Savoury Muffins

(This is a post I wrote months ago but for some reason forgot to post. Oops!)

This morning I made some not particularly impressive, but scrumptious savoury muffins. I made them for lunch, because I was in the mood for cooking, yet feeling remarkably uinspired, this morning, so once again turned to Taste.com.au for ideas. Given the time of day, I browsed their lunch recipe collection and found a fairly plain, yet very inspiring savoury muffin recipe. More internet searching led me to base the muffins on recipes I found HERE, because I loved the flexibility it presented. So, based on what we had in the crisper, I made the courgette and pine nut muffins- but with no courgette or pine nut (or basil or sultanas). Instead I added diced yellow capsicum, grated carrot and sliced olives. I also substituted plain flour for wholemeal and parmesan for tasty cheese. (I think that you could probably substitute whatever you liked, so long as it didn't change the ratios).

Through the course of making the muffins I became more and more convinced that they were going to fail, because all the vegetable quantities (as well as that of the cheese) were completely made up! However the muffins worked better than I expected, and were actually pretty yummy. A little heavy, but better than last time I made savoury muffins (with a completely different recipe), although that time I really made little savoury rocks, because I left out the eggs! They made a great lunch, and the leftovers are stored away in the freezer for their calling- which I'm guessing will be school lunches next week! I only took one photo- still not used to this whole recording as you cook thing- but promise to take more next time.

Mia

Quick, Vegetarian Finger Food!

On Sunday afternoon we had a tight time frame to make nibbles for a last minute "welcome home" party for  friends who've had a tough time lately. We came up with ideas in the car, popped in for a few extra ingredients at the local shops, though mostly used the contents of our vegie co-op bag. Then Mia, Eva and I spent about an hour preparing.


This is what we came up with:-




Beetroot and Cumin Dip with Greek Pitta and Carrot Sticks.

• Place a large Fresh Beetroot into a pot of cold water full enough to cover it and bring to boil, cook , covered, until tender (approx 45min - depending on size) 
• Peel Beetroot while still warm (skin should slip off easily - gloves may help with heat.)
• Puree beetroot in a food processor.
• Add Greek Yoghurt (about 1/2 cup), Ground cumin (about 2 tspn) and some salt and pepper and puree further.
• Taste to see if more yoghurt or salt needed.
• Serve beautiful coloured dip with bright accompaniments.

Asparagus Spears Wrapped in Smoked Salmon and Nori and a Lemon Mayonnaise
This one we googled while looking for asparagus ideas (and have included the link). Rolling Stiff Nori was harder than I thought so they look a bit rough - but the taste was great. We added a lemon mayonnaise (Good Mayo with fresh lemon juice and pepper stirred through it which went very well)










Goats cheese, roasted cherry tomato and parsley mini-toasts.

• Halve and roast cherry tomatoes (tossed in Extra Virgin Olive Oil, A little Balsamic Vinegar and some salt and pepper) until soft (about 20 min)
• Spread toasts with some goats cheese, a parsley leaf and a roasted cherry tomato and serve soon afterwards.
• I meant to use pesto but didn't have basil - it would have been tastier, but these were good and quick. 

It was all eaten and enjoyed!

Nicola

Croissants

Well, here goes nothing! First Post!

Today I made Croissants (Well, actually I started them yesterday morning, but I cooked them today so I think that's what counts)! They were a little more of an undertaking than I expected- I spent about 6 hours working on them and this was spaced across more than 30 hours! But the end product was remarkably croissant-like and delicious, so I am still making my mind up as to whether it was worth it.


The recipe I used was in 'Bourke Street Bakery; The Ultimate Baking Companion' A cookbook Dad got for his birthday, predominantly for use in sourdough making. It's a fantastic book with all sorts of yummy bakery-like things in it, although the methods do all seem to be at least a page long! The recipe was divided into 2 parts- Croissant Dough (Which can be used in all sorts of other things, like snails for example) and Croissants (to be precise, the recipe was spread across 148-9 and 168-9). I would have put the recipe, except it's literally 4 pages of very small font and I don't want to bore you.


They were meant to be for breakfast, but in a slightly more extreme example of my complete inability to predict how long I will take to cook something ( partly connected to my inability to read the full recipe before I begin them) they were ready just after 4:30 PM. Oh well, I guess I'll know next time! We served them with hot chocolate in bowls- when we were little we got croissants from a local bakery all the time and this was our way of making them just a little more French (No idea where the idea came from, or if it's French at all, but it's fun) and strawberry jam which I made last Friday. They were delicious!! They were pretty much like shop bought croissants, except perhaps a little less buttery on the inside. Enough writing now, here are some more photos.
Mia

Voila!