In My Kitchen: May 2019

May arrives with darkening evenings and cold mornings.  Not great for blog photography and cycling home from work.  But there are also apples and soup and pastries so it is not so bad.  April was filled with of school holidays and Easter and birthdays.

The above photo is of the hat I decorated for a birthday party with a mad hatter theme.  Fortunately my friend Kerin had heaps of fake flowers leftover from some craft she was doing and gave me a box of them (after her cat lay in it in a snuggly attempt to claim it).  Sylvia and I had a lovely morning decorating hats and hairbands with the flowers.

Another friend gave Sylvia some Easter cookie cutters.  They were fun cutting out shapes with the sugar cookies we made for Easter.  I think the carrot cutter is the cutest.  When we were decorating our carrot cake recently, I wondered how it would look with carrot cookies decorated and placed around the edge of the cake.

And I got hit by the Easter spirit and had to try some Hot Cross Bun ice cream.  It was not my thing.  Just too creamy.  No amount of spice and raisins would change that.  I had half hoped there would be chunks of hot cross buns but I probably should have been honest with myself and bought some of the hot cross buns on special in the supermarket (even though homemade HCBs are the best).  I much prefer HCBs to ice cream.  I already miss them but they are special because they only happen for a few weeks in a year.

We love these new tomato and sweet basil mini rice cakes from Table of Plenty,  Their chocolate covered rice cakes have always been popular in our house but it is so nice to have a savoury version.

A few weeks back, I made my first egg omelette.  I have made lots of vegan omelettes in my time but I don't like eggs.  Last year Sylvia was eating lots of vegan food but this year she is suddenly into eggs.   She likes her omelettes made with 1 egg, chopped tomato, chopped basil, a spoonful of milk and some seasoning, fried over medium heat for about 3-4 minutes until golden brown on the bottom.  We started with 2 eggs omelettes that she shared with E but we have made her a few 1 egg omelettes when he is eating something else.  Oh and she still eats my vegan omelettes. Thank goodness for small mercies!

Sylvia is quite into We Bare Bears at the moment.  I haven't watched much of it but her Ice Bear is so cute.  And so is the little Ice Bear she made out of modelling clay.

Another joy of Sylvia's life that has come into our kitchen is the combination of cheese and spinach.  We made some spinach and ricotta cheese pastries from a supermarket magazine.  Sylvia was not keen on the filling in the pastries because it had quite a lot of herbs in it.  It is a shame because I always have mint in the garden and rarely find a use for it.  I liked the filling and have used the rest of it grilled on toast.  But it is a good step for Sylvia as there is a lot of cheese and spinach pastries out there.  We will try some other versions.

And there is more slime.  Glossy, stretchy, bubbling, crackly, soft and supple.

As it is apple season, we are eating lots of apples.  But some have fallen by the wayside and been stewed.  During the school holidays we put some apples in pastries.  And, because we had time to play with our food, we tried styling each pastry in a different way.

Sylvia saw a kid making rocky road popcorn on the ABC's How to Do Stuff Good.  (It is a show where kids show kids life hacks or as we used to know it, helpful tips!)  So she wanted to do it.  She had some Easter marshmallows on special (because it is hard to find vegan marshmallows) and mixed them with raspberrie lollies, coconut and melted Easter eggs.  It tasted great and disappeared very quickly while we watched the Gilmore Girls.

Here is a photo of the food we bought at the farmers market.  At the back is some catnip.  I've only ever seen it in cartoons before so it fascinates me to see the real stuff.  Our cat is not so keen.  There is also a purple cauliflower, hummus, spanikopita, beetroot, hummus, orange juice, a chocolate and cardamom bun and lots of apples.

I am sending this post to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings for the In My Kitchen event, that was started by Celia of Fig Jam and Lime Cordial,  If you would like to join in, send your post to Sherry by 13th of the month.  Or just head over to her blog to peek into more kitchens.