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)