Afternoon Tea Party.

Last weekend the flower club held an Afternoon Tea Party as a fund raiser. There was a mini flower arranging demonstration by Christine and afternoon tea with lots of home baking by club members. 56 people attended and we made 650 euro, some of which will go to AOIFA for the World Flower Show which is been hosted by Ireland in 2014.

Check out the website  www.aoifa.com  for more information.

 

Dinner is hanging over a sweeping brush.

My Mother-in-Law bought me a pasta machine for Christmas and yesterday I decided to give it a try. Making the pasta dough was simple.

300g 00 flour.
3 large eggs, beaten.
1tsp salt.
  Sieve the flour and salt together into a bowl. make a well in the centre. Add the beaten egg and mix together to form a stiff dough.

Wrap in clingfilm and chill for an hour.

Roma make 00 flour and Dunnes sell it.


While the dough was in the fridge I got out Rachel Allen's Home Cooking to make her Tomato and Cream sauce.

75g butter.
1/2 onion, peeled and finely chopped.
1/2 carrot, peeled and finely chopped.
1 stick of celery, trimmed and finely chopped.
1x 400g tin chopped tomatoes.
Salt and pepper.
A good pinch of caster sugar.
75ml of cream or mascarpone.

Melt the butter and gently cook the chopped vegetables until soft but not coloured. About 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, caster sugar, salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer very gently uncovered for an hour, until reduced and thickened. Stirring occasionally.

When cooked blend smooth and reheat and add the cream or mascarpone.

I used mascarpone because I had already bought it for another recipe. I also doubled the recipe because I did not have any other use for the half onion or carrot and the book said it could be frozen.

I have to be honest and say this is one of the nicest pasted sauces I have tasted in a long time. I find a lot of tomato sauces are too strong for my liking and I can only use a little. This is mild and creamy and coats the pasta beautifully.

And Now The Fun Begins.

The Machine.

Rolling out the dough.

Cutting the pasta.

The mess.

Homemade pasta.

I can tell you here and now it is not as easy as it looks when the chefs do it on the telly. There was a lot of re kneading and re rolling and a hell of a mess to clean up. In the end I had a lot of fun and dinner was a big hit.

Throw in some nice bread and it was a great family meal.

Sorry there is no photos of the whole lot together but it was wiped out. I will have another go at the pasta machine. Maybe with practice I will get it down to the fine art of the TV chefs or maybe not.

January Flower Club.

The flower club this month was Home Talent. Mary Grace and Christine were willing to show off their skills

Competition: Let's wine and dine.

Petite: Pearl Anniversary.

Treats.

In December Shaheen over on Allotment2Kitcnen  did a post on Orange 'jaffa' brownies. I made them today and they are fantastic. They are everything she promised.

http://allotment2kitchen.blogspot.com/2011/12/orange-jaffa-brownies.html

Drop by for the recipe.


I also had another go at Lorraine Pascal's Graffiti cake and I'm very pleased with the result.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/graffiti_cake_96777

I hope I have managed to put in the link's  if not copy and past should work.


And this is why you should be careful turning in your mixer with icing sugar in it.

Learn from my mistakes.  The butter icing is lovely. It is nicer on the cake than all over the kitchen.

Almond Macaroons.

Do you have an egg white left over from some thing else you have baked, this is just the recipe to use it up.

Oven 160fan.

1 egg white.
75g caster sugar.
110g ground almonds.

Egg white in a glass bowl

Whisk until frothy

Mix in the caster sugar.

Mix in the ground almonds.

All combined.

Roll into 12 balls.

Flatten down with a wet fork.

Bake for 10 minutes until golden.

Enjoy.

The Allotment and Garden in January

 The garlic is doing fine now that I replaced the soil that was washed away.

 The kale and the sprouts are under the net. The pigeons have striped the plants on some of the other plots.

 I'm not growing orange juice.I use the cartons to earth up the leeks. They did better at the front of the plot last year.

Over all it's not too bad. The soil is still very wet and weeds are a bit of a problem but I don't want to spend a lot of money putting in paths as there is talk about the council putting up the fee. I have paid for 2012, but there is a rumour going around that they want to put it up to 300 euro for 1213 and if they do I will have to think very hard about keeping it on.

 Our lovely new road. The other one got washed away when the Camac flooded the allotments in October. It is great to be able to drive up to your plot without fear of the car getting stuck.

The Garden

Rose's in January

 A bit untidy but still colourful.

This is the bed I want to do a revamp to this year. And yes that is a sprouts plant in the the middle of it. I dug it up from the allotment and brought it home before Christmas so on Christmas morning I could go out and pick some for the dinner.