Freestyle Cooking ... Scones

Having being inspired by Kat's yummy savoury scones she shared with me on Saturday I was whipping up a batch of cheese scones and I eyed the pot of savoury tomatoes (tomatoes, capsicum, onion and herbs) simmering away for my homemade spagetti dinner. I thought why not? and added in a big spoonful to my scone mix.

The finished product was a little orange in colour but very delicious! I will definitely be noting that down as a 'variation' and making them again!

Gingerlicious

Yesterday afternoon I spent some time watching episodes of Nestle Hottest Home Baker on the interwebs. Then I became inspired! I printed out a recipe for ginger cookies made by one of the contestants and whipped these up, I made a little change by using ground ginger not fresh. The cookies are OK, i probably will make them again, maybe tweak the recipe a little. The contestant iced hers with fondant and royal icing but I did this instead - I made an icing based on ginger crunch icing, pipedit on and topped it with a mini (1.5cm) cookie cut out with my new cookie cutter.

I think they look great, but I need to work on the icing a little as it didn't hold the lovely piped shape - any ideas?

Freestyle Cooking ...

... doesn't always turn out! I'm not going to embarrass myself by showing you a photo but I will share just one of the things I learnt yesterday: you can't add choc chips to the flour part of anzac bicuits and then add the warm golden syrup part - they melt! Choc anzac biscuits taste fantastic but they aren't the choc chip ones I intended to make.

New Recipe of the Week - Savoury Muffins

After having a yummy bacon/onion/cheese muffin at the Pokeno Bacon Cafe at Mercer I felt inspired to be a little creative in the kitchen. I bought a few slices of their yummy bacon and got to thinking on my drive home. The next morning I got busy and came up with these yummy muffins:

They taste soooo good and for those avoiding gluten they are completely gluten free.

Miss Wendy's Savoury Muffins

3/4 cup pea flour

3/4 cup corn meal

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon herb salt

1/4 cup oil

1/2 cup milk

2 eggs

1/2 can creamed corn

1/2 cup pokeno bacon - diced

1/2 cup spring onion - sliced finely

Combine wet ingredients in bowl, combine dry ingredients in another bowl.

Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, stir to combine.

Bake at 180 degrees in muffin pans until golden brown and cooked, 10 - 20 minutes depending on size of muffin pans.

ENJOY!

New Recipe of the Week

Neiman-Marcus Cookies

I have heard this story many many times - about how the lady got charged $250 for their cookie recipe, I think I have even had the recipe a few times. My friend Sheta emailed it to me the other day and Evelyn and I thought we would finally give it a go - we divided the recipe by 4 (it is a very big recipe) and it still made lots! Lots of very yummy chocolately cookies, especially with the walnuts - yum! They are pretty standard to look at but with the nuts and 2 types of chocolate they certainly tickled my taste buds.

Cooking in someone else's kitchen was odd - finding ingredients and utensils etc but it made for an interesting experience. I made regular sized cookies instead of my usual tiny 'cute food' sized cookies, which was an odd experience.

I will take Sheta a cookie tomorrow when I go into Hamilton and see what she thinks of them.

New Recipe of the Week

Last week my friend Glenna set herself a challenge of 1 new recipe each week and I decided to join her on it. My recipe for week ending 7 November was Russian Fudge. I love to eat fudge but have never really mastered the cooking of it but then to tell the truth have never really given it much of a go. It turned out OK, tasted fantastic but the texture wasn't quite what I know it can be. Will have to give it another go soon.

This weeks recipe (for week ending 14 November) was savoury pinwheel scones. This was a combination of 2 recipes. The filing was potato, bacon, spring onion, cheese, egg, flour and savoury herb blend. And they tasted great! Ashley thinks that it made way to many dishes though. There is some of the filing mixture left so I will be creative and think of something to do with it for dinner.