In My Kitchen - April 2014

In my kitchen this month is an eclectic selection.  Firstly feast your eyes on this red, blue and white cupcake.  When I decorated my St Patrick's Day cupcakes with green frosting, I also had red frosting leftover from Sylvia's toadstool cake.  On a whim I had some fun with decorating and photographing it but the colours seemed wrong for St Pat's Day so I saved it for this post.

In my kitchen is Sylvia's lego.  I am amazed at all the kits you get with lego.  Sylvia got about four for her birthday.  We had had a convertible car, an ice cream cart, a beauty salon and a castle with a slide.  She has had great fun with them.  I love the little lego girl with the laptop on her knee.  Don't know where Sylvia's got the idea!  The downside of the kits is that there is less left to the imagination.  They are very good for following instructions though.

In my kitchen is a limited edition packet of Magnum Mini ice creams.  They are pretentious enough to only put the flavour in French on the front of the packet.  I found myself checking the back because my French is not brilliant.  This meringue and berry flavour was amazing.

In my kitchen are Tim Tams by Adrian Zumbo.  It seems that Magnums are not the only food producer going all pretentious.  Here we combine a classic Australian bikkie with an Australian baking superstar chef.  I found the raspberry and white chocolate too sweet but I loved the salted caramel one with a passion.

In my kitchen are snacks for school lunchboxes.  And the occasionally inappropriate snack.  This is my first year of doing lunchboxes.  They must be nut free.  I sent these vanilla biscuits with chocolate coating along with Sylvia for playlunch.  That evening I read the packet a bit more carefully.  Hazelnuts!  Oops!  Must try harder.  (At least I am not aware of any nut allergies in Sylvia's class - other than her own peanut allergy!)

In my kitchen is a cute new chicken plate and some bird shaped sponges.  They were sent from Ireland by my sister.  I started using the sponges after throwing out the current sponge after a foolish attempt to polish school shoes on a school morning ended up a a shoe polish fiasco.  The sponges are a triumph of style over usability but they are cute.  The plate is a fine addition to some other melamine plates and bowls I own.

In my kitchen I donned my domestic goddess halo.  I have been baking sourdough bread and making stock and cooking up dried beans.  The last loaf of bread was lovely but was on top of the preheating oven while I was at the movies (highly recommend Wadjda if you are looking for a film to see) . It resulted in the mixture spilling over the edges and baking razor sharp.  It has ripped two paper bags!  The stock seemed good but got tipped down the sink by mistake by an over zealous dishwasher.  Thirteen cups of beans are in the freezer awaiting their moment! 

In my kitchen are oatcakes.  We were delighted to find that Woolworths is selling their own brand of oatcakes.  Everyone loves them in our household.  They were great with spinach dip or mixed berry jam or just plain in Sylvia's lunch box.

In my kitchen is chocolate almond milk.  I bought it to make chocolate cupcakes.  I was surprised how quickly Sylvia drank the leftovers.  She has more chocolate milk today at school.  They had a morning tea with hot cross buns and flavoured milk.  It just reminds me of blueberry Big M that was so popular for a short time when I was at primary school and tasted like dishwashing water or something equally horrible.  But I guess there are worse things Sylvia can drink than flavoured milk.

In my kitchen is farmers market produce.  A couple of weeks ago I finally made my first farmers market visit of the year.  I was motivated to go by a desire for some new season apples.  I also bought up on plums because we have been enjoying stewing them to eat with yoghurt and in a crumble.  The golden beetroot was great in nut roast.  I loved the fruit bread but we are yet to sample the Golden Axe apple cider.  I am pretty excited about using the combination of wild rice, brown rice, bamboo rice, white rice and red quinoa.  Any ideas for meals that can feature the rice combo?

In my kitchen are cruelty free products.  I finally made it to the Cruelty Free Shop in Fitzroy that has excited veg*n bloggers of Melbourne.  I can see why.  It has so many amazing products.  I practiced restraint in my purchases.  I was excited to buy some Vegusto vegan mozzerella cheese, Seed and Bean lavender chocolate, and Beanfields pico de gallo bean and rice chips.  And I picked up a tin of black beans because they are not so easy to find in my local shops. 

It is a pretty shop.  I loved the clean neat shelves of the shop.  It reflect a change in veganism.  It is quite different from the cluttered hippy co-ops and health food shops where I usually find such products.  Though I hope there will still be a place for the old school shops.  Then I went across the road to the Vegie Bar and had an amazing huge piece of chocolate cake for lunch.

I am sending this post to Celia at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial for her In My Kitchen event.  Head over to check out what is happening in other bloggers' kitchens.