What I found in my pocket this week………..

I have spent the better part of this week trying out a few recipes – minestrone soup, bite sized scones and homemade bread. While baking bread in a bread oven isn’t what I would quite call backing, I still think it takes some effort in mixing the ingredients together and really at the end of the day it’s all about that homemade baking smell that perforates the house. There is nothing better than a delicious cake or fresh baked bread aroma. 

The minestrone soup was one of the easiest recipes I have found on the net. I feel it’s a real hearty meal, with all those veggies, pasta and I actually like to add chunks of steak to mine.
The soup was delicious!! The recipe is now saved as a favourite on my laptop and I am planning my next week of meals to include this. Just a note if you are adding meat (as traditionally there isn’t meat in a minestrone soup) depending on how you like your meat, I don’t add it until the last minute – around 10 minutes before you are due to serve up. From experience this gave the meat just enough time to cook – it wasn’t raw nor was it tough and it still managed to soak up the tastes of all the other ingredients.

After a lovely Sunday morning out with some girlfriends, upon my return home hubby was watching Master Chef and declared that he wanted some scones. So being the ever pleasing wife and totally loving any excuse to get my kitchen aid out, I jumped on the net and found this great Donna Hay Recipe. Hubby and I spent the time making them together, while I know that the only reason he offers to help is so he can eat the pastry or lick the bowl afterwards, none the less it was fun chatting and cooking together. 

Note: These little puppies last a while if kept in a baking tin or plastic container and warm up well in the microwave the next day (about 20 sec on high should be suffice)

I cant really write much about baking bread. It really was as simple as choosing a bread mix (I prefer the Lighthouse brand which I buy from Coles), emptying the contents into a bowl, mixing with water and then adding to the bread maker. Voilà!!

I can honestly say that the best part to making bread is definitely the smell. No matter what time of day you are cooking it, the smell instantly connects with your tummy and those loud rumbles appear out of nowhere. Hubby and I couldn’t wait for the bread to finish and once we heard those three peeps we rushed over to gaze at our wonderful loaf of bread. While it was still warm, we pulled it out and cut up a few slices. 11pm on a Saturday night eating bread – best part of the weekend…..of course Chilli got to have a little sample too and I am pretty sure he gave us a wink in recognition of our effort!

Wow what a week it has been.  All this talk of cooking is making me hungry and has me wondering what delicious treats I am going to conjure up this weekend. I do have to admit though, that with all this baking I am getting slightly worried that before we take off on our USA trip we would have already eaten our holiday quota. We do need to save some room for those hot dog stands in NY!

Enjoy your week of cooking friends xx