Cooking for Two - Meatballs and Cherry Relish

This meal was my first foray into the kitchen for quite some time. I cook the odd cake or pikelets but this was a lot of fun.

I got out my herb chopper.

I got out my mortar and pestle.

I refused to get my hands all sticky mixing the meat. It was bad enough rolling the meatballs.

There was just enough for two but DH doesn't like all the spicy bits so I got to put the other half away for the next day.

This recipe was highly adapted from a Kylie Kwong recipe. I didn't have fresh dates or preserved lemons or sour cherries so I used what I had to hand. It was delicious.

Meatballs and Cherry Relish

Ingredients

250g minced beef

100g minced pork

1/2 medium red capsicum chopped

1 small red onion chopped

2 tbs olive oil

1 tbs chopped fresh ginger

1 tsp sea salt

1 egg

2 tsp grated lemon rind

3 tbs chopped mint

3 tbs chopped parsley

1 tbs honey

1 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 cup extra olive oil

Heat the oil in a frying pan and cook the capsicum and onion until soft.

Grind the ginger and sea salt together with a mortar and pestle.

Mix all the ingredients with the mince.

Shape into about 12 small meatballs and roll in some plain flour.

Use the extra oil to shallow fry the meatballs 6 at a time.

Meanwhile make the cherry relish.

Ingredients

2 tbs frozen blueberries, thawed

2 tbs craisins

Spring onion finely sliced

2 tbs olive oil

1 tsp sea salt

1/3 cup chopped fresh cherries

2 dates chopped

2 tsp vinegar

Soak the craisins and dates in 1/3 cup of boiling water for 20 mins.

Heat the oil in a saucepan and stir the onion and salt for 2 mins.

Add cherries and stir for another 2 mins

Stir in the blueberries and the soaked fruit and water.

Simmer for 5 mns until slightly reduced.

Stir in the vinegar.

Place the meatballs in a shallow dish. Add the relish and a dollop of plain yoghurt.

Download the PDF

Happy Quilting and Crafting,

Val

FNWF February 2014

I had forgotten that I needed space in my schedule for linkies I joined in with last year. I have to keep joining in with FNWF. I can't believe how big it is now.

With the excuse of company Friday night I decided to make a cake. Turns out is was just me and hubby here to eat it and I nearly forgot to get a picture of the finished cake. I salvaged a couple of neat slices for a picture this morning.

Marbled Chocolate and Orange Loaf

I have posted the recipe and some making photos on my Books I am Reading blog since the recipe comes from one of my favourite recipe books.

I decided I would work on my next scrappy star for FNWF. It was dark by the time I got into the sewing room yesterday and it was a bit hard choosing colours. I hoped they would still look all right in the morning.
I had to delve into my smalls box since it called for 3" squares and my scraps are too scrappy to make into neat squares. It also needed quite a lot of the one fabric for the background. I only managed to cut all the pieces last night and had to get up this morning to at least have something respectable for a FNWF post.

I have started the In the Garden BOM and had a pile of scraps that needed a bit of sorting so I can work on that some more today. This is my rental house sewing room.

Much more organised now.

I sewed all the HST for the scrappy star.

This is what it will be like. Seems to be a couple of holes to fill there.

I have mentioned on a few posts that I have moved house. We sold up our acreage in Brisbane and have moved to the beach further north. The beach is a couple of minutes walk away. This was yesterday morning. I don't mean to rub it in but it has been such a long time coming and we are thrilled to be here.

Today I am linking up with FNWF (Friday Night with Friends)
I am cooking breakfast as I write this - pancakes to have with yoghurt and blueberries. I will make myself a coffee after breakfast and post the cake recipe before posting this. Then I will spend some time checking out what the rest of you have been up to.

Comment options:
Pinterest
Flickr

Happy Quilting and Crafting,
Val

Practicing foundation piecing

From Quilt a Koala: Australian Animals and Birds in Patchwork by Margaret Rolfe

, a photo by valspiers on Flickr.

I have decided to improve on at least one skill a week or try something new. Time seems to just fly by and a week goes by and I have only done more of the same. Working on the cat appliqué quilt is achieving but still more of the same.
This is only the second time I have done foundation piecing. The first time taught me that I need to work with big pieces. This time I learnt that when one uses interfacing as a foundation you should not write the numbers on in dark pen.
I made it into a counter mat for my kitchen with wadding to hide the pattern on the kitchen towel I used as backing. I retire the hand towels a couple of times a year so I always have spare ones around. They give kitchen counter mats a nice firm feel and are good and absorbent .
The new things I tried this week were some low sugar biscuit and muffin recipes. I love eating something with body like cake or biscuits rather than chocolate or dried fruit so I modified a few recipes. The biscuit recipe is definitely worth repeating. The muffin was a bit boring.
Date Dainties
12 dates chopped
12 pecan halves chopped
1 cup flour
1 egg
2 tbls honey
1/3 cup marg or butter

Cream butter and honey. Add egg and dates and nuts then flour. Makes 12 biscuits. Cook at 160 C for 20 mins.
700 kJ per biscuit

The other new thing was getting into Pinterest.

Happy Quilting,
Val

Crazy binding, a bag and an apple pie

I have been sorting through my scraps in between sets with my weights. It seemed such a waste of time to stand there for a minute between sets so I dragged my scrap box into the gym and sorted into colours. Took me a couple of days but I felt like I was getting something done.

I wanted to make crazy binding and use my bigger pieces to make the project instead of making a crazy block and using the big piece for the binding. I think the binding turned out OK. I made a metre and will use it to bind an appliqued mug rug. I have a design in mind but I just have to get going with my travel jacket. I cut out several pieces of it this morning. This is the pattern. It is from Safe-T-Pockets.

Here is the crazy binding.

 

 

And here is the string bag I knitted. I put in a few oranges to stretch it a bit.

I also found a nice recipe for apple cake on one of the sites I found in my list. The blog is called Linden Grove and is just a nice blog with some cats and chickens and trees and some crafting. She has a recipe blog as well with the cake. Cake recipe.

Later in the afternoon...
I found a Moda Blog Hop on Sharon's blog post and promptly went for a look. At the first site I found a cute soap bottle apron pattern and just had to make it immediately. I used a little spray of basting glue to hold the layers together and free motion outlined the tea cup.

Happy Crafting,
Val

Sunday into Monday Show and Tell

Someone was doing a string bag which reminded me that I wanted to do one too. (Edit - Of course, it was Creative Kate) I had a pattern in the knitting desk calendar that DD1 bought me for Christmas and some cotton blended with acrylic to knit it out of. I am making it fairly small but it is very stretchy.

I just had to make the Lazy Lemon Pie from Bev's blog . I made a half quantity and put it into single serves. I put things in the jug in no particular order since you just mix it all together. I popped out and picked a couple of lemons then juiced them in the electric juicer on the other counter. I put the filled dishes in the oven and turned around to see the lemon juice sitting in the juicer. I pulled out the dishes and divied up the juice and stirred each dish with a spoon.
Can't believe I nearly had Lazy Pie :D
(Edit - They taste and feel delicious. Good job DH doesn't like them much :)

I wanted to make a little album of my Morpeth trip so I made a crazy block cover for it. I used Keynote to make slides and printed them off 2 to a page and cut them in half to make my album pages. I called it a mission because on the day if I thought of it as a mission I didn't feel so nervous about the trip. I tend to stress out whenever I do something new. I had never done a plane day trip before and was worried about getting back to the airport on time. I had never hired a car before or driven in and out of an airport before so I was stressed about that too. I found that if I pretended to be on a mission like Mrs Pollifax - If she can do it, I can do it - I felt adventurous rather than nervous. I know Mrs Pollifax isn't a real person but what the heck, it seemed to work :)

I used my teapot fabric for the inside

Not quite finished

I haven't quite finished the album. I will punch two holes in the pages and use a needle to thread a ribbon in the covers to tie it together.

Today I thought I might just go through every blog I follow and leave a comment. I follow quite a few more than I have included in my side bar so I thought it might be nice to visit them all and remember why I followed them in the first place or maybe even strike them off the list.
I will be linking up with Monday Show and Tell on Sandy's blog tomorrow.

Happy Quilting,
Val

Fun Creating

I have had an urge to make things. Not necessary things but things that require me to work out how to do them. I have wanted to make something with clear pockets for a while so I used a plush curtain sample, a hand towel and some strips from the lining I bought for my jacket to make a toiletries pouch to take on the plane. I have three trips in the works. It is not super light or stream lined but I like the look of it.

After seeing the luggage tags Simone had on her post I just had to try making some. I tried one with binding that was OK but I didn't like it so I made one that is sewn and turned. The tails of the tie extend all along the tag and are sewn the length of the tag so there is no chance of it being torn off without the fabric tearing. I also wanted to decorate it with applique and since I had a likeness of myself from another project I put me on it in felt with a narrow zig zag to hold it on. It has stiff hand bag wadding inside. I laughed as I attached it to my bag. It is just like photo ID.

The other thing I made was  a sponge cake with lots of egg yolks and no butter. I had yolks left over from making pikelets with egg whites. I know the idea is not to eat the yolks but it seems such a waste to throw them away.

I made a few adjustments to the recipe and it turned out yummy. A lot of butter in cakes brings out my dairy intolerance a bit so it was nice to have no butter in the cake.

Egg yolk Sponge

Ingredients

3/4 cup SR flour or make up to 3/4 with 1 1/2 tbsp of cocoa
1/2 cup caster sugar
5 egg yolks plus 1 whole egg
6 tbsp hot water (85 degrees C)

Method

1. Sift flour and cocoa and set aside.
2. Use elecric mixer or mix master to beat eggs for 3 mins
3. Add hot water gradually while beating then beat for 10 mins til thick and creamy
4. Add sugar gradually while beating and beat for 3 mins to dissolve sugar
5. Fold in the flour in 4 steps. I use a hand whisk to stir in the flour gently
6. Pour into a large cake tin
7. Bake at 180 C or 375 F for 30 mins. The cake should shrink away from the tin a bit
8. Turn out and cool completely. I found the top stuck to the cooling rack a bit. Maybe spray the rack before using.

The cake nearly didn't make it to the photo shoot :)

The pikelet recipe is interesting too. It is from the Oxygen magazine. I was a bit skeptical but they rise and they taste great. They even passed the husband test :)
I adjusted this recipe a bit too because it is a pain to clean out the blender. If you use oat bran instead of rolled oats you can make it with a bamix or electric beaters. I also used almond meal as an alternative to flax seeds and protein powder.

High Protein Pikelets

Ingredients
1/2 cup oat bran (or rolled oats if using the blender)
1 tbsp ground flax seeds
1 scoop protein powder
I had no flax seeds or protein powder so I used 3 tbsp almond meal
2 fresh egg whites
1/3 cup low fat cottage cheese

Method

1. Mix all ingredients or blend if using rolled oats.
2. Also once I had made it once I just put in rough amounts. It is pretty hard to wreck it.
3. If it is a bit thick I added another egg white one time and some rice milk another time.
4. Cook like pikelets

This amount is supposed to be for one but it makes about 6 small pikelets that are very filling and would possibly feed two with some yoghurt and berries on top. It was enough for the two of us.

I am looking forward to the beginning of spring tomorrow. The sun has that lovely warm feel to it now - not too cold, not to hot.

Happy Quilting,
Val