Trying new things

By my grandmotherly standards, I had an insane weekend.  Well, there were lots of grandmotherly things included, but I still did A LOT!  I'm usually such a sloth.

I tried out some cool new recipes, made alterations to some old old ones, had some success and some total failure. You know what I hate? people who recommend recipes without trying them themselves first.  So, I will only show recipes which have worked for me :D

Found via Punchfork (which is pretty awesome btw) I used this recipe and made corn dogs!  Next time I'll add a bit more milk to the batter because I think it was a bit too gluggy, but they were scrumptious!  I might also try making these with mini hot dogs, because I could only make one at a time with my puny deep-fryer.

The only problem is, now I have a giant bag of corn meal left.  Who's coming over for corn dogs??

Also via punchfork, I made this recipe for roasted tomato soup.  Ok, so it's a bit of a no-brainer recipe... but LAY OFF!  I hadn't ever made tomato soup before, as I've never liked the canned stuff.  But this recipe is very tasty.  And once you've made it once, you really won't need to look at the recipe again.  This is the second time I'd made it, and this time I added a red capsicum.  It came out very capsicummy!  mmmm

I've made this recipe for chocolate cupcakes many times before, but this time I used some super cool coffee flavoured chocolate buttons I found at Haighs.  I also subbed extra flour for the almond meal, doubled the amount of instant coffee and didn't ice them.

Exclusively Food is my absolute favourite website for baking recipes.  I have so far had 100% success rate with all recipes, and there are lovely detailed instructions and pictures for each recipe.

And, in the interests of full disclosure, I tried this recipe for bread... the idea being I would have lovely soft warm bread for breakfast Saturday morning.  TOTAL DISASTER.  I'm sure the recipe is fine, it seems to be a fairly standard bread recipe.  But mine was flat, burnt on the outside and dough in the middle!  I wish I remembered to take a photo, it was hilarious!  Oh well.. better luck next time...

My last weekend activity was testing out my green thumb. I got my little potted herb garden re-started.  I'd attempted this before, but made the mistake of putting them outside for some "sun", only to have the whole lot totally infested by bugs.  I also sowed some sweet-peas, but I will spare you the photos of a pot full of dirt.

Also, I'm sure you can tell, I've discovered a super cool Mosiac generator, making me look very professional indeed!

Do you have any recipes to share?  Any secrets of herb growing success?