, I tried piping it but it was just way too moist. Definitely need some further practice to get them just right! Will do some investigating of different recipes and I think il get my hands on a better cookbook, the one im using at the moment is really really vague!

'Cheats ministrone'

This soup is another donna hay recipe from her latest magazine- the third time iv cooked from it this week! Its just an easy throw together soup, hence the 'cheat' in its name. I also made my own pesto for the top using basil, pine nuts, garlic and parmasan which was really yummy and went really nicely with the tomato flavour of the soup. I topped it off with some extra parmasan, and served it with some toasted ciabatta bread- a true winter warmer :)

Pasta with caramalised onion, pancetta and olives

I dont eat much pasta, in fact I think it would have been at least a few months since I last had it. After flicking through the latest donna hay magazine I saw this recipe and instantly wanted to try it out. For the recipe you needed to caramalise onions in brown sugar and red wine vinegar, and they tasted amazing. I had never done this before, it was so quick and easy and was the highlight of the dish. This pasta was different to most pastas i usually eat that are tomato or cream based, and I really enjoyed the lightness of it and all the different flavours. I also made some garlic and chive butter for the bread- which is something I make quite a bit when im not being too health conscious! A very carb-loaded dinner, but also a very yummy dinner that I would definitely make again! 7/10 :)