Some baking

We have morning teas at work every couple of weeks I guess - birthdays, farewell parties and occasionally a charity fundraiser.  I like to take different things each time, and recently I've had a couple of successes.

These are my simple butter cookies (which I will blog about in more detail in the future).  The interesting feature of these really is the decoration.

I rolled out the biscuit dough and cut big circles, then cut little circles from the middle - I think these little holes were made with the big end of piping tips. 

I made thick icing sugar glaze (icing sugar and a little milk + food colouring for pink/+ cocoa for chocolate) and spread it all over then decorated with sprinkles and mini chocolate bits.

I found the idea at a blog called the decorated cookie - have a look at the spectacular biscuits here, way more complicated than mine, and involved piping and then flooding cookies before sprinkles.

More recently I made chocolate caramel cups, which came from Good Taste magazine December 2009.

To start, you need to melt 150 grams of chocolate (I prefer dark) and then paint a thick, even layer on the inside of foil cups.  Leave the foil cups upside down on a cake cooling rack to set for 20 minutes.

Then melt 80 grams of mars bar with 1/3 cup pouring cream in a small saucepan over a low heat.  Once the mars bar has melted in take the pan off the heat and let it cool and set for up to 10 minutes.  Then pour it into each cup and top with more melted chocolate (which you may have to re-melt).

You can see that we don't own the appropriate paint brush to make these chocolates, so we used clean cotton buds - worked perfectly!

Nasi goreng

Confession - this is the first time I made a curry paste from scratch.  It just looked so delicious in the magazine that I had to make it:

So of course, I didn't follow the recipe precisely.  I left out the prawn (not a big fan) and also left the shrimp paste out of the curry paste - not because it is made from shrimp but because I couldn't find it at the shops.

Pulled the trusty food processor out to make the paste - and it make short work of it!  Then it was simply cooking it, with some rice, vegies and flaked smoked trout = done.

A side note, this recipe requires organisation!  Sometimes, when I'm cooking, I chop as I go but sometimes everything needs to be ready because the whole thing only takes a few minutes - this is one of those recipes, so be prepared:

Chocolate toast

I've been making decadent breakfasts lately, though this one may 'take the cake' so to speak.

Literally, it's dark chocolate sandwiched between good bread, cooked in butter and olive oil and sprinkled with salt at the end of the cooking process.

When I saw it in Delicious I knew I had to make it, and then one of my favourite bloggers - Almost Bourdain - made it and it looked so good!  She used lindt sea salt, which I didn't own at the time, but have since purchased:

Quite frankly, any meal that starts like this:

has to be fantastic!

Tomato lasagne

This recipe came from one of those free Coles magazines (you know the ones you pick up on your way into the supermarket and it is half ads and half content).  It also prices the recipe on a per serve basis, probably as part of the Curtis Stone 'Feed your Family' promotion (details here).  This recipe does not fit into the feed your family for less than $10, but if you already have some of the ingredients then you probably can get the more perishable ingredients for less than $10.

Ingredients:
50 g butter
1/3 cup p flour
2 cups milk
400g can diced tomatoes, juice drained and reserved
Basil pesto
Fresh lasagne sheets
1 1/2 cups grated mozzarella
1 cup grated parmesan

Method:
Pre heat oven to 180 degrees, grease a 23cm lasagne dish.
Make a roux - melt the butter, add in flour, add combined milk and tomato juice.  Once lump free and combined simmer for 5 minutes (while stirring) and then leave it for 2 minutes on the heat to thicken, season.
Layer as follows:
1/4 of the roux
Lasagne sheet, spread with 1 tbs pesto
1/4 of the roux
1/2 the tomatoes
1/2 the mozzarella
1/4 of the parmesan

Lasagne sheet, spread with 1 tbs pesto
1/4 of the roux
1/2 the tomatoes
1/2 the mozzarella

1/4 of the parmesan
Lasagne sheet, spread with 1 tbs pesto
1/4 of the roux
Remaining parmesan

Bake for 40 minutes.

Top with an avacado, basil and fresh tomato salsa.

Green pancakes

Mmm - pancakes for dinner!  It sounds so luxurious, so decadent.  When I was growing up I remember we had pancakes for dinner just once a year, on Shrove Tuesday.  I've continued that tradition, so that I still get pancakes for dinner at least once a year.

Then June Delicious had a savoury pancake recipe that I decided to cook for dinner - which would be the second time this year that I have eaten pancakes for dinner!

Of course, I couldn't just have pancakes for dinner, so I marinated some chicken in the same herbs that went into the pancakes (in my case, green chilli, flat leaf parsley and basil, as opposed to the coriander listed in the recipe) and some lemon juice and zest.  I actually hate touching raw chicken so when I marinated it I left it in the plastic bag and added the herbs into the bag and then rubbed them into the chicken through the plastic.

Of course, green pancakes do look a little strange - while you mix them, while you cook them and when you serve them.  This is definitely not a recipe you could serve to people who don't like vegetables (adults or children) as the green colour makes the pancakes look way too healthy!

NSW South Coast

Of course I love the beach in summer, swimming, reading a book in the sun (and sunscreen) and just enjoying the warm weather.  But I also really enjoy spending time at the beach in Autumn, Winter and Spring for other reasons. No matter the season I love walking along the beach, dipping my toes into the water (if I am brave) and looking for shells or interesting pieces of smooth glass.  G and I took a trip to Ulladulla/Milton in May and, among other things, ate amazingly well.  

We began on Friday night at Pilgrim's Cafe in Milton, it's on the main highway in the Milton shops (no website though).  On Friday nights Pilgrims only serve Mexican food, and its BYO all alcohol.  I had an enchilada and G had soft tacos.  $15 each, and a fresh juice to share, and we were very happy.

On Saturday we drove up to Berry, which is too trendy for a beachside town!  It was packed, and very difficult to find a carpark.  We ate lunch at a cafe called Berry Woodfired and enjoyed an amazing pumpkin and goat's cheese soufflé ($14):


The coffee after was delicious, and then we wandered into a lolly shop that sold old-fashioned lollies, current sweets (at inflated prices) and a selection of imported foodstuffs (L&P soft drink for kiwis, a range of poptarts, reese's pieces, bovril etc) at reasonable prices, so we indulged.

That night we went to Rick Stein's at Bannisters for dinner (link here).  Truth be told, we made a restaurant reservation a couple of months in advance and then looked for accommodation.

We started with oysters to share:

I usually talk G into sharing an entrée and a dessert - quite frankly, I do not need to eat a 3 course meal but I like to try as many things as possible when we go somewhere new or somewhere I'm unlikely to return to in a hurry.

For main I had a beautiful piece of blue eye covered in truffle and potatoes:

G enjoyed a bourride:

The red is harissa which G stirred in.

Of course, Rick Stein is known for his seafood cookery but I cannot imagine how to incorporate seafood into the dessert course.  Apparently Rick Stein can't either!  He did manage to come up with a decadent chocolate fondant.

The 'after' shot really speaks to how delicious this dessert was -







In case we weren't full, petit fours were served with coffee:

We finished the next morning with breakfast at our self contained cottage (Milton Country Cottages), bought some fudge at the fudge shop in Milton and headed back to Canberra

Creamy onion tart in walnut pastry

Making pastry for this tart was the first time I have ever made pastry from scratch.  I think it turned me off for life.  It was a disaster at most stages.  I know I got the first part right - I followed the recipe exactly and did it in my food processor.

It successfully turned into dough in the food processor, but thereafter, let's just say it was unpleasant!

The recipe instructs you to put it in the fridge for 30 minutes before rolling it out.  The first time I tried to roll it out is stuck to the bench (which had been properly dusted with flour), so I put the dough in the freezer and tried to roll it out again.  Again, it failed dismally.  I managed to break it into bits, roll out the bits to rectangles and line sections of the quiche pan and 'mushed' the pastry together in the pan.

More fridge time, blind baking and then I filled it with the mixture:

Pulled it out of the oven and tried to serve:

The pastry was so crumbly which made it very difficult to slice this tart.  I finally got it sliced up, and on the plate and as G says 'nice tart, shame about the pastry'.