Vietnamese Prawn Salad & Chocolate Mousse

Main:  Vietnamese Prawn Salad
The Woolworths Magazine

Dessert:  Chocolate Mousse
Northern Beaches Cooks

Welcome back everyone, hope you’ve had a fab week cooking up a storm.

So let’s put away the phones and i-pads and sit around the table and converse – hey no looking at those apple watches either with all the messages and emails coming through on them and you thinking you’re doing it secretly – ha, we have your number!

This week is another super easy menu BUT I had somewhat of a disaster in the dessert area which I will tell you about but first the main course.  Don’t you just love those little monthly magazines we get from Woolies?  Soooo many great recipes that are always economical and pretty much “no fuss”.  This little salad is a must for the warmer months and serve it with a huge loaf of soft white bread! Yum yum!  The flavours are refreshing and tangy and it is one of those dishes that you can play with and add your own touches.  I added mango and avocado and I was thinking that some toasted coconut would work well also, so will try that next time I make it.  There is really nothing negative I can tell you about this – it got 10/10 and was an absolute winner.

HOWEVER – the dessert.  Well, the original recipe was going to be from Faking It by Delicious and whilst I was making it I kept thinking to myself, this does not add up, I think they have left something out.  It was called Blender Chocolate Mousse and you simply put the chocolate in the blender, heat the sugar, coffee, brandy and water and then (motor running) pour into the blender.  After that you are to add the egg whites and cream and pulse the blender a few seconds, then pour into individuals dishes and into the fridge.  So what’s wrong with this picture?  I was thinking – hang on, what about beating the egg whites and the cream??  How will this firm up?  Well, it didn’t.  I had made it the day before and it was runny the next day.  I ditched it and made a different one from Northern Beaches Cook and it was with toblerone – wahoo, totally yummy and I got a 10/10 for this as well.  I have contacted Delicious to ask what I had done wrong or if the recipe was wrong but this is where is becomes very daunting for the cook lacking in confidence.  Who would blame them if they threw their arms in the air and gave up but that is the purpose of this blog.  I will do the trial and error stuff and then you just cook it.

Also I wanted to say at this point that some of you may be thinking that there is not a lot of variation in food types and by that I mean I am on the whole cooking with meat, chicken, fish and you will not see pork, duck or particularly varied seafood and that is because I am catering the likes of my family so not a lot of point in cooking things they absolutely will not eat.  So I will continue to work with what appeals on the whole.

Please give this weeks menu a go as the main course in particular would be very easy to pull together after a busy day at work.

Until next week……

From my table to yours with love.