Mango sorbet

This is NOT a mango sorbet, although I plan to tell people that it is next time I make it, would be quite a confusion for the taste buds.
We were cooking at a friend's place, Ada happens to be a big fan of pumpkin soup, so we bought this Japanese pumpkin (we thought it was Japanese anyway, not sure about the real name, but it's the kind with green skin). Just make pumpkin soup like you would normally and add 3-4 tomatoes for every pumpkin.


Also made teriyaki mushrooms. Secret is (which we didn't achieve this time) to cook the mushrooms until their juice disappears before adding the teriyaki sauce - be patient, it takes a while.

Strawberry Sauce

I was going to make my first post about these (less the icing, I'm not sure they need it), but unfortunately I overcooked them. They're very tasty when done right. I made them for a group meeting once and they were devoured with relish.










So I had a couple of punnets of strawberries that had been around a little long and were not so great fresh, so I made this. A simple thing, I know, but a very versatile use of overripe berries, delicious hot or cold. Would be nice as part of some trifle thing. I put them on toast. You could put them on waffles.

Venison vegetables noodles stir fry

Well done for setting up the blog! I'll copy you and give a waffly description of my food...

I bought the venison from the Farmer's market on saturday. When I bought it I thought this venison ticks a few boxes: 1) it's wild (assume no problem with animal welfare and carbon footprint etc., but then it did get killed by some horrible whisky drinker and died a sudden death and deer population is managed by man anyway....) ; 2) it's scottish (no issue with food mileage and doesn't involve any supermarkets) and 3) errr it's tasty (the Queen gave the same - a much more expensive cut - to her guests on her birthday, according to the person selling it hahahaha).
But since then I've found that there are other problems with venison trading... nevermind...














Anyway, it is the most tasty meat when done right, so here's how you do it ;D

a) slice the venison thinly, marinate in soy sauce/salt (very little), wine and chilli
b) slice your vegetables and ground the garlic
c) stir fry the vege first until tender
d) put the vege to the side to make space in the middle, heat a little more oil until very hot
e) add the garlic, add the venison and fry!
d) add the noodles and mix

And the finished product tasted a lot better than it looks here...

Amish Friendship Bread

So this is my first attempt with this 'bread' (thanks Mazie), I use comma's because this seems much more like cake than bread apart from the yeast in the starter. It uses AP flour so there's no gluten formation and no rise time after mixing, plus the addition of the instant pudding (which I realised belatedly is really just corn flour). I can honestly say its one of the weirdest recipes I've ever followed, before baking it was a big gluppy mess with lots of sugar in it.



Since this recipe has enough for two loafs I made one by the recipe with cinnamon and the other with almonds and dates, anyone got any more suggestions?

P.S. sorry for the dark photos, my home time has been at night recently.

Nutella Brioche Rolls

Now these were tasty, I mean really tasty, so you should make them too!

I made some of them into cinnamon rolls by just sprinkling sugar and cinnamon on the sheet before rolling it up. Unfortunately they were a little dry, so I topped them with some cardamon, vanilla flavoured butter icing which I thinned out with water so it stayed soft.

Ripping off Jamie

So I was a trying to clear out a mix of things from my fridge one evening and ended up with this;

It was basically a low-grade copy of this which I made in Leeds (seems a long time ago), or possibly more like a hybrid with this (which I just found).

So I made a little red wine Ratatouille to go with the whole wheat pasta.

What can I say, it was pretty tasty.

Chocolate, Orange Shortbread Pinwheels

Bribery for distraction!
I came up with these as a procrastination while preparing my last presentation (see sketch), but then I used them to distract my audience from the fact that I didn't get time to practise so it worked out fine.

I just threw together a basic shortbread recipe (using 1lb of butter) and split it in half. I gave one a small splash of orange juice and the zest of an orange, and the other got some melty choc and cocoa.
Then I rolled them out in a fold of wax paper so I could make them the same size. After sprinkling one with lots of dried cranberry's, put the other over the top and rolled them together a little and rolled.
I tried slicing with a really sharp knife but the cranberry's made the layers squish together, so I put the roll in the freezer long enough to solidify it a little. Next time I'd solidify it a lot because it thawed and squashed again pretty fast, but then I do live in Hawaii wahahaha!

Heres the finished product........

French Onion Cheese Soup

I'm gonna put these in order so I'll start with the beginning, thanks for the recipe Luce.

Getting the onions was fun in all or itself, went to Chinatown for the first time in ages and picked up lots of tasty things some of which didn't make it home to be photo'd!
I didn't dare burn the onions to the bottom of the pan for full caramelisation so it could've been more broken down but it wasn't bad, still have a couple left so I'll do another run through.

Heres the enthusiasm pre-tasting

And a close-up (which makes me think I should get Clay to take the pictures for me)

Yeah! First post published.