Carrot salad

This is such a simple salad that can be jazzed up to match whatever you serve it with.

At its most simple it is grated carrot, spring onions, salt, pepper and olive oil.  To make it more complicated/match the rest of dinner I add slivered almonds, fresh herbs, sesame/peanut oil, aloo bhuja (crispy Indian flavoured noodles) or crispy fried shallots.

This one is almonds, sesame, spring onions and aloo bhuja:

I love school cake stalls

I remember, back in the day, when I would accompany my parents to vote in Federal and state elections in church and school halls near our house.  Inevitably, there would be a sausage sizzle and a cake stall, sometimes if we were lucky there would be a 2nd hand toy or book stall too.

Then the food regulations changed in Victoria and it made it very difficult to sell cakes and slowly the cake stall disappeared.

When I moved to Canberra and finally had a chance to vote I was really excited at the prospect of the cake stall, but apparently it was not a tradition in the area I lived in and I was disappointed to find an empty school ground on election day.

I've not had the opportunity to vote in Australia since, as I've voted in Australian embassies overseas when the time came in 2004 (Germany) and 2007 (Japan).  Definitely no cake stalls then, but nor did I expect it.

Today I was pleasantly surprised by an impromptu cake stall at the local shops.  It's not an election day, but perhaps it was because of Mother's Day.  Regardless of the reason, I was happy to be able to buy a pair of orange and lemon cupcakes for the princely sum of $1.50.

It was a simple vanilla cupcake with basic icing sugar icing, but it was delicious to eat, while sitting out on the balcony sipping a coffee.

Egg noodles in soy broth

Wow - this recipe takes 'quick and easy dinner' to the extreme.  Practically no cooking, practically no ingredients... but of course I had to make it a more rounded meal and add salad!

Anyway, you make a broth that tastes good to you using tomato paste, soy sauce, pepper, vinegar/mirin, sesame oil and chilli and then you throw in some cooked egg noodles (hokkien noodles).  Though if you want to follow the recipe you can.

Top with spring onion.  Done.

Custard powder biscuits

I have 2 biscuit recipes that I love - for different reasons.  This recipe, which uses custard powder and no eggs, creates a deliciously soft dough and a biscuit with soft insides - perfect for jam drops or larger biscuits!

250g butter
125g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup custard powder
2 tbs milk

All in the stand mixer (using the paddle attachment)/using hand beaters if they are strong enough

Cream butter and sugar, add vanilla
Beat in custard powder, flour and milk until a soft dough forms
Turn it out onto your bench (either floured or otherwise greaseproof'ed - paper, nordicware baking sheet etc) and bring together into a ball, which you wrap in cling film and refrigerate for an hour.

Make whatever biscuit shape you like, which will also determine the cooking time.

I like interesting jam in my jam drops - I made half with orange marmalade and half with blueberry jam, and baked for 25 minutes at 180 degrees.

Veggie twister

Neuer look fur ihr gemuse!  Please pretend the umlauts are there - after all, this is a German invention. 

You can make skinny or wide spirals, depending on which end you use.  Sometimes I use it to make the carrots look interesting in a salad, and I have made 'spaghetti' with zucchini using the wide spirals (lamb meatballs).  There is an interesting looking 'potato chip' where you cut wide spirals and bake - worth a try with potato or sweet potato I think!

Lamb meatballs (but not as dolmades)

Mark Bittman gives 2 options with these - serve as meatballs, or turn into dolmades.  I took the first option, and served it with zucchini spagetti.

Instead of breadcrumbs the recipe calls for burghur (which is known in burghul at my supermarket), which has been soaked in hot water, some onion, some herbs and some lamb.

Recipe here and my photo:

Of course, meatballs are a bit messy to make - which is what G is for!  He put his (clean) hands into the bowl to mix and then roll the meatballs out.

Woohoo - crazy salt!

A fair while ago I blogged about Jane's Krazy Mixed-Up Salt and how much I wanted it! Now I have it!