So accomplished

There's nothing like cooking a perfect turkey to make you feel like an accomplished cook! Even better when it's the first time you've done it!

(Although maybe it was just beginner's luck...) (also, please ignore the rack on which the turkey is sitting - I couldn't work out how to get the turkey off it and onto the plate - so we just moved the whole thing!)

We had friends over for christmas lunch today and we decided to try doing a turkey. I've never really been a huge fan of turkey, as pretty much every turkey I've had in the past has suffered from dry turkey syndrome. Not my turkey! So moist and juicy and tender. It really was the best turkey I've ever had, and I'm not just saying that because I cooked it! I did make sure I got a nice crispy bit of skin too.

I've got two christmas specific recipe books (Nigella and Donna Hay) so I read up on their turkey recommendations. Nigella soaks hers in "brine" for two days beforehand, which wasn't going to work for me for various logistical reasons. So I went with Donna Hay, but following Nigella's timings for my 6kg bird.

What's the secret? Well, I don't know why my turkey turned out so well, but I followed the recipe pretty much exactly, so I guess that's the secret. Lots of butter between the breast skin and meat (tell you what, carefully separating the skin from the meat with your fingers is a very odd business, only beaten really by then stuffing dobs of butter back in there!). Sit the turkey on a rack in the baking tray, and fill the bottom of the tray with chicken stock, and baste every hour or so with the stock/juices mixture (would have done half hour, but couldn't fit that in with the other prep jobs I had to do!).

And there wasn't much left, always a good sign! We should have enough pickings for turkey bubble and squeak for lunch tomorrow I think! Thanks to Fiona for doing the veg, Sue for the dessert and Jack for the champagne - truly a great joint effort christmas lunch.

Cook from a Book challenge #6

I have a small confession to make - this is not actually from a book I own - I found the recipe in the paper a couple of weeks ago - it's an extract from a new book which is called Recipes My Mother Cooked.

I thought it sounded easy and yum. And I had a friend coming over for lunch, and I happened to have a couple of sheets of puff pastry in the freezer, so the ideal time to make it!

Egg and Bacon Pie:

(Check out the puffiness of that puff pastry!) It was delicious! I downsized the recipe - which uses 10 eggs (plus one for the pastry glue!), because I don't have a pie dish big enough to hold a 10 egg pie! But it was still plenty for 6 servings, which meant leftovers the next day! Woo hoo!

Very very easy to make as well. And could easily be tarted up with the addition of other ingredients too I think. Peas or corn, capsicum, maybe tomato, perhaps some grated cheese.

And can be eaten hot or cold. Very versatile!

Cook from a Book challenge #5

Or, more correctly for this post, Cook from Cindy2Paw's Blog!

Today I made these:

Red Velvet Cupcakes!

I decided I was going to give these a go as soon as I saw them on Cindy's blog, and since I was having visitors with a bunch of kids today, the perfect opportunity arose! Or at least, I thought it was perfect but on reflection, making cupcakes with red food colouring and a cream cheese icing - for kids - was perhaps not as perfect as I originally thought...oh well, some of the kids loved them, some had to scrape the icing off and some weren't that keen.

But I managed to polish off 3 of them in quick(ish) succession.

They were delicious! Although I couldn't get the icing as thick as I think it probably should be (and I only made half as much as the recipe specified, which was still plenty). I would definitely make these again! Red cupcakes! Red! Chocolate! Cream Cheese icing! What's not to love! Thanks Cindy for the inspiration and the recipe!

Cook from a Book challenge #4

Yes, almost the end of March and this is only #4 ... I knew I should have made it a monthly challenge rather than weekly!! And I must confess, I only completed this one out of necessity - I couldn't find the recipe I wanted (an old favourite), so had to resort to the books!

Thank goodness for The Cook's Companion. Stephanie Alexander has come to my rescue yet again!

This is the quick apple cake:

I had a friend coming over for afternoon tea, and I do believe you can never go wrong with an apple recipe! But I couldn't find my apple tea cake recipe (from my Year 9 Home Science recipe book - I couldn't find the whole book, which makes me sad!!). I thought Stephanie would be my best bet and she didn't let me down. A really nice, easy to make cake, goes delightfully with a dollop of cream and a pot of tea.

(Sadly though, I had to throw out the leftovers yesterday, due to ants! Darn ants got into the cake! I shouldn't have left it out on the bench - although it was covered nice and tight with glad wrap - darn little ants! They should be made to wear steel capped boots so we can hear them getting into things!)

Cook from a Book challenge #3

This week's offering is brought to you courtesy of my glucose tolerance test and Nigella Lawson.

Pasta with Ham, Peas and Cream! Yum!

I had to do another glucose tolerance test this week (testing for gestational diabetes), requiring me to have a high-carb diet for 3 days beforehand. I'm not entirely sure my usual diet isn't high carb anyway, but it was certainly no hardship to eat lots of pasta, potatoes and bread!

This is ridiculously easy to make. Boil up your pasta, add the peas half-way through, drain and set aside. Warm the cream, ham (mmmm, leftover Christmas ham that I'd frozen) and some parmesan, then mix pasta through. So easy! The recipe is from Nigella's Feast, another lovely Christmas gift (thanks Bells!). It's actually from the "Kiddiefeast" chapter. So there you go, good for kids and adults alike! Interestingly, the recipe says it serves 2-3 children. Well, we've already had 3 meals from the amount made by the recipe, and there's enough for another meal too.

I will definitely make this again, not least to use the rest of the fun bowtie pasta!

Cooking challenge

So last week I didn't do my cooking challenge, for various reasons. Am making up for it this week by making two new recipes (although I must admit, one of them hardly counts as a recipe, or really for that matter, cooking). Both are from Nigella Lawson's How to Eat.

First up, Pea Risotto. I've never made risotto before. All that stirring really put me off, I suppose. But I liked the sound of this and since part of this challenge is to try new things, I thought I'd give it a whirl.

It was really very good! I think I could have cooked it a tad longer, but I was running out of time. And the constant stirring really wasn't that bad (listening to the Australian Open tennis in the background probably helped!). I would definitely make this again, especially as it basically uses ingredients that you would most likely already have in your pantry and fridge/freezer.

Next, a dessert. I do love a dessert! Roasted Sugar-sprinkled Peaches. Here's the before (I used white sugar on one and brown sugar on the other):

And the after:

Yum!! I think brown sugar works better, although they both tasted very similar. These are so easy, all you do is cut the peaches in half, remove the stone, put some dots of butter and a teaspoon or so of sugar in the hole and on the flesh of the peach, bake for 20 mins in the oven, and serve with icecream. SO EASY! I will definitely be making these again! Probably this weekend!

what to cook, what to cook?

I have all these cookbooks:

And yet hardly use any of them...with the exception of Nigella's How to Be a Domestic Goddess, of course! (and Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion -what an essential for every kitchen!). And I got two more lovely ones for Christmas (thanks Bells and DrK!).

It was really the addition of the new books which made me decide I really must expand my evening meal repertoire - by using my books! So I plan on making a new dish (or side dish at least) every week, at least until May...who knows what will happen after that!

This of course requires some pre-planning for the grocery shopping, but that's hardly a bad thing, if it means less wastage in the end (which I'm hoping will be the case).

So this week I made something relatively easy, and quite good - husby is always happy to have a vegetarian meal from time to time: spinach and feta pies, from one of my new books - Donna Hay's Seasons. This is a lavishly styled book, with recipes organised by each of the four seasons, which is quite handy, I must say!

The recipe is quite straightforward, but I didn't really enjoy working with the filo pastry - it was my first time - and I found it a bit of a pain. I wouldn't be putting these on my weekly cooking roster, but I will make them again I think. Very nice with a bit of my mum's tomato relish on top and for husby's lunchbox the next day!

Baking - more baking!

Roxie asked what I made to take to the stash reallocation afternoon tea on Saturday.

You need wait no longer!

I made Schnecken!

You can read all about it here. And then immediately go and make some for yourself. They are one of the best things I've made from Nigella!

(and for those of you who want to know what yarn I bought home with me on Saturday, you'll have to wait a bit longer!! But don't worry, I will reveal! I can tell you that I only brought home 100g more than I took! Not bad...!)

Mmmmm, warm bread out of the oven

But not here...

You need to go over here for today's post! It's been a while between posts, but I've finally baked something! Bells, I'm pretty sure it's your turn now!!!

Who doesn't love a knitting playdate?

Not me! I LOVE a knitting playdate! Even more, I love having lots of them! I had two this week, in addition to my regular Thursday date with the Morris & Sons SnB group.

First up was brunch with Jen on Monday - of course, I forgot my camera, so no visual record of this one, but the company was grand and the eggs benedict was delicious!!

Then Tuesday with PoppyLee and NannaMarge (otherwise known as Fredastep and 1FunkyKnitWit), and a special guest appearance from KnitNess. Another lovely day with lots of knitting, and a very fancy lunch:

Some knitwear modelling (PoppyLee and his stylist!):

Ishbel had her first day out (competing with Poppy's butterfly):

And mini-cheesecakes and coffee for fancy dessert (look at the crystal serving ware!):

(you can read more about the cheesecakes here).

Have I mentioned how much I LOVE knitting playdates!

I've been baking...

You can read about it here. Perhaps some of my American friends can tell me if it's "traditional" or not!

Wanna piece of me?

Check out Mouthfuls of Heaven

And get out your splayds!

What's cooking?

Bells and I have been cooking up a little something something...

See the results here!

Rose Red: Domestic Goddess - Peanut Butter and Jam Jewels

So, here's the deal: I've resolved to make at least one new item (ie never before made by me from this recipe) from How to Be a Domestic Goddess, at least once a week. I haven't counted, but there's probably about 200 recipes in the book. Some I won't make, most I will. That's it.

31 March-1 April - Peanut Butter and Jam Jewels, p221

Combining one of the best things to come out of the US (good ol' PB&J) into a biscuit is clearly a recipe for biscuity goodness. So how could I not make these? I intended to serve them at CWS but only got time to make the dough, not actually cook them. Lucky we had PLENTY of food!!

You have to refrigerate the dough for at least an hour after mixing - it is very sticky (yep, peanut butter will do that!!) and refrigerating makes it much easier to manage when rolling the dough balls. And, as I discovered, you can easily refrigerate for a whole day, as I didn't bake them until Sunday afternoon.

Nigella suggests using your thumb to make the jam indentations, but I found this pate knife with a nice rounded bottom and used that. Even so, the indentations rose and practically disappeared during baking - luckily they are soft enough to re-indent once you take out of the oven.

I used plum jam on half and peach jam on the other half (not strawberry as suggested - don't like the pips!). Best to use a fairly solid jam which doesn't have large pieces of fruit in it, as this makes it easier to spoon into the indentations. Nigella also says the jam is supposed to go a bit runny and then harden slightly, to make the biscuits look just like "jewels worn by fairy tale princesses".

Heh. If the fairy tale you are reading is Shrek and you are Princess Fiona perhaps!!! But oh, they do taste delicious!! I think the plum jam works better with the peanutty biscuits, but the sweet and the savoury - one of my favourite taste sensations!

Rose Red: Domestic Goddess - Granny Boyd's biscuits

So, here's the deal: I've resolved to make at least one new item (ie never before made by me from this recipe) from How to Be a Domestic Goddess, at least once a week. I haven't counted, but there's probably about 200 recipes in the book. Some I won't make, most I will. That's it.

25 March 2007 - Granny Boyd's biscuits (p204)

Nigella describes these as "dark, smoky and melting". Heh! She does have a way with words... What they are is the easiest biscuits you could possibly make - just butter (a whole stick!), castor sugar, self-raising flour and a little bit of cocoa - it is amazing how dark the mix goes with a just a little cocoa.

Here they are pre-squished:

And squished (with the back of a fork - my mother used to make butter snaps, which I suspect are the non-chocolate version of these, and squash lightly with the back ofa fork - well, that used to be my job - that and making the dents in the jam drops for the jam).

And finally baked, for a lovely afternoon tea out on the deck with husby.

Nigella warns that it is hard to tell when they are ready, as they don't really change colour when cooking like most biscuits - and she's right! I extended the cooking time by about 5 minutes and I think I overdid it just a little - they weren't burned, but they were a bit more crumbly than I expected. But very nice with a cup of tea! Nigella recommends having them with ice-cream as a dessert - that could be quite good too! I also think they might be good with a touch of peppermint essence - mmm choc minty goodness.

Rose Red: Domestic Goddess - Madeira Cake

So, here's the deal: I've resolved to make at least one new item (ie never before made by me from this recipe) from How to Be a Domestic Goddess, at least once a week. I haven't counted, but there's probably about 200 recipes in the book. Some I won't make, most I will. That's it.

March 9, 2007 - Madeira Cake, pp 2-3

I've been itching to try this recipe for a while. Slightly put off by the ingredients including almost a whole "stick" of butter (does anyone remember the cartoon on Sesame Street where a little girl was sent to the shop to buy a loaf of bread, a pint of milk, and a stick of butter? Can't remember the point of that cartoon...perhaps it was about remembering things...)

My trusty red KitchenAid creaming the butter and sugar.

The mixture was really thick, I don't think I've ever made a cake that was so "solid" before it was cooked. Ready to bake - hope it turns out like the picture behind! I was surprised that you sprinkled caster sugar on top before baking.

Mmmmm, smell that warm cake. All that butter makes it slip right out of the (well-buttered and floured and lined, after last week's stickiness) tin with no troubles at all! And the lovely caster sugar crust. Mmmm just the right amount of sweetness to contrast with the lemony buttery flavour. And it looks just like the picture!

Just perfect with a cup of coffee (trust me, there was coffee in that cup - I just couldn't wait any longer for my afternoon coffee so started before the cake was quite cool enough.)

Nigella's suggested variations include lemon poppyseed, seed cake and strawberry madeira. Mmmm.

Rose Red: Domestic Goddess - Store Cupboard Chocolate Orange Cake

So, here's the deal: I've resolved to make at least one new item (ie never before made by me from this recipe) from How to Be a Domestic Goddess, at least once a week. I haven't counted, but there's probably about 200 recipes in the book. Some I won't make, most I will. That's it.


February 24, 2007 - Store Cupboard Chocolate Orange Cake, pp 170-171
Another easy-peasy cake recipe, which Nigella promises you can make from ingredients in your pantry. If you have "good quality fine cut marmalade" in your pantry, that is, which I don't. But that's easily fixed by a trip to the shops.

The other great thing about this cake is that it is mixed in a saucepan using a wooden spoon - no need for mixer, handbeater or 5 different bowls. Excellent for washing up efficiency! You melt the butter, add the dark chocolate until it is soft then remove from heat and stir stir stir. Then you add caster sugar, eggs, pinch of salt and the jam (you can also substitute other flavours of jam for the marmalade - wouldn't raspberry be tasty!). Then last of all, SR flour. Mix mix mix then bake.

Nigella warns that it is not a particularly attractive cake so a dusting of icing sugar is called for. She did not warn that the excessive stickiness of the jam would make the bottom of the cake stick to the (alleged) non-stick cake tin, but clearly if I had stopped to think about it I should have realised this would be the case. I used one of those new plasticky flexible cake tins, but next time I will make sure I've got a springform tin and will flour and line it well!

Served while still a little warm, with cream - it was delicious! My brother and sister-in-law both had seconds!

PS - anonymous, the handbag is from Loewe.

Mother Rose Red: Domestic Goddess Pt 3 - Peach Jam

Mum is staying with us at the moment and so she is taking over the Domestic Goddess duties this week (although it's a bit of a cheat, as is not from Nigella's book, but hey, it's home-made jam, that's pretty domestic-goddessy!).


Mmmmm peach jam - my favourite - very difficult to buy commercially so I usually have to rely on markets - which means usually it's home-made - that's better anyway!

Every year Mum buys a whole bunch of peaches from her peach man in Forbes. Usually she stews them all and freezes them. I'm not a big fan of stewed peaches so I requested jam instead. So the peaches came up with us to Sydney and here we go, peach jam!

1 kilo of peaches and about the same of sugar, plus a squeeze of lemon juice to help it set. Pretty simple, although I have to admit I've never made jam. Maybe next year...

And what you end up with - two lovely jars of jam - and the lids don't lie: "premium quality" (heee!) Afternoon tea on Saturday was peach jam on toast. Mmmmmm peach jam.