Apple Pie

 Made from Marnie's recipe (except the gluten free pastry for the mini ones) from our home grown apples

Lasagna

 I've been waiting for my new kitchen to be able to make lasagna - an all time favourite! I finally managed it on Tuesday, and it was so good!

Froot Loop Slice

Made from a recipe in the May issue of Taste.com.au magazine. Next time, I'd top it with dark chocolate instead of white - you can barely taste the white. It's hardly healthy,  but cut into small squares I think it would be great fun for a kid's party.

17 eggs make...

 43 biscuits (don't count, they're not all there)

 1 batch of choc-orange brownies

 4.5 jars of lemon butter

 4 jars of experimental citrus butter (it was supposed to be lime, but we didn't have enough limes)

Lemon on the right, citrus on the left. The colour difference is subtle, but definitely there.

That's a lot of scones

After my last catering job, I got another one. This time, for an engagement party, I was asked to make 50 scones and 25 savoury scrolls. That was three hours cooking, four double batches of scones, plus the bread dough. Then I had to go to work! (Only for the afternoon, thankfully)
It was a great success though, and I've been paid more than I expected, which is nice.

Lemon Pudding

Steamed pudding may seem like a hassle, but this one is really no harder than a cake. And with an hour and a half to cook, if you wanted, you could get it on, start dinner and have dessert ready by the time you'd finished eating.
The sponge is fairly simple, but that sauce - delicious, tangy lemon. As for what to do with left overs, well, in this house, left over pudding with cream is considered perfectly acceptable breakfast food. It's lucky we don't have it often!

And all that I can see...

 We have a lemon tree that's never been very productive. We got some lemons, but not enough to give away like other people get. Then a couple of years ago, one of the goats broke a branch and Mum and Andrew tried to repair it. Ever since, the tree has been next to useless. Until this year. This year, there's plenty of lemons.

And I have plans for them - lemon butter, lemon cake, lemon pudding...


Bonus points for anyone who can identify the reference in the title of this post.

Baked Brussels and Experimental Gnocchi

Tonight's dinner of baked brussel sprouts and pumpkin and gnocchi bake. Naturally, I forgot to take a picture until half way through which is why this plate looks so sadly depleted, but even Dad's disappeared.

Yule 2012

I love Yule. It was the first Sabbat I ever celebrated, and it has always been my favourite. This year though was really something special.
My Pagan friends arrived early so that we could have a ritual, and a gift exchange. I wrote the ritual this year. It's only about the second time I've written one, but this came out quite well. The gifts were in lieu of Christmas presents. Giving Christmas presents to Pagans has always felt weird, and while this doesn't actually reduce our costs, it does redistribute them to a different part of the year. I received Infamous by Sherrilyn Kenyon, and some gorgeous oils and sugars and things for the kitchen.
Our other guests arrived once night had started to fall, bringing with them an incredible set of dishes to share. Our menu:
Nibbles: Kabana, Camembert and crackers
Entrée: Pea and ham soup, beetroot and feta salad
Main: Lamb massaman curry, chicken and mango curry, vegetarian chilli with corn chips, coconut rice
Dessert: Pear cake, berry muffins, chocolate tart, chocolate mousse (above), home made vanilla ice cream, pure cream.
Mulled wine
The mousse was Andrew's contribution, though as he was trying to make both the dark and white mousses at once, I gave him a hand with some beating and folding and layering. I only made the ice cream!
The company was the real highlight though. Along with all the regulars, there were a few people who haven't been in a while, and one new guest. Everyone fitted together so well, and there were times I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe. I can't wait until next year!

A small catering job

 Double choc chip muffins (and raw sweet scrolls, but they're just a by-product!)

 First attempt at blueberry muffins - appearance fail - and savoury scrolls

 Blueberry muffins - Take 2

Two kinds of scrolls

All packed up, along with scones, jam and lightly whipped cream. I made everything else yesterday, but since scones need to be really fresh - preferably warm - I got up early this morning to make those.

It's probably all been eaten by now. I hope it was a success.

Carbonara

Onion. Garlic. Bacon. Cream. Eggs. Parmesan. Pepper. Delicious.

Pesto

Homemade, with home grown basil. You cannot conceive the beauty until you have tried it.

And there was supposed to be a photo of it on the pasta sprinkled with pine nuts and parmesan, but I ate it before I remembered to take it.

Arancini - Take 2

I was concerned about the consistency of the risotto, so I added bread crumbs to the mix. 

 

I gave them a centre of mozzarella, and double crumbed them. 

 This time, they held their shape and were nice and crispy.

 Unfortunately, since the risotto was pretty bland, so were the arancini.

Still, I'm counting this as a success, and know that next time will only be better.

Some new biscuit recipes

 First some malt biscuits. This recipe was from Donna Hay (found in the Sunday Magazine that comes with the Herald Sun)

These have a subtle taste, but are quite morish. I do need to work on my rolling out skills.

Then some speculaas (Dutch spiced biscuits). This recipe came from the SBS Feast Magazine last month (the pink one, not the orange one that's out now). They don't look like speculaas because I don't have a proper mould, but they sure do taste like them!

If anyone knows where I can get a speculaas mould (I'm told by my Dutch neighbours that it's called a speculaas plank) for a reasonable price, I'd love to know.

Arancini Attempt #1

I used left over risotto from Monday, added egg and cheese, then rolled balls in breadcrumbs. I'd intended to add a piece of cheese to the middle but I didn't get around to acquiring some bocconcini, and the (ungrated) tasty cheese we had had to be thrown out. Still, I think that may have made my problems worse. They were tasty, but had flattened out and were rather gooey.
Some thoughts:
* Do not use Lemon Pepper breadcrumbs - they overwhelm the flavour of the risotto
* Frying may result in a more golden finish
* Maybe I should have double crumbed them?
*Why were they so gooey that they lost their shape? How can I fix this next time?

Homemade Pizza

Base and all! So tasty!

Lasagne Pancakes?

What do you do when you have left over sauces from making lasagne? Wrap them in pancakes, of course! A cheap, simple dinner, and a great way to use up left overs!

Our Daily Bread

Cheese and Vegemite scrolls, plus a loaf of good white,

served with fresh lemon butter.

With a little help from my friends

My dear friend Michelle from Kitchen Shenanigans has been teaching me how to make bread. We had a little time on out hands on Sunday, so we decided to mix up a batch. Half became focaccia, while we decided to experiment with the other half and make cinnamon scroll. Experiment success!
Credit for all but the first couple of photos goes to Michelle too. The slightly darker toned hands in the second photo are hers, while the ghostly pale ones are mine.