Gingerbread Crafts

Gingerbread Crafts
Time for tea.

Thursday, 28 February 2008

The start of the soup season.

David bought me half a butternut pumpkin yesterday, very nice of him seeing that I am the only who eats it. With the day being dark and stormy I figured that soup would be on the menu for lunch.

All I did was clean the seeds out and cut the butternut in half to fit in a glass pyrex dish, poured in a little water and put in the microwave for about 8 minutes. Then scooped the flesh into the food processor bowl with a little onion, garlic, vegetable stock powder, processing adding water a little at a time til it was the right consistancy. Poured it into the pryex dish for a little extra cooking, 2 minutes in the microwave. Served topped with a sprinkling of nutmeg, bread and butter. Ignore the Christmas bowl, I really like the shape of it for soups.

I did put a little too much garlic in, only had a tube of prepared garlic and realised I put too much in but just left it. The taste was just a little strong but still nice.

MUM what's for dinner?


Before I had started on lunch I found a recipe for shislicks and thought I could make something similar for dinner - my version is more italian I suppose, only having oregano and parsley available added some garlic too. I put the mince into the food processor along with onions and the herbs. After soaking wooden shewers I fashioned the mix into sausage shapes on the skewers before rolling them in seasoned flour. They're now in the fridge until dinnertime (no time to leave them overnight). We'll see if the hoards like them, they are the guinea pigs when it come to meat dishes in this house seeing as I don't eat red meat. I'll be also making gravy from scratch, something I've failed at in the past but after finding some videos on the subject on youtube I think I can handle it.







Computers.




Have had a few computer hiccoughs lately, today it's taking ages to load pages, going to try a system restore to see if it helps but David thinks the harddrive in the laptop might be on it's way out. He thought it died the other day when we couldn't get the laptop to boot up but he manged to work his magic on it. I was in a little dither because nothing had been backed up for a while so spent yesterday backing up my important files onto a 4 mg flashcard. If it does go out, I'll be relegated one of the other computers, we do have 3 but will have to wait my turn for them. You might wonder how we can afford 3 computers and a laptop, my husband's last job was in IT so he knows all about computers, his latest job is maintenance in aged care. Every few years the computers are updated and the old tossed out, he saves what he thinks are salvagable and rebuilds them for use at home and for our parents. The laptop was bought bought cheap it's not new but does the job I need it for.




The above images were found at kissmyfloppy.com

Friday, 15 February 2008

When faced with curdles - make cheese.



I put the yogurt back in for another hour but made the mistake of putting more boiling water in the unit. Didn't check the results when I put it in the fridge last night, when I looked at this morning I noticed it looked curdled. So I just brought my Yogurt Cheese plans forward. Had no cheesecloth so settled for a clean teatowel, put it in a strainer over a bowl and poured the lumpy liquid in. Had a quick taste test, very promising. Strained it for maybe 2 hours, wasn't timing it and just took it out. It's like a creamed cottage cheese and in my opinion tastes better. Tried it on crackers, quite nice plain but even better with a little sweet chillie sauce. MMMM no more Sweet Chilly Philly for me. I'm sure the kids will like it too.

Edit - Both the kids tried it, I asked my son if it was better than Sweet chilli philly, he said no but then as he was eating it I kept hearing little grunts of pleasure. I AM allowed to make it again - I'm waiting for the day when they have Sweet chilly philly again and tell me it isn't as good as my version.


Now I just have to find something to do with the whey - saw a post on making a type of cheese simply by boiling whey until all the liquid is gone. I wonder!
So I gave it a go and simmered it until was left with a fudgy goo, the instructions said it takes 5 hours but I only had a little whey. It has a very cheesy flavour, is very chewy - a bit like cheese flavoured chewing gum. I won't be trying this again.


Yogurt

I've had an Easiyo yogurt maker for a few years now but rarely bought the packaged mixes, don't think I liked the flavour much . I wanted to make it from scratch and yesterday found a recipe on a forum.

1 litre milk simmered for 10 mins, cool til tepid. Mix in 2 or 3 tablespoons of natural yogurt.

I just checked it after 7 hours fermenting, it's runny with lumps of firmer yogurt. I poured some into a cup and put the rest back in with some more hot water. It's like a drinking yogurt, I tasted it straight the flavour was ok, but I mixed some mixed berry topping into it and am now sipping a lovely drink. I'm going to leave it in for another hour, hopefully it will thicken a little more in that time. Not sure if the kids will like the texture, it's a bit grainy not that smooth (very processed) texture of commercial yogurts.

I will try it again, want to try making yogurt cheese

Monday, 11 February 2008

My new home

I wanted a more craft orientated name for my blog, thought my old blog's name didn't reflect that. Old posts can still be seen there, I'm hoping to bring some of the messages over when I can work out the best way to do so.

http://belovedgoddess.blogspot.com/