Based on a recipe on Jamie Oliver's Food Tube. Healthy and hot. 

Made this little pud the other night. It's fast and pretty good as a cheesecake. Give it a shot. 

I had curry cravings. Weird. But true. Anyway, this is what I made. It's based on a recipe from BBC Good Food and it's pretty good given how easy it is. 

Muv and I made a green smoothie. It wasn't horrible. It was green. It was healthy. If you've got any other ideas, get in touch. The jar came from Elena and is pretty funky I think.  We got talking to John last night and he explained he was super keen on all these healthy smoothies as he's got a NutriBullet; I don't have one so we just used a blender. Seemed to do the trick. 

This recipe is roughly based on a recipe by young Jamie Oliver. It's not exactly the same - I've student-ified it a bit but I have to say I thought it was pretty good. I didn't end up adding any cheese but reckon that some parmesan wouldn't go amiss. White wine, rocket and prawns. A bit of spice as we add half a chilli. Really good.

Having recently made the Chocolate Cheesecake I had some cream cheese left over. Rather than let it go to waste, I made this cheeky mug cheesecake. It went down well with Dad and he's notoriously hard to please...! Give it a shot.

The use of Lotus Biscoff biscuits was Venus' idea in Durham and it's absolutely brilliant. I made 7 little ramekins of these because I don't want to accidentally eat an entire cheesecake on my own. 

So we've just been in Spain for a week. It was fab. I fell massively in love with all things tapas. One of the dishes that kept cropping up was this one. If you can get 'serrano' ham then that's the best way to go (I could only find parma ham, tragic but not disastrous!). 

I've adapted this recipe from a BBC Good Food one. Top stuff. Enjoy. Makes a good starter/nibble.

Found this recipe on BBC Good Food and wanted to see what it was like. They add thyme but didn't have any so didn't add it. Tasted great! And pretty easy to make. 

Elena had the idea to do some cheeky stripes for this one when we had supper with Will and Vicki the other week. As we were just cooking, we didn't write down how to do it, but this time I have! And I've added fudge, because, let's face it, fudge makes everything that little bit better. This is pretty similar to the Chocolate Heaven Pudding.

Ran out of eggs so made this egg-free/no egg/eggless cake. Pretty good despite lacking key eggy ingredient! Would still recommend a proper cake if you do have eggs though. Worth putting the topping on and also make sure you cover it with foil to stop it burning. This is a recipe from a BBC Good Food community member. They also put in vanilla extract but I didn't have any. Now you know.

So I bought some Pimms because Kit suggested a Pimms Cheesecake - I'm working on a recipe for that as the first one I did wasn't quite right. I also made this - it's quite refreshing. You might want to add sugar to it. 

Feeling a tad gentle this morning. Wanted food that wasn't toast. This did the trick.

Ingredients

• Pasta
• Chilli Pesto
• 3 rashers bacon
• 1 tomato
• Black pepper and salt

Method

Cook the pasta in boiling water with a splash of olive oil and pinch of salt. 

Fry the bacon. Chop it up into pieces when it's cooked. Drain the pasta. Pop the bacon in with the pasta. Add two teaspoons of chilli pesto and the chopped tomato. Season. Stir and heat through. Eat.

Done.

Huge shoutout to Amelia for coming over the other day and showing me how to make one of her salads. They're delish and we had a good chat and put the world to rights. She has a really lovely instagram page so go follow/like/share etc. 

I had a go today with Elena and Rob and it was good fun. These salads are pretty big so arguably enough to share if you fancy it, or if you're hungry they'll do you fine. And because everything comes in multi-packs from supermarkets, it's not too expensive to do. 

Ingredients

• Gem lettuce
• Handful spinach, watercress and rocket (comes in a bag)
• A small hunk of red pepper (or other colour)
• 1 stick celery, chopped
• 1 smallish carrot, cubed
• 1 big tomato, cut into eighths 
• A hunk of round goats' cheese (got it from little sainsbury's in Durham)
• Half an avocado

Bonus stuff:

• Beetroot
• Nuts, Amelia mentioned sunflower seeds
• Balsamic/olive oil as a simple dressing

Method

Get the oven at 180. Grab your goats' cheese. Amelia said to put a small cross in the centre with a knife as apparently this stops it melting everywhere in the oven. We are not sure why this works but it does. So do it. Pop on baking dish in oven for 20 mins or so (until it's a beautiful golden brown).

Wash the lettuce and chop it into strips. Bung in bowl. Add in the spinach, watercress and rocket. Arrange semi-artistically.  

Chop up the red pepper and carrot. Bung in. Chop up the celery. Bung in. Chop up the avocado. Bung in. Chop up the tomato, arrange around the side. Just because it looks cool. (See Amelia's Instagram and follow her for very funky looking salads).

By this time, the cheese should be nearly done. Take out and carefully spatular on to the salad. 

Season with pepper and maybe add a dash of balsamic/olive oil if you want. When Amelia came over we also put chopped beetroot in but sadly I forgot today. 

So big shout out to Sophie for sending this in. Went down really well in the house and tasted fabulous. You should try it. 

Healthy delicious snack. Fish is meant to be good brain food. I need all the help I can get. Realise this might not feel like proper student food but if you fancy treating yourself then this is a good bet.

Also check out Nina Simone in the video. 

This is quite light and went down well. Loadddds of tins in this one so it's really easy and pretty cheap. Enjoy. This is pretty similar to the No Cook Lemon Cheesecake, so if you're into lemons, try that.

Ingredients

• 200g crushed rich tea biscuits
• 100g butter
• 300ml cream
• 397g condensed milk
• 1 tin of cherries, remember to stone them

Method

Melt the butter over a low heat. Crush the biscuits. Add the biscuits to the butter. Stir about to coat. Bung in a baking tin with removable base (my tin is 7 inches). Press down with back of spoon. NOTE: I've started using rich tea biscuits because they're a bit lighter than digestives but as a result there is less fat in them and so the base is a bit more crumbly. If you prefer a solid based, add more butter - reckon 150g would do it.

Whisk the cream until it starts to thicken - you should be able to see creases in the cream.

Add in the condensed milk and beat for a good 5 mins. It should start to thicken. It won't go mega thick but it should get to a stage where it holds its shape. 

Pop a sieve over a bowl and pour the cherry tin out. The juice will go through and the cherries will be caught. The cherries will have stones in them so take them out - either cut open with a knife or I found you could just squeeze in your hands and it would come out. 

Pop two pudding spoons of the juice in the cream and blitz again. When thickened, pop the cherries in and stir with a spoon. Pop in the baking tin on top of the base. Clingfilm and fridge for at least 4 hours. Overnight is best.

Enjoy!

"You shouldn't be scared of what you don't understand" - Ravi, on quinoa, 2016. 

So if you are even half interested in food, or you eat, then you'll probably have heard of 'quinoa'. The general vibe we get is that it can do no wrong. Apparently it's a superfood. Whatever that means. So when I saw it on sale I thought I'd bite the bullet and buy some. 

I returned to the house, proudly bearing this seed-come-grain which no one knows how to pronounce and set about making my lunch. My first shock was that you actually have to cook this thing. I don't know why but I kind of assumed it was one of those things that was edible straight away. No. You have to cook it for 10 mins. And then once it's done it looks like little pieces of frog-spawn with tails #technicalterm. 

Anyhow, my verdict is basically that I think it needs something a tad sweet to go in it (the raisins in this recipe worked fab, as did the feta). So in general it's good. I had mine at 1pm and, writing this at 5:30, I am still fairly full so it's worth a shot, even just for the novelty factor. 

If anyone knows any OMG YOU MUST TRY THIS recipes with quinoa (or anything else), please get in touch - you can message the facebook page here. Or email in "BarkingBaking(at)gmail.com".  Such fun.

Thought this would be a cool idea. Turned out really nicely. Think the house and Elena, Kathy, Ellie and Venus enjoyed. Might be a funky little pud if you were doing a dinner party. 

I put ice cream in them but could do fruit or something if you're that way inclined. 

Enjoy! Do like and share the video/page on Facebook. 

This was supposed to be a green smoothie. It's got spinach and everything in it. Edgy. But sadly the berries overcame the greenness of the spinach and it's kind of mauve instead. Anyhow, it's healthy, tastes great and making it takes just long enough to be classed as procrastination. 

S/o to Elle for technique tips.

This is really good! I used rich tea biscuits for the base as I thought they'd be a bit lighter than digestive biscuits. Still tastes great! I put mint on because I was trying to be edgy. It really doesn't matter if you don't have any. But it's nice if you do. 

This is nice and refreshing. I put a little bit of honey in it to just make it a little less tart. Give it a go! 

This was seriously good and really very filling. Feta is great, as is plenty of the dressing. Top stuff. Recipe based on one from BBC Good Food but not in such huge quantities - this does one meal.

So a while ago Elena made a carrot cake. It was really good (except for some dodgy icing...) and so we thought we'd make it again. The icing is no longer dodge. Also big shout out to Alexandra B for cooking some awesome carrot cake at the end of last term for mentor hour; it had dates and everything in it. This has walnuts, which are pretty close...ish. Will work up to dates!

Hope we're all doing well. 

So I have been sent some Linda McCartney vouchers. I was supposed to be testing out the paella but unfortunately they don't stock it in Durham. So I consulted with a friend, James, and he said that I HAD to try the sausages. So that's what I've done.

Must admit I was slightly nervous of vegetarian sausages, having been brought up on the meat version. However, I can report that they taste great. Sure, they don't taste like pork but, as Rav (one of my veggie housemates) said, it doesn't actually matter. As long as they taste good, then that's fine. And they do. They taste great.

This recipe is super easy and takes about 20 mins overall. It's healthy and tasty. Try it. 

Also, I am giving away some Linda McCartney vouchers so you can buy some yourself - all you need to do is like the post and the Facebook page and I'll choose a winner. Will be chosen on Wednesday (whilst you're at it, you could add 'barkingbaking' on snapchat, but that's only if you want to!). Facebook page here.