HOT DOG PARTY

What a great way to celebrate my 17th birthday with a Posh Hot Dog party, local free range outdoor reared pork made in to pork and apple Happy Sausages, home made brioche Hot dog buns and for the fixings see my menu!

My Posh Hot Dog Menu

Me and mum learnt all about Hot Dog history, how the German immigrants in America served a sausage called a dachshund in a bun then a famous cartoonist for a paper drew a sketch of the hot dog and as the story goes he wasn’t sure how to spell dachshund so he drew the dachshund dog in a bun and Ta-Da the term hot dog was coined!  Also we learnt that 18th July is National Hot Dog Day too.

Menu

My Hot Dog history lesson continues as I learnt that each state has their own iconic Hot Dog Recipe so I put my favourite on my Posh Hot Dog party menu, the create your own fixings were fried onions, chilli beef, cheese, bacon, sauerkraut, jalapeños, dill pickles, raw onion, mayo, chipotle mayo, tomato ketchup, hot dog mustard and Coney Island Beavers Mustard.

My Bacon and stripes hot dog.

Menu selection, my favourite is the chilli dog and cheese, even better with mac n cheese!

Loving my hot dog stand, mum almost gave in a brought me a full on street hot dog selling cart ! 

Theses retro fun hot dog cartons were great on the day as lots of my teenage friends wanted to load up their dogs and go back in to the man cave for pool and gaming, so these were a cool container.

Awesome Corn Dogs

These are my favourite too sausage on a stick!  What’s not to love fabulous corn bread coated franks with a mustard dip!

FLORIDA GATORS BIRTHDAY CAKE

My 17th birthday Florida Gators cake was so awesome, I loved it.  My mum is not a baker and only makes one cake a year, my birthday cake!  Mum watched Buddy from cake boss on you tube to see how he made his 16ft life size alligator cake and followed his lead and made me the best most awesome Florida Gators Alligator Cake!

I had four cake flavours in my cake the head was coffee and walnut, the whole body chocolate fudge, half the tail was carrot cake and the rest was lemon drizzle, a flavour for everyone.

To make the alligator first draw your alligator body shape on your cake board, then place your cake circles or squares on the board, carve the cake to the shape drawn, cover with frosting, add the eyes, eyebrows and nose now.

Roll your icing out to your thickness then roll across a alligator skin impression mat, place on your alligator cake, repeat until covered, when covering the head you can mould the icing over the eyes and nose to create a more life like look.  Using a chopstick or special tool join up the alligator skin on the joins to hide the seam.  Using edible spray paint add some texture to the alligator.  Next make four legs by rolling a large ball of icing to a burrito shape, pinch out 4 claws and bend to look like a leg.

To make the spines roll out your icing about 2 inches thick, cut the icing to the shape of the tail and pinch up spines in three lines of spines and place on the tail, for the body you will need four lines of spines.

Roll out your t shirt icing and coping the picture place on the alligator with the name and number of the birthday boy or girl.

HOT DOGS

Best Ever Hot Dogs

 Local farm outdoor raised Happy sausages in my homemade hot dog buns loaded with soft fried onions and stripes.  My first practice run for my Posh Hot Dog Birthday party and these were a delicious success.

Ingredients 

(makes 8)

The Hot Dog Buns

500g 00 flour

10g Himalayan sea salt

50g olive oil

30g fresh yeast (15g dried)

320g warm water

8 sausages

2 onions sliced

1 tbsp olive oil

The Stripes

French’s American Mustard

Tomato ketchup 

Mayonnaise 

Place the flour, olive oil, salt and if using dried yeast in a bowl add the water, if using fresh yeast add the yeast to the warm water with a pinch of sugar, stir to dissolve, add the water to the flour mix and bring together, knead for 7 minutes until smooth and springy to the touch.  Place back in to the bowl, cover with a tea towel and leave to prove at room temperature for one hour.  Once proved shape the dough in to a long rectangle approx 6 inches long and divide in to 8 equal hot dog rolls, place in a tin that means the buns have to touch, cover with a tea towel and leave to prove for a further hour.  Brush the tops with milk, bake in a preheated oven 200 C for 20 to 25 minutes until hollow when tapped.  Leave to cool on a wire rack and pull apart to separate each bun.

While the hot dog buns are cooking grill or griddle cook the sausages and soften the onions in the olive oil, set up your stripes bottle the stuff a sausage in your buns and load with your choice of fixings.

WOOD FIRED PEPPERONI PIZZA

I love cooking in my family’s home made wood fired Pizza oven this is one of my favourite things to do with my mates and family, we make a great mess but have the best pizzas ever!  They only take two minutes to cook and my mum helps me make up loads of dough so we can make as many pizzas as we like, this is also good as sometimes we go wrong!  

I am a Pizzaiolo!



Best Ever Pizza Dough

Ingredients 

500g 00 blue caputo Italian flour

10g Himalayan sea salt 

50g extra virgin olive oil 

15g yeast

320g water

Place all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and either by hand or by machine with a dough hook mix for seven minutes, then dust a little flour over the dough mix and gently form into a ball, cover the bowl with a tea towel and leave in a warm area to prove for 1-2 hours until doubled in size if you want to use immediately, then other options are leave to prove slowly in the fridge for 24hrs, this is what I do as it gives me much more control over time and usage, this will keep for 48hrs in the fridge ready to go when you are, you can also freeze any left over dough at this stage, then when ready to use remove from the freezer defrost and once up to room temperature use as you would fresh.

Pizza Ingredients 

1 can san manzano tomato’s 

1 onion chopped

1 clove garlic chopped

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp dried oregano

1 bag pizza cheese Mozzarella super melty 

1 pack sliced pepperoni 

Make the pizza tomato base sauce by gently softening the onions and garlic in the olive oil, add the tomato and bring to a simmer, take off the heat and blitz to a smooth sauce, stir in the oregano and season with salt and pepper if needed.

Now your ready to rock and roll, divide the dough into 6 portions roll out each dough ball into a thin pizza base, spread a ladle of the San Marzano sauce over the base, top with torn pieces of the mozzarella and finish of with pepperoni, place on your pizza stone or in your pizza oven and cook for 2-3 minutes in a wood fired oven or 15-20 on a pizza stone in the oven, as a rule when the cheese is bubbling all over that's it Ta da done...

My friends have lots of different combinations of their favourite pizzas, BBQ chicken and spicy meatballs and of course the Hawaiian, where as nan loves peppers, onions and garlic, Grandad is just cheese and tomato with olive oil and Mum and Dad love a original Margarita with fresh basil.

QUESADILLA SWEET CHILLI GOOEY CHEESE

Serious gooey melty cheese pull, charred sautéed peppers and caramelised red onions with sweet chilli sauce this is so darn good make plenty as it's not a dish for sharing 

Prep time 5 minutes / Cooking time 10 minutes

Ingredients 

(serves 1-2)

2 large soft flour tortillas 

200g grated mozzarella cheese

50ml sweet chilli sauce 

1 glug olive oil

1 tbsp butter

1/4 red pepper diced

1/4 green pepper diced

1 small red onion sliced

1 small bunch fresh coriander chopped

1 tub sour cream

To Cook

Heat a skillet medium hot, add the olive oil, peppers and onions, sauté for five minutes until slightly caramelised, remove from the skillet, place the skillet back on the heat, lower to a medium heat, add the butter to melt.  Place one flour tortilla in the skillet, sprinkle with half the cheese, all the peppers and onions, some fresh coriander, the sweet chilli sauce and finish off with a final layer of cheese, place the remaining flour tortilla on top, leave to gently cook for approx five minutes, to turn over place a plate on top of the skillet and turn over so that the quesadilla is now on the plate, slide the quesadilla back in to the skillet and leave to gently cook for the remaining five minutes ensuring that all the cheese has melted.

To serve drizzle with sour cream more sweet chilli sauce and the remaining fresh coriander, serve cut in to quarters and enjoy

BUTTERMILK CREAM SCONES

Best Scones Ever...

Light delicate melt in your mouth scones with a puff pastry technique that allows the scones to rise up high with a crispy cheese crust and light layers throughout loaded with cheese.

Prep time 10 mins / Resting time 15 mins / Cooking time 20 mins

Ingredients 

(Makes 12)

190g butter grated

600 plain flour

80g caster sugar

40g baking powder

160g buttermilk

160g double cream

200g grated cheddar cheese

Pre heat your oven to 220 degrees C, then when ready to cook reduce the oven to 200 degrees C.  In a large bowl rub the butter into flour, add the sugar and baking powder then cheese keeping back a little for the tops, then fold in the buttermilk and cream until you have a just combined ball.  Tip out on to your work surface and press the dough out with the heel of your hand to about two inches thick then fold in half, rotate the dough by 90 degrees and press out again then fold in half and rotate again, repeat this twice more so four folds and turns in total.  Cover and leave to rest for 15 minutes.

Cut into your scones, place on a stone baking tray, brush the tops with egg wash and sprinkle with the remaining grated cheese and bake for 20 minutes until the scones are golden brown and hollow when tapped on the bottom.

BLUEBERRY RASPBERRY FREE RADICAL ANTIOXIDANT DETOX CRUSH

In a nut shell whenever we eat any food we creat free radicals, these when are allowed to build up from a unbalanced poor diet create oxidative stress on our cells which in turn becomes very harmful can lead to diseases like cancer and heart disease.  This is simple to avoid by eating a balanced diet and introducing plenty of antioxidant foods that scavenge free radicals removing from our bodies giving us the most optimum health benefits.

Ingredients 

(serves 2)

200g blueberries organic 

200g raspberries organic

6 ice cubes

Place all the ingredients in a blender and pulse, blitz until liquid, pour in to you mason jars with a straw and enjoy straight away, that's it!

GOOD TO KNOW

While both raspberries and blueberries are some of the most promising foods to eat with the ability to fight against cancer they both bring strength together to the table.  Blueberries are highest in Vitamin K, while raspberries give 54% of your RDA of Vitamin C and are much higher in fiber.

BLUEBERRIES

Vitamin C, full of photochemical caroteroids, antioxidant, anti inflammatory, rich compounds.

Natural super foods, compounds help your liver protect your body from free radicals and oxidative stress, these are linked to disease and ageing.  Anthouyanin and polyphenols inhibit the proliferation of disease cells in the liver.

RASBERRIES

Antioxidant, anti inflammatory, boosts heart health, lowers risk of coronary heart disease, helps with weight loss, increases metabolism, low on glycemic index with little impact on blood sugar, high in fiber, helps protect against cancer, eases arthritis pain.