While playing “flick the channels” with the TV remote one evening, which the hubby absolutely loves hates, I stumbled upon a New Zealand cooking show called The Free Range Cook with Annabel Langbein as the host. At that particular moment, she was making a Strawberry Cloud Cake which looked stunning and so simple. We waited for the cook book to come out before we made it, which we picked up on a trip to Melbourne and the weekend after we got home was the first of many times that this dessert has been made.
Melton Mowbray Pork Pie
Another man who is responsible for a lot of cooking in our house is Jamie Oliver. You may have heard of him, he is the chap from England who has a few cooking shows, some cook books (a copy of each of them resides on our bookshelf), a couple of restaurants and does some wonderful things through his foundation.
In his Jamie’s Great Britain series, Jamie called into a butcher who makes Melton Mowbray Pork Pies. You know the hubby’s eyes lit up as soon as this came on, and then he searched the interweb for a recipe to make his own.
Chocolate Sauce
I am currently reorganising my pantry, for the third time this year mind you. When I was going through some of the mystery containers lurking in the corners of the shelves I found a big batch of Dutch processed cocoa powder which I had completely forgotten about given I had bought a whole lot more recently.
So to try and make a dent in the soon to expire batch of cocoa that I found, I thought I would make a nice chocolate sauce to go with dessert that evening.
Soft Pretzels
Recently the hubby and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary with a weekend away to the Blue Mountains. When I was looking for what was on that weekend I noticed that Oktoberfest was on at The Carrington but neglected to tell my husband about it. It was probably a subconscious thing (well that is what I am going with) as given I don’t drink I didn’t really find the appeal in spending our anniversary with “cheery” people.
It just so happens that we were driving down the main street of Katoomba and the hubby noticed the big tent and his eyes lit up. We parked the car and headed back towards Oktoberfest and joined the queue for a beer. The hubby was happy when he picked up his 1 litre stein of beer and I got my 300ml bottle of water. For an afternoon snack, and to soak up a little bit of the alcohol, we also bought a pretzel. This pretzel then put the idea in the hubby’s head about making our own.
Pea and Ham Soup
When I first started seeing the hubby, in winter he often made a stew full of pork and veggies. I never ate any obviously, but he really enjoyed it.
However, as he had been making this for quite a few years he thought it was time for a change and decided to give pea and ham soup a go after seeing it on one of the numerous cooking shows we watch.
Chocolate and Caramel Brownies
Last year, Adriano Zumbo had a television series about his work and in the third episode he headed back to the town where he grew up. In that episode, he visited the local school and made chocolate and caramel brownies with some of the students.
The recipe looked pretty darn tasty which was a good invitation to make it as far as I was concerned.
Rose Petal Scones
Now I am a scone lover from way back. Growing up, I remember going to my Nan’s house to make scones, or help her eat the one’s that she had just finished baking. Smelling them as I walked through the front door and seeing them on top of the stove wrapped in a tea towel waiting to cool is one of the most vivid things I remember about my time cooking with Nan.
One of the places on my “to visit” list has been The Victoria Tea Salon in the new Westfield shopping centre after reading about it on Not Quite Nigella’s blog. I am not a tea drinker, but given my love of all things sweet and cute, I was ensuring we were able to go on our recent trip to the big smoke to savour their scones.
Lemon Sour Cream Cake with Pine Nuts
The hubby and I have a little addiction to pine nuts. We will put them in everything we can whether it be pasta, lasagne or salad. However, I have never had them in a sweet dish.
Imagine my delight when I bought Classic Cakes by The Australian Women’s Weekly with one of the very first cakes in the book being a Lemon Sour Cream Cake which just happens to be topped with pine nuts. The oven was calling.
Southern Bombe
Another one of the cookbooks I purchased recently was SprinkleBakes by Heather Baird. I came across Heather’s blog when I was looking for red recipes to use up the extra food colouring purchased for My Best Friend’s Wedding Cake and I made the Red Spiral Biscuits, also featured in the book.
As I was flicking through the book when it arrived, one particular recipe stood out and I knew I had the perfect occasion to make it. The recipe was for a Southern Bombe and the occasion was yet another September birthday celebration for two of my beautiful friends.
Checker Board Cake with Honeycomb Icing
As is the case for many people, I have a lot of birthday’s amongst my family and friends in the month of September as well as Father’s Day. This year, we decided to combine my dad and brother’s birthday plus Father’s Day into one Sunday lunch at our house. However my brother decided he would go to the snow instead (and learn how to fall on his butt), so it ended up being all about our dad’s.