Mini Toffee Apple Pies

Ummmmm did someone hit the fast forward button on this year?
How is it that Easter is next week and we are almost a quarter of the way through 2014 already!??

This year was always going to be a doozy.  It's my 5th year of medical school and it is the year with The Exams.

Yip the Finals.

I liken this year to one of those hydro-slides at the swimming pools. You know, the ones that look like a colourful tube of fun times?  Sure, it looks like fun from a distance until it sucks you in,  going waaaaaay faster than you'd anticipated, making you loose your orientation and tumble turn all the way to the other end where it spits you, bruised and gasping for breath.

Welcome to 5th year med school.  Do not pass go do not collect $200.

Ok ok it's not all bad.  It is actually fun for the most part and interesting and I'm learning heaps.  My first run this year was Orthopaedics with its insane amount of cool gadgets and power tools, mind blowing surgeries and awesome banterous surgeons.  In surgery, the boss would often ask for his scalpel, then pliers, then the power drill.  Power drill.  In a surgery.  Crazy talk.  Seriously some of the coolest surgeries I've seen.

So to say thank you for being an incredible bunch of people, teaching me heaps, and letting me do cool stuff, I baked these Mini Toffee Apple Pies for Team Ortho out at Hutt Hospital.

Since at the moment almost every waking minute is either spent at the hospital or studying, my brain is too fried to handle too complicated recipes. So this recipe is stupid easy.  And also stupid good.

{status of my brain}
via here

Guilt-free chocolate mousse with boysenberry jelly

Fact: This chocolate mousse has no cream in it. 

I know right? Mind blowing.

There had been a lot of water cooler chatter about chocolate mousse recipes at work in the last little bit.  Debs had been trialling out chocolate mousse recipes for dinner parties and the lovely Shanti had recently made the Hervé This Chocolate and Water Mousse.  I had chocolate mousse on my brain.

I wasn't brave enough to tackle the chocolate and water mousse (maybe next time) but it did set me on the track to find a not-so-sinful-but-still-decadent chocolate mousse recipe.

Enter the celebrated Raymond Blanc OBE and his Chocolate Mousse Maman Blanc.

Kung Hei Fat Choi everyone!  Happy Lunar New Year!

Wishing you and your loved ones health and happiness in 2014.

Hope you have a smooth course through the rest of the year and may your year of the Horse be a galloping success!

Homemade peppermint patties a.k.a. After-dinner mints a.k.a. A Minty Mess

I think I've lost my baking mojo.

This is the first weekend we've had at home since the middle of December. We've been jetting up and down the country for tramping, Christmas, and weddings and somewhere along the line I think my baking mojo went on holiday.

Happy 2014!

Happy New Year awesome people!

Here's to a happy, healthy, yum-filled 2014!

Ended the year with the most epic Argentinian barbeque New Year's Eve party.   Big slabs of beef, short ribs, sausages, black pudding, chicken, and even sweetbreads sizzling over glowing embers and served with zesty chimichurri sauce.

Merry Christmas 2013!

Make peanut butter caramel fudge - tick
Bake shortbread - tick
Bake sweet potato pie - tick
Make salad and grab meat for the barbie - tick
Wrap presents - tick
Go to Midnight Mass - tick 
Crank up the Christmas carols on the stereo - tick
Make sure tummy is ready for the eatathon ahead - tick tick tick

Now all there's left to do is to wish you all the merriest of Christmases!!

Wishing you and your whanau love, joy, and deliciousness this festive season. 
Hope you get to spend it in the company of friends, family, and loved ones.

Whatever is beautiful and meaningful for you, and whatever brings you happiness, may it be yours this Christmas.

Wishing you a togethery and remembery Christmas filled with love.

Meri Kirihimete.

Christmas noms: Cinnamon shortbread

Leaving your Christmas baking till last minute too?
 
We've just come back from an epic five day tramping trip down in Nelson Lakes which meant we had to be really organised early on for Christmas this year or we'd have to do everything last minute.

Three guesses for which option ended up happening. 

Luckily, I had an inkling we might not get our act together and tried out this recipe for Cinnamon Shortbread the Baking for Hospice Christmas round beforehand just so I had some last minute Christmas baking ideas up my sleeve.

Christmas noms: Peanut butter caramel fudge

Not to get all Nigella on you or anything but this stuff is like crack.  (Too soon??)

It’s creamy, salty-sweet, peanutty perfection. And so gosh darn addictive it really should be illegal. Oh, and did I mention it only takes like 10 minutes to make? Stop it!

I made it for the Baking for Hospice Christmas round just been and found myself “tasting” a substantial amount of it. Just to quality check it of course.

I don't even usually like fudge.  Usually it's too sweet and crumbly and just like eating a sugar cube, but these puppies are chewy and creamy and the peanut butter gives it a salty sweet edge making them ridiculously easy to eat.

To be honest I just could not stop shovelling this stuff into my face.  Yes, I went a bit nuts over it.

Peanut Butter Caramel Fudge, why you so good?