Pinoy Hubby

At this time of year sometimes you want a meal that isn't Christmas leftovers and doesn't involve a lot of cooking, and cheese on toast hits just the spot. Proper Welsh rarebit has a bit more to it than just melting some cheddar on toast, and my fiancé really enjoyed it when I made it for lunch recently so I thought I would share the recipe here. To serve two, you need: 225g grated cheese 1 tbsp. butter 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce 1 tsp English mustard powder 2 tsp plain flour 4 tbsp. milk bread - either sliced bread toasted on one side, or some crusty bread rolls or a baguette split in half. Melt the butter in a small pan, add the flour and mix to make a roux. Add the cheese, Worcestershire sauce and mustard powder and stir until the cheese has melted. Stir in the milk and you should have something resembling a thick paste. Preheat the grill. Place the bread under the grill so the bottom starts to toast. Remove from the grill and spread the cheese mixture on the other side. Ret...

I've made a ham in Coca-Cola in the slow cooker before and thought it would be a good dinner in the week before Christmas - quite festive and also easy as you just put it in the slow cooker and forget about it.   I only had Coca-Cola though but I figured that would work - but this time rather than adding cloves, onion, carrots and bay leaves to the cola 'stock' I decided to just do it straight, in nothing but the cola, but then make a glaze from brown sugar and honey at the end. So essentially that's all I did - I used two small gammon joints as I wanted this to do a second meal as well - I made ham soup the following day which was really good (recipe to follow!) and covered them in Cherry Coke. I put the slow cooker on high for 3-4 hours and when the joints were cooked, I removed them from the stock and put them in a roasting pan. I mixed brown sugar with honey which I spread over the ham and then baked it in a hot oven for 20 minutes. I served it with a mixture of ma...

I had some gingerbread mix left over when I made this gingerbread house so I decided to cut out a few extra Christmas trees and snowmen. I had the idea of hanging them on the Christmas tree with ribbon and I think they look really cute! You could make any sugar cookie recipe but these gingerbread ones did taste really good; here's the recipe I made for the gingerbread house so it would make you quite a lot of cookies:   180g butter 125g brown sugar 300g golden syrup 500g plain flour 1/4 tsp salt 1 tbsp. ground ginger 1/2 tsp bicarb of soda Melt the butter in a pan and add the sugar and syrup. Remove from the heat, add the dry ingredients and mix to a thick dough. Roll out on a floured surface and cut out the shapes on top of pieces of baking paper. Make a small hole with the tip of a dinner knife or the end of a teaspoon handle to thread the ribbon through. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes depending on size. Allow to cool and push a skewer through the holes to open them out agai...

I can’t believe it’s Christmas already! We are away for quite a lot of this week running around seeing different family members which will be pretty tiring but it is important to us both to see as many people as possible, and luckily our families don't live too far apart. It does mean that my meal plan this week is not much of a plan!     Monday: chicken lattice pie and chips   Tuesday: Sausage ragu with butternut squash ‘spaghetti’ for me from Inspiralized, sausage and mash for him   Wednesday: Working from home in the morning so lunch at home with my fiancé - leftover soup Dinner: at my parents   Thursday: Christmas Eve: at my parents’   Friday: Christmas Day: with my fiancés family   Saturday: Boxing Day: with my fiance’s family   Sunday lunch: Boxing day leftovers Dinner: more Boxing day leftovers? Actually one of my favourite meals!

My fiancé bought me a gingerbread house kit a couple of months ago as he knew I wanted to make a gingerbread house at Christmas, so giving me the set as a Christmas gift was too late. I used it to make a haunted Halloween gingerbread house but of course was going to make a Christmas one as well, and here it is! I used the recipe on the back of the box again to make the gingerbread: 180g butter 125g brown sugar 300g golden syrup 500g plain flour 1/4 tsp salt 1 tbsp. ground ginger 1/2 tsp bicarb of soda Melt the butter in a pan and add the sugar and syrup. Remove from the heat, add the dry ingredients and mix to a thick dough. Roll out on a floured surface and cut out the shapes on top of pieces of baking paper. I found it impossible to lift the shapes without distorting them after they had been rolled and cut out which is why I did it directly on to the baking paper. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes and leave to cool - I had to do this in several batches. I ran out of gol...

I bought some reduced-price stewing steak in the supermarket and thought it would work well in the slow cooker. I was going to chop the beef into cubes but it looked like a good quality piece of meat (or two pieces in fact) that I didn't think I needed to. I had been looking at a Slimming World recipe for beef in red onion gravy but as my other half doesn't like red onions I decided to change it and ended up pretty much making up my own recipe!     S low Cooker Balsamic Beef - an original recipe by Caroline Makes     Serves 2 1 large shallot, sliced into two or three 400-500g braising steak 1 beef stock cube made up to 3/4 pint with hot water 1/4 tsp garlic puree or 1 garlic clove, crushed 1 tbsp tomato puree 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar   Mix the stock, garlic, tomato puree and vinegar and pour into your slow cooker. Place the onion pieces in the bottom and place the meat on top. Add more water if necessary so the beef is just covered.         Pl...

Does everyone send anniversary cards to their parents? In some ways it seems a bit weird, like “congratulations on getting married so you could have me!” – but since my sister and I were children we have always given my parents cards, and presents on the milestone anniversaries like their 25 th – they are on their 38 th now I think!   I made this card for my parents anniversary this year. I didn’t really have a design in mind but had a piece of red polka dot paper which I liked, so I used that to cover a card, and added a red heart from a huge pack of foam hearts I bought from Hema last year.   I had also bought a set of card toppers from Ebay with various sentiments so put one of these at the top of the page, and a gold outline sticker saying ‘happy anniversary’. Finally I added some gold hearts along the bottom. The problem with the outline stickers is I only use one a year – but from 2017 I will have my own wedding anniversary and can make a card for my husband!