Pasta Parcels

These are so easy to make with a KitchenAid.

Ingredients:

• 300g of 00 flour
• 3 eggs
• tbsp of olive oil

Bung it all into the mixer, mix with the K beater, switch to dough hook and kneed on speed 2 for 8 minutes.
Wrap in cling film and rest it in the fridge for 1 hour.
Cut into 4, roll each a little out with a rolling pin, then make pasta sheets with the KitchenAid pasta attachment.

Cut out circles with a tart cutter or an upturned glass and add some filling, I used: mince steak, mushrooms, green pepper, mustard seeds, cheese, salt and pepper.  I blended it in the mixer after it was cooked to to make it a bit more combined.

Next I folded the circle in half over the filling and sealed the edge, then putting my thumb on the fat bit I folded the two corner bits round my thumb and pinched them together.

Added some sauce and away we go, they was lovely!!!

New KITCHENAID Pasta Attachment!!!

We as you know my dog died on Valentine's Day, my husband bought me a Chamilia bead for my bracelet, the limited edition one of a heart.  He said it was from Chelsea (my dog) as she gave up her heart for me on Valentines day, it was so touching and I will treasure it.

Really unexpectedly, he had also bought me the KitchenAid pasta attachment (costing £78, I know caz I've been eyeing it up for ages).  Well I was so broken hearted over Chelsea that I've not had the passion to cook this last week and I was so looking forward to getting one, any other time I would have been jumping up and down, but I just smiled, thanked him and put it in the cupboard.  I think he understood, anyway I tried it out for the first time today.

Well it was amazing!!!  I cannot believe has fast and easy it is to make pasta.  Needless to say I will be making lots of fresh pasta from now on and it is really good for losing weight as pasta fills your belly and is not full of fat.  About 80g worth of flour makes a lot of pasta that would fill you up and there is not many calories in 80g of flour.

Jazmine's Tortilla Wraps

Well school have sent home some recipes for my daughter to be cooking, as she is being home schooled this year.  The first one she has choose to make is tortilla wraps.

Recipe to come....

Making the bread tortilla dough

Jazmine chopping the salad and filling

Dry frying the wraps to cook them

The finished product, YUMMY!

Banana Loaf

• 100g butter
• 140g light muscovado sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 large bananas mashed (I used 5 small ones)
• 150ml butter milk (I had none so I used ginger beer)
• 280g plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate soda
• 100g of nuts and raisins (I used a nut, seed and fruit snack pack)

Cream the sugar and butter, then ad the eggs, bananas, butter milk (or beer).
Sieve in the flour, bicarb and add your nuts, seeds, dried fruit then fold in until mixed.

Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, then drizzle with icing.

Cottage Pie

This dish was amazing and it was one of them "Throw what ever is left in the cupboard together for dinner".

The mash was done in my KitchenAid and I added, boiled potatoes, milk, butter, mustard seeds and turmeric, with a bit of cheese on the top.

The filling was minced steak, carrots, onions and beef stock.

The KitchenAid Candy Apple Crazy Arrival

I had been tracking my parcel with DHL and it got into Manchester, UK at 5am.  I only live 10 miles outside of Manchester, so I was certain it would come today.  I sat all day on the sofa looking out of the window for the delivery man and I had a hospital appointment at 3pm to have my stitches taken out.

It didn't come =/ So I left for the hospital.

The stitches really hurt when they took them out, which surprised me, but they had been in 3 weeks and 1 day, so I think they had started to irritate. It was 4:30pm be time we drove back from the hospital, it was dark and I was losing hope of getting my mixer today.  As we got to Lowton, my home village, my husband says "KT, there is a DHL van behind us".  At first I thought he was teasing me, but no!  We drove home and so did the DHL van behind us, along with my mixer!  I was so happy I could have kissed the delivery man!

I was dancing on my crutches (well poorly attempting to), Ste had to unpack it for me and take it through to the kitchen.  Where he proceed to install a power point where I wanted it to go.  The first thing that hits you when you see it is the colour, it's so glittery and shiny.
























So, I had two positive things happen today, my stitches out and my KitchenAid delivered.  Now the thing is both of these things represent a path in my story.  My stitches are part of my disability / career halt and the KitchenAid is part of my housewife trial.  Funny that at this point things have come together.

Well here she is, what shall I call her?  Something to do with red, candy apple, KitchenAid, 90...I don't know.  I'm thinking of calling her Stitches, for obvious reasons, well it happened on the same day and my stitches are pretty red and memorable.  Or do you think that is too gory?  I supose if you didn't know about my stitches the name wouldn't seem so bad, as normally stitches is associated with making or fixing something.  Well with the help of my KitchenAid I will be making food and fixing me in the process =)

So the next step is what do I make?  It had to be something quick as my foot was hurting and swelling. Roll on the dinner rolls!

The KitchenAid is Coming!!!!

Yes you heard right, my KitchenAid mixer has been dispatched!

The shop emailed me:

Thank you for your email. We had originally hoped to despatch your mixer on Friday but unfortunately due to the snowy conditions it was delayed in reaching our Wimborne warehouse. However it will definitely be going out today and you should have it tomorrow or Wednesday.

I am so happy, I even went to Asda and asked for my free yeast at the baking counter using the old bread law.

The KitchenAid Artisan Mixer

I found this wonderful appliance!  I have become obsessed with getting one.  Well what a nightmare!

I knew I wanted a red KitchenAid, they did 3 shades: empire red, persimmon and candy apple red.  I was settled on the empire red one after looking on the Internet and was almost ready to order one online.  Then I thought, I'll just pop over to the Trafford Centre and have a look at them in John Lewis.

Well as soon as I saw them, the Candy Apple mixer stood out a mile.  It was glorious, a really shiny metallic red, now the hunt was on to find one as John Lewis had none left and wouldn't sell the display one.

I tried everywhere, the KitchenAid warehouse had none left and was waiting for new stock from Belgium.  It was going to take until mid-February...I could wait that long!

After a long Internet hunt I have finally ordered one and it should be here next week.  Now at last I can start planning my housewife trial run, all the wonderful baking I can do with that machine.  I even went to Asda today and got loads of bread flour and yeast.