Happy Christmas.

MY BEST WISHES FOR A VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO YOU.

Beautiful Brioche for CHRISTMAS   2016 

Enjoy The Family
Celebrate!


Enjoy The Friendship
Celebrate!


Enjoy The Festivity
Celebrate!


Enjoy The Gifts
Celebrate!

Enjoy The Love

Celebrate!

Enjoy The Celebrations!

May the Blessing and the Joy of Christmas Leads Us all to a Good Health and Happiness.

HAPPY  FEASTING, HAVE A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS !!!

God Bless and Stay Safe.

Thank You All
Until Next Post

Susy

BEAUTIFUL!!!

It is Christmas week, everyone is busy to get ready for The Day.  The shopping centre, the shops the markets are serving and offering beautiful things for the festivity.
Australia is a land of plenty and the home for beauties. In this post,  I emphasise the cooking and the beautiful dishes for the festive season.
Beautiful Sweet Tart
Savoury and Sweet are beautiful. Meat dishes are always served in the festivity.
Australian lambs produce the best meat in the world, and recently we learnt that Kangaroo meat is very healthy and readily available in the market or supermarkets.
The flavour is almost similar to lamb.  I cook and love the meat, but mainly the fillet, it is not long to cook and very tender.

I don't include it in the party dishes, but it is a beautiful food to have for family meals.

Beautiful Pan-fried Fillet Roo.

People do prepare and cook the traditional Christmas Classic,  Prepared Christmas pudding a few months before as well as baking the Christmas cake.  And on the day they cook the Beautiful grand roast Turkey, baked glace Ham to serve as well.  A big feast, indeed!  However, more and more people simply enjoy the festivity by serving food that suitable for the environment. Simple food and salads, fresh fruits and cakes are ideal for our climate.
This cooking, beautiful cold dishes can be beautiful and delicious, what you need is only being organised, and it is stress-free. The meals I did for a Luncheon at our home were Cold Dishes.

Beautiful Cold Dishes 
Pre-Christmas Catch up with Friends.

Luncheon's Menu
Savoury Brioche 
Roast Turkey Breast 
Keppler Potato Salad
Christmas Cabbage Salad
Mince FruitTart

Savoury Brioche with Filling dressed with Prosciutto

Meat roulade in brioche dressed with Prosciutto

Roast Turkey Breast Dressed with Mustard and Mayonnaise.

Keppler Potato Salad

A Tart with Fresh Berries

Small verity dishes to prepare, but they are tasty and look beautiful.
Nowadays we could get beautiful festive food ready from the shop, it can be convenient if we don't have the time to cook.  I did get a tender roasted turkey breast from the shop, and what I need was simply dress it beautifully.  You could do that too!

Other Beautiful Things To Enjoy.

Beautiful Colours and Beautiful Flavours

Beautiful flowers at this time of the year can be varied.  It is spring, brilliant colours are in the garden. 

Beautiful Summer Sponge

Beautiful Braised Eggplants

Beautiful Christmas Trees
We see a lot of Christmas trees everywhere and dressed up beautifully.

This year for us:  Beautiful Golden and Green Christmas Tree for the Beautiful Spirits of Christmas.
Santa came early, he delivered the cutest and beautiful espalier fuji apple tree.

The Details

The Beautiful plant needs care, and the reward is harvesting.

Lets us celebrate 'Beauty', from the food, the garden and of course the family.

On that note, I am looking forward to spending time at Christmas with my Beautiful Children and their husbands and Beautiful Grand Children.  I am grateful we are beautifully blessed.

Have a Beautiful Day, Enjoy Your Christmas Week. 

Until Next Post

Susy

Frozen Dough

Water Pastry

The frozen dough of water pastry is easy to work to and saving time, simply defrost the dough, when it is completely thawed, knead lightly, divide into small pieces and roll them out to make thin pastry sheets.  Shown at these pictures below.

Water Pastry from Frozen  Dough

The dough is divided into small pieces, and roll to round thin pastry.

The thin pastry is rolled to make flat pastry sheet

A largest thin pastry sheet 

Transfer to a buttered tin, and brush the sheet with melted butter

The layers of thin pastry sheets and brush with melted butter in between

The dough made six-layer sheets of the water pastry and buttered in between to make a pie.

Ricotta Egg Open pie, I baked with this pastry.   It is a light dish and only using half of the buttered pastry. Slice it into squares and garnish with fresh vegetables and herbs to serve.

Ricotta Cheese with  lemon rinds and parsley

Ricotta and Eggs for the Pie

Ricotta, eggs and leek mixture for the Open Pie

Ricotta mixture on the layered pastry

Brush the pie topping with melted butter, before baking

Baked Ricotta cheese open pie

The open pie is ready to serve, cut into small pieces dress with fresh herbs on top.  Or wrap it up with baking paper and foil to freeze.

The other half of the pastry was for other baking, I baked mini baklava, a deliciously sweet dessert or cake based on Greek cooking.  I love to bake the cake; indeed, it is abundant in goodness, but it is a treat for a special occasion.  It was a successful trial for baking a small strip of baklava.

Mini Baklava

Crushed walnuts with cinnamon powder
for baklava filling

Layers pastry sheets, buttered in between and walnut mix

Fill the pastry with the walnuts and rolling it.

Long roll with walnut filling for baklava

Slashing before baking

Honey syrup for the baklava

Freshly baked hot baklava added with honey syrup

Pour the cold syrup to freshly hot baked baklava, you will hear the sizzling sound.
The baklava stays in the tin to cool, keep for a week in room temperature, cover with a cloth. 

Sweet and Crisps Baklava

The traditional baklava making is baked in a large square or round buttered tin (without baking paper) and cut into small diagonal.  

I think it is a smart way of preparing and using homemade water pastry, remember while you have plenty of plain flour, please make the dough and freeze it for readiness.  It costs almost nothing for water, flour and salt.

To all young mothers, the school holiday is coming,  pastry making is a fun activity for the children.  Make the pastry together with them, and bake strudels,  sweet or savoury pie etc.   Have Fun!

Recipe for the pastry is on this blog, look up to an older post.



Until Next Post

Susy

LEAFY GREEN

Fresh vegetables, leafy green from lettuce to cabbage are a part of my family daily diets. The green garden we love, and now the garden is so green. Lovely!

Iceberg Lettuce
My iceberg lettuce is growing very well, in fact, it is time to harvest.  Today is the day, I am pleased and proud.

Leafy Iceberg Lettuce

The Leaves are Large

Look at the leaves, they are large, soft and crisp, especially I picked when it's young and ready. No, meat today, instead we have ricotta cheese. Fried mixed ricotta and eggs, serve on the broad leaf of the lettuce.  Delicious!

Fried ricotta cheese with egg
on the leafy lettuce

Fried ricotta Sang Choi Bao
healthy and delicious

Use the leaves to serve Sang Choi Bao,  I will prepare tofu or chicken Sang Choi Bao to make the best of these gorgeous leaves.







Butter Lettuce

The leaf of the butter lettuce is so delicate and soft, I can add into salads, but the plan was for lumpia (pancake roll with vegetables filling-mixed shredded fresh vegetables). The rolls served raw as it is, not baked or fried.

Homemade light mayonnaise is lovely to dress this lettuce, but you would be surprised to know that peanut butter dressing is good for the butter lettuce too.  Try this, boiled egg, bean sprouts, tomato, and butter lettuce served with peanut butter sauce.  It is so delicious, the dish based on Javanese salad - Gado Gado.




Sorrel
French sorrels are at their best, so green and so leafy.   I am thinking to make a sauce to dress fish dishes or simply add in salads.

French Sorrel

parsley flat parsley is so leafy and fresh, I am thinking to prepare pesto with parsley, it should be good to add to summer pasta.

Curley Parsley

Flat Continental Parsley

Zucchini
The leaves are plentiful, and the plants are very healthy, and now they have baby zucchini already, I could do stuffed zucchini flower.

Cabbages
The leaves are broad and green, it is almost the harvest.  What would you do with savoy cabbage?  I could do a lot.  Shredded savoy cabbage is excellent to add to beaten eggs, mix together, and pan-fry to make-Orak-Arik or omelette (Javanese cooking). Braise it to garnish any pork dishes, boil it to add into other cooked vegetable dressed with mustard sauce.  The fresh shredded young savoy cabbage is delicious mixed with sliced apple and dressed with mayonnaise etc

Savoy Cabbages

The Cabbage is almost ready.

Talking about my vegetable garden is more interesting, as it changes every year. I don't have many plants, though, but it keeps me busy, and we have enough fresh vegetables for two.  This year we have more than two tomato plants, just see how they go.

In my backyard, resting is very peaceful
Protected by the Leafy Green Wall

It has been a glorious spring and early summer.  The garden is lovely, all the plants are flourishing beautifully.
I enjoy spending time in the garden, which is well protected by the green wall, so fresh and green, very leafy.






Enjoy the early summer before it gets too hot.




Until Next Post
Susy