New look

So, I'm not sure if I have been neglecting my blog or if it's just because I'm getting all grown up and I don't feel that I have to broadcast every thought I have!

This blog has largely become more of a place for dumping things I want to look at again and has definitely moved from something of an attempt at being public, to something that I use more simply to please myself.

If you happen to find yourself here, enjoy. I have changed templates this morning and it feels much cleaner to be here. A newly cleaned room with the window open and the curtain fluttering in the sunlight.

Killer Recipe: Cardamom Cake

I made this cake to celebrate my last yoga class of 2009. It was a smashing success! I have only begun baking again recently, but this cake is encouragement enough to keep it up!

Ingredients
* 40g butter, chilled, cubed
* 1/4 cup plain flour
* 1/4 cup demerara sugar (or combination of brown / raw sugar)
* 1 lemon, rind finely grated
* Handful of shredded coconut

Base
* 3 eggs
* 1 cup caster sugar
* 2 1/2 teaspoons ground cardamom
* 125g butter, softened
* 300ml carton cream
* 2 1/2 cups self-raising flour
* 1/2 cup flaked almonds

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease and line a 7cm deep, 10cm x 21cm (base) loaf pan, allowing a 5cm paper overhang.
2. Rub butter into flour to resemble fine breadcrumbs. Add sugar and lemon rind. Mix well. Set aside.
3. Make base: Beat eggs, sugar and cardamom until combined. Add butter. Process until smooth. Add cream and flour. Mix until combined. Spoon into pan.
4. Sprinkle almonds over cake, pressing in with your fingertips. Sprinkle with lemon rind mixture. Bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Stand for 5 minutes in pan. Use baking paper overhang to lift cake onto a wire rack to cool. Slice and serve

Syrup
* 1 1/4 cups water
* 1 cup caster sugar
* Juice of one lemon
* 1 tsp ground cardamom

- Bring water, sugar, cardamom to the boil
- Simmer for 10-20min
- Cool

Enchiladas!

It's enchiladas time, I must not lose this link (and have forgotten my delicious log in, yawn)

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/chicken-enchiladas-with-roasted-tomatillo-chile-salsa-recipe/index.html

Killer Recipe: French Pastry Hearts

When I was little my mum used to drive to Illawong Bakery and buy me a french pastry heart. Well now I am engaged! and tomorrow I am having a work morning tea to celebrate. I decided to take along a little plate of these, and they are so easy and quite cheap to make.

When I was searching for a recipe I quickly discovered that this is quite a famous little snack in Buffalo, New York. Well, you learn something new every day.

Ingredients:

* 1/3 cup sugar
* 1 tsp. cinnamon
* 1 sheet puff pastry dough, thawed if frozen (I just keep going with a pack of 6)
* 3 Tbsp. butter, melted

Preparation:
Line baking tray with baking paper. Combine sugar and cinnamon in small bowl.

Brush pastry sheet with melted butter and sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top. You can be very generous with the sugar!

Starting with the longest sides, roll up each side until the rolls meet in the center. Refrigerate dough 5-10 minutes or until dough is firm.

Preheat oven to 190 degrees. With a knife, gently cut the pastry roll into 16 slices. Place slices, cut side down, 4cm apart on baking paper. Pinch bottom edge of each slice to form a heart shape. Drizzle hearts with remaining 1 Tbsp. butter and sprinkle with any remaining cinnamon sugar.

Bake at 190 degrees for 10-18 minutes or until golden brown. Remove to wire rack to cool completely; store at room temperature.

Ice and add sprinkles!

I imagined someone asking, What's the big difference between then and now? I knew that it wasn't all the changes, big and small, in Turkey or India or Singapore or Vietnam. It wasn't the computers or the internet or high-speed trains, not fast food or cheap wristwatches or everyone wearing blue jeans. The greatest difference was in me. I had survived the long road that led to the present. I felt lucky, I felt grateful. I didn't want any more than this in travel, clattering through the tunnel; I didn't want another life. I had a book to read, a book to write, and enough solitude. Most of all, someone missed me and was waiting for me, someone I loved. As Murakami had said of his own love affair with Yoko, that was everything.

Paul Theroux, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

Killer Recipe: Spring Vegetable Soup

The other morning Mark woke up and told me he would like vegetable soup for dinner - I wasn't too enthused but on the same day I fell across a recipe and the results were brilliant!

Sure it needs a trip to the green grocer and a food processor but the results taste just like Rosella Spring Vegetable Soup that I so loved in childhood (a compliment!)

SPRING VEGETABLE SOUP

25g butter
1/2 cup sliced leeks (white part only)
1/3 cup diced celery
1/3 cup diced sweet potato
1/3 cup diced turnip
4 cups vegetable stock
salt, pepper
1/3 cup frozen corn kernels
1/3 cup diced zucchini
1/3 cup chopped green beans
1 peeled and chopped tomato
1/3 cup frozen peas
1/3 cup parsley, chopped

Melt butter, add leetk, celery, potato and turnip, cook stirring for 5 min.
Add vegetable stock, salt and pepper, bring to boil.
Lower heat and add remaining ingredients, simmer for 5 min.
Top with chopped parsley, serve with bread.

From: Bill Granger: bills SYDNEY FOOD, Murdoch Books 2004.

On the trail of Laura Ingalls Wilder

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/44451872.html