Halloween Candy Corn Rocky Road

Candy Corn is popular in the US at Halloween, but most of the British people I asked had never heard of it. I think I've only come across it because I've been to the States in September a couple of times and the shops are full of candy corn in the run up to Halloween. Candy Corn looks like mini ears of corn and is orange and yellow coloured, made from corn syrup.

My boyfriend's mum went to America in September and brought me back a huge haul of candy and chocolates, including these candy corn M&Ms and a giant packet of candy corn marshmallows. I wanted to use them in baking and one good way to use marshmallows that sprang to mind is rocky road. Normally rocky road uses broken biscuits but I decided the hard candy casing of the M&Ms would give a similar crunch. I used milk chocolate for this as that was all I had, but it was very sweet so I would recommend using plain chocolate instead.

I based my recipe on Nigella's Rocky Road.

You need:
125g butter, softened
300g plain chocolate
3 tbsp. golden syrup
200g candy corn M&Ms, or similar, or broken up biscuits
100g marshmallows

Melt the butter and chocolate in a small pan then stir in the golden syrup and heat gently. Remove about half a cup of the mixture and set aside.

Stir in the M&Ms or biscuits and the marshmallows - chopped with scissors if large.

Line a 9 inch square tin with baking paper and pour in the chocolate mixture. Pour the reserved chocolate mixture over the top and spread roughly.

Chill in the fridge until set which will take at least two hours. When set, slice into squares.

My boyfriend was a very big fan of this but as mentioned I used milk chocolate and found it too sweet to eat more than a tiny bit at a time, which was probably a good thing!

                                                                                             
 I am sending this to Cook Blog Share, hosted by Lucy at SuperGoldenBakes, to share this recipe with other bloggers.

I am also sharing this with Let's Cook for Halloween, hosted by Simply Food.

These rocky road squares cookies are also perfect for the Treat Petite challenge, hosted by Kat at Baking Explorer and Stuart at Cakeyboi, as the theme is trick or treat.

I think these also fit the theme of comfort food, so I'm sending these to the Biscuit Barrel challenge, hosted by Laura at I'd Much Rather Bake Than.

Halloween is the theme for We Should Cocoa, so I am sending this to Hannah at Honey and Dough, who is hosting the challenge on behalf of Choclette at Chocolate Log Blog.

Pumpkin Spice M&M Halloween Cookies

 

 

Halloween candy is much more prevalent in the US and I received quite a haul of it when my boyfriend’s mum visited the States last month. I didn’t want to just eat the chocolates and sweets and prefer instead to bake with it (though we did already demolish a bag of caramel Hershey’s Kisses!). That has left me needing to do a lot of baking in the run-up to Halloween however!

 

After the success of my Reese’s Pieces cookies I decided to make something similar using these pumpkin spice flavour M&Ms.

 

 

 

They are not strongly flavoured and without reading the packet I wouldn’t have been able to tell the taste was pumpkin – so I decided to boost the flavour of the cookies with some extra canned pumpkin. I found this in the American foods aisle of my local (small) Tesco; you can use it as a pumpkin pie filling or for all sorts of other things.

 

 

 

The cookies are very simple to make, and since I used my American measuring cups I didn’t even need to find a recipe.

 

Makes 10-12 cookies

You need:

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup soft brown sugar

1 egg

1 cup plain flour

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

3 tbsp canned pumpkin puree

½ cup pumpkin spice flavour M&Ms

 

Preheat oven to 175C.

 

Mix the butter, sugar and egg in a bowl then fold in the flour and nutmeg. Mix in the canned pumpkin then stir in the M&Ms.

 

 

  

Line two baking sheets with greaseproof paper and place a heaped tablespoon of the mixture on the sheet per cookie. Press down a little to flatten the cookie. In retrospect I would flatten these quite a lot as mine didn't look all that much like cookies!

 

 

 

Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes then allow to cool.

 

 

These cookies were delicious – quite soft with a melt in the mouth texture. The M&Ms are like little hidden surprises, though the overall flavour of the pumpkin in the cookie wasn’t strong at all. Which might be a good thing as I’m not sure how I feel about cookies that taste too much of pumpkin!

 

 

I am sending this to Cook Blog Share, hosted by Lucy at SuperGoldenBakes, to share this recipe with other bloggers.

 

 

I am also sharing this with Let's Cook for Halloween, hosted by Simply Food.

 

 

These cookies are also perfect for the Treat Petite challenge, hosted by Kat at Baking Explorer and Stuart at Cakeyboi, as the theme is trick or treat.

To me, biscuits and cookies are comfort food, so I'm sending these to the Biscuit Barrel challenge, hosted by Laura at I'd Much Rather Bake Than.

The theme for this month's Tea Time Treats is cooking or baking with vegetables, and since there is pumpkin in these cookies I'm sharing this with Karen at Lavender and Lovage and Jane at The Hedgecombers.

 

Halloween is the theme for We Should Cocoa, but the recipe also needs to involve chocolate. Luckily these pumpkin spice M&Ms are chocolate! So I am sending this to Hannah at Honey and Dough, who is hosting the challenge on behalf of Choclette at Chocolate Log Blog.

 

 

 

Spinach, Cottage Cheese and Roasted Garlic Cannelloni

 I was trying to find ways to eat more vegetables and decided that spinach and ricotta cannelloni would be nice. I was browsing for recipes on the Slimming World website to see if there was a lower fat version and indeed I came across a recipe for spinach and cottage cheese cannelloni. It wasn't quite as nice but it works out as only one syn on Extra Easy so to me it's well worth making this instead of the full fat version.

To serve two, you need:

8-12 cannelloni tubes (the ones I used were quite small)

1 tbsp parmesan cheese

100g spinach leaves

125g fat-free natural cottage cheese

1/2 tsp grated nutmeg

1 egg yolk

250 ml passata

pinch of sweetener

1 garlic clove, roasted and the filling scooped out; or raw and crushed

salt, pepper

Preheat the oven to 180C. Bring a pan of water to the boil and cook the spinach leaves for a few minutes until they have wilted.

Drain the spinach in a colander and finely chop. I was amazed at how much it reduced down!

Mix the cottage cheese with a little seasoning, the nutmeg, garlic, egg yolk and the spinach.

Spoon into the cannelloni tubes and place them in a small baking tin lined with tin foil. The cannelloni tube on the right is meat, for my boyfriend (I'm not vegetarian so don't mind cooking the two together) - that's why it's a different colour!

Mix the sweetner and passata and pour over the cannelloni, making sure the pasta is completely covered.

Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until the pasta is soft.

Sprinkle over parmesan cheese if desired to serve.

I'm sending this to the One Ingredient Challenge, hosted by Nazima at Franglais Kitchen, and Laura at How To Cook Good Food, as the theme for January is "healthy".



Similarly the theme for Four Seasons Food this month is "virtuous". The challenge is hosted by Louisa at Eat Your Veg and Anneli at Delicieux.

 

 The theme for this month's Cheese Please is winter warmers - baked cannelloni is a great dish for a chilly winter's evening. The challenge is hosted by Fromage Homage.




Pasta Please is asking for recipes using garlic this month and I've used garlic in my cannelloni (though I forgot to take a photo of it!). The challenge is hosted this month by The Spicy Pear on behalf of  Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.



I am also sending this to Simply Food's Let's Cook... with green vegetables as I've used spinach here.

Indian Vegetable Curry

I made this vegetable curry for dinner on New Year's Day as I thought it would be a nice healthy start to the year (and I was cooking for my boyfriend's mum, who is vegetarian). The recipe comes from a book I picked up in the charity shop called The Creative Vegetarian Cookbook. I was surprised that the title was so generic, as curries are so popular these days they are always named after the region or have a proper name like bhuna, tikka masala etc, rather than just "Indian curry". I didn't think the book was that old even when I saw the publication date was 1996, until I remembered I was still at school that year and it was 18 years ago! So maybe the name can be excused.... in any case it was a very tasty dish. I haven't come across the use of milk in a curry before either - these days you are much more likely to see coconut milk, but if you use skimmed milk instead of coconut milk it's a good way of reducing the fat in a curry.

To serve 4, you need:
2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp mustard seeds
4 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 onion, finely choppped
half a pint of milk
oil for frying
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
400g tin of tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato puree
2 tsp brown sugar
1 vegetable stock cube dissolved in a little boiling water
vegetables: the suggestions in the recipe book were mushrooms, cauliflower, carrots, potatoes and okra, but I used cauliflower, butternut squash, red pepper and green beans.
2 tbsp fat free plain yogurt (not in the recipe; my own addition)

The recipe actually begins by telling you to grind the spices together to make a powder but since I didn't have cumin, mustard or coriander seeds I just used the ground spices in the first place. Fry the chopped onions in a large pan, add the spices, ginger and peppercorns and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring.

Add the milk and vinegar - the vinegar will make the milk look like it's split but the curry turned out fine.

Add tomatoes, tomato puree, sugar and stock. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for up to one hour - though I thought mine was thick enough after half an hour.

I par-boiled my butternut squash chunks and cauliflower florets and added them along with green beans and red pepper to the curry.

Simmer until the vegetables are cooked and thoroughly combined with the sauce.

I added a couple of tablespoons of low fat plain yogurt to make the curry creamier just before serving.

I served the curry in a large glass bowl so my guests could help themselves; I also had bowls of rice, naan bread and poppadoms on the table. It was a real Indian feast!

I'm sending this to the One Ingredient Challenge, hosted by Nazima at Franglais Kitchen, and Laura at How To Cook Good Food, as the theme for January is "healthy".

Similarly the theme for Four Seasons Food this month is "virtuous". The challenge is hosted by Louisa at Eat Your Veg and Anneli at Delicieux.

I am also sending this to Simply Food's Let's Cook... with green vegetables as there are green beans in this curry, you could also add broccoli or any other green veg.

Helen at Fuss Free Flavours is challenging us this month to include an extra portion of veg. This vegetable curry gives you several of your five a day, but if it's something you already make, how about adding one extra type of veg to normal?