Can I borrow some eggs?

After I made my fabulous tuna and hummus wraps I decided to move onto something a little sweeter.
I won't try to deny it, I didn't make these from scratch. I bought a Betty Crocker box of cookie mix (as mentioned earlier) because I wasn't ready for two failures in baked goods quite so soon.
So I set up my ingredients for what I needed, only to realize that the cucumber disaster had come back to haunt me in the form of no eggs! Unlike the cucumber, I definitely needed the egg for this recipe, so off to Woolworths I went...again.

Being such a typical girl I didn't buy just the one thing I needed, and instead I came back with an extra two cooking magazines, they were only $3 each - don't judge me! But the important thing is I didn't forget the eggs this time.

 This recipe is incredibly simple so there was no way I could screw it up. I preheated my oven to 180 degrees and put my ingredients in a bowl. Here you can see the Betty Crocker mix plus my BYO ingredients, butter & an egg. 

The recipe asked to mix with my hands. The bowl was definitely an awkward height and trying to set up a camera to photograph your greasy cookie hands was a challenge, but the feeling was awesome! So squidgy and delicious. I had to have a taste (I washed my hands after, don't stress!)

The next step was to squish them into little balls and press them down with the spoon. I had heaps of batter so I did this on two separate trays rather than form one giant cookie - actually that's not a bad idea. Maybe next time!

I had to cook them for 13-15 minutes depending on the oven apparently, and at the 10 minute mark I noticed that they were looking pretty golden already, so I quickly re-read the box and realized that there were two pre-heat options. 180 for an oven and 160 for fan forced. I was using fan forced. 

So I quickly turned the heat down and left them in for a minute longer, then yanked those babies out of the oven and let them cool and set. 

Apart from the little mishap they ended up being DELICIOUS which you'd hope so for box mix. I shared them around and work and everyone was none the wiser and texted me in compliments later on that night. Job well done I say

bon apetit!

harper.
p.s turns out there were actually eggs in the cupboard already.

What I learnt-
- When looking for ingredients and before running off to Woolworths, check both the fridge AND the pantry
- Always read the recipe, and for me, read it twice
- Taking the cookies out just before they are too golden and letting them set on a wire cooling tray stops the cookies from drying out and leaves them moist and tasty

Can I borrow a cucumber?

Today I woke up after a bingey eating weekend consisting mainly of chocolate. So I Google "healthy easy recipes" some time after breakfast. I sift and sift through hundreds of recipes and come across something I seem to have most of the ingredients for. A healthy tuna and hummus wrap - no problems! Without checking my cupboard and fridge and with dire anticipation I head up to the local Woolworths and set myself on a mission. Shopping list:

- Tuna
- Hummus
- Semi dried tomatoes
- Fresh mint & parsley

Well, I think to myself, seems I didn't have most of the ingredients at home. Oh well. Now I tried to bake brownies the other day but I wasn't particularly proud of them and considered them as a ride off, so in redemption I decide to make choc chip cookies (I tried to stay away from chocolate okay?) Out of a box though, I'm not ready to be doing this all manually obviously after the brownie fiasco. So I grab a Betty Crocker box and check the back. Butter? Check. One egg? Check.
Great! Time to head home. Processing my groceries in the check out and feeling like a champ, I'm now officially hungry and looking forward to these wraps.
When I get home and re-read the recipe (which I had on my iPhone at the store) it calls for baby spinach and cucumber as well. I check the fridge and find baby spinach (complete luck) but no cucumber! Even though I recall having a cucumber bought only 2 days ago. Maybe someone had the cucumber munchies.
So I spread out my fresh food and start to make my wrap, it looked something like this

Then after adding the hummus, tuna, baby spinach, semi dried tomatoes and garnished with mint and parsley, it looked like this

 Now to fold the damn thing. I've never been an expert in wrapping wraps. I eat a lot of them and I feel that I should have acquired this skill by now but it's just not coming too me. I think its a born and bred thing. 
But this is how i went about it anyway. Step 1.

 Step 2.

 Step crap. The damn thing broke at the bottom,

 I tried to get a photo of it nicely but it just wouldn't stay wrapped!!!!! I'd like to say this was my wrap

But this was my wrap.

 In the end they were delicious so I didn't mind so much that I couldn't get a good photo of it. Another photographer once told me that sometimes if you can't get the photo, or you miss a shot, to just embrace and enjoy the moment for what it is. So that's exactly what I did.
However I did feel that it lacked that certain crunch factor without the cucumber. I tidied up, put all the groceries away and prepared for my cookie bake off by looking in the fridge to get some eggs. Guess what I couldn't find?
Eggs.
Guess what I did find?

Yep.
bon apetite!
harper

What I learnt:
- Look in the fridge before you leave home!
- Look again
- Perhaps softer or larger wraps should be acquired to prevent wrap breakage

Can I borrow some rosemary?

So with the new challenge in mind what did I decide to cook first off? A roast. Yep. A long winded, long ass, millions of ways to cook a roast, roast.
I was staying at my boyfriends and said to him "Won't it be fun if we cook something together?"
"Sure" he replies. So off we set to our local Coles to pick up some goodies for this roast. I had my heart set on beef, so headed straight to the beef section. Unknowingly picking this recipe I didn't realize that 1kg of beef works out at around $30. Now only working at night and not for very much per hour I find that this is WAY out of my budget. Next stop - chicken.
How do I choose a chicken? A big chicken or a little chicken? An Inghams chicken or a Coles chicken? A stuffed chicken or an emptied cavity chicken? Why are there so many types of damn chickens?! I can't remember what I got in the end.
Potatoes, pumpkin, garlic, onion and carrot were my vegetables of choice. I also bought 2 tomatoes which I didn't even end up using.
As mentioned earlier I'm obviously not a cook. So being a person born in the technological age, I started Googling how long I should cook my chicken. Jamie Oliver says 1 hour and 20, others say 45 minutes, some people even specifically cook their chicken for 1 hour 22 minutes and 35 seconds - I'm way in over my head here. Not to mention I haven't a clue how long to cook the vegetables for. So my next step after being failed by Google and its millions of results is to text my dad. It went something like this
Me - "If I cook a roast chicken for an hour, long long til I should put the vegetables in?"
Dad - "Now"
I can tell he isn't going to be much help.
After venting my frustrations to my patient boyfriend he says we should just wing it (enjoy that pun)
The journey home was short and I warned him that it was a long cooking experience. He didn't like the sound of that so I fed him a timtam and popped him in front of the TV.
Okay so I have the chicken, I cut it out of its bag and squirm a little over the squidgyness of the beast. I drizzled it in oil, covered it in salt, pepper & rosemary and massaged it all over. I then put some oil in the base of a pan, broke open my garlic into bulbs and let them run free in the pan with my chicken. Oh, I also read from Jamie Oliver to put a lemon up the "cavity" so I did. And that was a first. In the end of this ordeal, the meal looked something like this:

So far so good. 

The next step is to chop my vegetables. After seeing my dad do this a couple of times I very vaguely remember him saying to chop the veggies quite large, so I do this.
45 minutes goes past and once again according to Mr. Oliver I look at my chicken and see its already super brown on top. I poke it with a knife and juices start coming out! Looks really good so far! But then I freak out. Is the chicken almost done?! What about the veggies?! We can't have a chicken without the vegetables. Crap crap crap!
So in a fluster of worry, without microwaving or boiling the vegetables first I just pop them in the pan (raw) and quickly shove it back in the oven (note the stabbing mark on the chicken)

I think it was at around an hour and a half that the chicken was looking mighty cooked and I decided that my vegetables would just have to do. In the end they still tasted really nice but the pumpkin was a little soggy, I didn't end up eating the onion because I was so full on potatoes which were delicious but not crunchy and the carrot was probably perfect - so that's a plus!

The boyfriend was incredibly happy with my meal and managed to top off 3/4 of the chicken - to say he was hungry is a massive understatement. I didn't end up getting a nice presentable picture of my chicken because when I cut it up I made a big old mess, so here's what it looked like when it came out all finished 

All up I'm pretty impressed with myself and this roast dinner, I think its a good sign. 

bon apetite! 

harper.

What I learnt:

- Microwave or boil at least the potatoes before roasting them

- Don't cook a roast on an empty stomach

- Pick a green vegetable to brighten up the plate some more

Can I borrow...

Hello cooking world! This is Harper and it's just fine and dandy to meet you.
Let me give all you foodies out there a little background knowledge! I'm a young Sydney-sider, currently in between career paths, jobs and well, everything really. I have recently been sitting on my tantalizing couch watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S episodes back to back and eating tuna out of a can and an occasional scoop of ice cream from my fine selection.
Although I do have a job, it's at night. Which leaves me with approximately 8 hours a day to hang out with my friends (the characters I mean) After recently taking up knitting whilst listening to a bit of Sinatra I got an "inter-frention" by one of my nearest and dearest who suggested starting a blog along the lines of that movie "Julie and Julia" the only difference being that I am not a cook. In fact, I'm a born and bred "un-cook" (if there is such a thing). I can burn water, I can screw up a macaroni and cheese out of a box and once I tried to boil spaghetti in cold water - are you getting the picture?
I feel like with all this spare time every week (going on 40 hours) I may as well take up this challenge and hopefully become a fine ass homemaker that someone will wife eventually!
I look forward to sharing pictures, stories and delicious (hopefully!) food with you along the way.