Today is our national day. A day to celebrate Aussie pride. To have BBQs and cold beer and maybe even listen to Triple J’s Hottest 100. Oh and to watch the cricket if there is any on. Maybe even a game of backyard cricket. To give thanks to that British mob who came here years ago. To celebrate we live in a pretty free place where we can say and do pretty much what we want (within reason of course). To some it is a day of mourning and loss, not a day of celebration.
We’re celebrating Australia Day this year pretty much as a normal weekend (except maybe for the little bit of planning for my birthday on Monday & it’s a public holiday woot!). We’ll have snags for tea. Hubby has his mate coming round to play the Doctor Who RPG and I’ll be playing round on the internet 😉
I did try out a couple of new recipes I’d found on Pinterest – No Knead Cheese & Onion Beer Bread by Not Quite Nigella; and homemade butter in the food processor.
First was Not Quiet Nigella’s beer bread. This was the first time I’d seen her site and will be going back to check out some more of her recipes.
(note the great Tassie beer)
Chuck it all in the bowl and mix is pretty much all there is to this recipe. Put it in a loaf tin and bake for 45-50 minutes.
Serve warm with butter
I thought this was the perfect chance to try out another recipe – homemade butter in the food processor. Can’t credit myself for this recipe but I did Australianise it a bit (we don’t have heavy cream here – I used Thickened cream and it worked fine)
2 cups thickened (or pure) cream. Has to be full fat cream – the more fat the better apparently
pinch or two of salt, optional
Pour your cream into the food processor. Put it on high. Check it after 2 minutes. If it has started to separate all good, if not give it another couple of minutes (mine took about 3 1/2 minutes). It should look like this
If it looks like that, pour off the liquid – this is your buttermilk: keep it, you can use it to make pancakes and other stuff. Add about 1/8 cup cold water. Replace lid, pulse 4 times. Pour off the liquid. Repeat.
Place your butter in a strainer and allow any excess liquid to drain. There are heaps of suggestions to drain your butter online – squeezing it between butter paddles, putting your butter on a marble board and squeezing the liquid out with a spoon – I lined a colander with a clean Chux cloth over a bowl and let it drain in the fridge.
Put it in a bowl and stir in your salt if desired. And there you go – homemade butter! Should last about 3 days
I was going to make lamingtons but realised we didn’t have enough flour. So lamingtons will have to wait 🙁
| a clean(ish) kitchen and fresh bread baking | Crossing another thing off my list of 100 things for 2013. Make bread. | Updating my media kit. | Going for a swim. | Dessert. Fresh strawberries. Dusted with icing sugar. Drizzled with Cointreau. | Checking out a new cookbook | Blowing bubbles with cousins | “tractor” rides with Pa and cousins