#redvelvetcookies

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. I have been busy with school work. This post is one I have been looking forward to writing for a long time as it is now one of my favourite recipes and has been for the past few weeks

In modern day society, social media is a common way to promote new ideas, inventions and products to society. One of the most popular social media sites is Instagram. People use it to promote their products or celebrities and many others use it to post pictures and selfies about what’s going on in their lives. However apart from all this I have found many delicious and new recipes and as someone that uses social media often, many of my favourite recipes have come from Instagram, Snapchat or Facebook. Recently, whilst looking through Instagram, I came across a recipe that I knew would be interesting to make. RED VELVET COOKIES. As someone who enjoys red velvet as a flavour, I knew quickly I would enjoy this recipe. It took me longer than expected to actually write out the recipe, however, as Instagram does not have a pause button on videos meaning in order to remember all the detail I had to re-watch this video numerous times.

Here is the recipe for the Red Velvet Cookies. It is a true favourite of mine and I therefore hope you enjoy baking and eating them as much as I do!!

Ingredients (makes 24)

Please note: the recipe is done in English (not American) measurements

1.5 cups of flour

1/8 tsp of baking powder

1/8 tsp of baking soda

1/8 tsp of salt

1 tbs of unsweetened cocoa (eg: green and blacks)

½ cup of butter

¾ cup of softened sugar

1 egg

1 tsp of vanilla extract

5-6 drops of red food colouring

Icing sugar (for rolling the dough balls in)

Method:

1.       Heat the oven to 175’c gas mark 4

2.       Mix the dry ingredients minus the sugar in a bowl

3.       Mix the butter and sugar in a separate bigger bowl

4.       Add the egg, vanilla and food colouring to the sugar and butter mixture

5.       Gradually add the dry mixture (in quarters or fifths)

6.       Place some icing sugar in a small bowl

7.       Take about a tablespoons worth of cookie mixture and form a ball

8.       Roll it around in the icing sugar until it looks dusted but not totally covered

9.       Repeat with all the dough

10.   Make sure to space out the biscuits evenly as they will expand a little

11.   Bake for 8-10 minutes

12.   Let cool and enjoy

If you have any recipes from any social media sites you would like to share then please share the link below in the comments section.

Thanks

Lottie X

Sweet Potato and Feta Ravioli in a Sage Butter

Last night my friend, Eden, and I didn't want to get a take-away pizza and just sit around watching TV so we decided we would cook. At first we had know idea what we were making but had a £10.00 budget to spend. Our original plan was sushi but we had both made that quite recently. Then we both came up with the idea to make pasta as this would be fun a surely wouldn't make too much of a mess. (we were wrong on the mess part!) 

It turns out that there is not many unusual ingredients in pasta. So in the end we only need to buy: pasta flour, sage, sweet potatoes and feta as most of the ingredients we could find in the Fridge. Apart from a few setbacks we ended up making quite a good dish but it certainly tasted better than some of them looked. 

Here is the recipe but make sure you follow the method properly and look at the top tips given as they will definitely help.

utensils:

pasta maker

frying pan

cooking pot

mixing spoon

strainer

For the pasta: (serves 3 or 4)

3 eggs

300g of pasta flour

For the filling:

1 garlic clove

3 sweet potatoes

150g of Feta cheese (goats cheese if preferred)

For the butter:

5 sage leaves

50g of butter

TOPTIP! make sure you make the filling before the pasta as this will prevent the dough from drying as quickly.

Method:

1. Cook the sweet potatoes in the microwave for about 7 minutes and make sure you jab them with a fork to ensure they don't "explode."

2. when they are ready remove the skin and put them in a bowl.

3. mix in the feta, sliced in cubes, and add the clove of, crushed, garlic.

4. you can set the mixture aside as you may not need it for a little while.

5. making the pasta is very simple especially if you have a blender!

6. pour the eggs in the blender and blend them until mixed.

7. add the flour a little at a time as this will ensure you mix it better.

8. if the dough is too wet then add how ever much flour you need or if it looks to dry add olive oil (you can use water if you don't have olive oil)

9. when it looks like bread dough then it is ready.

10. make sure your pasta maker is set to the normal one and not to spaghetti or tagliatelle. 

11. role out your pasta dough so it is long not square as otherwise you will not get it through the pasta machine.

12. set your pasta machine so that it is on 1 or 2  

13. when you have made your pasta dough thin enough role it through the machine.

14. make sure you hold the dough flat so it doesn't stick together but don't stretch it or it will rip.

15. set the machine to 3 or 4 and repeat step 13

16. set it to 5 and repeat step 13

17. if it is getting too long then cut it in half

18. set it to 6 and repeat step 13

19. lay the 2 roles of pasta dough on the table so they are flat. ( you may need to put flour down first)

20. cut the dough so it is in squares

21. you now need to bring back your filling

22. put about a teaspoon of filling into the centre of each square 

23. get a bowl of water and dip your fingers in it

24. VERY GENTLY move your finger round the outside of the square

25. fold the square in half GENTLY and seal (it should look like a rectangle shape)

26. wet the 2 shorter sides and push them together.

27. it should look like the ravioli you buy in shop now

Once you have made the ravioli you need to cook them

28. get a large pot and fill it with cold water

29. place it on the hob and heat 

when the water starts to form small bubbles it is ready

30. pour all the ravioli in the pot put carefully or the hot water will splash everywhere.

when the ravioli is cooked it will rise to the top of the water.

31. carefully takes these out with a ladle typed utensil but make sure you drain the water from the spoon if it is not a holed one.

32. when all the pasta is ready you can start making the sage butter

33. place your saucepan on the hob and put in the sage leaves and gently shake the pan so the sage leaves fry.

34. then you need to place the butter in the pan in small cubes so it melts quicker.

35. stir around the butter until it has melted.

36. when you serve up the pasta you can drizzle a little of the butter over the pasta.

37. then if you would like, you can grate some cheese over the pasta.

38. IT'S NOW READY!!

So there you have it. this is the pasta recipe we came up with last night and it was a fun enjoyable experience to do so.

If you have any questions or ideas do not hesitate to comment below

Lottie X

Instagram- follow @Eat.Teen

Do companies trick us into eating more Junk?

http://theday.co.uk/health/how-companies-trick-us-into-eating-more-junk

This morning in school I came across an article that immediately interested me. The article was all about how Companies "trick" us into purchasing products that are supposedly good for us or better for us than their first product. An example of this I would give would be Coca-Cola. Quite obviously Coca Cola is a very old brand of soft drinks but they have launched many new products over the past few years.

 For example the first after Coca Cola was Diet Coke. although their was nothing to specify that this was good for you people became to buy it as they knew it was better. Soon after Coke Zero came into the shops. Coke Zero supposedly has Zero calories unlike the Original which has 139. Many people may think it is "healthy" and can therefore drink as much of it as they please. However, although it may not make you put on weight, it could actually be worse for you than normal Coke. If there is no sugar in Coke Zero then what is in it. It tastes no different and therefore could have very harmful replacements.

Above is the article I read this morning. If you have any opinions of this then please comment below. It would be much appreciated.

Instagram-Follow @Eat.Teen

Energy Drinks

Since the start of the 21th century energy drinks have become commonly drank by many people across the globe. Most regularly in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Many of these drinks contain a high amount of Caffeine some have the equivalent of 6 shots of espresso. This is bad enough as it is but what makes it worse is the fact that there are Children in the UK as young as 4 or 5 drinking these products almost every day.

Energy drinks can cause harm to your body in many ways as when drinking one, a person is also taking in a great deal of caffeine. This is bad for many reasons, regarding one’s health, which include:

•          Insomnia
•          Nervousness
•          Rapid heartbeats
•          Spark of energy followed by tiredness
•          And even muscle tremors

These symptoms occur because Caffeine acts as a central nervous system stimulant. When it reaches your brain, the most noticeable effect caused is alertness. One would feel more awake, so it's a common ingredient in medications to treat or manage drowsiness.

After watching a frequently watched program in my house, Jamie and Jimmy’s Friday Night Feast, I became instantly astounded by how many children are consuming these drinks. During the program, when visiting a secondary school in England they found out that there are many children consuming energy drinks such as monster or red bull for breakfast. The children said that this is done for three reasons. The first is that they never have time to make a substantial breakfast in the morning; the second is that many families in the country cannot afford to feed their children suitable breakfast and the third is many children get tired in school and therefore need energy drinks to keep them awake so they can do their best. In this post I am going to attempt to tackle these problems by trying to find other alternatives regarding the positives about energy drinks but also have in mind the problems they can cause you.

The first reason stated in why many children have energy drinks is because many children never have time before school to make a substantial breakfast and the second is many children cannot afford to buy breakfast. However a box of muesli bars can cost on £1.19 for a packet of 8. This is only about 15p per bar. A can of Monster from the same store could cost you 79p for a 500ml can. If you were buying five for a school week it would cost you £3.95. A packet of 5 breakfast bars could cost you only 75p which is almost a 1/5 of the price.  The breakfast bars also do not require any preparation and are supposed to last you a whole school day without going tired therefore one can still achieve without the help of the caffeine normally being used.

The last problem stated was that Children rely on energy drinks to keep them awake during the school day much like many adults rely on Coffee to keep them awake. However, caffeine works like sugar in a child, you will suddenly have loads of energy and be wide awake bouncing off wall, whereas the next minute you would start to nod off again and would therefore start to drink another energy drink. This would continue throughout the day and you could be consuming up to 5 cans of the product which is about 2.5 litres. The NHS recommends you to drink only 1.2 litres of water in a day so 2 and a half litres of monster or red bull is way too much to be drinking alone.

The last thing I wanted to write about is what you can have which is similar to an energy drink. It would not cost much and would be healthy, full of energy and most importantly, DELICIOUS!

~ ~ ~

Lottie’s leftover fruity smoothies:

Ingredients: makes 5

·         Any leftover fruit you can find

·         Milk/water

Method:

·         Pour the fruit, (in my case strawberries, bananas, raspberries and chopped apples,) into a blender

·         Blend with the amount of water you would want based on how smooth you want your smoothie

·         Pour into a jug and leave in the fridge for up to 3 days.

This could be made on Sunday and could then last you until the middle of the week and would fill you up with only a glass or two. Most fruits such as apples are cheap therefore you would still be saving money.

~ ~ ~

What you can do:

As you may have seen there is a hash-tag going round looking like this. 

#not for children. This can be posted on Instagram, facebook twitter and many other social media sites and is aimed at the government so that energy drinks cannot be sold to anyone under the age of 16 much like alcohol. So get posting and spread the word that children should not be downing this much caffeine.

Instagram- follow @Eat.Teen

product statistics stated in this post are all the prices of Tesco

Back to School Muffins

going back to school is so hard after you have had such a fun past few weeks of summer. That is why I decided to make some muffins so that after school I can just sit with these lovely treats before getting on with my work. The cakes turned out a delight and below is the recipe for my twist on Chocolate chip muffins.

Ingredients:(makes 12)

-250g of self raising flour

-a pinch of salt

-1 teaspoon of baking powder

-50g of butter

-75g of caster sugar (brown sugar also works)

-100g of butterscotch drops (can be bought from most big supermarkets)

-2 eggs

-2 teaspoons of vanilla essence

-250ml of milk

-12 muffin cases

Method:

1. Put a paper case into each hole of a cupcake tin

2. Sift the self raising flour, salt and baking powder into a large bowl

3. Turn the oven to 200'c (gas mark 6)

4.Cut the butter into chunks and ad it to the mixture (DON'T MELT THE BUTTER)

5. Rub the butter into the flour so it looks like breadcrumbs

6. Add the sugar and 3/4 of the butterscotch drops

7. Stir the mixture with a wooden spoon

8. Break the eggs into a SEPARATE bowl and stir them hard with a fork

9. Add the vanilla and milk and stir everything well

10. Pour the egg mixture into the flour

11. Mix everything together, ( the mixture may be a little lumpy)

12. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases to the top and sprinkle the rest of the butterscotch on top

13. Bake the muffins for 20 minutes until they have risen

14. Leave them to cool for about 5 minutes and then eat them fresh or put them in a tin for later. (they must be eaten within 3 days unless frozen)

If you have any recipes that put you in the back to school mood then don't hesitate to comment below.