In My Kitchen January 2014

This month, in my kitchen we have Christmas presents, Christmas food and a few fun supermarket discoveries.  This post is part of In My Kitchen, an event held by Celia of Fig Jam and Lime Cordial to give you a glimpse of bloggers' kitchens. Let's take a peek!

My sister Chris and her family have just flown home to Ireland.  It was lovely to have them at our family Christmas.  It was exciting to receive presents from Dublin.  They gave us some gorgeous cupcake papers and toppers from The Great British Bake-Off.  I look forward to using them.  I am fascinated that the tv series has its own range of kitchen stuff.  I've never watched the show but have read good things about it.

Also in their gifts was a tin of Marks and Spencer Sottish Shortbread.  E was most impressed with this, comparing it favourably to Walkers shortbread.  I am not such a shortbread fan but I liked it.  More to my liking is the retro tin.  It reminds me of my mother in law who always kept tins of bikkies and treats in her kitchen.

I love the little vegetable scrubber we also received.  It sits above the sink.  Now I wont need to scrub vegetables with the dish brush.

Another gift, these straws, will be for Sylvia.  If she had her way she would drink every drink with a straw.  I see straws and giggle about the time she asked her father for a "pink straw, please" and he thought she was asking for "pink strawberries".  Again, lovely packaging!

I bought E some Aussie shortbread.  I barely got a taste because I am not much of a shortbread fan.  It was nice and I thought I could taste the slightly bitter nuttiness of the wattleseed.  E enjoyed it, but not as much as the Marks and Sparks one!

We still have candy canes in our kitchen.  I dislike them.  Yes, they are cute and festive.  But they are just too sweet and I don't like the hard texture.  I only bought them for my gingerbread house.  Sylvia loves them with a passion.  Maybe we need to crush them over brownies.  Everything is better with chocolate!

I vowed not to make more fruit mince last month after having leftovers in my fridge for 12 months.  Somehow we didn't buy many mince pies before Christmas either.  The Bakers Delight ones were delightful.  After Christmas I bought a box of Mr Kiplings mince pies on sale.  We are almost through them.

Just before Christmas I received a beautifully packaged taster pack of Kez's Kitchen's gluten free snacks that I won in a giveaway by Cass on Food is My Friend.  I really enjoyed the ones I tasted.  E took the cereal packets to work and said they were great little snacks.

My favourite was the Almond Toffee.  A simple concoction of toffeed slivered almonds with a chocolate bottom.  It was just a great balance of flavours and very satisfying.  In fact, I enjoyed the Kez's Kitchen snacks so much that I bought a box of the roasted almond and cranberry florentine snacks at the supermarket.  Delicious!  Thanks again Cass.

My mum did an amazing job of catering for family three days in a row over Christmas.  What impressed me was that while she was whipping up salads and puddings, setting up the table and doing dishes, she still found time to bake her sourdough bread.

My sourdough baking slowed a bit over Christmas.  However I thought I would share this odd shaped slice of bread.  I was impressed because after I put it in the tin for the second rise, I left it overnight for 12 hours and it was just delicious when I baked it in the morning.  Thanks to my friend Kathleen for the tip.  And next time I will slash it so it doesn't look like it has horns.

E might love his shortbread, but I'd prefer an interesting box of crackers any day.  I found these caramelised onion gourmet crackers in the supermarket recently.  Am yet to taste them but am looking forward to it.

On the other hand, when it comes to savoury snacks, E just loves chips (or crisps).  I couldn't resist this packet of Parsnip Crisps.  They are less savoury than potato chippies.  Probably  because parsnip has a sweet undertone.  Very moreish.

I can't blame pester power for these.  I resist a lot of branding but am fond of Peppa Pig.  However these are disappointingly bland.  I guess that is why kids like them.  I really like bits of fruit in my yoghurt.  Real fruit.  Not just a bit of colour to make you guess if it is apricot, banana or strawberry!

I made a birthday cake with oreos last week (to be posted soon) and found these 100s and 1000s oreos.  They look quite similar to the birthday cake oreos that Hannah posted a while back.  They were very sweet but they smelled amazingly delicious in that sugary kiddie fairy floss kind of way.

Far more exciting, but also for the birthday cake was this purchase of Bob's Red Mill all purpose flour (at Coles supermarket in Barkly Square).  I have never liked the local commercial gluten free flour mixes which are very starchy and give a sandy texture to any baking.  This flour mix is made up of besan, potato starch, tapioca flour, sorghum flour and fava bean flour.  More protein.  Better texture.  It made an excellent cake.

Finally a calendar for the new year.  It must be the first year for a long time that we haven't received a calendar for Christmas.  Fortunately Readings had some good ones on sale.  I love this Jukurrpa calender with beautiful modern Aboriginal art.  Once the new calendar is up, it really feels like the new year begins.  Hope your 2014 has started well!

Disclosure: I received the Kez's Kitchen taster pack for free.  I was not obliged to write about it or give a positive review.