Birthday gift for Mum

Buying a present can sometimes be tricky, not knowing what someone needs/wants and what about buying for people that have everything they need? That's why I love that I've learned how to crochet.  I decided to make Mum a cushion for her birthday.  I had an idea in mind and asked Abby (my 11 year old) to pick out some nice colour combinations her Grossi would like.  She came up with this after scrolling though some pins on pinterest. 

I love how this turned out and Mum loves it too :) 

If you're keen to give this a go it's called Sunburst Granny Square.  I found this great tutorial on YouTube CLICK HERE I then went up to our local craft store to get some matching material for the cushion cover.  I hand stitched the crochet panel onto the cover and added a zip so it can easily be washed

 

A Blanket For Calais

Wow it's been way too long since my last post. All good reasons as to why though as I've started my own business by becoming a Thermie consultant. Yipee.

So this post isn't about work it's about this blanket I made for my friend's little girl.  I finished it some time ago and was just needing to take a few photos, I'm sure Calais would have preferred to get some use out of it during the recent cold weather, sorry Calais!!

The wool or yarn as some people call it was purchased from BigW who now stock redheart yarn! I was so excited when I saw these giant skeins (I was going to say balls but I get visions of my husband laughing so I'll say skein hahah!) anyway this yarn is so super nice to work with, it is a little thicker than the normal 8 ply I'm used to so I needed to get a bigger hook, I bought a 5.5mm with a handle which I've never used before and I found it really nice to work with.  It was fun to make this blanket because of the easy to use hook and yarn.

I used the same daisy pattern as the last blanket and made it 8 squares by 10.  It should fit perfectly into a cot, fingers crossed!

I hope Calais loves her blanket as much as I liked making it for her :)

 

Crowd Pleaser Sausage Rolls

Back in the 90's I lived with a friend, Cheryl, and her then partner Chris.  It was just for a few months while I was looking for a permanent home of my own. Cheryl and I got on like a house on fire and she taught me how to make her mum's sausage roll recipe - still to this day I make it the same way.  It's always a crowd pleaser; even our close friends get a bit excited when they see them!

So I dedicate this post to Cheryl.  We lost contact many years ago due to the fact there was no Facebook back then, plus my laziness to write probably got in the way.  I hope she is happy and well wherever she is :)

Why do I love these so much?  They're packed with veg and the kids love them!  Win-win!!

Recipe after photo....

Crowd Pleaser Sausage Rolls

• 500g sausages.
• 500g vegetables cut into pieces - combination of swede, parsnip, onion, carrots.
• 1 clove garlic.
• 2 tbs tomato paste.
• 1 egg.
• Salt and pepper to taste (I use Herbemare).
• 4-6 sheets of puff pastry depending on how thick you make your sausage rolls. I use the frozen square sheets from supermarket. 
• Extra egg for pasty wash.
• Sesame seeds (optional).

Thermomix Instructions

Preheat oven to 220C, prepare 3 baking trays with bake paper.
Blitz garlic, speed 7 for 3 sec.
Add vegetables, speed 7 for 15 sec.
Remove skin from sausage meat and add meat to bowl with veg.  Add other ingredients.  Mix reverse speed 6 for 20-30 sec, or until combined.  It may help to put the Thermomix spatula in the hole to keep the mixture moving.

Defrost pastry and cut the sheets in half so that you have 2 rectangles.  Place the sausage meat along the rectangle sheets of pastry and roll into a log shape.  Cut the logs into desired lengths - I make 4 small sausage rolls per log.  Brush on the egg wash (break the extra egg into a bowl and mix with a fork), sprinkle sesame seeds if using, and pierce a hole in each sausage roll (this allows steam to escape while cooking).  Place on a tray and bake until golden brown (approximately 20 min).

Note:  You can use any vegetable that doesn't contain too much water, I'd steer clear of zucchinis, but pumpkin and sweet potato would work well.

A Daisy Blanket for a special little girl

As you may or may not be aware I'm not only a lover of all things food but I also love Crochet.  I am self taught with lots of help from the Internet, especially from bobwison123 on YouTube, Clare (no, not bob) is a great teacher and I learned all my basics from her.  I'm pretty confident with my crochet now and I can actually follow a written pattern which I'm quite chuffed about.  If you're keen to learn how to crochet I'd highly recommend checking out Clare's YouTube page to get you started.  This blanket isn't on her site but I still thank Clare for teaching me the basics oh and as a bonus, Clare is an Aussie like me so I felt at home listening to her instructions. Links below...

SO about this lovely blanket.  Our close friends have a little girl who is about to turn one and I thought it would be nice to make her a special blanket. Her middle name is Daisy so I thought it fitting to make her blanket a daisy theme.  I must admit I'm so happy with how this turned out and I hope little Miss will love it too.

If anyone is interested in how I made this let me know and I'll see if I can find the links to the pages I picked up the pattern from.

Bobwilson facebook
Bobwilson youtube

My daisy blanket.

The back side of the blanket showing the join. 

Orange Poppy Seed Cake

Last weekend we had a cake stall at our local school.  I made a few cakes to donate, one of them being an Orange Poppy Seed cake. I'd never made one before and wasn't sure about a recipe to use so I just tweaked a butter cake, leaving out the vanilla and adding Orange rind and the poppy seeds. The cake mixture looked so good that I wanted to make one for us at home this weekend. So here is the recipe and along with some photos.  Delish!!

Orange Poppy Seed Cake

Thermomix recipe

125g soft butter
150g sugar
2 eggs
Rind of 1 Orange
260g SR flour
125g milk
10g poppy seeds

Grease 20cm cake tin, preheat oven 160 fan forced or 180 non fan forced.
Add sugar to clean dry TMX bowl sp9, 3 sec, add butter sp4,  20 sec scrape down sides attach butterfly, sp 4 40 sec, add rind, sp4 drop eggs through hole in lid, mix for a further 30 sec, add flour, milk and poppy seeds.  Sp4  20 sec, scrape sides and top of butterfly, sp4 20 sec.

cake batter should be quite light and thick, Pour into greased cake tin and bake for 30-35 mins. Test with skewer inserted into cake, skewer should come out clean.

Orange Buttercream Icing.

60g butter
150g icing sugar
1-2 tsp orange juice

Add butter and icing to TMX bowl, beat sp5 20 sec, add juice and beat sp5 for 2-3 mins (the longer you beat the lighter the buttercream will be) No need to use butterfly attachment.

 Spread onto cooled cake.

Sausage Pappardelle

A few weeks back a friend and I were shopping together and discussing what we were planning for the weeks meals.  My friend mentioned that she was going to make a sausage pappardelle, I asked her what it is and how she makes it.  From that light description I decided to make my own Sausage pappardelle and it was DELISH!

I knew I would want to blog about it down the track so made the effort to take a photo. 

Here's how I made it. 

Sausage Pappardelle

1 quantity of pappardelle pasta either homemade or bought. 

Sausages of your choice, I used 4-5 pork sausages

Smoked Paprika

1-2 cloves of garlic crushed

200-300ml cream

400ml approx Pasta or tin of puree tomato (you can use whatever you have, I'm sure a tin of diced tomatoes would be good too) 

Salt and pepper to taste

Parsley 

Method:

If you're going to make your own pasta start on that first... 

Take sausage meat out of skin and break up into bite sized chunks. 

Heat a large fry pan with a little butter ghee or oil (up to you!) 

Fry off the sausage pieces, once browned off add garlic, and a few shakes of smoked paprika, 

Add tomato and simmer for a few minutes, if you find that you've got a too much tomato sauce just reduce the sauce by simmering a little longer.  Add cream and simmer for a few minutes.
Mix through cooked pasta and serve with cracked pepper and parsley to taste.

Pasta

400g '00' pasta flour
4 large eggs
good pinch of salt
1 tsp olive oil.

If using a Thermomix knead for 2-3 minutes.  The dough may form small ball shapes, just pop on bench when finished and lightly knead to bring the dough together.   Wrap in cling film and rest for a minimum of 30 minutes.  Use a pasta machine to roll out dough and cut into desired width. Place on a drying rack until ready to cook.
Boil large pot of water with salt (I normally use around 1TBS)  once pot is boiling add pasta in batches, should only take a few minutes to cook as it is fresh, just test it is al dente.

Welcome

Hi and welcome to my page, I hope you find my blog helpful and inspiring.

I have a deep love for baking (mainly breads) and also love crochet among other things. I plan on making this page not only as a journal for myself but also my children and anyone else who may be interested.

Because everything is better with images here is a photo of my little bake up from today.

5 Seed Pumpkin Bread....... Recipe below

I used my Thermomix to make this loaf, If you don't own one I'm sure you could recreate this in a bread machine or by hand however it may not give you the same results.....

200 - 350g Pumpkin
water (see instructions on amount)
600g Bread Flour
2 tsp Dry yeast
1 tsp Sugar
1 Tbs Oil of your choice (coconut, Olive etc)
2 tsp Bread improver
1 Tbs Poppy seeds
1 Tbs Sesame seeds
1 Tbs Pepita seeds
1 Tbs Sunflower seeds
1 tsp Chia seeds

Cook Pumpkin until soft, this can be done in TMX thermomix or stove top.  I then blend until smooth, once cooled slightly weigh the pumpkin in TMX and add water until the combined weight is 380g It is totally up to you the quantity of pumpkin you use but ideally you'll want 380g of pumpkin liquid. I hope that makes sense!  add flour, yeast, sugar, salt, oil and bread improver.  mix speed 7 for 5 seconds then kneed setting for 6 minutes, when there are a few minutes left pour seeds through lid hole while is continues to kneed.

Let rise (can be done in TMX bowl) once is has risen you knock it back and make your desired shape, I like to place a sprinkle of some seeds on the bench top then roll the dough on it to make an outer seed crust.

Let rise until doubled in size, Bake for approx 25 -30 minutes.  To test if the bread is cooked, tap the underside of the loaf and it should sound hollow.

Let cool for at least 15 minutes until you cut it as the bread still cooks while hot out of the oven.