Carly (Admin) – Page 12

Site updates

1. Upgrade wordpress – tick – love how easy it is these days!
2. Finally, after a few months of thinking about it, updated the links at the top of the page and the width of the page to actually fit 1024*768. It was originally going to be three links wide but I think it looks better with four. Since I like symmetry I think I need 2 new hobbies…

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I couldn’t leave the site missing two headings so I have added coding and garden. I’m lucky enough to get paid to do something I’ve always enjoyed and since early high school have considered ‘play’. I have also recently started thinking about the garden again. A while ago, I was growing a range of things but got dissinterested when something ate all the tops off every one of my sunflowers. The rest of the plants died over time without a lot of love and a complete lack of water. A couple of weeks ago my parent’s in law gave me a sunflower start up pack (seeds+potting mix) and Andrew made me a greenhouse to hopefully keep away the nasties. So garden round 2 here we come.

A busy day with my two mums

Yesterday my mother in law, mother and I headed to the craft and quilt fair. A lot of fun was had by all and I got a very good deal on a very exciting purchase I will be making Tuesday.

Then we raced home and got ready for the Brisbane municipal concert band and Brisbane City Big Band concert. It was a fantastic night and the audience seemed suitably impressed. Click the photo below to go to the band gallery. Thanks to Angie (my mother in law) for the photos of the concert band.

Stay tuned for two exciting announcements on Tuesday as I will be sharing my first daring bakers challenge and hopefully my newest toy purchase.

I haz cookies

I skipped out on making some sweet vols-au-vents tonight. Instead I whipped up my favourite choc chip cookies. The food stealing fairies struck again so I only barely have enough left for those I promised something for tomorrow.

It puffed It puffed It puffed

Was what I chanted to our unexpected lunch guests as I jumped up and down excitedly. What was all the fuss about? My first ever home made puff pastry worked!!!

My morning started early – 2am to be exact as the kitchen was meant to be cool. However I discovered that the kitchen was still 27 deg at that time of morning so I went back to bed. I was interested to find that at 7am the kitchen was actually a lot cooler (22deg) so I could try the September daring bakers challenge. As of this week, I’m now in the daring bakers group officially so can participate in the October challenge actually in October!

I didn’t risk melting the butter, so only did one turn each time. This was interrupted by a lovely visit to the local park with my friend and godson. The pastry was easy enough to pick up after a couple of hours and continue the process. The initial plan was to continue making the dough and then the Vols-au-vents and make up a filling for dinner. However suddenly finding ourselves with house guests at lunchtime, I put together a quick filling and hoped that it would all just work. It was really yummy and enjoyed by all. The puff pastry was lovely, light and crisp. It is kind of hard to explain, but lighter and fresher than store bought pastry.

Here is my one pan, ‘ummm what to make’ for the filling I came up with…
Cut the chicken up into pieces, put them in the frying pan to cook. Cut up some garlic and add it to the pan. Grate the cheese and cut up the mushrooms and some baby spinach. Once the chicken is cooked, turn the heat down to medium and add some milk, stir and then some flour and a bit of the egg used to wash the pastry to thicken. Then add some salt/pepper. Take off the heat and add the cheese till mixed through. Then mix the mushrooms and spinach through. Spoon the mixture into the vols-au-vents and serve.

The photos were taken pretty quickly as I actually wanted to serve and eat
I have some left overs to make something special for my workmates who have been testing a major project for the last few days. We will see how it goes as I also have to be up at 2:30am for an international meeting and then at work at 6am for a deployment. This week is looking very ‘interesting’.

It is just meringue

I felt sorry for Josh on masterchef for not getting his meringue right and therefore losing the challenge… I’m guessing under pressure it would be easy to not call it quits too early on the egg whites.

In order to use up some fruit, cream and egg whites that I had spare, I made up some mini pavlovas. I wasn’t in a pretty decorating mood but luckily they just require you plopping them together. Already a few have dissapeared from the plate… I think we have food stealing fairies.

I also made flat bread wraps to go with the chilli concarne dinner tonight. Making flat bread is now going to be a common task in this household. It is going to save us a fair bit of money as bought wraps are expensive for what they are. Maybe the money can go to other baking escapades.