Scarf → Kaftan

I had a very nice white cotton scarf with gold tassels in my altering pile...it was there because it was a summer scarf, but it seemed way too wide and so was a bit hot to wear when it was warm. But I hadn't got around to making it narrower. And with a sunny holiday looming, I needed a kaftan for lobbing over my swimsuit and so I made a different plan...

  

First I folded the scarf in half. To make side seams, I sewed two lines about 20cm in from each outside edge. I left a space of about 30cm at the top to put my arms through.

Then I measured across the top fold to find the middle. I slowly and carefully trimmed a hole to put my head through. Just a slight curve for the back neckline and a not-too-deep V at the front.

 

Then I stitched some gold bias binding on to the wrong side of the neck opening, stitching in the fold as I opened it out. Purchased bias binding makes the process very quick and easy. Before getting back to the start, I stitched the two pieces of bias binding right sides together, so that when I turned it to the front, there would be a neat seam. 

                           So I folded the bias binding over to the front and top-stitched it in place.   

 

And that was it: ready now for some beach weather and holiday fun!

  

                                

                                       From this...

...to this!

  

   

Oodles of carrot noodles!

Still pimping the vegetable noodles, but venturing into carrot territory as I had a few left over in my fridge. I spiralised them into noodles - which did work fine, although a couple of times the machine didn't like it, as it's so much harder than a zucchini. But all up, just as quick and easy. Then a quick stir fry in some olive oil and back in to the serving bowl. Then I made some cute little meatballs, lightly spiced with ground cumin and coriander, cooked them in the frying pan and tossed them on top of the noodles.

 

Now it's time to come clean...

Quince time!

Once a year, when it's quince time, people inevitably come into work with bags to give away, so I can't help but whoop for joy and get on board the quince train!
Firstly, it's all about poaching them long and slow. A few days ago I'd poached some in a sugar and water syrup (with a cinnamon stick and vanilla pod) - cooking them low and slow on the stovetop. So I just re-used the same poaching liquid adding a good splash of white wine this time and cooking them in the oven. I think the change from pale pear colour to the jewel-like ruby red is half the appeal in cooking with quinces.

 

After they were cooked, I used some of the poaching liquid to make a little jelly (adding a soaked gelatine leaf into a cup of the hot liquid) and when cool, poured it over a broken savoiardi biscuit in each of the dessert glasses. Then a few slices of the poached quince.

 

 Last step was to make a white chocolate cream (150ml white chocolate melted in 100ml cream and folded into a further 200ml of whipped cream). And with a dollop of that and some toasted flaked almonds on top, I had a dessert ready to knock my guests socks off!

A garden harvest

A visit to the farmer's market yesterday morning and I was sold by the yellow butter beans and broad beans. I looked forward to a light Sunday evening meal with butter and a sprinkling of salt...yum yum. Then a visit to a friend's house had us leaving with more goodies: scarlet runner beans, apples and golden drop (we think) plums.

I usually consider myself fairly adept at using a knife but today my thumb came out a little worse for wear (perhaps I should play it safer and "cut onto a board")!

Even so, my meal of beans was delicious and I utilised the striking scarlet runner bean flowers. They are such a brilliant red and are an edible garnish. When using flowers in cooking, remove any stamens as they are bitter. A few petals of edible varieties add a splash of colour but generally whole flowers aren't renowned for depth of flavour! Whole buds can be bitter and are more likely to house an insect or two. 

 

The plums were oh so delicious, especially with the yoghurt, meringue shards and toffeed granola bites. Mm mmm....

A personalised gift

A toiletry or makeup bag or even a pencil case - personalised for a friend having a special birthday...

...and so the idea developed as I had a packet of "Miracle Fabric Sheets" which are pre-treated fabric sheets (for printing on) which are attached to backing paper so they'll go through the printer...

12 Days of Christmas - Days 6 - 11

Another week of Christmas outfits! 
♩♪♫♬ 5 en-sem-bles, 4 sets of pearls, 3 festive frocks, 2 shimmery shoes and a bonus evening party dress (sung to the tune of "On the first day of Christmas")♩♪♫♬ 

Hmmm...that makes 11 days of Christmas gear...but no plan for a 12th...(yet)...

Happy Christmas!

12 Days of Christmas - Days 1 - 5

Last year I dressed for the Christmas season for a week, and found I had Christmas clothes to spare! So this year I decided to build up the with the festive feeling for the last two weeks of school.

Happy Christmas and roll on next week!

Another caramelised white chocolate dessert

Caramelised white chocolate mousse, served with a coffee crumble, banana ice cream and fresh passionfruit. I wondered how good each of those elements would be, but

Re-modelling: a skirt from a dress!

Not having posted anything textiles-related in a while, I thought I'd highlight a little project from last year. My sister was kind enough to buy a vintage dress for me but it just didn't look right, especially the bodice section but we both loved the sun-ray pleated skirt.

After deliberation and discussion, we hit on the idea of chopping the top off altogether and using the bottom section to make a skirt. And I'm so lucky - Sister C, such a clever sewer, did the hard work for me. It was decided it would be simplest to cut it above the waist seam to make use of the elasticated waist. So the raw edge was then overlocked and hand stitched to the elastic on the wrong side. The tie was already there so C made some rouleau loops (and if making them is not an old skill, it's an advanced one and I have never done them) to attach the tie to the skirt. 

 

In cooler weather I've worn it with cardies and boots, and in summer with a T-shirt and white "fashion sneakers" or sandals. It's been so easy to wear - a really successful example of upcycling/remodelling/transformation! What continues to amaze me are the lovely comments I get every time I wear it - thanks C! 

Raspberry, rhubarb and vanilla

(Sounds like a good name for a blog).
With family visiting, inspiration hit to make a nice dessert (it doesn't take much).

Vanilla icecream (made in my new icecream maker - yay), vanilla panna cotta, fresh raspberries in fresh raspberry sauce, raspberry jelly, poached rhubarb, toffee with freeze dried raspberry, and rhubarb jelly (made from the rhubarb poaching stock - just sugar, water and a dash of grenadine, but it was too good not to use!).

Plated up in the "spoon of this spoon of that" method that seems to be the thing of the moment.
Crunchy toffee, creamy panna cotta, cold smooth icecream, fresh raspberries, slightly tart rhubarb, the interesting texture of jelly, in fact quite the plate of contrasting textures and complementary flavours (well I think so...).

More Easter goodness

I decided to upcycle the old favourite rocky road easter egg with a version containing honeycomb, marshmallow, popcorn and toasted coconut. I'll think about including a chewy chocolate or coconut jelly perhaps, when I find a good recipe for those firm jelly sweets...

The honeycomb was great to make but just a little bit scary dealing with the hot toffee mixture. I got my recipe from the Darren Purchese book, Lamingtons & Lemon Tart, a good basic recipe containing honey, would you believe, and it was terrific. 200g sugar, 80ml liquid glucose and 40g honey dissolved in 2 Tb water in a saucepan over a medium heat. Then, without stirring, it boiled till just turning golden. Then quickly stirred in 2 tsp bicarb soda till it frothed up crazily. And poured it onto a glad-bake lined tray. Remember, it is SUPER HOT and will BURN as the temperature is well over 100°C.

 

Then came the homemade marshmallows, I had to tweak my recipe a bit to make the mixture a little firmer as the first time, the marshmallow broke up when it was mixed with the other ingredients.

To make them, place 3/4 C sugar and 1/4 C cold water and beat well, then add 1 tsp vanilla essence. Then add 1/4 C boiling water in which 3 tsp gelatine has been dissolved. And continue beating until super thick, then spread on a tray to about a 3cm thickness. When set cut into cubes and roll in cornflour.  Then combine 100g (half the batch) with 1 C popped popcorn and 2 Tb toasted coconut.

  

Add in 2 C of the broken up honeycomb.  I used 200g dark chocolate to make the easter egg shells. And melted 150g milk chocolate to mix through the ingredients to make the rocky road.

 

When filled, some white chocolate (75g) was drizzled over the top.

A hit with the kids at school. With the leftover popcorn, we made caramel popcorn and that was a definite winner. Popcorn is born for caramel popcorn!

Wow, how many sweets can be fit into one Easter season???

An easter egg nest

I was inspired by a cake with an easter egg nest when I was trawling the internet for easter treat ideas. So I got to baking!

The individual brownie cake, which was iced with chocolate ganache, is probably a bit small for the size of the nest but you get the idea.
Simply melt 60g dark chocolate and mix it through 20g vermicelli noodles. Many varieties of vermicelli or cellophane noodles are made of mung bean starch. Make sure to use 100% rice vermicelli as it will soften slightly with the chocolate. The non-rice ones remain tough and hard to chew!
Line a muffin or patty case pan with glad wrap and put the mixture into a nest shape and let them set.

 That quantity of mixture made four.

Once it was set, it was easy to peel them off the glad wrap, fill with mini candy eggs and decorate the top of the cakes.

  

Happy Easter!

Raspberry curd

And back to the sweet stuff!

Everyone's heard of lemon curd but it was in a delicious magazine late last year, that I first came upon a recipe for raspberry curd in a "Raspberry Curd Crepe Layer Cake", originally a Stephanie Alexander recipe.

Not for the faint-HEART-ed

At the farmer's market, I was scanning the choices available at the grass-fed, free-range beef stall, when the stall-holder must have noticed me look aghast at the tray with the beef heart. Now at $4 for an entire heart, it's clearly an economical cut, but he offered to GIVE it to me if I was prepared to cook it. I was in two minds but decided I was up for the challenge.
I did a lot of searching online for how best to cook it and the recipe that perhaps sounded the nicest was a Peruvian recipe called Anticuchos.
Probably quite luckily, I forgot to take a photo of the heart before I removed the outer fat and sinewy bits, which were really quite gross. So then I chopped it into thin pieces and marinated the meat in the mixture of garlic, red wine vinegar, chilli, paprika, cumin and oil.

The Roasted Yellow Capsicum sauce followed, and this was really smoky and delicious. Not bad going to use two whole BULBS of garlic all up: one for the meat marinade and one roasted that went into the sauce.

Back to the meat, instead of threading onto kebab skewers, I just pan-fried it in batches, quite quickly on a reasonably high heat. And served it on cauliflower rice (whizz up the raw cauliflower florets in a food processor, pile into a casserole and microwave for 5 minutes), with the sauce on top!

Now the taste was good, but you know, I don't think I'd go back. One friend was happy for a taster, and said it was delicious. But no one else seemed at all keen to come share it with me. So I got to enjoy it for several meals. And now I think I've had enough. Forever. And always. Cross my heart....