Hasbrownish Oven Potatoes

We can't get bags of frozen hashbrown here but I do things and we really like it, I never seem to be able to make enough cause no matter how much I make it is always gone.

Ingredients
Potatoes
Oil
All Pourpose Seasoning

1) Dice the Potatoes, I use a french fry maker which cuts them into nice strips and then just do the final cut to dice it up.
2) Place in ovenproof dish, I use a nice big pyrex one.
3) Drizzle with oil and shake seasoning over potatoes.
4) Bake in Oven at 350F/180C or around there for about an hour or so, not really sure how long it takes cause I just check it every so often but I would say a minimum of 40min.
5) After about 20 minutes give the potaotes a toss and sprinkle with more seasoning.
6) You will know when they are done when they are nice and golden.

My Birthday

These are my birthday cakes that I made. The top one was for us to eat, the bottom one was for everyone at work.

Steak Night

Matt's Julia's


Well on Sunday we usually have steak and Matt does the cooking, he is very proud of his meal so wanted me to post them to you. We have steak, an egg, homemade chips with a bit of cheese and Matt also has a mushroom sauce on his and this time some fried onion.

Kiwi Pigs in a Blanket

Well since we don't have packaged dough like there is in America or little cocktail sausages I have found a way to make a version of pigs in a blanket.

Ingredients
Sizzlers
Puff pastry
cheese

Place sizzler and a bit of grated cheese on puff pastry and roll dough around sizzler. Bake at 180F/350C or whatever the package for the pastry says. Once pastry is cooked it is done.

Pizza

I have found a pizza dough recipe I like, it is really easy and one batch can be stretched out to make a few different pizzas.

Ingredients
1 package yeast
pinch of sugar
1 cup warm water

3 cups Flour
1 tsp salt
1tbls oil

Combine the first three ingredients until the yeast gets nice and frothy. Add to the flour, salt and oil. Combine to make a dough and knead until it is not sticky. Let rise for at least 30 minutes or until doubled in size. I usually make it ahead of time and it rises alot but that is fine as well. Beat down and kneed a bit.

Now you can divide dough into however much you like. I made 3 pizzas and a few pizza rolls with one batch, but they weren't huge pizzas or too thick, you can always make it thicker if you like, just make sure the counter is nice and floured. Bake at 420F/220C for about 10-15 minutes until nice and melted and golden.

Here are some pictures of our latest creations.



Pepperoni Rolls, roll out place pepperoni, and mozzerella and roll up. I like to put olive oil and garlic salt on the outside.


My 'white' pizza, alfredo or carbanara sauce, mozz, garlic, parm and a bit of basil.

'Our' pizza, bbq sause base, bacon, ham, chicken, mozz

Matt's pizza, fried onion, mushroom, bacon, ham, tomato and mozz

Curry Puffs

I went to a Thai restuaruant the other day and tried these things called Curry Puffs, they were really good and I decided to try and make them myself. I didn't get it exactly the same but I think I got the basics down so now I can just try different variations. It is a good way to use some left overs as well such as left over meat and potatoes. Essentially it is deep fried pastry, why I never thought of this before is beyond me.

Ingredients
Puff Pastry
Meat with some seasoning, I used left over Chicken Tikka Marsala
Oil for frying

1. Heat Oil, I used a deep fryer but you could use a pot and some oil if you like.
2. Cut Puff pastry into squares, I used about 3inch squares.
3. Place filling/meat onto pastry and enclose, make sure it is sealed tightly. Might want to use some water or egg/milk wash it make sure you have a good seal, but I didn't use any and didn't have problems.
4. Place in deep fryer/oil. It will seem like the oil isn't hot cause there isn't the usual sizzle but it is and the pastry will soon rise to the top and fizzle away.
5. Turn over after a few minutes.
6. Once nice and golden brown and the pastry is starting to seperate a bit take out and drain.

Ingredients

Puff PastryCurried Meat, (I used some left over Chicken Tikka Marsala)

Cakes

Well I figured with having kids and many birthdays to come I thought I would work on some cake decorating. I am still working on it and my skills are fairly basic but I enjoy it and thought I would share some of my designs with you.