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Messages - KarenH

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1
Soups / Re: Vegetable soup with bacon & pasta
« on: June 12, 2016, 08:21:41 am »
The original and the best  ;)
This soup gets made heaps over winter in our house!  I love how it can be made at short notice with pantry/fridge staples, and doesn't need pre-planning and defrosting anything.

2
Bumping this recipe.  Made this for a dessert to go after a curry meal.  Used lemon myrtle leaves instead of the kaffir lime, and it made a beautiful dessert that went perfectly with mango, kiwifruit and strawberries (inspired by JulieO's photo).  Perfect dessert to follow a rich or spiced meal.

3
Vegetarian / Re: Zucchini and Haloumi Fritters
« on: December 14, 2015, 03:20:07 am »
Cookie when you made these, did you use plain flour or almond meal?  I used almond meal, and found the mixture quite crumbly and the patties very fragile and they tended to fall apart when I tried to cook them.  I was wondering if maybe I squeezed out too much moisture from the zucchini?  Or maybe I could have used extra egg to bind it a bit more?

They taste wonderful though, and I will be very interested to see how they go freezing them.

4
Vegetarian / Re: Zucchini and Haloumi Fritters
« on: December 13, 2015, 09:27:13 pm »
Yes Judy - not looking forward to the forecast 42 on Saturday. 

Good idea cookie - I will make a batch today and freeze some.  Will let you know how they go.

5
Vegetarian / Re: Zucchini and Haloumi Fritters
« on: December 13, 2015, 09:20:27 am »
These look great Cookie.  Do you think they would freeze OK?  We have an oversupply of zucchini from our garden, and I was thinking of making a bulk batch and freezing them for when it is too hot to cook.

6
 I do admit that I like the "eat it with a spoon" option Kimmyh.  I was a bit annoyed at first when all the mixture didn't fit, and I didn't have any pastry left to make another mini-tart (because maybe I had already eaten the pastry off-cuts!! :-))) but in the end it made a lovely lemony mini-pudding that I got to eat all by myself later on!

7
This made a delicious, "tarty" lemon tart with lots of zing!  Apart from my comments on the Vanilla Bean Pastry (see that separate recipe review), this recipe was easy and worked beautifully. 

I didn't use the optional lemon oil since I didn't have any.  The flavour of the tart was very intense, and I don't know that the oil is really necessary.  I didn't have golden caster sugar, so I just used raw sugar and turned it into caster sugar in the TMX beforehand. 

I did find that the recipe made a lot more mixture than what would fit in my 23cm flan tin, (which is the size specified), so make sure you use a fairly deep tart tin, or a slightly larger one.  I just put the extra mixture into a ramekin (without pastry base) and baked it at the same time as the tart, and it was lovely.
Linked CC

8
This is the same recipe as already put in the "Whats for Dessert" e-book.  Except that the instruction in the "Whats for Dessert" book are better IMO.  In that version of the recipe the sugar, butter, vanilla and flour are turned into breadcrumb-texture before adding the ice cold water bit by bit, mixing on interval speed, until the desired texture is achieved.  In "Nifty but Thrifty" the volume of water to use is specified as 20g, and the cold water is added all in with the butter and flour, and all mixed in together on speed 6 rather than interval speed.  I found that the mixture was too wet and that the texture wasn't as smooth as when I used the method in "Whats for Dessert".  I think that by premixing the butter and flour to breadcrumbs gives a better texture to the dough, and by adding the water in bit by bit and stopping as soon as it forms a ball gives more control over the dough, when the butter-flour mixture may vary depending on brands used and the temperature of the day. 
Linked CC

9
Let me know how you go Jeninwa - I will be really interested to hear what you think of them!

10
Overall these sienna cakes (panfortes) turned out well, although if I made them again I would make some changes.

Firstly, I found the amount of spice overwhelming.  It was a very lovely mixture of spices, but just way too strong for my liking.  I would reduce the amount of the spices, but keep them in the same proportions.  Also, I would use pre-ground spices instead of grinding the whole spices as Tenina suggests.  I ground the spices for twice as long as the recipe says, and I still found the cakes a little gritty in texture.

I couldn't be bothered making the "Sugar and Spice" mixture before I made these cakes, so I just used 50g brown sugar.  Given the amount of spice in the recipe already, I am glad I didn't bother!

The mixture is very thick and gluggy, and I found it really difficult to "bury" the larger nuts in the cake mixture so that they didn't burn in the oven when cooking.  Next time I would coarsely chop the larger nuts by hand with a knife, just to break them up a bit and make them easier to mix in.  I wouldn't use the TMX to chop the nuts though, they would be too fine.  I hand-chopped the larger dried and glace fruits too.

I found it impossible to find the individual paper cake cases that were referred to in the recipe, and because I wanted to make individual cakes for gifts, I ended up using a pan that KatieJ recommended to me for making individual sized quiches.  It is a fairly large tray that makes 6 individual quiches, each is roughly 10cm diameter.  This was perfect for this recipe, and the recipe make 5 good-sized panfortes in this tin.

But the cakes are delicious and moist, and would make really lovely gifts, so I will definitely make again with the above changes.

11
I made the crumble topping from this recipe today, but used a different fruit base (quince, apple and raspberry).   I chopped my almonds roughly in the TMX on turbo a couple of times before making the rest of the crumble.  It was a lot more butter than I normally use for my usual crumble recipe, and the mixture was quite "wet" and stuck together a bit, but I put it into the fridge for 30 mins and the butter hardened up a bit and I used my fingers to "crumble" the topping over the fruit.  The quantity made heaps of topping, and I only used 1/2 the mixture to top a medium crumble in a 2L pyrex casserole dish.  I have frozen the rest for an easy dessert another day.  It certainly was a delicious crumble, with a  really nice crunchy texture - more "chunky" than some crumble toppings which can be quite fine and floury.  I really enjoyed it and will use it again.  Just because I like spices in my crumbles, I would probably add cinnamon and a hint of ginger as well.

Linked JD

12
Soups / Re: Parsnip, Leek & Lemon Soup
« on: September 07, 2015, 10:07:51 am »
Bumping this recipe:  made this soup again tonight, again with the addition of a potato.  Still a big hit with DH and the kids, and a really tasty soup for a cold evening.

13
Special Diets / Re: Gluten Free Chocolate Slice
« on: September 06, 2015, 04:22:51 am »
This recipe was quick and easy to make and very tasty.  I baked it for an extra 10 minutes (didn't think it was cooked enough) and it turned out a little dry, so if I had stuck to the recommended time it would probably have been just right! 

I couldn't help thinking as I  made it that it would also be really yummy with some added sultanas that had been soaked in some kind of liqueur/fortified  8)

14
Chit Chat / Re: Electric pie makers and recipe ideas ;)
« on: May 21, 2015, 10:39:33 am »
Thank you everyone for your suggestions.  I will try again using another recipe.  I really liked the UK recipe, but maybe it wasn't quite right for the pie maker.

15
Chit Chat / Re: Electric pie makers and recipe ideas ;)
« on: May 17, 2015, 05:15:39 am »
I rested it in the fridge for a couple of hours after making the pastry, but after I rolled it out and cut it into the pie bases I bunged it straight into the pie maker.

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