Tried and True

I'm eating a bowl of ice cream, trying to decide what to write ... not the most productive way to do this, as it's very distracting!  Chocolate ice cream with choc biscuits and choc fudge!!  (No I can't take any credit for this one - it's that 'Awesome' brand)

Right ... what have I made this week?  Biscuits, honey jumbles, cake, pasta, chicken, potatoes ...  Where do I begin?  I think I'll start with the partial calamity this week - biscuits.  I saw a recipe on Facebook, and I thought it looked like a fun biscuit to make, that the kids would love :)  Here is the picture of what they should look like:

See?  They look great eh?  Well ... I'll now show you the recipe - I'm copying it, so I haven't done anything to alter it, ok?  Take a look at instruction 4 and tell me if you can figure out what it means??

◾Flour – 2 cups
◾Baking powder – half teaspoon
◾Salt – a pinch
◾Powdered sugar – 1 cup
◾Sugar (sand) – 50 grams
◾Butter – 300 grams
◾Vanilla – one and a half teaspoons
◾Almond extract – half a teaspoon
◾Food color – green
◾Candy

INSTRUCTIONS
◾
Combine the flour, sugar, powdered sugar, baking powder and salt. Add the butter and vanilla.

◾
Knead the dough. Divide the dough into 2 parts. One almond extract and add color.

◾
Roll out the dough between two layers of baking paper and place for 2 hours in the refrigerator.

◾
Put the colored layer on top of the dough roll belogo.Skatayte. Roll in confetti. Wrap in plastic wrap at 4:00.

◾
Cut the roll into slices 1 cm thick

◾
Bake for 15-20 minutes at a temperature of 165 degrees


As you can see, the majority makes sense, but something went wrong (... belogo ... skatayte ...) and the instructions went a little strange.  I just did what I guessed to be correct.
Now, my problem with this recipe (other than the obvious), is that putting this mix in the fridge for 2hours makes the whole thing solid.  Solid biscuit mix is impossible to roll!  I let mine sit for a few hours to come back to room temp and still had no joy with it, so instead I improvised and cut it into strips and placed on top of each other, then cut it into it's 1cm slices.
I think, once you have rolled mix between the baking sheets, you could place on top of each other then, and maybe put in fridge for a few minutes to firm slightly before rolling together, and then wrap in clingfilm before putting back in fridge for longer before slicing.

I also think that hundreds and thousands would probably look better than the longer ones which i happened to have.  I found it quite difficult to cover the biscuits in them, but that could just come down to me being frugal and trying not to use the whole container!

 See my fabulous candy coating!

It's basically a funky shortbread biscuit, and if you can get it to roll then it would be quite impressive for at kids parties.

The cake I made, is my good old favourite.

To ice it, I melted some dark chocolate, with a knob of butter and a good dollop of golden syrup.  I then spread this on the cake and topped it off with some caramel bits (like choc chips, but caramel) and a few sprinkles :)

Enough of the sweet stuff, on to the savoury.

I made another of my favourite pasta dishes, though as per usual, I changed a few things, just to keep it interesting :)

Creamy Fettucine with kranskys

1 packet of kranskys
1 onion
peas
spaghetti/fettucine pasta
200ml cream
Basil infused RBO (Prenzel)

Cook pasta as per packet instructions
Heat oil in large saucepan, cook onion until softened.  Add chopped kransky to pan and heat through.  Add peas to pan and heat through.
When pasta is almost done, add cream to the kransky pan to make a sauce.
Drain pasta, and add to the pan.  Mix through.
Serve with grated parmesan on top and an extra drizzle of RBO

This recipe can also be made using bacon, and 1/2C chicken stock also.

Now for those of you who are on Facebook, you have probably recently seen a shared recipe involving a potato and oil - to be made instead of chips.  I made this the other night as part of our dinner, along with some chicken burgers - courtesy of Sophie Gray (Destitute Gourmet).
I used the new Prenzel Garlic Butter RBO for these potatoes, and it was very tasty :)  What you do, is cut slices into your potato, almost through but not quite, drizzle with your oil, and sprinkle on some salt.  I would recommend trying to get your slices to hold open a little wider so that the oil and salt get all the way through, otherwise the edges are quite flavourfull and crisp but then inners don't get as crunchy as I prefer them.

Well, that will do for tonight I think :) Hopefully there is something in here you like.  Happy cooking!