All posts tagged: pastry

Chicken hand pies and a Freedom Farms giveaway

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At the beginning of 2016 when bloggers everywhere were sharing their New Year resolutions, I shared my list of 5 things I wanted to do more and less of during 2016. One item on my list was “free range”. Animal welfare is important to me and I eat free range whenever I can. As of this year, I only buy free range pork, chicken and eggs. The good thing is, eating free range has become increasingly affordable and accessible as more consumers demand it. Full disclaimer, I relax this when eating out and would never even mention it if someone were awesome enough to cook for me. There’s a difference between showing integrity and being a dick. I hope free range becomes the norm in our lifetime and maybe one day we don’t have to worry about it at all. Until then, it’s good to keep track of accessible free range products. Freedom Farms is one of NZ’s most trusted free range brands and their streaky bacon (YUM!) is always on my shopping list. When I heard they launched a …

Make Cornish Pasties

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After trying both venison and beef versions of Sarah’s Cornish Pasties at Splore a few weeks ago, I was hell bent on making some of my own. For those that aren’t familiar with Cornish Pasties, they’re a submarine-shaped pie and traditional ingredients include beef or lamb, potatoes, swedes and onion. These  parcels of goodness were originally baked for tin miners who worked underground and didn’t come up  to air at lunch. They ate these pies and with their dirty, arsenic laden paws. They clutched the crust, ate the pastie and discarded the soiled crust at the end to avoid poisoning. Cornish pasties are baked from raw ingredients and it surprised me that both the meat and the vegetables cooked perfectly in these parcels. Short crust pastry is traditional but after eating these, I may retry with puff pastry because I adore puff pastry. I find short crust to be a bit heavy. I used both lamb and beef (why pick one when you can have both), potato, swede and onion. This recipe adapted from the NZ …

Unbelievably Easy Feijoa, Chocolate & Custard Pastries

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Tofu the bunny has been eating feijoas (pronounced fee-jo-ahs) and I have to check the lawns every day so that he doesn’t over eat. I toss any half eaten feijoas into the worm bin. The uneaten feijoas get turned into all sorts of yummy things. I made these babies for Natahma’s baby shower last week. It was the first baby shower I’ve ever been to and it was mostly just eating yummy food, talking about girl stuff and drinking champagne and feijoa wine. We didn’t play any silly games and the experience didn’t put me off having babies for life. These pastries are really easy to make and if you have a heavy feijoa tree in your yard, this is a good way to get rid of some. If you don’t have feijoas, I’m sure you could experiment with other fruit. I considered using plums and maybe still will at a later stage. I made something similar over a week ago but the latest ones are much, much better because they have chocolate in them. …

Birthday quiche!

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35 quiche. Only 1 quiche was sacrificed to quality control. At my work, it’s tradition to organise something for a morning tea shout or lunch shout for your birthday. The last 4 years I have just bought food from the local bakery to share, but this year I decided make something. We don’t have much of a kitchen at work so it really had to be something that could be served cold or could be microwaved. I’m not much of a baker, but I can make a pretty mean quiche. I made 36 of these quiche filled with eggs, cheese, tomato, broccoli and onion. They took much longer than I anticipated due to only 1 muffin tin. If I were to do this again, I’d buy or borrow some more tins. Everyone at work seemed to enjoy them with most scoffing back 2 quiche. Based on my recipe here.

Quiche pies!

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I make quiche pies about once a fortnight. They can be eaten hot or cold and are wonderful for breakfast, picnics, lunch, snacks or with a salad as a meal. I always change up the ingredients depending on what we have in the fridge. The ingredients I reckon you must have are puff pastry, egg and cheese, the rest you can be creative on. They keep fine for about 3 days…Maybe longer, but never had a chance to find out! Quiche pies Makes 12 Ingredients 3 sheets of puff pastry 6 eggs, beaten with a dash of milk 1 spring onion (scallion) finely sliced 6 sundried tomatoes 4 mushrooms sliced thinly Half an onion sliced thinly Cheese – 12 bite size pieces A bit of butter, melted A bit of oil A bit of salt A bit of pepper Preparation Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) Optional: Fry mushrooms and onion in a little oil until they soften. Remove from heat and set aside. Brush butter onto a muffin tin. Cut each sheet of pastry into …

Strawberry Pastries

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Easy summer goodness. Did you ever notice that strawberries look like hearts? Make this for your Valentine why don’t ya? Strawberry Pastries with Butterscotch Sauce (for two) Butterscotch sauce ingredients 4 teaspoons sugar 4 teaspoons water 4 tablespoons palm sugar 4 tablespoons butter A dash of milk Preparation In a small saucepan, simmer 4 teaspoons of sugar with 4 teaspoons of water. Add more water if it looks like it will burn. Stir for a few minutes until thick. Add palm sugar and stir until dissoved. Stir in butter and milk. I promise you this stuff is hot. DO NOT blow on the spoon and then lick the sauce. It will burn you. Molten sugar is hot like lava from the pits of hell. Trust me! I know! Strawberry Pastries ingredients 1 sheet of puff pastry A small punnet of strawberries (we ate some of the punnet already) Preparation Preheat oven to 200°C. Cut a square sheet of puff pastry in half and put each half onto a grease baking sheet. Wash and remove tops of strawberries. …