Tune in for a simple yet UBER popular potato dish.

So it was my brother's birthday recently and I wanted to bless him with some of his favourite foods. One major thing my brother loves is POTATOES. He absolutely loves them especially in their unhealthy forms of chips, crisps, fries, hash browns and all. I have a recipe to share with you guys and yes it does involve potatoes but unfortunately.... I have no pictures of it. So next time I will get picture snappy and share this popular yet simple recipe with you guys :)

Here is one clue...

Love Andrea

Homemade low fat beef burger patties from SCRATCH!

When I cook, it tends to be quite experimental and when you experiment... it is fingers crossed all the way that it would turn out okay. I have had my fair share in experiments not turning out the way I want them to but we have to learn from our failures to succeed.. right? But hats off to those people on those competitive cooking shows where they think of successful recipes on the spot! I really admire their talent and creativity! Oh how I wish I could do that!

Today I decided to make burger patties from scratch. When I say from scratch, this means mincing my own meat! I haven't mentioned this yet but I am currently on the Dukan Diet the Consolidation stage. So I am always trying to find ways to make delicious meals that are low fat and low carb. One thing I usually have trouble is lean mince meat - it is always too dry when you want to make grilled burger patties or meatballs. Even baking results dry and cardboard-y texture that I am always forcing myself to eat it since it would be a waste. But this has not stopped me in experimenting and trying to achieve a decent low fat/low carb burger patty.

So instead of buying lean mince, I went out and bought some beef steaks (I think they were rump? I cannot remember) from Woolworths. Cut the outer fat, chopped it into chunks and threw them into the Thermomix. I love how my Thermomix can mince meat! But if you have a meat grinder (like me but never use it) or even a food processor - you could mince your own as well. But before all this meat landed in my Thermomix,  1/2 of a carrot, 2 cloves of garlic and a small onion were chopped first. The carrot and onion is to help give moisture to the burger patty (garlic was for flavour primarily). Then the meat was minced with those chopped veggies

Added some salt and pepper, mixed, mixed mixed. Shaped four beef patties (each patty roughly 100g worth of beef.. mmmm) and pan fried them on a nonstick pan.

Now it surprised me that my burger patties were brown already before they were cooked. I swear my steaks were red before! But I think it was due to the carrots? (hmm...)

Prepared my open burger (or open sandwich) - wholemeal bread, lean ham, tomato, cooked beef patty and cheddar cheese. Popped into grill for 5 minutes till cheese melted. 

Added salad and voila! Have to say the burger patties have been the best ones I made so far in regards to moisture - it wasn't dry and cardboard-y like past experiments. One thing that could be improved on was flavour - it was on more of the bland side. Cause I want to minimise my salt intake, I think I need to try and amp up the burger patty with a whole lot of herbs. Plus I might flatten my patty to increase its' overall surface area, therefore fit on the bread better. But overall I have to say this was a decent open burger/sandwich!

Till next time!
Andrea

Note: This burger patty is only appropriate for PV days since it has carrots in it. Remove the carrots and add a bit more onion should help do the trick. Though cannot guarantee that it would yield similar results to mine.

Attempt #1 DIY Gel Clutch Bag

So on YouTube I have subscribed to a lot of people. If you look closer a whole lot of it is DIYs, cooking and beauty. I love watching DIYs and always go.. "One day I am gonna do that!" but never do.

One of the YouTube channels I am subscribed to is secretlifeofabionerd and I have to say she is pretty awesome! One of her tutorials was a clear makeup case and I really liked her idea of integrating a pouch for facial wipes. So I thought why not seek out more tutorials related to clear bags or cases and gain some inspiration. Did a lil search on YouTube and typed 'diy clear bag'... low and behold another cool tutorial popped up.. this... DIY Gel-Filled Clutch

It was too awesome not to try out. So I headed out and bought supplies! Unfortunately I did not get the waterproof superglue but some UHU contact glue that was waterproof in a stick form.


After doing this first attempt with this glue - I think I will buy that waterproof superglue as it seem so much easier on the video than what I was doing. 

So I pretty much followed the video but with a few tweaks. I made my own template on an A4 piece of paper and traced the vinyl over it.

In the video, the girl used soap and soap dye. Me, I used cheap hair gel mixed with some water and food colouring. I have to say I preferred how my gel turned out - it wasn't watery or runny like hers.

End result - a pretty cool bag. One thing I would definitely change is the glue I used - it was just fiddly to work with a gluestick. Also it didn't dry as transparent as I would like it to - the bag had streak marks on the edges. Plus maybe if I wasn't trying to finish the project in top speed, I should have wiped off the pen marks on the outline of the vinyl. Cause it left the edges looking kind of dirty. 

Will I make this again? Yes - it is really awesome and kinda uniquely fashionable. It is retro, cool, funky and plain awesome. I am planning to make one as a present for a friend and chuck in some beads or glitter into the gel as well. Overall it is a fairly simple tutorial and you should try it out! You will love the end result :)

Good Luck!

Andrea

Oh and P.S. make sure you have absolutely covered all edges with glue with at least a 1 cm from the edge in. Because unfortunately, I had one tweeny weeny part that wasn't glued properly and it is leaking. I need to buy that waterproof superglue pronto to squirt into that section.

P.P.S. How many of you think my clutch looks like those refreeze-able icepacks? XD