Category — cooking

I’m into easy “baking”. These have been winners in our house recently:

12 minute Coconut Ice
(this is not a hard version and we keep it in the fridge once made)
1 can condensed milk
3 & 1/3 cups icing sugar
4 & 1/2 cups desicated coconut (I use shredded sometimes)
coctineal

Combine condensed milk, icing sugar and coconut and mix well
Divide mixture in half, press half into base of slab tin and colour remainder with a few drops of coctineal (we do other colours if we fancy). Press coloured mixture over white in slab tin. Chill until firm. Cut into bite size pieces. Go easy - it’s quite sweet…..

I am also utterly obsessed with gingerbread at the moment. We made these ones yesterday:

The girls helped so we did some for our favourite teams as well as those playing. Poor Saints - I was hoping you’d get there. At least then some mates wouldn’t have painted their fence in vain…..

Anyhow, the gingerbread recipe from taste.com (we don’t do the egg white icing either, in fact we rarely ice them, they are so delish without it):

Makes 20

Ingredients
Melted butter, to grease
125g butter, at room temperature
100g (1/2 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar
125ml (1/2 cup) golden syrup
1 egg, separated
375g (2 1/2 cups) plain flour
1 tbs ground ginger
1 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Plain flour, to dust
150g (1 cup) pure icing sugar, sifted
8-10 drops red liquid food colouring
8-10 drops green liquid food colouring
Smarties, to decorate
Method
Preheat oven to 180°C. Brush 2 baking trays with melted butter to lightly grease.
Use an electric beater to beat the butter and sugar in a bowl until pale and creamy. Add the golden syrup and egg yolk and beat until combined. Stir in the flour, ginger, mixed spice and bicarbonate of soda. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Press dough into a disc. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to rest.
Meanwhile, place egg white in a clean, dry bowl. Use an electric beater to beat until soft peaks form. Gradually add icing sugar and beat until stiff peaks form. Divide icing among 3 bowls. Cover 1 bowl with plastic wrap and place in the fridge. Add red colouring to 1 bowl and stir until combined. Add green colouring to remaining bowl and stir until combined. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge.
Place the dough between 2 sheets of baking paper and roll out until about 4mm thick. Use a 9cm gingerbread man cutter to cut out shapes. Place on trays about 3cm apart. Repeat with any excess dough.
Bake in oven for 10 minutes or until brown. Remove from oven. Transfer to a rack to cool.
Place prepared icings in small plastic bags. Cut a small hole in a corner of each bag. Pipe icing over gingerbread men to decorate. Finish with Smarties.

After our rough start to the weekend, it ended up lovely with not much planned.   A bit of ballet, the market and lots of lovely hanging around. We laid low - I squeezed in a bit of sewing - the sky for my mum’s penguin quilt, and we ate simple but yummy food:
Friday night - ham & vege soup with Laurent’s olive bread mmmmm
Sat - borek’s from the market, then antipasto and insalata caprese - I LOVE tomato, Boccocini and Basil - I could live on it.
Strawberries were cheap at the market so we had some soaked in cointreau and sugar on some meringues for dessert.
Sun - french toast for brekky, for dinner we had corn cobs and potato rostis, with vanilla milk puddings and strawberries for dessert. 

The seasons are a changing eh?

Anyway, I used this donna hay recipe to make the vanilla puddings.  Simple to make - I had an apprentice.

Donna Hay’s Vanilla Milk Puddings

1 tablespoon gelatine

3 cups milk

1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped

1/3 cup castor sugar

1/3 icing sugar, sifted

150g raspberries

150g blueberries

Sprinkle the gelatie over ¼ cup of the milk. Set aside for 5 minutes. Place the remaining milk, vanilla, sugar and gelatine in a saucepan and heat for 5 minutes. Remove the vanilla bean and pour the mixture into 6 x ½ cup capacity ramekins or moulds.  Refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.

Combine the icing sugar, lemon juice, raspberries and blueberries. Set aside for 10 minutes. T o serve, unmould the puddings onto plates and spoon over the berry mixture.

Serves 6

You can use sliced strawberries like us, and add cointreau to the berries’ bath.

not the NGV - as I found out after I waited in line with all the other very keen Dali-heads for about …..half an hour!!!!  Nevermind, we got there, the kids got to do some dali-stuff while I waited in line:

I love living in Melbourne - and it’s nice to be home long enough on the weekends to enjoy it.  And Damage cooked tea on Saturday night - he conceptualised, he hunted and gathered and he executed - chicken casseroley thingy - yum, all the better because I didn’t have to lift a finger….  But then, he did spend half of our sunday listening to the footy via his phone.  Which gave me the shits and I behaved like a child.  Then he composted the garden so I stopped being a spoilt brat and made some pumpkin soup. Which was yum. And a chocolate self saucing pudding.  Which was also yum.  I’m off to have some soup.

I made these for the kinder fete last month. This recipe is taken directly from taste.com.au - I have only recently discovered this site but what a minefield - especially handy if you get given a bunch of something and Stephanie’s suggestions dont float your boat.

still going - this week a bit all over the shop but I’m committed….

Tuesday:   Mushroom Rissotto
Wednesday:   Rack of Lamb with zucchini & potato rosti (is anyone else watching masterchef??)
Thursday:   Honey chick stirfry
Friday:  Take away
Saturday:  we are at a party - yippee
Sunday:  Mothers day shananigans all day so doubt dinner will be more than an egg in bread
Monday:  Tuna Mornay

It’s easy to menu plan when you dont have to cook much huh??