This is a recipe on how to make chocolate rice crispy cakes. They are easy to make, but also very ‘morish’ and I have to resist eating too many, too quickly! This is how my wonderful girlfriend makes the cakes.

chocolate rice crispy cakes in a tray

Note: Children require help and supervision by an adult to makes these cakes, as it involves cooking on the hob and boiling water.

Ingredients:

• 300g milk chocolate flavoured cake covering (cooking chocolate)
• Approx 188g Rice Crispies / Snaps (188g was approx half a box of Tesco’s rice snaps)

milk chocolate cake covering

Additionally:

You will need paper cases, a big glass bowl, heatproof surface, saucepan not larger than the bowl (but the bowl able to safely sit in the saucepan), a wooden spoon and bun tin. Plus you need oven gloves or heatproof mittens.

paper cases

Step 1 – Melt the chocolate.

Poor hot water into a quarter of the saucepan and then put on the hob, using a low heat.

water in saucepan

Place the glass bowl onto the saucepan, making sure the water doesn’t touch the bottom of the bowl, then break up the chocolate and place into the bowl. The steam from the saucepan will gently melt the chocolate. You do not want to have your chocolate bubbling.

melting the chocolate

You need to continuously stir the chocolate as you don’t want to burn it. Once the chocolate is melted, turn the hob off. Now using a pair of heatproof mittens place the bowl onto a heatproof surface.

Step 2 – Mix in the rice crispies / snaps.

Now you need to slowly pour in the rice crispies / snaps in stages, making sure not to crush them and to evenly coat them in chocolate.

mixing in the rice crispies / snaps

Okay you probably will crush some, but take it slowly and you should be okay.

Step 3 – Place the mix into the paper cases.

Place the paper cases into their slots in a bun tin. Then using the wooden spoon fill each case with the chocolate rice crispy / snaps mixture.

chocolate rice crispy cakes in bun tin

Step 4 – Put in the fridge to set.

Now you can put the chocolate rice cripsy cakes into the fridge to set.

Et voilà!

Further information.

Once they have set we transfer them into a plastic sealed container and store in the fridge.

chocolate rice crispy cakes

They are lovely cold and are great accompanying a mug of tea!

This morning (Saturday) around 8:30am we decided to go for a stroll. We hadn’t eaten breakfast, but decided to take a few small chocolate bars (healthy I know) and a couple of bottles of water…. around five and a half hours later we returned home. The beauty that is on our doorstep engulfed us, and we actually only turned back because…. wait…. I’ll explain why further down.

Please forgive the darkness of the photos taken during the photo walk. The sun was actually out, but the batteries in the camera were low, which I think is why the photos look so dark. It was very warm and the sun was shining!

The beginning…..

Well not actually the beginning of the walk, but let’s start at the harbour and call it the beginning, which we eat a chocolate bar at, whilst watching the boats, hearing the underground train on route to the pier and watching the hovercraft.

Boats at the Harbour

The beach and then wildlife.

After strolling along the seafront, we took time to watch the wildlife.

The Beach

A brave women was feeding the swans, ducks and seagulls, which can be overwhelming.

Wildlife

The sand beneath our feet.

Next we walked onto the sand and as the tide was out, we strolled a bit further out, for instance seeing the driftwood and the seashell under water.

Tides Out

The tide was rapidly coming in, so we aired on caution and strolled closer to the front.

Shell underwater

Along the way we brought two teas, to takeaway from a seafront café that has just reopened for the tourist season.

Driftwood

The horses in the sea.

We strolled along a seawall, in front of green beach huts, then onto another stretch of beach, where we saw horses and riders enjoying a trot through the sea.

Horses trotting through sea

We sat on a sea defence wall for a while, enjoying bottled water and remaining food. By this time it had probably been almost couple of hours….. did we turn back? No, we carried on!

The seawall.

Onto another stretch of seawall and then through a lovely village, with a boating club.

Seawall path

Old houses and a lovely café, then onto another stretch of seawall…. but alas the path was blocked, as you can only carry on that path when the tide is out!

Turning back point

We could of probably found another route, but decided if we wanted to watch the rugby, we should turn back.

The journey home.

On the way back home we saw beautiful countryside, an old defence fort manned during World War 2, walked along more beach and visited the wildlife again.

Countryside

It was far hotter than the photos show and the sun was out, there was a lovely breeze, and it felt good to be walking along such a beautiful area.

The fort

There was even more on our walk, but I didn’t want to write an essay.

More Wildlife

A lovely walk and in the future I will share other walks on the blog.

I’ve loved homemade leek and potato soup since a young age. One of my grandmothers made it for me and my Mum also makes the soup.  Though I also do home cooking each week (including being able to make soup), my wonderful girlfriend for the last couple of years has also been making leek and potato soup. The soup is one of our favourites in colder weather, especially with fresh bread either homemade or from a bakery.

homemade leek and potato soup

So last weekend my girlfriend made her recipe for the healthy homemade vegetarian soup. We thought we would share the soup recipe with you. I apologise weights of items have not been included. We don’t have weighing scales for food.

Knorr stock granules, potatoes onions and leeks. Please note we used five potatoes, not four as seen in the photo.

A couple of years back it took some experimenting to find a great version. Firstly we are vegetarians so no animal stock was going to be used. The stock is extremely important and it took a few goes to find the right one. Secondly homemade leek and potato soup is a fine balance of the ingredients, add too many potatoes for instance, and you are in trouble. However once you know how to make it, it is far superior to shop brought soup, especially canned versions.

Note: Children should only make this with the supervision and help of an adult, as a knife and hob are used.

So this is how to make homemade leek and potato soup:

Ingredients:

• 8 Leeks
• 5 Medium sied Potatoes
• 5 Medium sized Onions
• 2 Heaped Tablespoons of Stock (we use Knorr Vegetable Stock Granules)
• Oil (we use rice bran oil)

Step 1 – Chop up the leeks and potatoes.

Wash the potatoes and leeks. Then peel the potatoes and chop them into small cubes. Next chop up the leeks, discarding both ends of the leeks.

chopped leeks

Step 2 – Cut the onions into small pieces and sweat.

Now it is time to peel the onions and then chop the onions into small pieces.

chopped onions

Place into a large pan, add some oil, then place the lid back on with a small gap and cook on the hob. Occasionally remove the lid and give them a stir, and cook on a hob until they are soft.

cooking the onions

They are being cooked further in a while, so please be careful not to overcook them, literally the minute they are soft, stop. You can now turn the hob off.

Step 3 – Make the stock.

Now it is time to make the stock. We recommend the Knorr Vegetable Stock Granules, but on this occasion we used their 25% less salt version, which although is nice, just doesn’t taste as good as the non-25% less granule version. The stock gives the soup its true personality, and can make or break the whole recipe.

making the vegetarian stock

Place two heaped tablespoons of the stock granules into a bowl and add one pint of hot water, stir well and then leave for five minutes. Then pour the stock into the large saucepan with the onions, and add two further pints of boiled water into the saucepan. Give it all a good stir.

Step 4 – Add the leek and potatoes to the saucepan.

Now it is time to add the leek and potatoes into the large saucepan with the rest of in the ingredients.

cooking the leek and potato soup

Give it all a stir and then cook on the hob until the leek and potatoes are soft. This will take approximately thirty minutes give or take.

Step 5 – Use a food blender to liquidise the soup.

Now you should let the soup go cold, which can take forever! Once it has gone cold, you need to blend the soup to liquidise it. We only have a small blender, so we do it in stages.

Et Voilà!

Serving suggestions.

We freeze the soup in containers, then reheat in a microwave. We will either have a bowl each for a starter or a lunch. Sometimes a couple of bowls each for a dinner, accompanied by bread. You might want to add black or white pepper, to suit your tastes.

My girlfriend and I recently joined Netflix and one of the missing features of the service, is a watch later list. I really don’t want to have to remember what I want to watch another day, plus I want quicker access to movies or tv shows I want to watch. As we watch Netflix via the web browser Mozilla Firefox, I decided to create a watch list using the browser’s bookmark features. Basically providing a bookmark folder viewable from the toolbar, allowing me to find an item’s Netflix page in two clicks. 

So a simple solution that means all my girlfriend and I have to do is bookmark something, we want to watch later, then access the items from a drop-down bookmark folder.

Netflix Watch Later List

Note: You do this at your own risk and I’m not to be held responsible for any repercussion.

Here is how I did it:

Step 1 – Make the ‘Bookmarks Toolbar’ viewable.

The Netflix watch list workaround uses a bookmark folder. So you from the ‘View’ menu, select ‘Toolbars’ and then ‘Bookmarks Toolbar’. If you don’t see a ‘View’ menu, then you probably can access menus by clicking on the word ‘Firefox’ in the top left with an orange background. It all depends on your setup.

Firefox - Selecting bookmarks toolbar

Step 2 – Create a new bookmark folder.

Now you need to create your watch list folder. Right click on the bookmarks toolbar, then select ‘New Folder…’ and give it a name. i.e. Netflix Watch Later List. Now your new bookmark folder will appear in the toolbar.

Firefox - Creating a new bookmark folder

That’s it!

So if you see something you like, you just visit the Netflix page for the movie or tv show, bookmark it into your watch later folder, ready to access at a later date from the toolbar. The only difference to normal bookmarking, is that my instructions show you how to place the Netflix bookmark folder in your toolbar area.