Garlic and Rosemary Polenta Chips

Hello!

Finally all of my university work has been handed in and my exams are done!!

Undergraduate degree over!!!

I can't believe it! And I'm not really sure what to do with myself from now until October, when I go back to university to do my Masters degree.

Posting on my blog a bit more sounds like a good place to start!!

I have recently been to the Jamie Oliver restaurant in Cardiff, Jamie's Italian.

They have polenta chips there, which are very nice!! They do polenta chips or regular chips with rosemary and garlic. 

I saw a packet of pre-made polenta in the supermarket the other day, and had instant cravings for the polenta chips from Jamie's restaurant. 

Only I decided to combine his 2 flavours of chips for an ultimate polenta chip!

Recipe:

- Polenta (pre-made or make up your own)

- 2 garlic cloves 

- Rosemary (I used fresh, but dried will be fine)

- Olive oil

- Salt

        

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

2. I started off by peeling and slicing the garlic cloves, chopping the rosemary and sprinkling salt all over the tray.

3. Cover with a drizzle of olive oil, or any oil. Mine looks white because I used Fry Light's spray olive oil.

4. Cut the polenta into chip-sized wedges. Thick or thin, its personal preference!

5. Roll the chips around on the tray and turn them to coat them in the garlicy rosemary salty goodness.

6. Pop them in the oven for 25-30 minutes, and turn them once after 15 minutes.

The polenta chips should come out looking golden and crispy!

Now that I have opened the bag, I need to find something else to do with polenta. Polenta is quite new to me, so I'm not sure what else I can do. Any ideas?

Zoe x

Carrot Cupcakes

Carrot cake is lovely. When we lived in Dubai, we would go for lunch at a cafe called The Lime Tree Cafe, and we could never go there without ordering a piece of carrot cake, either to eat there or take home. It was a good day when there were 3 boxes in the fridge with slices of carrot cake in!

So after not seeing any carrot cupcakes around, I decided to make some of my own :)

These were yummy cupcakes, but I messed up the icing, so I haven't put pictures of the iced cakes up.

Recipe:

Cupcake:

- 175g light brown sugar

- 150ml vegetable oil

- 2 large eggs

- 200g self-raising flour

- 2 tsp cinnamon

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- Zest of 1 orange

Icing:

- 300g full fat cream cheese

- 50g icing sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Line a muffin tray with 12 cupcake cases.

2. Add all of the ingredients into a bowl and mix together. 

3. Spoon the mix into the cases, and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes.

4. While the cakes are in the oven, mix the cream cheese and icing sugar together. I decided to beat mine in a mixer, then it went really runny, so just gently mix it in a bowl by hand. 

5. When the cakes have cooled, decorate with the icing.

Okay, here is a little picture of the cakes with icing and a sprinkling of glitter. I don't think the glitter made the cakes look any better unfortunately!

Zoe x