Pasta making

Since having the new kitchen in I have very busy in there. One thing I have been enjoying making is pasta. With a toddler about I had to come up with a way to hang it to dry out of his reach. So I grab the kids chairs and hang it over the back of them with the chairs up on the bench.

Jazynthe tonight helped out with turning the handle on the pasta machine for the flatening out stage.

this past I made with 150gms '00' flour 150gms semolina 1 good pinch of salt 3 eggs and 1 yolk. When it comes to the amount of eggs for my pasta it can change depending on the size of the eggs. With free range home chooks and 3 different breeds each egg is slightly different in one breed let alone all three we have.

I like using an egg yolk extra as it gives a good colour to the pasta. Plus the taste is even more yummy.

Well used in my kitchen

At the moment there are three main books I use in my kitchen for cooking at the moment. I am one to try new recipes regularly. I love keeping the variety of food that is eaten in our home fresh and exciting. I hate the whole traditional Australian way of meat and three veg. Soooooo boring and lacking any real flavour and making the dinner meal especialy a family affair. I really love having the family all sit together and eat together at the dinner table. It certainly makes you set good values for your children and keep communication open and free between all family members.
One well used book is Homemade which I have previously blogged about here. If you were to look through my copy you can see that it has been well used and that I am bit of a messy cook, in that there are water marks through the pages as well as the odd smear of spillt ingredients.
my other favourite to use at the moment is The Australian Women's Weekly Slow Cooking book. This is great for the busy family and with the weather cooling right down here in The Blue Mountains food from the slow cooker is fantastic.

We eat from this book at least twice a week. I have tried a great many recipes from it. So far the family favourite would probably be the Spinach and date Beef Tagine, with that one I substituted Beef cheek for chuck steak. Beef cheeks are way too expensive for us and if slow cookers are good for anything it would be the fact you can use the cheapest of cuts of meat available and have the most amazing taste and tender meat. I love slow cooker food for the main fact you touch the meat and it falls to pieces.

then for the sweet tooth moments I am loving The australian Women's weekly Easy baking. So many yummo recipes in that one. My favourite has been the Chocolate and Raspberry brownie recipe.
Baking can be a nightmare here as our rental home has the most terrible oven. It burns the bottom of things a lot before the entire thing is cooked and the back of the oven can be a source of charcol on many occasion. It is also a pain for cooking meals as the grill is in the oven so you can't grill any food and bake at the same time. So I always am at a loss as to bother baking. I have to watch things like a hawk and check from halfway on for the cooking time said in a recipe. Which in itself can stuff up the process as we all know opening the oven drops the temperature dramatically (well it does in my oven).
Lucky for me the landlord is renovating the kitchen in the near future....the sooner the better! That week will be a lot of slow cooker eating I think.

Domestic Bliss

Yesturday was a bit of a productive day on the domestic front. With seed planting and baking happening in the afternoon and evening. My kind of domestic bliss would also include a tidy home....instead it's more a lived in relaxed charm.
All after spending the entire morning out on errands like clinic nurse, booking optomitrist appointments and picking up Shadow from the RSPCA boarding Kennel. Then gauging on snack foods whilst I cleaned out the pantry. Oh gee there are only a handful of sultanas left best eat them or the last of the pita bread chips amongst other yummies.

Some of the seed packets we bought

On the seed planting front I planted a number of seeds till the seed raising mix ran out. Included in the planting were mixed tomatos, watermelon, celeriac, capsicum, beetroot and carrots were planted by brian in the patch.
The seeds were bought the The Lost Seed upon Mountain Wildlife's suggestion. previous we had pretty much zero luck with Diggers especially. Through The Lost Seed you can order a number of seed varieties all for around $3.50 a pack and you get a lot of seeds in the pack. The pack has a great amount of information for the gardner who does not have the knowledge of what the plants need, like and silike. The packets also tell you about seed saving tips too.We had also ordered Pumpkin and Basil. Pumpkin seeds are planted in the patch (just a few) and will have more planted once I've cleared more space for them.

The paddle pop stick labels were retrieved from the craft box. I love the colour of these ones!

I labelled each pot as i can just see in the future pots may not be where I left them.

Lots of recycled seedling pots used as well as the few food tins I've managed to stop fom being thrown in the recycling bin.

The Basil I'm waiting on a wine barrel to be delivered probably today by a kind neighbour. His working away from home at the moment and passes a winery on the way home where he can get them for $70, his also cutting it in half for me.
I plan on planting a miniture fruit tree in each then herbs around under the tree so basil in one is the plan not sure on the other yet.

Nothing is left of this cake now!

On the baking front I cooked a very yummy Banana and Chocolate cake from the Homemade recipe book mention previously here. It was my turn for morning tea today at playgroup so I baked it up for them. All organic ingredients the only thing not organic was the sugar. Once the sugar we have is cleared out I'm planning on buying organic for that too.
The cake was well recieved and loved.