Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Easy Peasy!


These little buck eyes are something I have been wanting to make for ages. They are essentially like little peanut butter truffles – the perfect treat for a peanut butter lover like me. I actually made them to take as a thank you gift to friends for dinner on Sunday night. My friend loves peanut butter too so I thought she would like these.

The recipe is pretty basic – combine 1 ½ c icing sugar with 1/2c peanutbutter and then mix in 50g melted butter. Yes, not exactly the weight watchers special, but yummy! I found the best thing to mix the ingredients with was my hands. You then chill the mixture, roll into balls, chill again and half dip in chocolate. Absolutely delicious and so easy.



Another easy thing is this quick pasta dish I made for dinner last week. Pasta is always my stand by for when I am home from work late or have to make dinner in a hurry. This particular dish is broccoli and rocket pesto pasta. Sometimes I like to make rocket pesto instead of the traditional basil. I don’t know about you, but I often end up with a small amount of rocket left in the bottom of one of those pre-washed bags and it normally gets thrown out after being left a few days to turn into sludge. One way of using it up is to make pesto in the same way you make basil pesto, using the rocket instead of basil. I find that the rocket makes a lovely light peppery pesto, rather than the sometimes cloying flavour that basil pesto sometimes has.



So, the pasta dish is just pasta tossed with broccoli florets (cooked with the pasta in its last three minutes of cooking time), pesto and scattered with parmesan cheese. I actually used the end of two different types of pasta, which is why yuo can see oriechette and tagliatelle mixed in there. I wouldnt do that for guests, but I dont mind if it's just the two of us!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Buck eyes are well-loved where I'm from :), I love how easy to whip up these recipes they are (and that they don't skimp on flavor!).

Anonymous said...

Agree with you about rocket pesto Tammy. I have 8 huge clumps of rocket at the moment flourishing away in garden - wish I could send you some so you don't have to buy it. I often make some into pesto and for many dishes I actually prefer using it to the basil or parsley version. I always make pesto in my mortar tho - never the processor. I think it gives a nicer colour and flavour - and I just loved using it - makes me feel like a chef - grin. Here's to a lovely weekend - I'm not working so looking forward to some time in garden. Hope your renovations are coming along AOK. Raewyn

Snooky doodle said...

Wow yummy surely I won t make these though they ll end up all in my tummy before anyone has a chance to look at them :)

Jacque said...

Your buckeyes are so darn cute! Much cuter than most I've seen.

We have a buckeye tree in our back yard... for years, my son and I make a sport of throwing the buckeyes down into the creek at the bottom of our yard. Buckeyes fall by the millions it seems. Anyway, I think it's kind of amusing that I've never actually made buckeye candy.

Maybe you've inspired me, LOL.

Cakelaw said...

You have some very lucky people who receive your edible gifts. The buck eyes (new to me!) are very cute.