Food Shopping...

first thing on a Sunday morning at ALDI, notice no makeup!

Food shopping.  We all need to do it and sometimes it's fun and sometimes it's a real chore!  We shop all over the place for food ingredients.  Every week we get a box of organic fruit and veggies from Organic Angels.  It gets delivered straight to our house and we have been doing this for close to three years now!  I love having the box delivered as it's one less thing that I have to go out and do during the week and if we are a little slack in getting to the supermarket, I know that we have some tasty and healthy food to cook with.

We also do a lot of our 'staple' shopping at ALDI.  I so wasn't into this place but then my mum started to get weird delicious treats (such as cheap German beer and sauerkraut) and I thought I would give it ago.  We go every fortnight to stock up on tinned tomatoes, mineral water and all of that sort of stuff but they also have some delicious seasonal treats.  At the moment I'm loving their wild cranberry sauce on turkey sandwiches.  I also like some of their crazy packaging too, especially the breakfast cereal cheetah!

I really enjoy shopping locally for food.  I love my butchers that are a five minute walk from the house and pop in often after work to pick up a steak or some lamb.  The wonderful guys are always on for a chat and I love having a laugh with them and getting them to specially cut something for me.  I think it's important to support these little shops that have been there for ages and are experts in what they do!  We are lucky to live nearby a great butcher and baker, we constantly get great produce at a very reasonable price.

We do have a farmers market in the area as well but I always seem to be too busy in the morning to visit!  I do hear good things about it and love the fact that people are returning to buying directly from the growers.  In our case we also have lots of things growing away in our garden too, which you can't get much fresher!

So where do you shop?  Do you love it and enjoy the experience of selecting great produce or do you think that it's another chore for the weekend!  Let me know!

Halloween baking...

Using the gingerbread recipe that I posted a little while ago and the really cute cookie cutters that I purchased for $2.99 at Aldi (yes I know, $2.99!!), I made these cute Halloween themed cookies today.

There are scary Jack O Lanterns, vampire bats and skulls to munch away on.  The Jack O Lanterns were a little tricky to ice but they still have Halloween spirit.

And keeping with the Halloween spirit, here is a 'zombiefied' me to get you in the Halloween spirit!  Happy Halloween!

Recipe Remix: Teeny, tiny carrot cakes... with a ginger twist!

So you know these teeny, tiny carrot cakes that I love to make?  Well, I decided to add a little fresh ginger twist to them!  It is super delicious and makes them lovely and fragrant too.  If you follow the basic carrot cake recipe ( I posted it here) and add a good tablespoon of freshly grated ginger to the batter, you too will have the ginger twist too!  Just make sure that you use one of those fine ginger graters, you don't want big chunks in your little cakes!

Gingerbread goodness...

gingerbread fox.

I've always loved gingerbread ever since I was a child.  There is nothing better than a beautiful gingerbread man with cute iced clothing and raisin eyes.  I especially love the spiced biscuit.  I was inspired to make gingerbread recently for two reasons.  Firstly I had come across some Swedish gingerbread spice mix that I picked up from Nord Living.  It's by the company Two Swedes Cooking. 
Also I bought some cute cookie cutters from Ikea that I have used for my gingerbread.  They have cute foxes, squirrels and moose!

gingerbread dough ready to go into the fridge.

For this recipe I used my Swedish gingerbread spice as a replacement for all spices but you can use the spices listed below!


 Ingredients

• 125g butter, at room temperature
• 100g (1/2 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar
• 125ml (1/2 cup) golden syrup
• 1 egg, separated
• 375g (2 1/2 cups) plain flour
• 1 tbs ground ginger
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• Plain flour, to dust
• 150g (1 cup) pure icing sugar, sifted

gingerbread waiting to go into the oven.

 How to!

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Prepare trays with baking paper.
2. Use an electric beater to beat the butter and sugar in a bowl until pale and creamy. Add the golden syrup and egg yolk and beat until combined. Stir in the flour, ginger, mixed spice and bicarbonate of soda. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Press dough into a disc. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to rest - up to over night if you have time!
3. Meanwhile, place egg white in a clean, dry bowl. Use an electric beater to beat until soft peaks form. Gradually add icing sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge.
4. Place the dough between 2 sheets of baking paper and roll out until about 4mm thick. Use a cookie cutter to cut out shapes. Place on trays about 3cm apart. Repeat with any excess dough.
5. Bake in oven for 10 minutes or until brown. Remove from oven. Transfer to a rack to cool.
6. Place prepared icings in small plastic bags. Cut a small hole in a corner of each bag. Pipe icing over gingerbread to decorate. 

they are finished!

Don't forget to keep your gingerbreads in an airtight container but they probably won't last long!  Also have fun with your icing!  Be creative with your cutters and icing - enjoy!

This is what happens when you share cupcakes...

You get a weird hybrid cupcake made by your loving husband!  Thanks to Sugadeaux for the lovely cupcakes, we have pistachio/ cardamon on the left and a salted caramel on the right.  Mark thought it was pretty funny to serve this up for morning coffee!

Silverbeet and Cheese pie... and loving the spring form pan!

whole lotta silverbeet, straight out of our garden!

If you've been reading this blog, you would know that we have ventured into growing our own vegetables.  In the last couple of weeks our silverbeet has been going crazy so I thought that I would whip up a silverbeet and cheese pie that references the lovely Greek 'Spanakopita' as well as the Maltese 'Pork and Pea' pie!

Although this isn't a recipe as such, I thought I would give you my tips for what I think makes an awesome Silverbeet and Cheese pie!

pie out of the oven!

I used puff pastry (yep, the kind from the frozen foods section of the supermarket!) for this pie and by using 2 sheets in a spring form pan and roughly folding over the edges to encase the filling, it gave it a lovely 'rustic' look. 
When it came to combination of filling, these elements are important:

• lightly cooked garlic and red onion, gives it a great sweet flavour.
• A combination of greek style fetta (I use Dodoni brand), some ricotta and freshly grated parmesan.  I use mostly fetta, little less ricotta and less parmesan.
• lemon zest!! It freshens the whole thing up and gives it zing and zang1
• good dose of salt and pepper.
• when cooking the silverbeet, lightly cook it - don't kill it!  You want it to be a lovely green colour still.

Yep, we've eaten into it!

Using the spring form pan really helped to make this delicious pie crispy and super easy to get out!  I cooked this baby at about 180 degrees Celsius for between 25 minutes and 30 minutes.  You could use the same method in the spring form pan with a million other fillings.   Although quite cheesy, this pie was delicious and a great way to use up some of our silverbeet.

Bison ceramic tea bowls..

I am completely addicted with Bison ceramic goodies.  I recently picked up these tea bowls for our morning coffee.  They feel great in your hands.  Check out the Bison website for all sorts of lovely goodies that they make and they array of beautiful colours that they come in!  It's all made in Australia too!