In My Kitchen: May 2023

May is upon us and last weekend brought an arctic cold snap (or should that be antarctic as we are down under).  It feels like a long time since I have needed the heater so much.  The weather didn't look much better in the UK for the Coronation.  Meanwhile at home we have sadly put our old purple couch out for the hard rubbish, and also had the plumber take out our decommissioned gas wall heater.  We've been out and about a bit more including visiting Melbourne Now exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria.

I made cinnamon rolls a few weeks back.  I spent hours one evening working out the ingredients I needed based on similar recipes.  When I showed this to Sylvia the next morning she asked why I didn't just use the recipe for sourdough cinnamon scrolls that we made a couple of years ago.  I had not filed it properly in my recipe index and missed it.  I had thought I had had a go at these but could not remember clearly enough to find the information.  

I actually refer to my indexes quite a bit and rely on filing my recipes there manually.  Unfortunately I only update it occasionally.  The recipe I devised for the recent cinnamon scrolls weren't as good as the one I made in 2021 so I need to update my recipe index so I can find it next time.

 

We have had a couple of visits to Ikea recently.  The first one was to buy some accessories for Sylvia's room but I picked up these green pot holders and could not leave the store without them.

 We also bought this packet of elk shaped pasta.  Very Scandinavian!

I made this Mac and Cheese pasta with cauliflower recently.  It was a bit overflowing in the cast iron frypan.  That is the downside of not following a recipe.  But I squished it into the frypan that I made the cheese sauce in because then I could place it under the grill and crisp up the cheese and breadcrumb topping.  It was delicious!

We discovered this vegan Roast Capsicum and Olive Ravioli an IGA supermarket.  While it was rather tasty it was less creamy than most ravioli fillings in commercial ravioli.

This pizza was bought at the end of a busy day.  We had been out and about with a meeting, an appointment, shopping, and even a new passport.  But it was the little things that stood out: a man walking through the city with an untethered pet rabbit over his shoulder, standing at the intercom at the pay station trying to fix a ticket that refused to give me the $20 discount I had claimed, and an air conditioner remote control left in the fridge.  Pizza from Cornerstone Pizza in Coburg was what we needed.  I had the Patate with fior de latte, chunks of rosemary potato, roasted peppers, spanish onions, and goats cheese.  It was lovely. 

We all love takeaway pizza in our house, even our cat!  Shadow really loves to sit on a pile of pizza boxes.  We have tried quite a few of the cat beds you can buy but he has a thing for boxes.  Actually we had the boxes neatly by the cupboards and he had one of those crazy nights where he looks like us kids when we slid across the polished church hall floor in our socks.  Totally out of control and knocking any pizza boxes in the way.  (That's Shadow!  We never had pizza in the church hall as far as I can remember!) And while I am digressing, the blank bit of wall is where our heater used to be.  (I loved that wall heater before it was decommissioned)

I know I am a sucker for a fun new way to eat some of my favourite brands but I do resist a lot.  These nutella biscuits were a huge winner.  Lots of gooey choc hazelnut spread in a crisp biscuit is so so satisfying. 

Sylvia decided to make some custard and fruit danishes with puff pastry.  She learnt not to overload the pastry with custard.  I cleaned up the spills in the oven.  Next time Sylvia made these she baled them in a container with sides rather than a baking tray.  And these tasted great, especially with apricot halves.

We were surprised to find this packet of Chupa Chups flavoured popcorn.  I wasn't that interested but Sylvia enjoyed it.  It seems there is a bit of a moment for the Chupa Chups flavour - and who even knew that those little lollipops even had a flavour!  Lately we have seen Chupa Chups flavoured ice creams, custard and milk.

And here is my poor mangled bicycle wheel.  It was quite difficult to wheel a block to the bike shop.  The fix-it guy took one look and asked me if I had a car accident.  Fortunately not!  But I did get the wheel caught in a grate and managed to get myself tipped off the bike.  My bike is back in good condition now and the bruises have gone but am not happy about getting a soaking in the rain last week.  It is not great bike weather!

I am sending this post to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings for the In My Kitchen event. 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 and her gorgeous hand drawn header.