Sunday 11 October 2009

Mixed media blog


And by that I mean this is going to be a cooking and scrapping blog. I'm a bit of a slow scrapper, particularly at the moment but I am really pleased with how this one has turned out. I love blue, it's my favourite colour so I have a lot of blue patterend papers in my stash. I have a terrible habbit of defaulting to plain papers as the basis for my pages, then regretting it later on so I bit the bullet and started this layout with the paper.

My kittens loved this old paper tray when they first came to me and both cuddled up in it frequently. Bee's just a tad big for it now but still manages, somehow, to get comfortable enough to sleep in it. They really can sleep anywhere.

Last weekend I stayed with my lovely friend Alan, who always pushes the boat out for my in a culinary sense by finding and making gluten free recipes. This time it was a tart with caramelised onions and goats cheese, scrummy! So having had some GF ready made pastry in the freezer for a while made by Dietary Specials, I thought I'd recreate it. I made it into more of a quiche by adding an egg/milk custard to it and this is the outcome.

I made it up as I went along but essentially the recipe goes like this.

I sliced three large onions and cooked them slowly in a knob of butter over a low flame til they were gently browning and sweet, then allowed them to cool. I lined a pie tin with pastry - with gluten free pastry it works best to press into the tin rather than trying to roll it out due to the fragile nature of the dough. I then filled it with the cooled onions and two rounds of goats cheese which I cut in half. In a small bowl I beat together two eggs with a splash of cream and milk, and some fresh thyme leaves and pepper and poured this over the filling. I then topped it off with a small amount of grated cheddar and baked at 200c for 25 mins. I'd probably do it at 190c (or 170c in my fan oven) but it wasn't by any means burnt.

My Sugar and Spice blog is also up today. Please take a peek if you can :)

I've also now booked by Christmas trip to Family in the USA. This now means of course that I can start planning and preshopping my crafting bits :) Can't wait! My passport renewal also came through in double quick time, I posted it on Monday and got it back on Friday. How's that for service?!