Day 5

Adventure park at wallington. Fun. Perfect weather.
Tonight making  batches of dough for hot cross buns. Spiced orange, cranberry and white choc, cinnamon and juicy raisin...yum. look out family.

Cranberry and white chocolate...pre cook

Real fat raison and cinnamon

E's free-form buns

Yummy and easy to make

I must tell about the easiest, and most yummy bread product I made on Monday.

This is perfect for kiddies (to eat, and help make), and to accompany soups and casserole-y type stuff.

You, could start this at about 4pm and they would be on the table for an early Winters' tea.

We shall call this....mmm 

spiral scroll rolls

You will need :
1 teasp dry yeast
pinch sugar
2/3 cup of lukewarm water
2 cups of good bread flour ( '00') is good
1/2 of salt
1/4 cup of olive oil

Then what ever you want inside....
We used:
Tomato paste
sliced ham
grated cheese

To make

get a big mixing bowl

Turn on the oven to about 200 degrees C or 400 F

*tip in the flour, yeast, sugar and salt, making sure the salt is on the other side from the yeast, pour in the lukewarm water and oil. Combine with a spoon, to begin with. Then abandon the spoon, take off your rings and get amongst it.

Knead...I use my hands, never the dough hook of a mixer, or a bread machine. If you know how to do this, go for it. Knead for as long as you can, no less than 5mins, the longer the better. You know when it's done by the amount of spring back there is when you press your thumb in it.

Make it into a tidy ball, spray/grease a bowl, place the dough in it, cover with a clean, damp tea towel. And find a warm, draft free place to put it for about 1/2 hour. I put mine on top of the stove while the oven is
 warming up.

When the dough has risen a bit...don't be alarmed if it doesn't look very impressive. It will be delicious.


Knead the dough a bit more on a lightly floured surface.

get a rolling pin out, roll out the dough until it's about 1/2 to 1 cm thick

get your ingredients that you want. In our instance - spread the tomato paste, pizza style, lay the ham out, cover with cheese

Now, I think this is the fun part. Roll up the ingredients, do this so there is no looseness in the roll.
You should have a dough sausage shape now.

Cut with a sharp knife, slices about 2cms thick, and place onto a lightly floured tray/dish. It looks great if you place them next to each other, like a flower.

Whack them in the oven for about 40mins, check then every 5ish minutes after that to get them just the right amount of golden for you.

When they're ready, place the rolls (still all joined) on to a wire rack to cool for a few minutes, then serve while still warm with whatever warming goodies you have...or just by themselves cut through with a big blob of butter. 

Yum.

Please try this, it's so easy, don't be afraid of the yeast!

Enjoy.

Getting 4 year olds to eat their vegies

Here is the current four year old

and here is how you have to present vegies, if you want them to eat them

Tempura Vegetables,
you may notice a bit of a scene.., a lady under a palm tree, with a love heart, by a broccoli bush, under a zuccini sun 

And then this is what they can do

and also I just listed this in my little shop to your right

http://kitchentablestudios.bigcartel.com/

Marshmallow ice creams

I just finished making gorgeous marshmallow icecreams for elsie's birthday....what a crazy experiment marshmallow is! for anyone who might make it, may I advise, work fast!

Wednesday

Making crumbed lamb with Else...Fun, for once, cooking with toddlers is totally over rated most of the time.
So, this is what we did.
Take your plain lamb cutletsand scrape off a bit of the meat to make a handle...frenching I do believe is the term.
Then toss them in a bit of seasoned flour ( S+P), get the little one to do this in a clean plastic bag, making sure they've got a good grip on it.
Then, get some crumbs (Panko) are good and put in some more seasoning...I like screaming seeds, Mediteranean Mix.
Put the lamb into a beaten egg to coat, it then into the crumb mix, crumbing both sides (get the little one to do this part too)
Done.
Pan fry them in a bit of oil...I use rice bran oil.
Serve with salad or favorite vege...we're having ours with oven chips, beans and some crunchy carrots

Photo to follow

Our first attempt of Macarons

Well, They look a bit better than they taste...mmm actually they taste pretty good too. But, they're not quite right. The biscuits are a bit soggy, which leads me to believe the oven isn't hot enough. However, the raspberry cream is deluxe! Plus , the recipe has made so much raspberry cream i don't know what where going to do with it all.

hot/not

 I found a very fantastic IGA in Bell Park, Geelong. Which doesn't seem very exciting, but it is. The food they've got in there rivals that of Peidemontes in North Fitzroy. Which is great to find here, as here is VERY 'white bread'...or if it's imported, it has to be very expensive. This food is cheap! and it's next door to a very good butcher (Siketa)... which is next to a very good green grocer. The fruit and vege are so fresh it would not surprise me if they weren't picked out of a Nonna's garden just down the road. So I think that's pretty hot.

Makers Market is happening on Sunday, that's making me a bit hot and bothered getting ready for it, but I'm pretty happy with my collection of bits an pieces...look here to see.

And these two books..this one and this one

Now, not hot

Having a house full of sickness is not hot.

Being woken up by everyone around the clock...grrr

Having this sickness come into the house the day I agree to being in this Makers Market, at the last minute.

Only 24 hours in a day..........................

Recipe of the week

MMmmm another mouth-watering delight...

Eifel tower birthday ginger bread extravaganza

Look what me and P made for E's birthday tomorrow!! We're very excited, and hope an invasion of ants does not come to feast.

Recipe of the week....mmm

Another fine  recipe...traditional I know, but lets not forget about 'piped' potato rings as a 'modern' touch. Bon appetit.

Autumn

Getting back to Apples

As time has marched on, I have forgotten how much my little girl loves mushy stewed apple. We made a lot of cooked apple when she just started solids, but as she became more adventurous we left it by the 8ish month way-side.
So here is my yummy, and extremely simple way to make mushy apple.

2 apples
1 tbsp sugar (or less)
Pinch of cinnamon (to taste)
2 tbsp water

Peel, core and chop apples into quarters , put them into a small saucepan, with the other ingredients. Simmer for about 10mins.
Squish it all down with the back of a wooden spoon.
Serve on it’s own.
Or with custard, or icecream.
Also makes a nice underneath for crumble