New digs

I decided I wanted to start blogging again, but I think this time it’ll be a little different. It’s not only about cooking. My new blog is at www.thingsforboys.com and while there’s still going to be cooking on it, it’ll also have some crafting and hopefully DIY. I love providing for my boys, so now you can see what I do.

Well, the blog has basically fallen by the wayside...and with good reason...this little man has arrived. He takes up all of my time, so for the moment, the blog has been forgotten.

I hope everyone has enjoyed the recipes we've put on the blog and I'm sure we'll return to it soon, but for the moment it will be silent.

Merry Christmas!

Fennel Bread

I'd been wanting to make some bread for a while and the idea of fennel bread, really got my tastebuds going. The bread started off nicely, but the loaves didn't rise very well the second time, going out rather than up. So while they didn't turn out looking great, they did taste very nice.

Fennel Bread (Printable Recipe)
adapted from Stephanie's Fennel Seed Breadsticks, pg 438
makes 2 small loaves

tiny pinch saffron
1 cup warm water
2 tsp dried yeast
2 tsp salt
250g plain flour
125g semolina flour
2 tsp fennel seeds

Sweet Corn Soup

Whenever hubby is sent to the supermarket unsupervised, there are a few things he always 'accidentally' comes home with... chocolate, berries, toy yoghurts (those chilled custardy treats for kids) and sweet corn if it's summer. Seeing as we had a few cobs in the fridge, I thought I'd do something different with them, so went through Stephanie and found a recipe for Sweet Corn Soup. It sounded nice and simple and I was interested to see how it would taste as the only corn soup I've ever had has always been the Chinese version.

This soup was easy enough to whip up, although passing it through a sieve did take a little while, but was definitely worth the effort as the soup was beautifully silky. The ingredient list is quite short, so you really do need to use the best produce for this one; It's not a recipe for canned corn.

Sweet Corn Soup (Printable Recipe)
adapted from Stephanie's Sweetcorn Soup with Spiced Butter, pg 350
serves 4 as a starter

40g butter
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1 litre water
kernels from 4 corn cobs
salt

Red Cabbage with Apple

I've had this recipe marked to test out for a while, so when hubby said he wanted sausages for dinner, I thought I would finally get around to cooking this up. Unsurprisingly, this tasted a lot like cabbage...a bit too much for me. I think I was hoping it would have a bit more going on, but given the short list of ingredients, I shouldn't be surprised with how it turned out. It was nice, but I think I'm more of a fresh cabbage person than a boiled cabbage person now that I've tested this out.

Red Cabbage with Apple
adapted from Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion, pg 215
serves 6

1/4 cup water
1 red cabbage, sliced, washed and drained
4 tbsp brown sugar
pinch salt
2 cooking apples, peeled, cored and chopped
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
100g butter, cubed



Put water, cabbage, sugar and salt into a heavy based pan. Add apple, cover and cook on lowest heat for 1 hour.

Take off the lid, and stir the apple through the cabbage. Add the vinegar and butter. Cook, covered for another 15 minutes and stir once more. The butter should give the cabbage a nice shine.