5 MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE

I've made this cake many times and it is so easy and quite yummy for the amount of time it takes to make it!

1 Coffee 'large' mug
4 tablespoons plain flour (not self-rising)
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons baking cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
Small splash of vanilla

1. Add dry ingredients to mug, & mix well.
2. Add egg & mix thoroughly.
3. Pour in the milk and oil and mix well.
4. Add chocolate chips (if using), van, mix again.
5. Put mug in the microwave & cook for 2-3 min at 1000 watts.
6. Cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed! (it really did! LOL!)
7. Allow to cool a little & tip out onto a plate if desired.
8. EAT! (this can serve 2 if you want to share!)

And why is this the most dangerous cake recipe in the world? Because now we are all only 5 minutes away from chocolate cake at any time of the day or night!

In with the new

Happy 2009 to everyone!
I hope your christmas and new years was pleasant. Mine were both decent.

Santa brought me Breaking Dawn, the 4th book in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. Thank you Santa, I was desperately waiting for it. (It has been read already and I will most likely read it again someday soonish.)

I ate plenty of ham (kinkku), carrot casserole (porkkanalaatikko), rutabega casserole (lanttulaatikko), liver casserole (maksalaatikko) and rosolli salad (cubed bits of cooked carrot, pickle, egg, pickled beets, with pink sauce aka whipped cream with a touch of beet juice). I also ate tons of sweets and nuts with a bit of fruit thrown in.

I enjoyed my time with my mother-in-law. On Saturday when stores were open for the first time, we went christmas fabric shopping. We were on a mission! LOL. With the fabric we bought, we started making cloth bags to put next year's christmas gifts in. After 2 broken sewing machines, we decided to spare the 3rd and will continue making the bags at a later date.
(Will post pictures of some of the bags we did make soon.)

New Years saw me and my husband at a friends house for the evening. It was intended that there was quite a few of us, but in the end there was only 4 of us, but quality more than makes up for quantity.
We made tacos, played RockBand, sang some karaoke and chatted. We also melted some tin horseshoes and dumped them in a bucket of water. Then we looked at the shadows the cooled lumps made and tried to divine our future for the coming year.
(All I could see were sperms and an egg in my pieces or maybe they were claws... either way hubby wasn't too impressed. LOL)

We didn't make it home until 4 am!! All around it was a good evening and a great way to end 2008. I look forward to what 2009 will bring.

Mushroom soup into coconut milk

Another recipe I tried and loved! I think I'll make it again. I love trying new recipes and especially finding ones that are good. These last few New Year's I've (jokingly) made it my New Year resolution to "try new recipes". It's one resolution I've never failed and I have tons of fun with it all year long.

Enjoy the recipe and check out my remarks below.

Mushroom soup into coconut milk / Sienikeitto kookosmaitoon
2 boxes of mushrooms (aprox. 200-250g each)
1 small onion
1 tablespoon oil
1 can of coconut milk
2 teaspoons lemon juice
3 teaspoons brown sugar
3 tablespoons lightly salted soy sauce
chives



Clean and slice the mushrooms. Peel and finely chop the onion. Saute the mushrooms and onion in the pan with a bit of oil on medium heat for about 5 minutes.


Add the coconut milk and simmer another 5 minutes.


Add the spices and taste the flavoring. You can puree the soup, especially if you serve it as a starter. Sprinkle some chopped herbs on the top.

And here's the finished product with some lightly toasted and buttered rye bread.


I made a couple of changes to the recipe, but I don't think they effected the taste much.
First off, I had way more mushrooms than what the recipe called for. But how can that be bad? It is mushroom soup after all!
Secondly, I didn't have any lemon juice or lemons, so I used lime.

Next time I make this I think I'll make some rice to put the soup over. It'll make it stretch a bit further and give it an added texture.
I also think I'll only use 2 tablespoons of soy sauce (unless I have the less salty version).

All in all, I'm quite pleased with the taste. It is a bit different than other mushroom soups I have tried in the past, but very yummy.

This recipe came from Kikkoman.