Really enough said. Fireworks have put a grin on my face and a twinkle in my eye for as long as I can remember and I can assure that is a very long time because I can remember things that happened years before my birth 20 years and 3 weeks ago 😉 … well not quite.
I remember going to the Ekka when we were younger and sitting on Machinery Hill watching the entertainment after a long day of fun at the Ekka and the hush that came about when the fireworks started. I remember racing out to our back balcony on New Years Eve catching glimpses of the fireworks over the tree line. I remember going to RiverFire in year 9 with Mum, Karl and Grandmum and having a blast watching the fireworks and then ripping a ligament in my ankle (playing silly buggers with Karl) which still gives me trouble today. I remember spending New Years Eve in Germany ’02/’03 and watching fireworks going off meters in front of me and then finding rocket sticks in the backyard in the morning and thinking to myself, gee imagine if you were a dog in the back yard and got hit by one of these? I remember leaving a NYE party early this year with Mum to drive back into Hobart to take photos of the Fireworks. When it comes to Fireworks I will go just about anywhere.
I love Fireworks.
Just as we did last year, Mum and I made the trip into the Kings Parking across the road from the Ekka to enjoy the show and what a show it was. A good variety of fireworks and a clear night with just the right amount of wind to carry away the smoke.
The Rejects were great, way better than when we saw them last year with Simple Plan, I would say they have developed their stage show more. It was a pretty good night overall and the plus of it been an all-ages show meant that it finished nice and early but of course the minus was all the under age kids who need to take the “etiquette of a rock concert” series of lessons that include a study of how a mosh pit works and how to behave in one. 18+ shows are fine, people all play nicely, all-age shows are a whole new ball game.
One of my best buds had her 21st birthday party on Saturday and what an event it was. I met Sam during my first year at uni when we were in the same Indonesian classes. She is doing B of Arts/B of Education which means that in a bit over a year she will be teaching kids Indo, history and the like. In the past couple of years we have had plenty of fun filled times from concerts to nights out and just chilling.
Her party was a pretty laid back affair held at a local hall with both family and friends. The party did have a casino theme but I think we ended up playing more games of “Go Fish” then we did 21 🙂 Lots of little and not so little kids running round playing with balloons, making hand print memory pages, eating and drinking, singing and dancing, just all in general fun.
Sam is the queen of the jelly shot, I don’t think she has ever had a party which did not involve jelly and vodka. I didn’t have any of these as I was driving but they looked quite nice especially with the two layers of jelly, very tricky!
I first went to type this post the other day but just before I pressed “publishâ€? we had an itsy bitsy power surge which quickly erased my post. I can’t even really remember what most of the filler noise was that I had typed so it mustn’t have been important.
As often happens when I am making something I will wander to wherever Mum is at that time and start offering her my different flavour suggestions. This time it was a string of Blueberry and X muffins. Blueberry and Chocolate? Blueberry Poppy Seed? Blueberry with Sunflower Seed topping? Blueberry and Sultana? Blueberry and insert your own idea? Mum liked the idea of either chocolate or sultana but my mind was going for poppy seed or chocolate, after looking in the cupboard and seeing that there was no chocolate I decided to make half a batch with poppy seeds and half a batch with sultanas.
1.5C plain flour
1.5C wholemeal plain flour
0.75C raw sugar
1.5tsp baking powder
1.5tsp salt
0.5C honey
1.5C milk
4 eggs
vanilla
zest of a lemon or an orange
115g butter (melted)
200-300gish blueberries
poppy seeds, sultanas
Preheat oven to 180ºC, grease muffin pans.
Sift together the dry ingredients in a bowl and put to the side.
Mix the honey, milk, eggs, vanilla and zest together. Pour in the dry ingredients and mix till they are just incorporated. Whilst slowly mixing the mixture pour in the butter till it is mixed in.
Now you can have fun mixing in other things. I placed half the mixture back into the bowl which I had mixed the dry ingredients in and divided the berries between the two bowls. I added probably two tablespoons of poppy seeds to one half and two handfuls of chopped sultanas to the other half.
Cook for 25mins or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool in the pans for a while (5 mins) and then turn out onto wire racks to cool.
I am a firm believer in both using what you find in the cupboard when cooking even when the recipe may call for something else and mixing things up to create new things.
I hadn’t planned on posting these biscuits because they are similar to the Helen’s Best Ever Biscuits, you just change the ingredients depending on what you have. However I was eating these Chocolate and Blueberry in Sunflower Seeds Biscuits yesterday in a lecture break when two my uni girls commented on them. After chatting about them for a while I wrote www.helenthura.com on a scrap of paper and told them that I would post the idea. So here it is.
I have a biscuit recipe that came to us as Apricot Wheat Germs and over the years I faithfully made the recipe as it was listed though occasionally it would be Fruit Medley Wheat Germs if we had no apricots in the house.
Fan-forced oven at 160°C.
Cream butter and sugar, add eggs.
Mix in the rest.
Roll into balls and flatten lightly and cook in oven till when a finger pressed lightly into a biscuit does not leave a mark. Makes plenty.
These are very yummy and in the last 10 mths or so I have started playing with the recipe, changing the quantities of the cornflakes, coconut, rolled oats, wheat germ and apricots or replacing them all together with what ever I find in the cupboard.
These changes led to Helen’s Best Ever Biscuits back in February. Then in May there was Sultanas and Dried Strawberries and in July there is Chocolate and Blueberry in Sunflower Seeds. Whilst the same basic recipe provides the base each time, changing the “fillings” provides a totally new biscuit experience each time.
The ideas behind the Chocolate and Blueberry in Sunflower Seeds came in many parts. I was inspired to roll the biscuits in sunflower seeds after thinking of biscuits I had made with Renata (my host mother) when I was in Germany for Christmas in 2002 as well as biscuits I had a little while ago at my friend Leanne’s house. The blueberries came about because I happened to have quite a few packets left in the freezer and the chocolate was because if I left the pack of 85% cocoa in my drawer for much longer it would have been going straight down my throat.
From the basic recipe the Chocolate and Blueberry in Sunflower Seeds did not have the rolled oats or apricots or wheat germ. I increased the coconut and flour, added 80grams of Lindt 85% chocolate, 200gish of frozen blueberries and the sunflower seeds of course. The mixture was quite gooey so I just kept on adding some more of the dry ingredients till it became more user friendly.
There are some instances in life when I am scared of what the result will be. Each time I get a uni result back I work up the courage to open the email or paper to see what I was given. Sometimes when I receive an email it may sit unread for a little while till I decide whether or not I want to read what someone is telling me. There are times I take a photo and it may sit unlooked at on my computer for a day or two till I decide I want to see if it turned out how I imagined it in my head.
So why I am telling you this? The Friday just gone I spent the afternoon in a flurry in the kitchen making a myriad of things. I made a big batch (11 servings) of Pumpkin Soup to put in the freezer so I can take a packet out when I want soup for lunch, Chocolate Puddings for dessert (Friday was Mum’s 55th birthday) as well as Strawberry Mascarpone Tarts. In addition to the three different types of meringues I had made the night before with the extra egg whites from the Chocolate Puddings.
The Strawberry Mascarpone Tarts were either going to be a flop, so-so or a success I had no idea how they would turn out as there were a few firsts involved in the tarts. First time using Filo pastry, first time using mascarpone and I was really making the recipe up on the fly. In fact they stayed untouched for 42hrs before I took the step to try one. It was soooo nice. Not too heavy but not too light. Not too sweet but still sweet enough. Just Right!
If they were a flop you wouldn’t be hearing about them. Once I had wolfed down the one I had grabbed for morning tea, I rushed round the house getting my camera gear, setting up my little studio and “styling” the shot.
24 days ago I saw a post on Lex Culinaria for Cherry and Lemon Cream cheese Tartlets, I loved the idea of using Filo pastry for the shells. Shortly around this time also, the Filo pastry we sell in the freezer section at work was deleted which meant that the price went from $3.69 to $1.49. I was not going to put off making something with Filo now. The strawberry season for SE QLD started the other week and since it has been quite dry (rain, what is that?) the strawberries are fantastic, red all the way through and sweet. This of course means that strawberries would be the fruit of choice to go with the tarts I was dreaming up in my head.
I am essentially a shelf packing machine at work and I will often be packing something away and my brain will start turning with ideas of what I could make the item. Since I am mainly a shelf packing machine in the Dairy/Freezer section (Dairy Fairy is the correct term thank-you) I have often looked at the ricotta and mascarpone as I have packed it and thought of what I could do. As life would have it, when I was at the shops getting fresh eggs and caster sugar to make meringues, I saw a tub of mascarpone reduced to clear in the dairy. Well that went into my basket and I headed on my merry way home.
This isn’t really a scientific recipe, in fact most of the things I make that are not following a recipe I just add in the amount that feels, looks or tastes right.
Strawberry Mascarpone Tarts
250g Mascarpone
1 egg
1 tbsp caster sugar
2 or 3 tbsp honey
dollop of vanilla
2 maybe 3 tbsp plain flour
4 sheets Filo Pastry
strawberries, cream and icing sugar to serve.
Preheat oven to 160 °C.
Beat the egg and sugar for a few seconds until well mixed. Add the mascarpone and beat till it is creamy. Add the honey and vanilla and beat in as well. How much flour you add really depends on how runny your mixture is, I just added a tablespoon at a time until it had a nicer consistency.
Grease a muffin tray. Lay out the four sheets of filo pastry and cut the stack into squares that large enough to fit your muffin pans. Depending on how large your sheets are you may need more sheets to make enough cases for the tarts. Place the stacks of pastry in the muffin pans and fill with the mascarpone mixture. For me the mixture gave me enough to make 8 tarts.
Place the muffin tray in the oven and cook until a fork comes out of the mixture clean. I have no idea how long these took to cook as I was busy doing other things – I would say 10-15 minutes but it could have been less. Allow tarts to cool on the bench, then remove from the pans and chill in the fridge till serving time.
Serve with cream and strawberries, dust with icing sugar.
Something else you may have noticed, at the bottom of each post I have added a “Print This Post” link which will give you a printer friendly version of the post.
