car engine cooking...

About two years ago Sazzle and I were going on a road trip to the circus. Sazzle was driving and I was to be her co driver. She even prepared some light reading for the journey which included instructions and ideas for cooking food on a car engine.

Unfortunately the journey we were making wasn't really long enough to cook a pork tenderloin (although if you include all the time we spent lost, tearing around country lanes we probably would have managed some sausages), but I have always said someday I would get around to trying this car engine cooking. I'm now almost ready to hop on a plane and head to New Zealand so I decided to revisit this plan as we will be spending a week travelling in a campervan.

I'm not too sure if I'd be brave enough to try some chicken or pork but maybe a piece of steak or some roasted veggies might be good. Something that we're less likely to get food poisoning from if it's not cooked 100% through. The concept is pretty easy. At least three layers of tin foil and make sure everything is wrapped up good and tight. Then make sure the food parcel is put on the hottest part of the engine to ensure you get the best out of your drive. You need to make sure the parcel is really secure aswell as you don't want it moving about once you start driving.

Maybe I'm taking on too much here and we might just stick to beans and two minute noodles after all...

trick or treats...

So I know that around this time of year in almost every restaurant, cafe and bakery there will be pumpkin inspired recipes on every menu and blackboard. I like pumpkin, but there's only so much pumpkin soup or pumpkin pie that one can eat, so I went in search of a pumpkin recipe that I hadn't tried or even heard of before and I think I came up with a real gem.

It's fair to say I'm a bit of a chocoholic, so this one satisfies both my chocolate desires while also using the delicious pumpkin that is up for grabs everywhere right now.

Pumpkin and Nutella muffins

Ingredients:

2 cups of all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
1/2 a teaspoon of salt
1 cup of canned pumpkin
1/2 a cup of granulated sugar
1/2 a cup of brown sugar
1 large egg
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
2 tablespoons of milk
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract (not essence)
nutella, yum, if you're like me you will use a lot.

1. Preheat the oven to 190°/ 350°F/ Gas mark 4.
2. Line a muffin tray with liners or if your using a silicone muffin tray there is no need to use the liners.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, bicarbonate of soda and the salt together
4. In large bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, sugar, and brown sugar. Beat in the egg, vegetable oil, milk and vanilla extract.
5. Slowly add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and whisk until there are no lumps.
6. Fill the muffin trays until they are 3/4 full.
7. Top each muffin with about 1 teaspoon of Nutella and use a toothpick to swirl it into the batter. If the nutella is quite hard pop the jar in the microwave for a few seconds to soften it a little. If like me you love nutella then why not pop some nutella into the middle of each muffin too before filling the muffin tray.
8. Bake muffins for 14-16 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
9. Serve warm but do be careful as the nutella will be hot after cooking so be sure to allow enough cooling time.

These are delicious served with hot chocolate too. Mmm very Autumnal.

Enjoy.