D335: Not true

Today is not when my day-335-of-creativity happened.

Besides writing things, I've made all sorts of meals and dishes.  Hub reminded me to do a little more for the blog today while I was making cherry pie filling. So here's the story...

We stayed with the in-laws in the week before Christmas, in central Victoria.  Hub and his brother both fruit picked in their high school summers and we heard of a cherry farm who needed some fruit off the trees after recent rain.  So off we went, resident expert to lead us and buckets in tow, to collect 25kg (yes) of cherries!!!

The orchard - it was big.

 They were excellent, and we had a lovely Christmas Eve-eve morning in Strathbogie, picking all the fruit we wanted.

One for my mouth, one for my tummy...

Yep, cherry picking is good.

So with five A4-sized 4" tall boxes in the boot we came home (only $1 a kilo!!), delivered one dutifully collected for a friend, and got through maaaaybe two by the end of Christmas Day.

Our box has a handfull still going.  I've about two cups in the freezer and have cooked up five cups for a pie filling.  I've used this recipe (http://asprinkleofthisandthat.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/my-grandpa-and-cherry-pie.html), which has instructions for different base and top pastries (yyyyes!) and the filling goes like this:

Pit 5 cups of cherries into a saucepan, add 1.25 cups of sugar.
Warm to release the juices and bring to the boil.
Keep at a low boil for 7-8 minutes.
Add 4 tbsp of flour - sprinkle in small batches and stir in - and cook for a further 3-4 minutes, until thickened.
Stir in 1 tsp of vanilla and remove from the heat.

Be sure to sprinkle in the flour.  I accidentally dropped little clumps and the weight of it plopped it straight into the syrup and it instantly cooked  it into little globs of flour that were too strong to smear against the wall of the pan.  If I'm lucky, they'll present like raspberry seeds.

Hopefully I'll report on the pastry and pie tomorrow...

D235: Wee Apple Danishes!

My mum recently turned 80!  We had a lovely afternoon tea with family and I made these little apple Danishes, or turnovers, to share.  Unfortunately, I only made 18, which was too few for the 16 adults and children there.  I varied this from other recipes, but it's terribly simple. 

I recommend making the apple mix a few days before the day you plan on making the pastries.  The mix will also do for a pie.*

Need:

• 4 apples, cored, peeled, cut into 6 wedges, which are then sliced.
• Cinnamon
• Nutmeg
• 1-2 tbsp sugar
• 1-2 tbsp plain flour
• 3 sheets of puff pastry for sweets
• Some milk for brushing
• Some jam for glazing (apricot is most popular, plum works too: anything seedless but probably not marmalade!)

To make the apple filling:

1. If you have one of those peeler/corer/spiral-slicer things for apples, it is perfect for cutting the apples for this project. Once you've peeled/cored/spiral-sliced the apple, cut the stacked spiral into 6 wedges.  About one of these stacks will do for each little Danish.
2. Put the cut apple in a snap seal bag.
3. Add the cinnamon and nutmeg to a fragrance you like.
4. Do this twice: put a tbsp each of sugar and flour in with the apple, then seal and gently toss the bag.
5. Put the bag in the fridge if you don't need it straight away.  I left it there for two days and it was pretty perfect.  Freeze it if you're cooking it much later than that.

On the day:

Apple! Not bacon!

1. Preheat a moderate oven (375°F/180°C).
2. Line your baking tray with grease proof paper.
3. Take a sheet of puff pastry (leave on the backing sheet) and put the others back in the freezer. (The pastry gets soft and 'melts' quite quickly.)
4. Cut your pastry sheet into 9 even squares by scoring it (don't cut the backing plastic) into three even parts vertically and then horizontally.
5. Arrange a spoon or two of apple mix diagonally on a small square of pastry. Pick up the empty corners and overlap the points on top of the apple.
6. Move it to your lined baking tray.
7. When you've filled your tray (I did 9 per tray), brush all the exposed pastry with milk and bake for 25 mins.
8. Prepare the next sheet of pastries while the first bakes, and so on with the third. 
9. Once the pastries are cooked and have cooled a little, heat your jam and glaze your pastries generously.

Enjoy!

*If you are going to freeze the apple mix for pie, freeze the bag in your pie dish. Then, when you're ready to bake, you can take it out of the bag and pop it straight into your pie dish with a snug fit!

D109: For Little Bo Peep

Tonight I made little shepherd's pies.  I used foil cupcake shells to hold them.  I considered using a Yorkshire pudding or scone dough as a base, which I think would work really well, but for something that may be rejected and on a night of little time, it wasn't practical.

They are not, by any means, marvellous.  I was missing onions and peas, both hijacked by the soup  we made.  I wish they had more gravy.  I wish I hadn't accidentally sloshed a whole lotta milk into the mash. (You can actually smell the milk!) Luckily, we're planning on trying Bub with dairy again, so cooked milk will now be part of that.  Otherwise, I'm glad I tried it and hope they're a nice change for her.  She hasn't any teeth yet, and I'm always torn about how long to persist with a new flavour or whether I'm making it dreary, but I'll know soon enough whether the mess and flavours are to her liking :)

One of the dilemmas of making food that is for a baby, or even food for a family which includes a baby, is wastage.  Bub isn't someone who eats anything and everything that's in front of her, or even the same kind of thing as what she ate yesterday.  I'm beginning to think she's wanting some variety because her interest in things comes and goes.  She certainly gets a range of foods, allowing for the limits in her dairy intolerance and egg allergy.

Unfortunately though, for her, variety is present in our diet in a very specific way. Allow me to explain:

We don't really like cooking.

Confused? Well, it'll aaaaall be clear soon.

For us, cooking it takes time away from things we'd rather be doing. And it interrupts us every single night of the week, dammit.  Our answer for this is that we'll cook six or eight serves and happily eat the same thing for a week.

Each night that we're not 'cooking' we'll make pasta, rice or some accompaniment to go with our 'leftovers'.  The variety in our diet is presented in every meal, rather than in the range of meals.  When we make soup, we put lots of different things in it.  Spag Bol includes broccoli, zucchini, carrot, mushrooms and capsicum.  Curry barely fits in the pot for all its ingredients.  I think our most restrictive staple is risotto with capsicum, squash, sun dried tomatoes, and zucchini (chicken optional). It also means that meals that don't reheat well, or are designed for two to four people, don't really get a look-in for us unless it's a special occasion.  Maybe I should call it breadth, rather than variety...

So, you can see, when you're used to cooking in bulk, and you've got a future of small serves ahead of you for a certain someone, cooking in bulk for them is even more instinctive.  In fact, cooking a regular serve of a regular meal is already a bulk cook for her.  And then...  She may or may not eat it.

To her great credit, she tries almost everything we put in front of her provided she can put it in her own mouth, which I love.  Sometimes all it does is confirm for her that this thing belongs in 'the out tray' (i.e. the patch of floor to the fit of her high chair).  And, as with many children, veggies are second fiddle to fruits.  I can generally sneak thing into her tummy aboard some toast, which is a handy trick, but not guaranteed.  

So, with great zen breathing, I've use two saucepans, a cupcake tray and cups and generally fussed way more than ever, while cooking to other meals, in the hope that Bub will look sideways at these little creations.  Pretty sure she doesn't like carrots either...

But at least I'll like them! Right?! RIGHT?!! 

:D 

D104: Pie!

Apple Pie from the Cookery the Australian Way bible, with some cranberries (yes, still working through that pack) and butter.  It's a huge pie dish, so even with an extra apple, it's pretty shallow!

Still yum!