Cumquot Jelly

Not jelly wiggling on a plate. More like what the Americans call jelly. Like jam. This is my second foray into cooking with cumquots. The first was a marmalade which was a palaver involving peeling and deseeding the little buggers. Jelly is a breeze by comparison but next time I'll be using the sugar with added pectin to make the process faster.

Potato Gnocchi

Potato gnocchi is made from old potatoes (read: the big dirty brown ones), flour, egg and water. The process of making then took quite some time, but they are extremely fast to cook, provided there is a pot of boiling water on the stove. The sauce was an out of the bottle affair, briefly heated in a saucepan and the gnocchi stirred through.

Processwise, peel and cut potatoes into eighths and boil until extremely tender. When potatoes are soft, press through a metal sieve using a wooden spoon. Add sifted flour and egg and knead into a soft dough. Divide dough into thirds and roll out into a sausage shape. Cut at interval of 2-3cm. To pattern, press lightly against the smallest side of a grater (the one used for zesting). Alternatively, use the back of a fork to make indentations. Then drop carefully into the aforementioned boiling water and remove after 60 secs when they float to the top. Voila, authentic potato gnocchi!

Inside out sushi

Though not my first attempt at sushi, it was my first successful attempt which included buying sushi grade rice, vinegaring it with rice wine vinegar, and following a recipe to make it inside out. This comes from super food ideas magazine and I halved the recipe. You need a bamboo mat covered with cling wrap. Sprinkle some sesame seeds on top of the cling wrap. Then top with cool vinegared rice and toppings - I used grated carrot and some tinned tuna mixed with some mayo. Other possible fillings include avocado, cucumber, fresh salmon, spinach etc. Then cover with a sheet of nori (toasted seaweed) and roll carefully to ensure the cling wrap is not inside the sushi. Press firmly within the bamboo mat, then slice and serve. The recipe made 3 large logs. One for eating then and there and the other 2 for school lunches the next day.

Potato, spinach and bacon soup

Donna Hay's instant cook book provided this warming number. Instead of bacon I used some left over pickled bola to give it a meaty flavour. The potato's starchyness made the soup slightly sweet and very easy to eat more than one bowl.

Holiday Eating

During the most recent school holidays we went to the country. Dinners were fab, one night was hot dogs, another homemade pizza and oven baked chips and the last night, a trip to the local takeaway for fish and chips. This snap is our homemade pizza and salad. Pizza is topped with chopped sundried tomato, anchovy paste, mushrooms and onions.

Gingerbread Biscuits

Still cooking from Women's Weekly "Kids in the Kitchen", here we have gingerbread biscuits. I felt like baking but not going out to shop for ingredients. This recipe called for household staples such as self raising flour, brown sugar, treacle, egg yolk, ground ginger, mixed spice and bicarb of soda.

The royal icing was made using one egg white beaten to soft peaks, with icing sugar sifted and beaten in. I gave myself a pat on the back for making piping bags out of sandwich bags.

A spoonful of plain white icing was placed in the bag along with a drop or two of food colouring (in the case of orange, that's 2 drops yellow to 1 drop red), tie a knot and mix so that the colour is evenly distributed. Then snip the corner and ice. Some choc chips were added to some smiley stars, to add something extra. My favourite was the carrot shape which iced nicely and looks cute.

Home Grown

In addition to the lovely mushrooms I blogged about earlier, we had also planted some vegetables in the garden. The selection includes baby carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, baby cos lettuce and silverbeet. The silverbeet was picked today in order to make a new version of lasagne with angel hair pasta in place of the regular wide lasagne sheets. Here are the silverbeet leaves fresh from the garden.