BASKETS

In The Hot Day
Hot days can be destructive, particularly for the garden, the young plants, can easily get damaged, the flowers and leaves are wilted, the rose petals become dry, and the soil is cracked.  Personally, I don't like to be in the garden working, but watering is necessary,  it is better in the late afternoon or early morning, not in between.

However, it is suitable for taking advantage of the hot weather.   I did wash all my food baskets.

I scrubbed and washed them in soapy water, drained and dried them under the hot sun.

There are two types of baskets in my household, one example is the baskets for keeping fruits or food, and the other baskets are pot plant holders.

The pot plants holders, I aired them in the backyard and let them sit under the sun.  It got rid of the mould and kept the baskets dry and healthy.



To wash the basket does not take a long time, use a durable scrubber, scrub the basket thoroughly with mix detergent and hot water, wash and rinse in soapy water.

Drain, take them outside, place them over a clean cloth and dry them under the sun on a hot day.

All the baskets are dry now, the family can use them with confidence, they are clean and healthy.


Using the Baskets
Baskets are suitable for resting freshly cut flowers, especially roses.



While I am harvesting, I keep the vegetables, herbs, and fruits,  in baskets.

Fresh bread/rolls appeal better to be presented in baskets.

Chestnuts on a basket keep them dry not mouldy, freshly cut herbs, vegetables are always in a basket,  and also the basket is an excellent container to dry bay leaves and herbs.

Baskets for Plant Holders

The orchid flowers are cascading along the tall basket looking very pretty, and the monstera deliciousa stands proudly in a large basket looking more practical.



Where would you keep those baskets?  You do need a special place for them, a cupboard or space in the pantry or hang them up in a dry place somewhere inside the house.

In a cooler day but dry and sunny fill your pick nick basket with beautiful food to eat outdoors, enjoy the fresh air and beautiful nature.  That is another way of using baskets.



Today in the modern era, I think baskets are here to stay.  The fact is that people spend the time to create beautiful and intricate goods,  we all appreciate folk craft/art.


Until Next Post
Thank You for Visiting
Susy

Australia Day

Australia Day is the official national day of Australia.  Celebrated annually on 26 January, which marks the anniversary of the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet of British Ships at Sydney Cove, New South Wales, and raising of the Flag of Great Britain at the site by Governor Arthur Philip.  In contemporary Australia, celebrations reflect the diverse society and landscape of the nation and are marked by community and family events, reflections on Australian history, official community awards, and citizenship ceremonies welcoming new immigrants into the Australian community.

In contemporary Australia, the holiday is marked by the presentation of the Australian of the Year Awards on Australia Day Eve, the announcement of the Australia Day  Honours list and addresses from the Governor-General and Prime Minister.  It is an official public holiday in every state and territory of Australia unless it falls on a weekend in which case the following Monday is a public holiday instead.  With community festivals, concerts and citizenship ceremonies, the day is celebrated in large and small communities and cities around the nation.  Australia day has become the biggest annual civic even in Australia. (Wikip)


Food and dishes which are served for Australia Day celebration can be varied, BBQ is very popular, from sausages, lamb chops to the whole leg of lamb, the best Australian meat. The classic sweets such as lamington, pavlova and damper the traditional Australian bread, and of course the delicious contemporary Australian dishes. 

Lamington and Damper for Australia Day

Recipes

Damper Deluxe
Damper with the nuts and herbs.  Delicious savoury bread is perfect to go with BBQ and also excellent to be served warm and buttered.

My family loves the traditional Australian bread 'Damper',  I cooked the damper with a difference, I added some Australian native macadamia nuts.

Ingredients:

2 cups self-rising flour

2 tablespoons butter

¼ teaspoon salt

1cup milk
mixed fresh chopped herbs

50gr macadamia nuts-chopped or mixed nuts

flour,  extra for dusting/kneading

Method

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C

Rub butter with the flour to resemble breadcrumbs

Add in milk, salt, herbs and the nuts, mix quickly into a soft dough

Knead it lightly on a floured kneading board

Shape the dough into roundish-flat (2 cm thickness, 8 cm diameter)

Bake in the preheated oven for 16 minutes, lower the heat to 175 degrees C

Continue cooking for 8 minutes until the damper is golden brown.

To serve

Sliced and buttered.  Enjoy with tea or coffee.  Or as a garnish for salads and BBQ

Lamington
I baked a lamington with a twist, instead of the traditional chocolate square lamington, I did lamington rolls with green and yellow colour, it represents the Australian flag for sports

I will share the recipe, It is my own recipe, a contribution for cooking to celebrate Australia Day.

The Recipe  

Yellow and Green Lamington Roll
Makes 2 Rolls

Ingredients

Dry ingredients: sift together properly

dry ingredients

½ cup heap full self - raising flour

½ cup level, tapioca flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

4 large eggs

¾ cup castor sugar

1 tablespoon melted butter

Green colouring or Pandanus essence 

Extra butter

2 cups desiccated coconut and yellow colouring

(add some icing sugar).
- Mix a drop yellow colouring with water, add in
the desiccated coconut, mix them well, then add the icing sugar
- Mix together to combine.

Whip Cream-300 mil with 1 tablespoon sugar

2 tins for baking - square 25x25 cm

Baking paper

Method

Line the tins with baking paper

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C for the convection

Sift the dry ingredients thoroughly

Beat the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy (11 minutes)

Add in the dry element little by little, mix and fold them gently

Pour in the melted butter and mix  the batter through gently

Pour onto the prepared lined tin and bake for 11-12 minutes

Take it out, turn it out and place it on buttered baking paper.

Peel the paper off the cake, then roll it and wrap, keep aside to cool

When it is cold, unroll, spread the jam and cream, roll it gently

Spread more cream on the roll and turn it onto the yellow desiccated coconuts

Slice up to 10-12

 Preparation

sift the dry ingredients three times

beat the eggs + sugar until light and fluffy

put the cake batter on a lined tray

freshly baked cake on a baking paper

roll the cake and keep it cold

unroll the cake, spread jam on top

spread whipped cream over the jam,
and roll it gently but not loosely

spread the cream on the roll and top it
with desiccated yellow coconuts.

The Green and Yellow Lamington Roll

Beautiful green and yellow lamington roll, a yummy cake
to celebrate  Australian Day

I wish you all to have a fun Australia Day.  If you want to bake the damper and the yellow and green lamington roll cake, it is now to do the shopping, have fun and happy baking.

We will enjoy the Australia Day Long Weekend.

We had a lovely time, and we enjoyed the final of the Australian Open Tennis.  I am glad that the new champion Wawrinka is a true champion with a good personality.   He is a great player and very respectable.

Monday the 27th of January, we had a good day at the table tennis and enjoyed the morning tea with Anzac biscuits, lamington, mini pavlova,  herbs and cheese damper, and a lot more. It's Celebration of The Australia Day.

Freshly Baked Herbs and Cheese Damper

Herbs and Cheese Damper and Sweet Mini Pavlova that I baked were acceptable, even though the damper was not very traditional, it has cheese and herbs.  Home cooking is always good or even better.

The Damper and Mini Pavlova

There is no recipe for those two dishes, maybe I could share the recipes other time.

Until Next Post

Thanks for Visiting

Susy

Family Feasts

Delicious meals to share, over Summer holidays, time to catch up, time to give, time to celebrate friendship with festivity.  A few samples of my cooking for the holiday season, suggestions for dishes from other countries.

 Festive Food - Family Feasts

The End Of the Year 2013

Roast Turkey the whole bird with nuts and fruit stuffing.

Exceptional cooking for the end of the year,  it was good that the children and grandkids were with us. It was Thanksgiving, for a good year, we all had.
Cooking the whole bird of poultry is always festive, the turkey was plenty for everyone. 

Cooking delicious dishes from different countries is a good experience, often I got chances to cook beautiful meals and feasting with the children, my family.

Cooking based on Moroccan
Couscous with stuffed chicken breast with red dried pawpaw and pistachio nuts.  It is an excellent food for warm and hot days.  Traditionally couscous is served with hot long stew vegetables or meat and vegetable tajine.  To me, this dish is so good to have during a colder month.  I do love couscous and the taste of Moroccan food, so I cook couscous which is suitable for Summer, it is the stuffed chicken breast with pistachio nuts.  It is delicious, colourful and festive for any table.

Shopping List:
- chicken breast fillets, dried pawpaw, pistachio nuts
- egg, olive oil, sour cream, saffron
- Instant couscous
- Mixed fresh herbs
- Broad beans

The Preparations

The Chicken

Discard the skin
Butterfly the fillet, keep aside
(refrigerate until is needed)

Two tablespoons chopped chicken
Teaspoon cornflour, egg yolk. chopped
pistachio, salt 

Stuff the fillet with the stuffing
Add fresh herbs and wrap with plastic,
cover it again with foil to poach

The stuffed chicken fillet wrapped
in foil is ready to poach. Poach for
9 minutes, keep in the water to cool

Freshly Poach Stuffed Chicken

The Cous Cous

It is quickly done, just follow the instruction on the packet

cooking the couscous

fluff the couscous

The Presentation

The dish to serve

Dressing for the Chicken

Sliced Chicken with no Dressing

Cous Cous and Herbs, Garnished with Stuffed Chicken Fillet with Pistachio and Pawpaw

Beautiful and Colourful Cooking.  Moroccan Flavour.

The Plates

Another cold couscous is Savoury couscous with nuts, to accompany this dish is
a cold pie 'beestya'=chicken pie.  Flavours of Morocco which blend together.

Savoury Cous Cous with Nuts

Using Herbs-Creative Cooking

Celebrate herbs in season, use them as garnishes, fresh herbs are beautiful and also fragrant.  But fried herbs to garnish fried food are absolutely amazing, they look glossy.

Chicken cutlets with garnishes-Fried chicken cutlets garnished with mixed fried herbs

Fried chicken cutlet in light cheese batter, served with

mixed fried herbs.

Preparation for the Garnish

Gather the fresh herbs, wash and dry them properly.

Using fresh oil, deep fry them in hot oil, quickly

drain and cool them on absorbent paper.

Simple ingredients to make beautiful and delicious food.  

Savoury in Pastry
Mincemeat, potato and onions (the savoury) for the filling, and prepare a batch of Susy's water pastry for the wrapper.  Serve with fresh salads and cheeses, to go with summer punch, fruit juice or very cold sparkling white wine.

Preparation for the Savoury in Pastry

Prepare the water pastry and let it rest for at least 25 minutes, then roll it out into thin sheets.

Filling: Mix of 200 g cooked mincemeat, 2 large white onions-slice and sauteed in oil until soft.  Add in sauteed grated potatoes (2) and a cup of grated celery, season with salt and flavoured with herbs-dills and bay leaf powder.  Mix and combine together thoroughly.

Add four eggs in the mixture, mix it well.

The pastry: roll it out into 12 small pieces, then roll and stretch into thin fine sheets which you can see through.  You would have six for the base,  six layers for the top.

To assemble the savoury: use a large and buttered tin, place the six delicate pastry at the bottom and oil/butter in between the layers.

Put the filling on it, spread evenly on the tin.

Cover it with six layers of the sheets, and don't forget to brush with melted butter mixed with oil in between the sheets.

Pleat the pastry on top as pretty as you can, and cover the filling totally.  Then brush the top with the butter and oil mixture

The savoury in pastry is ready to be baked in a preheated hot oven at 175 degrees C for 35 minutes until the pastry is golden brown.

Or at this stage, you can keep (refrigerated) and bake the next day.  If you wish you could freeze it to stay longer.  

Freshly baked savoury with beautiful pleated pastry

Serving

Serve with a leafy salad

It is not necessary to have complicated cooking and expensive dishes to have a feast, but beautiful, practical dishes, well presented and ready to serve at the table are lovely, and you can be present and join with family and your guests to enjoy the feast.  

  Dessert: have the sweets that can be prepared beforehand, and are suitable for refrigeration. Such as fruit salad, meringue (pavlova), or cheesecake.

Desserts

Mixed Fresh Fruit. Icy cream and meringues 

Feasting and travelling around my table: local dishes and beyond.

Javanese cooking is suitable for this type of feasting, serve a variety of dishes at the table, especially Javanese dishes are excellent to be served at room temperature.  I may be doing and sharing recipe about Javanese cooking soon.  Stay Tuned.

Thank You For Stopping By

Until Next Post

Susy