christmas baking - gingerbread afternoon

i love christmas. let me rephrase that, i love the christmas season. a season of giving, creating and baking. mmm baking!

for the last four christmases i have devoted an afternoon to baking gingerbread creations, the first afternoon i did on my own when we lived in tamworth. it was an afternoon of solitude and bliss, i always forget the OD on gingerbread dough each year!

the second time was also in tamworth, i was 8 months pregnant and my sister Cat was over to celebrate with us. I think I gingerbreaded her out that year.

2009 christmas was celebrated back in perth, so both my sisters and mum came over to gingerbread it up. and in 2010 we did it all over again but this time we had our house guests Ingo & Kate playing with us and my BFF Sandy with her boys Tasman & Ryan over to create some christmassy goodness. I premade the dough (4 batches of gingerbread goodness!) that morning whilst samuel napped.

making the dough in the morning was a smart move. we had people in the house by 230pm and started rolling out dough and cutting christmas figurines. the new addition this year - a dashhound cookie (not christmassy but very 2010 in spirit!). we had bowls of silver cashews, mini m&ms and sprinkles on the table, trays for the finished masterpieces and piping bags full of lemoney white icing and green icing.

i really have no idea how many cookies we created in the end but this is a snapshot of some of the finished products.

side note : many of these biscuits were eaten by us and given to friends and family as christmas presents.
2011: will this be the year that i have a gingerbread making afternoon PLUS a gingerbread house making evening? oh imagine the creativity that could be had!!

all of these photos were taken by my younger younger sister k-sara xxx

christmas baking - cake, cookies, chocolate and fish

so I have been busy and no I am not crazy and stay up late and get up early. I have a wee bit of time at home playing with Samuel as I only work 3 half days a week. I really REALLY enjoy my four day weekends with Samuel and they are especially fantastic when Jonathan isn't working and has time off too. We get to do something as a family and something as a couple. I really love our family. This weekend we had fish and chips down at South Beach (sure it lasted 20 minutes and we ended up eating at home because Samuel wanted to see the beach and play with everyone's doggies) and last week we had a date night at Blend Cafe in Melville. Soooooooooooooo good.


Onto my cooking. I have a few recipes that I have wanted to make this season, mainly as gifts for our friends and family. Of course, I need to try them out first though! I don't want to give something that tastes ikky!


So the first thing I made was a christmas cake. Initially when I cut into this cake, it was very rummy! But now - droolishious! I have gone out and bought more ingredients to bake a few more of these cakes. Here is an inside peak - full of dates, cherries, raisins, currants and prunes. Very VERY moist.



Now my Gran (mums mum) is a ginger freak - in a good way. When we lived in Sydney I use to buy her these Indonesian Ginger Lollies from the IGA in Chinatown and mail them to her. She use to ration them out each week. So when I saw these Buttery Ginger Squares I HAD to make them for her present. They have crystalised ginger and ginger powder in them and smell divine. I decided to bake 1/4 of the mixture. The rest is rolled into logs which Gran can cut at her leisure from the freezer. It lasts for one month in the freezer. Cool huh? Most importantly, I got to use my lovely peacock paper on the wrapping. You can buy it from The Wrapping Paper Company.


I have decided to enter this recipe into the December Cook Off Competition at Kitchen Corners. How I love Damaris and her blog. Its a refreshing read which I recommend. Here is to inspiring her to bake some Australian recipes!!!


Now the buttery ginger square recipe came from Belinda Jeffery's 'mix&bake' cookbook. The same book holds the secrets to the last minute christmas cake featured above.


As quoted from her book :

300g plain flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp ground ginger

180g crystallised ginger chunks
250g unsalted butter
150g brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
optional, flaked almonds to decorate


1 - put flour, baking powder, salt + ground ginger into processor and pulse to combine. add ginger chunks and mix until chopped into small chunks (or forget about it like I did and make it so small you cannot see it but you can taste it!). Tip this into a bowl (important, although I completely MISSED this sentence, recipe did not FAIL!).

2 - put butter and sugar into processor. whiz until creamy. drizzle in vanilla whilst machine is on.


3 - tip flour back in and combine with butter. do this quickly as too much mixing once flour is added can make the biscuits tough.


4 - scrape the dough, which is pretty soft, into a bowl. cover with gladwrap and put into fridge for around 45 minutes to get firmer. divide dough into 2, roll into a log and wrap in foil lined with baking paper. put back into fridge for at least 2 hours or overnight. you can freeze at this point.


5 - take logs out of the fridge and bang onto the bench to create a flat side (or use a rolling pin if your kids are asleep) and this creates the square shape. back into the fridge for 15 minutes.


6 - preheat oven to 160C. cut dough into 8mm slices and put onto baking tray. cook for roughly 25-30 minutes. make sure you rotate trays and turn front to back for even coverage. they will change colour when ready. cool on tray for 5 minutes, then transfer to rack.

Your home will smell fantastic, trust me!

Yesterday I made two batches of Rocky Road. Was I somewhat inspired by Corrie's White Rocky Road and Chocolate Rocky Road blog entrys. Why YES, I somewhat was ....



Now last night we had our church connect group christmas dinner. I baked wild snapper (which created a funny discussion on what exactly is domestic snapper??) stuffed with nutty rice. It is a really lovely recipe. The rice is flavoured with coriander, cumin, fresh coriander, salt, pepper, parsley, lemon rind and toasted pistachios.

Unfortunately I dont have a cooked picture from last night. Let me know if you want any recipes, I am more than happy to share!

labne + cupcakes + cookies = mmm

right-e-o, so i am feeling inspired (mainly because my phone takes an okay picture and its much easier to use than the camera!).

so this weekend (i work PT and hence, have a 4 day weekend) I started making labne. Basically you need nice greek yoghurt, olive oil, garlic and rosemary. Oh and some glass or plastic containers of course! duh. I bought some yummy margaret river greek yoghurt and its currently sitting in the fridge - dripping. I just need to roll it into balls next and infuse in olive oil with garlic and rosemary for at least 24 hours. Am thinking these would go great in the hampers we are making up for christmas presents.

last night my sister had us over for a family BBQ. she is heading to bali for a couple of weeks for a pre-christmas break. she likes white chocolate so i recreated the white chocolate mud-cupcakes for her. but this time i zested a lemon and added it to the mixture. it was lovely. topped with some chocolate buttercream, they were intense. a definate sugar HIT. cupcake wrappers from IKEA!

i bought my cookie container from textile traders earlier this year. isn't she gorgeous?

even better when full of chocolate chip cookies (with walnuts + currants).

these are for afternoon tea tomorrow

yell if you want any recipes xx

baking baking baking

firstly let me apologise in the slackness of my posting. i recently got an iphone4 which takes great photos except i would love to blog from my phone and not have to connect it to the laptop if i want to do a post.

i'll get there.

anywho....a couple of weekends ago our local market had trays of peaches on sale for $5.99. not floury, hard peaches but the ones where your entire home smells like peaches all week long. they were amazing and there was no way that my tribe would get through the box so half were given to my parents to enjoy.

so with the peaches i made bill grangers peach and raspberry slice. it was divine, a tad sweet but divine nevertheless. smelt and tasted like SUMMER.

i have also been getting into making cupcakes. i have a great little womens weekly cupcake book where the base recipe is different in each cake. its great. so far i have tried chocolate raspberry (definately a repeat recipe!) and white chocolate mud cake with chocolate icing (below). these were demolished in an afternoon at my parent-in-law's home. don't they look pretty? am having bbq dinner at my sisters home tomorrow and am planning on recreating these for her. she is a white chocolate kinda gal.

for the first time EVER i made a christmas cake. this one has cherries prunes dates raisins sultanas and currants in it. she is sitting in my fridge, wrapped in foil. awaiting her fate....

so tell me, are you making anything fun this weekend? possibly making some christmas presents? little gifts?

i am making labne this weekend and planning on bottling it for gift giving. thats if it works. we are having a gingerbread making afternoon in two weekends time and i cannot WAIT. this and the screening of the polar express is sure to make christmas feel even more christmassy.

i heart buying fruit from the market

why do i love buying fruit from our italian grocer right next to work??

because we can buy punnets of strawberries this big (note we already ate 3 strawberries) for the low price of $2.49 per punnet

and i can buy kilo's of juicy blood oranges for $3.99/kg. this little pile will be juiced, simmered and churned into delishious refreshing sorbet...

are you lucky enough to have a great little grocer near you? what are your fabulous finds? i LOVE good buys.

todays included the above (of course!) and grande boccocini for 99c (the catch, due by tomorrow - will be making some meatballs, baked in the oven and topped with cheesy cheese).

blood orange sorbet *drool*

the other week our italian market had blood oranges (the large ones), so i bought a few and then i saw the little ones (the gorgeous almost moldy coloured ones) in woolworths, so i grabbed a few more.

i had one recipe that i wanted to remake (i made this last year) - blood orange sorbet!

i tweaked a basic sorbet recipe to taste and produced a nicely sized container of freshly made blood orange sorbet. mmmm.

sorbet recipe
3/4 cup caster sugar
1.5 cup water

combine, bring to boil and cool.

my oranges gave 3 cups of juice. so i added this to my sorbet base and churned away in my kitchenaid icecream attachment. the result was a smidgeon sweet for my liking but the juice of 1 lemon solved that problem!

tasty tuna pasta bake

hrmmmppffftttt i don't think this photo does this recipe justice. this is a staple recipe we make every second week because it goes down well with my boys - tuna TICK, vegies TICK and a colourful amass of rainbow pasta shapes TICK. Of course you dont have to use rainbow coloured pasta, 1 cup of macaroni suffices (and thats what the original recipe called for but we always tweak recipes in our home)

this pasta bake makes 6 serves HOWEVER they are large LARGE serves, its great for lunch, leftovers and for husbands taking to dinner when working shift work,

tweaked tuna bake recipe

1 cup macaroni pasta (or ~250g), cooked
425g tin tuna, drained
1 cob corn, cooked and decobbed (thats the correct term right?)
1 head brocolli, cut into florets and steamed
1 onion, chopped
3 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
2 cups low fat milk
1/3 cup cheese
breadcrumbs

1. preheat oven to 180 C

2. melt butter in saucepan, add onion and lightly fry. add flour, make into paste. add 2 tbsp milk and slowly add milk to pan until combined. stir until thick and then add cheese.

3. add the tuna, corn, brocolli and pasta to the white sauce mixture. combine and pour into a lightly greased tray. sprinkle with breadcrumbs

4. bake in oven for 20 minutes or until golden on top

apple kuchen

so i finally used the last 7 apples from that box to make this apple kuchen. recipe acquired from hubbies mum. i also made it because i realised i had two cartons of sour cream in the fridge.

its really simple to make and quite tasty.

apple kuchen
butter cake mix
1/2 cup margarine or soft butter
1/2 cup coconut

4 cooked apples
1/3 cup caster sugar combined with 1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cup sour cream mixed with 1 egg

1 - preheat oven 180c
2 - crumb the butter into the cake mix, add the coconut and put into non-greased slice pan, slightly push up the sides. bake 10 minutes.
3 - put apples ontop of the base, sprinkle over the sugar/cinnamon mixture. spoon over the sour cream/egg mixture
4 - bake for another 20 odd minutes, until browned on the edges

the daring baker

well i have signed up - and will find out on the 01 september if i have been accepted into the daring bakers challenge. fun times ahead!

http://thedaringkitchen.com/

i did have quite a fun cooking weekend and i did take photos - but they are on my mums camera!! will share shortly as i made :

apple + cinnamon scrolls (for freo hospital ICU departments sunday breakfast)
mini burgers (for my little family dinner last night)

my birthday present

she is gorgeous and does so many things in the kitchen.

so far she has made soup, scones, pie crust, breadcrumbs, cauliflower puree and it was only my birthday 10 days ago................................

zucchini carrot ham slice

finally - i have two working ovens! they were fixed last thursday - just in time for the weekend! to celebrate i made apple crumble and fish pie

so needless to say i was looking for a quick, delishious and easy meal catering for 18mth Samuel and came along this slice. PERFECT to cut into little cubes that he can stuff into his mouth.

it was a hit.

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/15319/zucchini+carrot+ham+slice

ovens = dead

a quick post from me as i am still gob smacked (we never use that term enough).

we are currently renters and unfortunately i've been told that we will not hear from the electrician until at least monday. . .

which means - no baking in the oven ALL WEEKEND and I only have one hot plate. three words

aiy aiy aiy!

and this wednesday is my BIRTHDAY. luckily my little little sister has offered to make the birthday cake this year, I am looking forward to the surprise!

oh well, it will be stirfry meals, curries and stuff baked on the BBQ this week coming. I'm just sad because I'll miss my baking . . .

BBQ APPLE PIE !!!!

right-e-o

so my last post was all about the box of apples i acquired for $3. there was a total of 50 apples in the box, thats right - only 6c per apple. i gave mum 9 apples, threw 2 away and then there were 39. so this weekend, i saw, as an apple bake-off weekend. i love baking, have the apples - what do i possibly have to lose???

well our oven stopped working!!!! and i had made this gorgeous apple pie (and used 12 apples which left 27 apples!) to feed our son Samuel...............and freeze for hubbie Jonathan (for when he gets back from Sydney on Saturday).

how disappointed was i. .... until i realised - i had an option :

BBQ APPLE PIE !!!!

this is easy, you just need a roaster hood. put the griddle plate in the middle, turn all 4 burners on and close the hood. heat for 10 minutes. it gets to around 160c. then turn the two middle burners off, put in the apple pie - close hood.


cook for 40 minutes or until brown gooey and lovely.......

unfortunately it burnt a wee little on the top but it worked out well in the end.... phewwwww.

apples apples apples

this is the box of granny smith apples i bought at the market for $3.

this is the box AFTER i donated 10 to my parents house.

what to make ? any ideas ? i am all ears......

thai red chicken and pumpkin curry - comforting sunday dinner

sunday was simple

church - market - gardening - dinner - sam to bed - masterchef with jonathan - sleep

of course there was all the other bits and bobs but i wanted it to look simple and pretty.

market buy of the day - box of granny smith apples for $3. by box, i mean small fruit carton and there are alot to work with!

dinner cooked - thai red chicken and pumpkin curry with rice. this is actually a recipe for a pork pumpkin curry but we adapt things in our house. jonathan is working night shift so a warming delishious meal was on the cards. samuel also enjoyed it - making yummy sounds whilst eating and doing a little dance when the food was getting closer to his mouth. jonathan even left a wee bit for him to enjoy for dinner tonight.

this is a pretty easy meal to replicate over and over again. a staple on our list to cook, probably repeated every 4 months or so. the recipe is from the complete stir-fry cookbook which is produced by family circle. why i like this book ? well it has nutritional information for every single recipe and a hugemongeous variety of recipes.

you can pick this book up secondhand on amazon

but here is my altered recipe

thai red chicken and pumpkin curry (serves 4)
1 tbsp oil
1-2 tbsp red curry paste
500g chicken, cubed
1 cup coconut milk
350g butternut or japanese pumpkin, peeled and cubed
1 lime, juiced
1/4 cup coconut cream
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp brown sugar
2 red chillies sliced (optional)

1 - heat oil in wok, add curry paste, cook 1 minute
2 - add chicken to the wok and stir fry until golden brown. add the coconut milk, pumpkin, lime and 1/2 cup water. reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
3 - add the coconut cream, fish sauce and brown sugar. stir to combine. scatter chilli over the top to serve.

Nutritional Info:
30g protein
11g fat
9g carbohydrate
1.5g dietary fibre
62mg cholesterol
260 cal (1085kJ)

muffins muffins muffins

ok so its the weekend, time to add stock to the freezer. With a husband working night shifts on the roster and a 17month old, quick easy and nutritious snacks are a must. Without them I've realised I rely way to much on tiny teddies and other not-so-good snacks. i only started making muffins after being reintroduced to its versatility (they can be frozen, reheated or put in a lunch box and will defrost by lunchtime) by my BFF sandy gail.

so the request for muffins was in order. i have a simple recipe (acquired from my mum when creating my 'moving out of home recipe book') that I adapt to whatever is in the freezer / pantry and would make a good muffin. Gone are the days of regular muffins and say hello mini muffins. each batch of muffin mix will yield one tray of mini muffins (24 muffins).

i make two batches at a time so we have lots of them frozen for snacks. today i made two types :

chocolate, coconut + mixed berry

oat, sultana + banana

here is the recipe :

base muffins mixture (12 adult size or 24 mini muffins)

1 3/4 cups SR flour
2 tbsp caster sugar

1 lightly beaten egg

3/4 cup milk

1/3 cup melted butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

1. preheat oven to 200c

2. sift flour, sugar & baking powder into bowl. add fruit (and other dry ingredients here).

3. in a smaller bowl combine melted butter, milk, egg and vanilla (and other wet ingredients here). add liquids all at once to the flour mixture.

4. combine gently with fork till dry ingredients are moistened.

5. spoon into muffin tins

6. bake 20-25 minutes, until golden brown.

oat, sultana + banana variation - add 2 smushed bananas to the wet mix and 1/2 cup oats and 1/2 cups sultanas to the dry mixture.

chocolate, coconut + mixed berry variation - add 200g frozen berries and 1/4 cup shredded coconut to dry mix and substitute 1/4 cup flour for 1/4 cup cocoa.

other variations -

apple + cinnamon - add 2 diced apples + 2 tsp cinnamon to dry mix

lamington - add 1/2 cup coconut + substitute 1/2 cup flour for 1/4 cup cocoa to dry mix. top with shredded coconut prior to baking.

will provide other variations as we make them at home but be adventurous.

fish pie fish pie fish pie

i made fish pie for dinner - recipe from this weeks coles magazine.

Samuel loved it and ate nearly 1 whole serve (thats an adult serve!). We loved it and there is just enough for HHML to take dinner to work tonight. The secret to winning a toddlers heart? Probably the cauliflower boiled in milk and then pureed till creamy which made up the base of the pie. It was divine......

Sadly I took no photos but am sure this recipe will be repeated soon....photos and recipe to follow then.

hhm♥ dinner with his high school mates

okay so maybe i am a little bit crazy but when jonathan mentioned maybe having his friends over for dinner I jumped at the chance to cook for it. babysitter was organised and my saturday was planned - exercise, family time, coffee and cooking.

my menu aim ? food that is great for a chilly june evening and that would fill 7 men up.

so i decide :

spiced cauliflower soup with yoghurt and oven roasted turkish bread

lasagna with fresh chilli pasta and bechamel sauce, served with green salad and roast pumpkin

apple pie with vanilla icecream

it was so much fun to cook but there was alot to do and i didn't take any photos! maybe next time.

spiced cauliflower soup with yoghurt

this recipe is available here (http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/40/spiced+cauliflower+soup+with+yoghurt)

this soup, i made last up. it was still warm when everyone arrived. served with a side dish of natural yoghurt and some freshly baked oiled turkish bread (i would have smothered with garlic cloves prior to baking however i ran out!).

lasagna with fresh chilli pasta and bechamel sauce, served with green salad and roast pumpkin

this is a variation of my mums beef lasagna.

the lasagna i started first. i made the beef layer first. made fresh pasta dough with chilli flakes (this needs to be rested in the fridge prior to rolling into sheets of fresh, lovely, oozy pasta). made a pot of lovely bechamel sauce with fresh nutmeg and put it all together. my top layer? a fine layer of parmesan cheese (i recommend getting a microplane zester!!) and some fresh mozerella from an italian market at stock rd markets (galati + sons).

apple pie with vanilla icecream

this recipe is available here (http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/5008/apple+pie)

i have made this apple pie twice now and this recipe is wonderful! i think the key is after you have made the pie, put it in the fridge. this helps solidify the apple mixture and then it won't leak into the pastry crust. the other key is to drain the liquids from the apples when they are cooling down. else it will also make the pastry soggy.

did i mention that i made two of everything (two lasagnas, two apple pies) ?

why the name? gastronomy @ home

after numerous updates to my facebook status on what was being created, cooked and baked in our kitchen at home i decided to create a blog.

so my blog - gastronomy @ home, will show you all what i am cooking @ home, my inspiration behind the meal and what it is being created for. this of course will change.

i'll show you where we go to eat,what i've read and learnt, who i have met, who i have cooked for, what i have created. hopefully all these things will inspire you to be a little chef in your kitchen. recipes may be included of course!

simple philosophy - why cook as a chore, when you can create bake and enjoy?

simply stated by wikipedia

gastronomy is the study of the relationship between culture and food. it is often thought erroneously that the term gastronomy refers exclusively to the art of cooking, but this is only a small part of this discipline; it cannot always be said that a cook is also a gourmet. gastronomy studies various cultural components with food as its central axis.