An exercise in brevity

Right. Sunday was a baking extravaganza and if I don’t cut the chatter and write up the basement I am facing permanent banishment to the computer room. I have 8 recipes to write up before I will be down to only being a week behind. Actually that’s not true – these long weekends are messing with me.
Walnut pride – Didn’t make me feel particularly proud but I think Edmonds should get extra points for creativity – there doesn’t seem to be a lot of that going on otherwise. It would have been all too easy for them to call it “Just another slice with walnuts and sultanas”. I’ve probably given away what’s in it now. I was ok, I ate around the sultanas. I added a little lemon icing as suggested which jazzed it up nicely.

Apple shortcake – This was nice, just like you’d find in a bakery. The shortbread is made by rubbing the butter in and I was quite lazy with my rubbing which gave a nice flaky result. It’s nice to know that being lazy does pay off sometimes.

Lemon Buns- These were basically lemon flavoured, sultana dosed rock cakes. I made these in the intention of serving them with my home made lemon curd from the day before – they seemed to go down quite nicely.

Smoked fish/ Mashed Potato/ Fish Pie Supreme. This was a triple whammy because I have discovered on certain occasions use a recipe for a constituent part of another recipe. Hence I prepared my mashed potato according to the recipe – with thanks to the husband for doing the potato peeling – and I boiled my smoked fish in milk as directed. Smoked Kahawai remains relatively cheep at $10 a kilo. I was quite impressed, especially at a time when every other type of fish is ridiculously expensive.

There was a time when I would have absolutely turned my nose up at fish pie but times have changed. Even the girls in the lunchroom were none too quietly impressed. I still couldn’t do a seafood pizza – a friend helpfully described it as seal vomit once and the imagery has never left me.

Celery and cheese savoury – this may have impressed the girls in the lunchroom a little less but it was surprisingly good – think cauliflower cheese with celery. I’m not sure that I have ever eaten celery as a cooked vegetable on its own. I was quietly impressed.

Lemon Cheese Pudding – This was the typical lemon self saucing pudding and it was good. Very good. I did make the mistake of using my zest peeler, which creates loooong strings of lemon zest, which ruined the texture a little. The husband made quite a show of removing the stands one by one but he love dessert none the less. The man peels my potatoes, I really have no grounds for complaint.