Pecan slice - recipe

OK, so I HAVE to post this recipe - because, out of everything I made for thanksgiving - this was the MOST delicious!!

I didn't want to make a second pie, so I looked at the ingredients for Pecan Pie, and googled Pecan slice - and came up with this.....  expensive to make, naughty, but VERY VERY delicious.  This is why I say - hide it from the kids! hehe

Pecan Slice

Ingredients:
185g butter
1/2 c castor sugar
1 egg yolk
1 1/4 cups plain flour
1/2 t baking powder
2 T custard powder
1/2 c brown sugar
2 T golden syrup
395g sweetened condensed milk
125g pecans, halved lengthwise

Method:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees.  Grease a 3cm deep lamington pan/sponge roll tin (16cm x 25cm ish)


Using an electric mixer, cream 125g of the butter and castor sugar until pale.  Beat in the egg yolk.  Sift flour, baking powder & custard powder over butter mixture.  Mix to form a soft dough.


Press dough into tin and bake for 15 minutes or until golden.


While base is cooking, cook brown sugar, golden syrup, condensed milk and remaining butter in a saucepan over a low heat - for 12 minutes, or until golden.  Stir through pecans.


Pour pecan mixture over hot base and bake for a further 15 minutes.  Cut when cool.

Honestly, this tastes like some form of russian fudge, nutty slice - it is YUM!  Go on, make it - you know you want to!

x

Pumpkin Pie - Recipe

So when I made pumpkin pie for thanksgiving - I googled and read a stack of recipes and chose the one I liked the best and that sounded the most delicious.....  I then customised it a bit for us.

It has a lot of ingredients but it is really easy to make - which is cool!!

Alas, here is the recipe for Arna's pumpkin pie:

Base:

• 1.5 cups flour
• 2 T sugar
• 1/2 t salt
• 2 T + 2 t of COLD vegetable shortening (kremelta)
• 1/3 cup COLD butter
• 1/4 cup COLD water

Put all ingredients in a food processor and blend until it resembles breadcrumbs.  Add the cold water and process to a dough.  Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes.

Remove from fridge and either roll out on a floured surface, then press into greased pie dish OR just press it straight into greased pie dish.  (I didn't roll it out but smooshed it in with my fingers - all good)

The size of the dish needs to be quite large - I used a 25cm quiche dish, you could use a round cake tin or something like that if you don't have something big enough.

Bake blind at 180 for 15 minutes or until golden.

Filling:

• 1 cup of sugar
• 2 t cinnamon
• 1 t ground cloves
• 1.5 t ground allspice
• 1/2 t ground ginger
• 1/2 t salt
• 4 eggs
• 3 cups pumpkin puree
• 500ml evaporated milk, or cream, or make up milk powder to twice the concentrate
• 1/2 t vanilla extract
• zest of 1 lemon

Mix well with a hand blender of cake mixer.  Pour into cooked base.

Bake at 210 for 15 minutes, then turn down oven to 175 and bake for a futher 45-60 minutes.  A knife/skewer will come out clean from the centre when it is done.

Serve warm or cool - can be deep frozen.

I found that the filling makes more than you need so I gave some away.  You can freeze the uncooked filling.

How to describe the taste..... the filling comes out like a sweet, spicy, flavoursome custard.  It is moist, smooth and quite delicious.  The base is quite savoury and complements the filling.  It is quite rich & nice with vanilla icecream.... mmmm!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

So, you might remember from this post, that I've always wanted to celebrate thanksgiving.

In September I extended an invitation to two of our friends, to see if they wanted to join us in celebrating it together.  They were most obliging (I think it was knowing they would be partaking of a feast by my hands that won them over).

So we had either Monday 10th October - Canadian Thanksgiving, or Thurs 24 Nov - American Thanksgiving - to choose from.

I googled a traditional menu, and accustomed it a bit to suit us "Kiwi's" -

Menu:

• Stuffed, roasted chicken (instead of turkey)
• Roasted vegetables
• Green salad
• Green veges
• Pecan slice (instead of pie)
• Pumpkin pie
• Iced tea
• Wine

Let's just say, it was a load of cooking, but a most enjoyable evening!

The beautiful thing about it - was that none of us have had a fantastic year this year - but we all had plenty of deep things to be greatful for.  I mean, for each of us, the year has had many wonderful high points - but underlying these have been many difficulties and challenges.

Some of our thankful things.... life, our marriage partners, our children, our extended families, our church families, our friendship, our homes, where we have been taken this year - and so many other things.

I'm pretty sure we've settled that it's a tradition from now on.  Maybe next year I'll kiwi-fy it instead of going with the American feast!  You know, pavalova topped with fresh strawberries & chocolate - and all the rest!

And in the words of my friend as they left - there goes another 4 1/2 hours - just flying past.  Great company.

What things are you thankful for?

Colour me Spring

Just a few things from my last couple of weeks.....

I love spring - and it's nearly that time again!  I love daffodils.  I need to plant some bulbs, but unfortunately this year, I'll have to buy a couple of bunches instead. 

My mum is a cancer survivor, as are many others I know.  And I've lost people to cancer.  So daffodils hold a special place in my heart.

Anyway, here's what I've been up to -

catching moments like this..... I was upstairs for a moment and left her to "look after" her brother....  I returned (and had a moment to grab my camera) to find....

and this...

there was cuter ones - with him mouth wide open and her kissing *bless*

Making these...

My dad doesn't celebrate his birthday, but I always sneak something his way on the day.  Princess Adelaide and I got busy in the kitchen.  They look a bit fancy, but are SO easy!

Delicious lunches like this...... (which I just ate today - who says healthy can't be delicious!!)

The only things I missed out on in my salad were tomato and cucumber.  But alas, I already spent a fortune buying half the ingredients for this sort of thing in this weeks shopping... looking forward to summer!

What else can I tell you?

I've lost 3kgs

I've exercised 5 days a week (for 2 weeks) alternating cardio and resistance

I feel real good

My abs are returning! (slowly)

I have a sewing machine on my table - working on a project for playcentre

I don't really sew

I'm craving warmer weather

Last night I ate a 4 course meal with Dave's colleagues

I really enjoyed myself

I tried roasted duck for the first time

I ordered tuna off a menu (I am not a tuna person)

The tuna was mild in flavour and actually quite nice

I skipped the glass of wine I was looking forward to - and traded it for my delicous dessert!

Things I'm Loving

Just a wee bit of home-made gourmet....

Seeing as getting the real thing from any store here is nearly impossible...

Felafels.  Pretty cheap to make too.  And tasty (maybe not for a 2 year old)...

Garlic hummus & youghurt piled onto lebanese bread in very generous proportions...

Toppings....

Ready to roll....

Yummo!

On that note - there are some other things:

• looking forward to some kind of middle eastern trip in the very distant future - so we can taste the trueness of these delish cuisines!
• in the nearer future - perhaps paying a visit to an amazing turkish cafe in greenlane - where we shared the most scrummy food during our honeymoon.  We haven't been for over a year now.
 
• Having only 9 and a bit weeks to go in this journey called pregnancy #2.  There have been a few times in the last week I've thought I might just end up with a premmie. 

And lastly -

These two.  They are some very LOVELY friends.  (excuse the quality of the pic - I stole it)

We get the privelege of being almost neighbours.  Princess Adelaide gets the privelege of having them as a very hands on adopted aunty and uncle.  Might I say, she absolutely adores them.

They have dedicated their Thursday nights - every week for seven weeks - to us.  So we can go to a marriage course and invest in our relationship.  They come to our house, and look after our 42" tv our precious wee girl.

We are so blessed to have them in our lives.

Have a glorious weekend everyone. x

Ti-GG-er cake....

A certain Princess Adelaide turned 2 last Friday.

My week was manic.  In between hectic schedules - I baked a heap of mini-cupcakes for playcentre on Wednesday, a cake for a coffee group for Friday (jaffa snake cake - orange cake/choc icing and a packet of snake lollies piled on top - easy peasy), and then I had to master the real cake for her party on Saturday (as well as other party foods). 

I also juggled several melt-downs of my own from feeling WAY too overwhelmed.

Here's what came of Mr Tigger....

And this is what he looked like top down....

This was my first real attempt at such a complicated cake - last year she had a butterfly.  I made a guitar cake for my brother's 21st, but this was rather interesting and tricky to make.

I hired  a tin from the local cake tin hire (which is well worth doing).  It came with instructions on which parts to ice first etc - which made it way simpler.  Made a lemon cake - as thought all that icing needed some balancing out!

What I didn't know - was just making the icing and mixing the colours took an hour and a half! 

Icing the cake - well, it took 3 hours.

The lovely lady from the hire shop told me it actually takes her 3 hours to ice one of these sorts of cakes too - so that made me feel a bit better (seeing as she's made a tonne of them).

The party guests were all family members, with the additon of two of our closest friends who are just like her aunty and uncle...

Gotta recommend these - Pam's giant jelly beans!! YUMMO!

We had some of these too....

And these - just for my wee princess who has an obsession with them on each supermarket visit...

I made some other healthy snacks (seeing as several of our guests were dieting).  Once the party started all my stress melted away!!

Miss PA was very spoilt and loves all her new toys etc.  The thing I found the most interesting - was I discovered that she really LOVES cards.  She went straight for them with each present and spent a good deal of time looking at them (just like her mummy).

Happy birthday my beautiful girl.

x

Chocolate Marquise

There's nothing like dinner with two of your besties and YUMMO dessert to make winter seem just a little bit warmer.

If you like a bit of an indulgence, especially of the rich chocolate variety - here's a recipe worth trying when you have a wee bit of time.

I first tasted it on our wedding anniversary last year at Tonic restaurant here in Whangarei.  I fell in love! (with the food).

The best description is that it is a cross of somewhere between a mousse and a cake.  Heavier than mousse but lighter than a cake.  And VERY delicious!

Prepare the day before you want to eat it:

Chocolate Marquise

7 egg yolks
3/4 cup caster sugar
200g dark chocolate (suitable for cooking/melting)
250g butter - chopped in pieces
65g good quality cocoa powder
600ml cream
1 tsp vanilla extract (the extract is much nicer but WAY more expensive than essence)


Method:

• In a heatproof bowl - use electric beater to beat egg yolks and sugar until pale and thick (took about 4 mins)
• Place bowl over a pan of simmering water (not touching the water) and add chocolate.  Whisk until melted and combined.
• Add butter one piece at a time, and whisk until melted. (I cut it into sticks and added).
• Once butter is combined, remove from heat and fold in cocoa.
• Beat cream & vanilla in a separate bowl until soft peaks form (firmer is better).
• Fold a small amount of cream into the chocolate mix until combined.  
• Then fold in the remainder of the cream.

Pour into a lightly greased 8x22cm terrine, lined with plastic wrap (enough wrap to fold over the top).  Fold the remaining plastic over the top to cover and refrigerate overnight. 
Turn out terrine, slice and eat!

My variation:
I had no idea what a terrine was and I don't have a loaf tin - so I made this and put it into individual ramekins/dishes, (no greasing or lining either) covered with gladwrap and refrigerated.

The recipe says it makes 6 servings.  I made a half recipe (4 eggs) and it filled 6 1/2cup ramekins to the top.  You honestly wouldn't want to eat any more than that - I love chocolatey stuff and I can't eat a whole one.

Serve:
with whipped cream, cream anglaise or plain vanilla icecream.
Would also be yum to try with berry compote or berries & cream - you almost need something to counter-act the richness of it.

YUMMO!

Now, what to do with all those egg whites!

Pictures were nabbed from the web.

A few favourites....

You know you must be feeling healthier when you get back into things you love doing......

Like baking sweet treats and decorating them - for my lovely mumsie's birthday



Lemon cupcakes.....



Lemon butter cream icing (mum is a fan of lemon)



Pretty plates... and pretty decorating....



I also tried doing this... first time ever



My mum-in-law is the most amazing woman to learn from for bottling/preserving etc.  We got given a STACK of apples recently, and I had to do something.

It took time, but was a simple process.  Looking forward to the super quick apple crumbles etc to come as a result!



Of course, I had to throw one in of the sidekick.  She's pretty cute I reckon.

x

Humour me.....?

Today, just for fun, I'll humour you a little - here are some pics of Lily -

 with her new "hat"...

 

  

 

She walks around with it completely covering her face - can't see a thing, and bangs into stuff all the time - but loves it....??

 

 

 

 

Humour #2.  We made a cake last week.  A mammoth of a cake.  My little bro turned 21, and my mum asked me to do his cake.  Then she "suggested" it could be in the shape of a guitar.

 

I obliged (I quite like working my creativity out on tasty things).  I'm not that skilled, this is only the 2nd cake I've ever made into something other than an oblong with standard icing.  But I'm learning...

 

  

 

So here is the finished product - before it left my house....

 

 

 

I didn't get any really decent pics - it was so big it was sitting on cardboard which didn't help!

However, (here's the humour), when it arrived to it's destination - it was dropped on the rug in the hallway (it wasn't me).  My 2 hours of icing went out the window :( 

So when I arrived at the party, my cake had been redecorated quickly by my sister.  And looked quite different. 

In my brother's words "still looked good still tasted good so its all good".

I did laugh about it later.

Well, apart from that and a festivity filled weekend - I must update you -

I'm 13 weeks today (scan changed my DD to 15/08), and I'm feeling much less sick, exhausted and nil energy.

So, miss 1 and I went for a stroll in the bush at a local park, and I did 10 mins of rowing.  It is about all my unfit body can handle after not being able to do any exercise for the last 9 weeks!  Working on it!  Will keep you posted on that one.

I'll leave you with this....

the delight of my life......

Pizza making....

Mummy is making pizza for dinner.... rolling the dough, chopping the toppings, smearing on tomato paste

Princess is sitting on the kitchen bench...... "helping"....

Mummy turns to ask her something, and immediately forgets when faced with this

[caption id="attachment_40" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Yum yum! tomato!"][/caption]

Tomatoes are pretty expensive this time of year.  I bought one big one in yesterdays shopping.  Princess thought it would be a yummy afternoon snack..



I couldn't bear to stop her.....

 

This is what was left......

[caption id="attachment_43" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="The remnants..... guess what was added to the pizza topping?"][/caption]

I ♥ birthdays....

This man is my hero.  He is creative, loyal, genuine, fun, forever making me laugh, a great daddy, and he's going where I want to go.  He is my best friend.  Today is his birthday.

So some people who know me, know that I love gifts.  Not so much receiving them, but giving them.  In all kinds of ways and measures, for all kinds of reasons.

I usually think for months in advance about someone's gift, and carefully select it, then take hours wrapping it.



One Christmas, I spent an entire day and night wrapping gifts for my family.  I handmade every bow.

On with the story, hubby's 25 today.

This week, has been a week of COOKING, and getting ready to celebrate.



At his office, birthdays = morning tea for your colleagues = wife cook up a storm = wife deliver at morning tea time = other people eat it.

So, I cooked:

• ginger crunch


• lemon syrup cake with butter icing


• sausage rolls


• mini pastry pizzas


• ham, cheese and mayonaise twists

All ready for his work.



Then, tiramisu made. House tidied. Table set. Grape juice chilled.  All ready for an early birthday dinner with his parents.  I COOKED:

• kumara chips with cinnamon and paprika


• mini pizzas with mozzarella and pastrami


• a fresh salad


• lamb chops

I've never made tiramisu - it was delish... if I must say so myself.

[caption id="attachment_34" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="It may as well been her birthday.... he let her open his presents."][/caption]

Love you honey x