Did you miss me?

Hi my pretties!  Long time, no see!
I have no real excuse for being such a slacker on the blogging front.  I just found it easier to post directly to Facebook as it took less time than writing up a blog, but I am back!  I will endeavour to write more of these throughout the year.
Last night we went over to a friends for dinner and I made a pudding that I'd watched Nigella make, and wanted to attempt.  Alas, I had had too many wines and didn't feel like eating it myself, but it was well received by others :)
You may have heard of a dessert called Grasshopper Pie.  This is what I made, only mine wasn't green.  Ordinarily it would be made with green Creme de Menthe and blond Creme de Cacao, but I had some Prenzel on my shelf that I wanted to use.  Mine was a chocolate brown colour instead.  I still used the same choc-mint flavour, only I had Peppermint Schnapps (which is clear) and Chocomulu (which is a syrupy chocolate liqueur).

I didn't have the recipe with me when I did my shop, so in true Calamity Jayne styles, I had all the wrong quantities!  It still worked though.  I actually ended up with extra filling, so I will write out the quantities I think would have been better.

Grasshopper Pie

250g chocolate biscuits (I used a budget TimTam type)
80g dark chocolate
50g butter (melted)

Put into a food processor and blitz to a sticky crumb.  
*side note - I couldn't remember if the chocolate was meant to be melted so I just put it in as is, though I think it was probably meant to be melted)
Press into a flan dish - I used a silicone mould, though a loose bottom tin would be just as good.  Sit in fridge to set.

100ml milk
100g white marshmallows
60ml Peppermint Schnapps/Creme de Menthe
60ml blond Creme de Cacao/Chocomulu
300ml cream

Put milk and marshmallows in a small saucepan and heat, stirring until marshmallows have melted in. Take off the heat and put in a bowl.  Add your alcohol choices and mix.  If you are wanting it to look a little more green, you can add a few drops of food colouring.
Leave this to cool slightly, while you whip the cream.
Fold the cream into the green/choc brown mix.
Pour into base and smooth the top.  Set it in the fridge.

When ready to serve, grate some extra dark chocolate on top.  Voila!

This morning, my daughter asked for pancakes for breakfast.  She was given an apron at Christmas time and she has been wanting to help out in the kitchen ever since.  I agreed to make them, and had her and her sister help with mixing.

In case you don't have a pancake recipe, here is what I use:

1C flour
1C milk/water
1 egg
pinch of salt.

I double it usually, but this is a standard recipe.  I normally do half milk and half water.  You can add more milk/water to your mix depending on how thick you like your batter.

I decided to make caramelised pears to go over top.  To make these, I peeled and cored two pears.  I sliced them into long strips.
Heat some butter in a pan and add pears.  Let them cook in the butter for a while before adding a teaspoon of vanilla.  Stir.  Sprinkle in some brown sugar - I just eyeball it until it looks like enough.
Keep it cooking, stirring occasionally.  Spoon over your pancakes.

For lunch, I decided to use up some leftovers in the fridge.  I still had some sausages from the previous night, and tomatoes that needed to be eaten.

I chopped these, along with an onion.
In a saucepan, I got 1C of rice cooking.
I heated a frying pan with olive oil and when warm, I added the onion and leftover sausage.  I fried that until it was cooked through.  I added the tomatoes.
I drained the rice and added this to the pan too.  Season and stir.
Crack a few eggs - I used three - and stir them through.  The heat from the pan and the cooked food will cook the eggs.
Serve!

So there you go.  After waiting with baited breath for over a year, you now have three recipes to add to your repertoire :)  Enjoy!  Happy cooking my lovelies!