Sundae Sunday - Hazelnut Latte Sundae

Remember earlier in the month when I was trying to make hazelnut syrup and ended up making hazelnut sugar (and burning my finger)?  Well, lemons to lemonade and all that - I grated that sugar and used it in place of the regular sugar in my ice cream.  I used the same V'con-esque base that I posted about with the PB Speculoos ice cream (so, everything but the PB and Speculoos) and added in a bit of coffee in place of the soymilk (as suggested by Isa) and also threw in a dash of coffee extract.

The ice cream by itself was really nice.  I topped it with some chopped candied hazelnuts, "mocha" sauce (Hershey's syrup with coffee extract mixed in), and some whipped cream.  Here's a not-great phone photo:

At some point, I might try to be adventurous and make something that isn't topped with chocolate syrup.

Omelets and Injuries

Day 2 and I already have a cooking-related injury!  More on that later.

Keeping with my budget theme, today's dinner used several pantry/freezer items - chickpea flour, frozen spinach, jarred roasted red peppers, and frozen chopped shallots and garlic.  I'm actually gonna have a post about some of my favourite convenience foods, so I won't go into how much I love those things.  Anyway, I also finally used a bookmarked recipe that I'd been thinking about making for ages - Chickpea Flour Omelets from Vegan Richa.

The recipe calls for fresh veg, but I'm lazy and used the aforementioned frozen/jarred veg.  I defrosted the spinach in the microwave, then threw the shallots and garlic in with it to heat up a bit before dumping everything into the batter as directed.  I also threw on some Tesco smoked cheese near the end of cooking.

The directions on the recipe aren't very clear, but once I figured out what to do, it came together pretty quickly.  I served with buttered toast because I was in the middle of another project while I made dinner.  I really liked these, but Mike ... well, he said I didn't have to make them again, which is his way of saying never ever make this again.  So I guess I'll save it for a day that he's not here, because I thought they were delicious.  Luckily, I made a double batch, which made 3 decent-sized omelets, so I'mma make a sammich out of the leftovers for my lunch tomorrow.  Woo!

On to the other project and my injury!  In line with my Sunday theme, I decided that, rather than make straight-up coffee ice cream, I'd make hazelnut latte ice cream.  So I decided to make my own hazelnut syrup.  Everything went fine - I toasted and skinned the hazelnuts and cooked the mixture down with no mishaps.  Well, there was a slight mishap in that I accidentally overcooked it and ended up with candied hazelnuts and a chunk of hazelnut-flavoured sugar or something - I'm not even sure what it is.

You know when you make something, and you want to taste it - it was hot, but you think it's cooled off enough.  It hasn't cooled off enough.  I stuck my finger in molten sugar (essentially).  It burned like hell, and despite running my finger (my little finger!) under cold water for ages, I still have a wee blister right on the pad.  So I'm kinda typing with my fingernail to avoid touching the blister.  It could be worse, but I still feel pretty stupid for doing that.  And that's why I don't have pictures - I was trying to minimise my injury (also it was already pretty dark when I finished cooking).