Glasgow Gastronaut

I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t been able to post so much on the blog, and instead I’ve been more active on my Instagram. But I’d really like to take the blog on more and find my voice and I couldn’t find a more fitting thing to talk about than my love of the cookie with a recipe thrown in for good measure.

When I was a little girl a family friend used to make THE best USA style cookies, I spent years trying to replicate this and never ever could, partly because food memories are experiences more than taste and partly because I never knew the real recipe, years later my mum gave it to me with the “secret ingredient” as a Christmas present – the secret ingredient turned out to be CRISCO…. I don’t need to explain myself – it was the 90s. They are still the best cookies I ever had.

Since then I have regularly made cookies; different styles – but the Millie’s style is my favourite. My mum used to make a dessert that I liked to call the Seven Seas (or Seven C’s) basically a chilled cookies; coffee; cream; chocolate; cake with Cadbury sprinkles. A messy messy dessert but so delicious.

Don’t even get me started on cookie dough! Remove the egg and voila you’ve got yourself a post workout snack – roll it into a ball and dip it in cocoa powder. So much you can do with cookie dough – cookie dough brownies; ice cream; cookie dough protein bites; cookie dough-nuts – less nomclature and more nommmmmclature!

I spent so many years developing in gluten free and vegan and I loved it – so obviously I had to make cookies to boot and I’ve spent time perfecting this as well. You can find the recipe for this here

  GLUTEN FREE & VEGAN COOKIES

  I made double chocolate cookies with a marshmallow centre this weekend for Mothers Day. My mum was needless to say delighted and they didn’t last long! They make such a lovely gift and they are really easy to make! Marshmallow is definitely one of my favourite things ever to make and I honestly suggest you give it a go – you can find the recipe for this here

Double Chocolate Cookies recipe:

125g butter

100g light brown sugar

125g caster sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

200g self raising flour

20g cocoa powder/cacao powder

1/2 teaspoon of salt

200g chocolate chips

Method:

In a mixer cream the butter and sugars; add the egg and vanilla then add the dries. Easy! I rolled mine into small balls the size of maybe a truffle, that would fit into the crevice of your palm and patted these out with a fork – I then popped chocolate chunks on top so that they looked more aesthetically pleasing and also more chocolatey!! Bake in a preheated oven for 7-9 minutes – I PROMISE they don’t need anymore time than that! They make look gooey and underdone when they come out but trust me they are still cooking! So leave them be, unless a pesky hand (ie my boyfriend) tries to steal them while they are HAWT.

This recipe is awesome, because you just need to adapt it slightly to make different versions, for example to make a plain cookie – just use 225g self raising flour instead of adding cocoa powder. Or for oatmeal and raising, use 190g self raising flour and 35g rolled oats, with about 150g raisins. Simple!

To make the sandwiches – I made the cookies first and allowed them to cool while I made the mallow, when the mallow was made and still warm I added a little natural colour and some cherry juice and it made it go lovely and pink! 🙂 Maybe I should do a video blog of me making mallow haha! Would you like that idea? Let me know!!

I hope you give some of these recipes a try and I look forward to hearing how you get on! I am hoping lovely readers to make some big changes over the coming months in line with my plans for my own business and for the future of my blog. I’ve been doing this now for six months, I love it but I just not very savvy! I am trying to learn as fast as I can and find my voice. I hope you enjoy my content and hope to bring more fun blogs your way soon!

There’s so many things I want to do, video blog; podcast and to fix the layout on my blog, but I am taking one step at a time. I am currently working on splitting my blogs into a few different channels. I love food in all capacity but I also cater for development of healthier alternatives, and recently the two just haven’t sat well together? So I am working on rebranding, if anyone can offer advice on this then do get in touch. I am a new business owner and I am already taking on clients and loving it. I also have plans afoot for my own brand of products, but just don’t know where that’s going to go just yet! I just need to focus my attention where I can and allow things to fall into place – I can be seriously impatient! if anyone has any tips on vlogs; podcasts and on layouts then please hook a gastronaut up! Or if anyone would like a collaboration – also send me a message 🙂 I’d love to hear from you,

Lots of Love,

Glass Gastronaut  xx

Fajita Friday. That’s a wrap!

It’s Friday, let’s have some fun! That’s a wrap! RAP BOY RAP! For the last few months, Friday night has meant one thing. Fajitas! In one way or another I’ve been making wraps of some description, home made guacamole, salsa, and chicken with a home made spicy sauce of some sort. Just when I moved and when I really needed a quick fix I got a lovely parcel from a business I’ve been closely following…

Pitlochry & Knockendarroch Hotel

Snow and I are developing quite the relationship! A few weeks ago I got stuck on the M74 motorway for hours sitting still during a white out of snow! Then last week I got stuck again!! It doesn’t help that my work involves travel. I recently started working in Aberdeen and I had to set off at 5.30am on Monday morning, so it was an early night, packed up and ready to go – and low and behold I woke…

  When I was a little girl I loved rhubarb season so much – the pretty pink colour; the flavour – dipping it into sugar…. Oh man it brings back so many happy memories! I simply can’t walk past it in the shops. I picked up a stack a few weeks ago, and I have been working my way through it. So far I’ve made rhubarb smoothies; rhubarb jam and rhubarb rice pudding (yummm!) This morning I decided to…

Ring ring – it’s your metabolism on the phone, it’s asking for you to make this recipe packed full of metabolism boosting; system cleansing; mood enhancing mega muffin! My cupboards don’t half accumulate some amount of ingredients! So when I moved house last week to a more rural setting, and to the worlds tiniest kitchen… I discovered all these weird and wonderful things that I had stock piled in…

Diamond Life, Lover boy He move in space with minimum waste and maximum joy. If you hadn’t already gathered I am a sucker for a soundtrack. If you follow me on Instagram (or IG…) you’ll know I am crazy for a smoothie! I recently bought a breville smoothie maker and I am hooked! Every evening I am already eying up the fruit bowl or the freezer and planning the next days smoothie and my smoothies…

“I’ll stop the world and melt with you!” (Melt chocolate that is!) I have the best moving house soundtrack ever. How can you be unhappy when you’ve got a killer soundtrack? Sometimes I listen to music (loud) and imagine its the soundtrack to a film about me. There’s nothing narcissistic in that – I’ve taken the online tests…. In this case, my story is pretty insane, which I will save for another…

Love Your Heart – Strawberry Cheesecake (Suitable for Vegans)

My heart was racing – spurring me on; beating praise and thanks for what stood before me – rich and dreamy in demeanour just gazing at it made my eyes sparkle! Red, luscious and shiny and heading straight for my lips…. I held my breathe and leaned in! No it’s not the opening paragraph of E.L. James latest novel. It’s me enjoying a slice of this vegan cheesecake. Packed with heart health…

Who said healthy had to be boring?! Part of my job within the food industry is to work with companies to formulate and develop recipes to improve their health benefits, or bring their products in line with government targets – for example salt and sugar. This is of particular focus in Scotland where tackling the obesity crisis is at the forefront of the governments agenda in Health. For me…

Starting 2018 on a high – a sugar high that is! We actually had this in 2017 just before the bells because I set the intention to put some more healthy options onto my blog this year as I have oodles of healthier versions of things. Nutrition is so important to me, but so is the enjoyment of food, and commensality. Nutrition is not just about what goes into your body and the nutrients involved,…

Ahhhh the shopping apocalypse. Otherwise known as the space between Christmas and New Year. Disorientating meander round the shops. Empty shelves; out of date products; staff and customers alike dead behind the eyes wandering aimlessly. No inspiration for dinner; still full from Christmas over indulgence. Our supermarket visit went like this – “Should we have steak?” He says – I look at the empty…

Ranjit’s Kitchen needs no introduction – family run businesses serving Panjabi classics to the Glasgow South side massive (and beyond) since 2015. Shame on me it’s been a few years since I’ve frequented this place but a catch up with old friend rectified that! I used to run quite a lot through the south side and often wanted to stop in on my way back and order the sweet nutty spheres coated in…

Positivity is the propeller of good fortune! ❤ Sometimes though it’s easier said than done. I can sometimes feel a little more worry-er and I want to be a little more warrior! I believe authenticity and honesty is the best policy therefore I am happy to admit that recently, lovely readers I have felt a bit down in the dumps – like I wasn’t getting anywhere and it’s been tough, I am not going to…

Ermagerd! Cherry Bakewell rocks my world. I made this recently and sent a blanket text to a few friends and family members who immediately replied it is their hands down favourite tart. I am inclined to agree! Not only do I enjoy scoffing a bakewell, but I love making it. So many components and that’s one of my favourite things – something that requires a good bit of prep and a teensy bit of…

We were so excited to see they were coming to Glasgow South Side for one week housed in the old “Ketchup” restaurant. Our taxi nearly drove past it! It looks all boarded up but inside it’s anything but closed – the dim light beaming through a seal in the boards. WOO!

We had a fantastic evening and the team are so welcoming and friendly and you can just tell how passionate they were about their food. Enthusiastic about their experiences they would sit with us and describe in detail the story behind the dish and the flavours. We loved every minute.

The food is amazing. A seven course tour de force round the world. This restaurant is only open in Glasgow until next Thursday (21.12.17) – we asked if there were any spaces left and there’s hardly any so if you want to go get in quick, I honestly recommend it as a unique experience. It’s £75 per head and worth every penny. In addition it’s BYOB (we brought waaay too much and it showed in our patter which quickly descended into a pun-tastic tour de blablabla).

Here is my run down of the highlights from the evening!

We started with aubergine bread from Oman with hummous, baba ganoush and roasted garlic this was delicious almost like brioche and full of flavour. There was four people at our table and we got two of these lovely loaves to tear and share and I actually started tucking into the boys portion of bread whilst they were chatting. Whoops – it was just so morish!

Next up was Congee from China, a flavourful broth which was made using pearl barley instead of porridge which we were told was the more traditional method. This had scallops on top, these were so delicate!! I absolutely downed this, I couldn’t stop. YUM!

We then had a beef jerky or Biltong a dried cured meat from South Africa this was served with hazelnut butter and beetroot. WOW, the presentation was amazing. My friend actually doesn’t like beef jerky style products but she was pleasantly surprised and loved this one!

We then had paneer from India, which was served with little popadom style biscuits and with a tomato broth. After this we had pork belly from Vietnam, this was a moment that I will savour forever. Tucking into this tender, buttery slice of pork belly with lettuce and my memory goes hazy there was a dip of some sort! I was completely swept away with the flavour of the pork. I mean if you could bottle memories I’d have this one always.

Desserts wise we had a tapioca with lemongrass and tamarind dish and a pumpkin and granola bowl which had been frozen which apparently cooks the pumpkin! It was a refreshing finish. ❤ We enjoyed this so much.

I felt like I was part of something special happening and I know that maybe sounds a bit paneer-y but it was a privilege to hear the stories they shared with us. More people need to know about this group and I hope wherever you are in the world you get the opportunity to go.

Glasgow Gastronaut ❤

Recipe: Perfect Pavlova (It’s gotta be – so PAVLO!)

A few years ago, my boyfriend at the time and I moved into an old tenement flat in the south side of Glasgow and by pure serendipitous chance his brother and wife bought the flat above us around the same time! We got on so well and those days were some of the best days of my life for popping in for cups of tea, impromptu wine evenings putting the world to rights, rum evenings putting disco on,…

As a city dweller, I have access to pretty much anything at anytime that I need and it’s just a case of quickly nipping out! But this week I find myself in the sticks watching my mum and dads dog whilst they peruse the Christmas markets of Vienna! Lucky pups. It is so cold, but I’ve had the log burner on and it feels really cosy. Apart from amazing long walks through the country side with Missy…