Orange & Yoghurt Pancakes

By Massimo L. (Own work) (Public domain) via Wikimedia Commons.

This weekend’s cooking featured Orange & Yoghurt Pancakes from the February 2011 issue of delicious. The recipe is a bit fiddly – lots of different bowls of things need to be prepared, and it stretch the resources in my (admitted under-equipped) kitchen. To simplify things, I decided to serve the pancakes only with Greek yoghurt and the berry compote – no messing around paring orange peel – but if I were to make this for brunch with guests (as I almost certainly will) I’d give my guests the choice of all the possible toppings. Because I’m still getting to know my kitchen, I burned quite a few pancakes before I’d worked out the right burner to be using, and the right setting for that particular burner, but once I’d worked it out, the pancakes were delicious, and smelled divine.

Tags: Breakfast, Brunch, Cooking, Food, pancakes, recipe

Real Strawberry Jelly

Parker Earle (strawberry) watercolor drawn in 1890 by Deborah Griscom Passmore (USDA).

This morning I set myself to making Real Strawberry Jelly, from the February 2011 issue of delicious. I made a few changes to the as-written recipe, in part to make my life easier, and it in part to work with ingredients I could find at my local supermarket (perhaps this also falls in the category of “making my life easier”?). I used frozen strawberries rather than fresh ones – at this time of the year much easier to find, and probably much better quality than anything fresh. I probably used a bit more than a tablespoon of lemon juice (squeezing directly into the pot is an inexact science), and when it came to drain the fruit I used a colander lined with cloth (this is what I had on hand). I substituted 6 gelatine sheets for 3 teaspoons of powdered gelatine (I couldn’t find the powdered version in the supermarket). I also didn’t faff around with inserting fruit into the setting jelly, although I did divide the strawberry syrup into ramekins to make individual servings. Despite my shortcuts, the resulting jelly is delicious. It’s not too sweet, and has a rich, rich strawberry flavour.

Bottling

A few weeks ago David, Clare, Tim, Louise, and I helped Dad bottle some port.

Louise and I ended up with the least interesting job: putting bottles in boxes and stacking them. Clare filled the bottles, Tim corked them, Dad labelled them, and David heat-shrunk wrapping to the bottle tops. I was surprised by just how much port was in a barrel – we filled 64 cases with 350 mL bottles. There are more photos of our bottling effort here.

Tags: Australia, bottling, Family, port, Wine

Butternut Lasagne

I really love lasagne, so when I saw this recipe for Pumpkin, Sage & Ricotta Lasagne featured on the delicious. web page I was keen to try it.

Photo by found_drama

Like all lasagnes, it’s a bit fiddly to make (although the fresh lasagne sheets I used made it a lot less fiddly), and it uses the food processor twice (I hate cleaning the food processor). I think there wasn’t really enough filling for the lasagne – if I made it again, I’d double the amount of filling (or halve the “footprint” of the lasagne) – and I over-browned it a little, but I was generally happy with the end result – not spectacular, but still good, and a nice vegetarian option.

Tags: Cooking, Food, Recipes, vegetarian

Knitting again

One of the benefits of my current “between jobs” status is that I’ve been knitting seriously again. Since being in Australia I’ve finished a scarf that I started while I was in Japan,

started and finished a cardigan for myself,

and started a cardigan for a friend’s baby.

It’s been nice to pick up the needles properly again!

Tags: clapotis, garter yoke baby cardi, handmade, Knitting, timpani