Wednesday 13 November 2019

In My Kitchen - November 2019

November has seen lots of change.  The weather has gone very hot, very cold, very windy and - further north in Australia - has ignited terrible bushfires.  There is political instability in USA, UK and Hong Kong.  Technology has driven me batty but I will write about that later (still struggling with it).  On a more positive note, spring brings stone fruit and longer daylight hours.  This month's kitchen features holiday purchases (more about our brief trip to Port Fairy later), comfort food, and experiments.

First up is a potato salad (top photo).  Sylvia loves to make this when the heat soars.  She bases her potato salad on the one in the Enid Blyton's Jolly Good Food book. I like to add lots of greens to mine!  Baby spinach, avocado and asparagus.

We served these Mr Kiplings Vampire Fancies at a lunch at the start of November.  I forgot to try them but Sylvia says the icing is tooth achingly sweet.

More scary than the Vampire Bites is when the cat sits within reach of the chef's knife with a crazed look in his eyes!

I was quite amazed to read on Tinned Tomatoes blog that baking Betty Crocker's boxed chocolate cake mix and cola (instead of eggs and milk and butter) makes a conveniently quick vegan chocolate cake.  I had to try it.

Here is the vegan chocolate cake.  We spread the Betty Crocker chocolate frosting and raspberry jam between the layers.  It was far far too sweet.  I think the cake was actually ok, though the sweetness of the cola would have made it sweeter than intended.  The frosting seemed really sweet.  I would experiment with the idea but generally am not really into buying boxed cake mixes.

I bought these crisps for our start of November lunch.  The Vintage cheddar, caramelised onion and rosemary oil crisps were good in the morning to snack on while preparing the lunch.  I don't get the difference between rosemary and rosemary oil in a crisp.  The Creamy feta, avocado and lime tortilla chips were lovely with dips at the lunch.

We tried some mozzarella sticks from the supermarket freezer.  They were lovely with buttered potatoes and salad.

When we made pizza later in the week we had some leftover frozen mozzarella sticks.  I chopped them into discs to place on the pizza.  They browned up nicely.  If I were to do it again I would want some other toppings other than tomato sauce and mozzarella.  Maybe some onion and roasted pumpkin would be good.

We bought this Coconut and Vanilla Serious Popcorn on the trip home from Port Fairy.  Sylvia was very keen on the popcorn.  She snacked on some during the trip but had plenty at home for school lunches.  I loved the look on the face of the bear (?) on the packaging. 

Another holiday purchase was the Lana's Garden Rhubarb Relish.  It is magnificent.  Great with cheese on bread!

These limited edition Twisties that turn the tongue blue were a Colac service station impulse purchase on the trip home.  We didn't try them until the next night when tired after getting back to school and work, we snacked on them when we got home.  Our neighbour dropped into visit and found us giggling at our blue tongues.  These twisties were weird!  They looked like regular lumpy cheese dusted "crisps" but upon any moisture make fingers and tongues blue!  I didn't want to think about what chemicals they added to the Twisties.

Sylvia had a lunch of scrambled eggs while away.  She loved it.  Since returning, she had had scrambled eggs quite often.  Always served with style!

I bought this bread bag in Winchelsea.  It is an attractive alternative to storing bread in plastic bags.  So far it seems to work well, although I am still a bit wary of the zippered closing and if this is quite as airtight as I would like.

Lastly we have had this Cat Bike Bell in the kitchen until last weekend when Sylvia got a new scooter.  Her old one wore out.  It has a lot of trips between home and school.  The bell is so cute.  Sylvia just needs to get used to her new scooter now!

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 visit more kitchens. 

16 comments:

  1. Baby spinach, avocado and asparagus in your potato salad? I want to hear more about that!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Jeff - I just had a regular potato salad and mixed in some green veg - this is because I have a recipe I love called peasant potato salad with lots of greens but I am often too lazy to follow it exactly but you can find it here - https://gggiraffe.blogspot.com/2008/10/green-spring-salads.html

      Delete
  2. I've never heard of anyone going to the place in the Edward Lear limerick:

    There was an old Lady of Winchelsea,
    Who said, 'If you needle or pin shall see
    On the floor of my room,
    Sweep it up with the broom!'
    - That exhaustive old Lady of Winchelsea!

    Fun stuff in the kitchen this month! I've heard of using applesauce but not cola in cake mix.

    best... mae at maefood.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Mae - thanks for sharing the limerick - I have never heard of it though winchelsea has been in my life a long time!

      Delete
  3. Those twisties are interesting i would have been curious and the vampire fancies. The Creamy feta, avocado and lime tortilla chips sound lovely and i am glad that you approved of them. A cat near a big knife indeed a bit frightening and Yeah political instability indeed and I don't know why the UK wants to leave the EU as many of the European countries are becoming more centre right when you look at the news with more right wing politics taking root.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Shaheen - the cat photo makes me laugh - it is as though Shadow is saying, let me out or I will wield this knife :-) Politics seems all round depressing lately - so much dysfunction everywhere I look. I can't imagine the election will make it any better in the UK.

      Delete
  4. Enid Blyton was my favorite author growing up! Very popular in Indian because of the British connection but not as well known here in the US. I remember drooling over all the exotic British food like pasties and flapjacks. Your mozz sticks meal looks so good!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Nupur. I didn't know that Enid Blyton is not so well known in the USA. She was a huge part of my childhood and we read her books to Sylvia so Sylvia loves this cookbook.

      Delete
    2. I read all of her books but think we knew about them because Mom was British, they were favorites of mine.

      Delete
  5. I enjoyed reading your post this month, and am reminded that I need a bread bag as I am back to making my own sourdough. Please let us know how it performs. Love the cat bike bell even though I don't have a bike ha, ha.I hadn't seen the Enid Blyton food book, must look out for it and last but not least I love the look of the Rhubarb relish. When in season,I must make some. This has been like an enjoyable online shopping experience. Thanks for sharing,
    Cheers, Pauline

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Pauline - I have been using the bread bag and it seems good - it is very sturdy and the bread seems to be lasting well so far. The rhubarb relish is so good I have thought maybe i should make some. Is there such as think as online window shopping :-)

      Delete
  6. There's a lot of tastiness in this post Johanna! I find those fancies crazy sweet. Which is a shame because they're so very pretty! :D How crazy are the blue tongue Twisties? I have never seen them before. Sometimes the petrol stations get interesting varieties of chips.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Lorraine - I feel the same about french fancies - so pretty and good to look at but too sweet to eat. Now maybe I need to start paying more attention to chips in petrol stations - the twisties were such a fun find!

      Delete
  7. hi Johanna
    thanks so much for joining in this month. I have that enid blyton book too! i did a review a while back on it. i saw those vampire sweets in the shops, and almooooost bought a packet but no... that cat bike bell is adorable. i just wish more cyclists would use theirs as they run you down on the paths:) Blue twisties?! oh my so weird. scary black cat there with those crazed eyes pondering how to use the knife i shouldn't wonder tee hee. cheers sherry

    ReplyDelete
  8. That cat photo really is scary, but nice things in your kitchen overall. :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. It's so interesting to read about products that are not available here in the US. I love the look of those mozzarella rounds on the pizza, they look like little eyes. And your black cat with knife, indeed scary!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for dropping by. I love hearing from you. Please share your thoughts and questions. Annoyingly the spammers are bombarding me so I have turned on the pesky captcha code (refresh to find an easy one if you don't like the first one)