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Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Vintage Finds

I've gone through too many kitchen timers than I care to count (teehee). It seems like I buy one every time I go to Ikea. I guess they don't last all that long, do they? My built-in oven timer doesn't work, so I needed something else. Gooey hands using the timer on the laptop wasn't cutting it. I love vintage, and have a few vintage kitchen items, so I looked for something on ebay. And I found the cutest little timer for about 10 bucks. It will never run our of batteries, nor does it require any power. It's a good old fashioned wind-up single bell timer, and so far I have never had a problem. I love it. The simpler, the better, it seems.

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Friday, March 11, 2011

Banana Cake with Hershey's ganache

I made this one again. It's such a nice recipe. This time I tried a chocolate ganache, and it was really good.


For the ganache, I heated up some cream in a double boiler, and added some squares of Hershey's milk and dark chocolate, and stirred until the chocolate was all melted. I then beat in some icing sugar until I reached the consistency I wanted. I think I added too much icing sugar though. It was still nice, but could have been a little softer.

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Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Roasted Vegetables

I don't have a lot of time to cook usually. Lately I've been so busy, I don't have time to do most things. We're growing a small business, and it's hard to work full time, and then have that to do too...but I have been trying to make more meals, meals that don't come out of packages. One of my goals for this year is to eat more vegetables. We do eat them, but they tend to be the same ones...in the same dishes...and it gets very boring. So, as busy as I have been, I'm proud that I have still been able to add more veggies to the mix. And recently, our favorite way to eat them has been like this:

Roast Vegetables
Ingredients:
1. selection of vegetables. I've been using a combination of Japanese pumpkin, potato, carrot, red pepper (capsicum), red & white onions, garlic, sweet potato...
2. olive oil
3. seasonings, such as rosemary, salt, pepper, garlic, sometimes I also add balsamic vinegar, etc...




Method:
1. Preheat over to 450°F / 230°C
2. Cut up all vegetables to about the same size. I usually cut up red pepper a little larger so it doesn't get too soggy. You could always add softer veggies a little later in the baking process.
3. Pat dry with a paper towel to get most of the surface moisture off the veggies.
4. Throw into a bowl, and add your oil and seasonings. (To make a tray of veggies, I end up using about a 1/4 cup of oil, but this varies. I probably use about 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, and 1-2 tsp rosemary, but do whatever you feel like. I added about 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar to the mix in these photos).
5. Add some crushed garlic. I usually just lay a wide bladed knife over the garlic bulbs, and pound the knife to break the bulbs. Peel off the wrapping, and then cut into smaller pieces if you want.
6. Mix to coat veggies, and spread on a baking tray or dish in a single layer. You'll need to roast the veggies for about 45mins to an hour, checking on them every 15 minutes, and stirring them.


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