Friday 8 November 2013

wedding cake Ideas
















Jelly Puzzle


Sholeh-zard


Ingredients: (4 servings)

    rice, 500 grams
    sugar, 1 kg
    cooking oil
    saffron, 1/2 teaspoon
    rosewater, 1/2 cup
    pistachio, crushed
    almond, crushed
    cinnamon, one teaspoon

Directions:

Wash rice a few times until the water is clear, then drain. Add six times water and bring to a boil, removing the foam. When rice softens completely, add sugar and stir well.

Dissolve saffron in half a cup of hot water and add to the mix. Heat up oil and also add to the mix. Add in most of the almonds and the rosewater. Stir well and cover. Cook in oven at low temperature for half an hour. Serve with pistachio, almond and cinnamon sprinkled on top.










art deco













Thursday 7 November 2013

Butternut squash and sweet potato tortilla


Ingredients
350g packet butternut and sweet potato cubes (from Waitrose)
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
4 large free-range eggs, beaten
100g vegetarian feta, crumbled
Bunch of fresh flatleaf parsley, chopped
3 tbsp toasted pine nuts
Green salad to serve
Method
1. Preheat the grill to medium-high. Put the butternut and sweet potato cubes in a pan of boiling water and simmer for 5-6 minutes until tender, then drain.
2. Meanwhile, cook the onion in the olive oil over a medium heat in a small frying pan for 5-10 minutes until tender. Add the butternut and sweet potato cubes, turn the heat to medium-high and cook for 2 minutes until they turn lightly golden. Pour in the beaten eggs, feta, parsley and pine nuts and cook for 5-10 minutes until the underside of the tortilla is golden brown (use a spatula to lift the edge to check).
3. Place under the grill and cook for 5-10 minutes until the tortilla is fully set and the top is golden. Invert onto a chopping board, cut into wedges and serve with a green salad.

Edible Teacups












Ingredients:
12 sugar ice cream cones
12 peanut butter cups
1/2 cup melting chocolate (like Wilton's)
12 white Oreos (or other cookies)
6 tiny-twist pretzels
chocolate or vanilla pudding or yogurt (to fill)

1.  Use a serrated knife to cut off the bottoms of the ice cream cones.  Slow and stead wins the race here.  Just be gentle and work deliberately.  Obviously have some extras on hand in case a few break. 

2.  To make the handle, use the serrated knife again to cut the tops of the pretzels off.  Again, if you break a few, no worries, just eat those and move along.

3.  Melt the chocolate according to the package directions.  I did mine slowly in the microwave until it was nice and smooth.  You could use regular milk chocolate for this recipe, but I found that the melting chocolate (like you get from a craft store) really worked wonders.  It melted smoothly and hardened quickly to make this novelty baking project a real breeze.  I think regular chocolate would make it a bit more tricky, but certainly do-able.

4.  Line up your cookies.

5.  Dot each cookie with some chocolate and place a peanut butter cup upside-down on top.

6.  Dip the bottom of the cone into the chocolate and set on top of the peanut butter cup.

7.  Hold the cone for a few seconds so that the chocolate hardens in place.

8.  Look to see if there are any holes or open spaces in your "tea cups" and fill them with chocolate, so that your filling won't seep out.

9.  Attach the handles by dotting chocolate on both ends of the pretzel and holdings it onto the side of the cone until it is set.

10.  We found these mini plastic spoons as the Christmas Tree Shop that were perfect!

11.  When you are ready to serve, fill the cups with pudding, yogurt, or cannoli filling and enjoy!

Mary Poppins and the Feed-the-Birds Lady.