Eggshell Green

Best ever bacon and egg pie

A bacon and egg pie, with onion, cheese and baked-in tomato sauce – best ever? I have to say so myself.

The recipe is pretty flexible – just use more or less to fit the pie dish. If you’re using a rectangle dish, just cut the pastry and arrange to fit – you don’t have to do anything special except push the pieces together to close the gaps.

I was onto my second serving before remembering to take a photo

Happy 3rd Birthday Abby

I can’t believe it’s been 3 years since I had my first baby. They grow so fast.

Cake and presents makes a happy three year old

This year I decided to make Abby a pig cake – for two reasons: she wanted animals and it was easy.

I finished the cake in about half an hour, and half an hour before the party started too. I used to be really organised, but having children changed all that!

Next time I make a pig cake,  it’s going to be made of red velvet sandwiched with white icing. Then it’ll look like bacon when I slice it.

Needs bacon, everything tastes better with bacon

I like bukakke

Went to this Japanese restaurant called Tatsushi the other day. (What – did you think this post was about something else?)

I got the bukkake udon. Partly because they sold out of the oyako donburi, but mostly because I’m immature and it made me snigger. “Can I have the bukkake udon please?” I asked. I coudn’t make myself just ask for bukkake.

I just expected noodles and soup, but was curious about the bukkake bit. I saw the lightly poached egg on top – white, wobbly and translucent, and I went “Ahhh.”

The dish was good. It came with crispy deep fried bits of batter, spring onions, bonita flakes and a poached egg on top of udon noodles. I got bukakke udon and I liked it, and wished there was more actually. I had to stuff my face with an icecream from Movenpick afterwards to fill the gap.

Fact: “Bukkake” is the noun form of the word “bukkakeru” which means to pour and splash. Bukkake udon is noodles splashed over with hot broth. Get your mind out of the gutter, and mine too while you’re at it.

I did like

Tags: restaurant, review

High tea at the Hippopotamus

Coktails and tea

When a friend from Auckland came down to visit me, I thought it was a great excuse to splash out and treat myself to a high tea at the Hippopotamus. Not only was it a high tea, at the Hippopotamus, it was a cocktail high tea – ooh la la.

I can’t say I’ve had cocktails with tea at the same sitting before – it was rather odd. Tea tends to make me thirsty so I appreciated the thirst quenching effect of icy cold alcohol. At the same time, having sweet treats with sweet drinks was a little too much. A third-world problem – OK, moving on.

Pros

• The treats were beautiful.
• There were macarons.
• There were lots of new yummy things.
• I felt posh.
• I got tiddly.

Cons

• Wanted more savouries.
• The cucumber sandwich: boring with dry bread.
• The purple mousse thing that looks like brains in a glass tasted and smelt like parmesan (and you all know what some people think parmesan smells like). I like parmesan, but this didn’t taste quite right.
• Overall, too sugary for my liking.
• Where are the cupcakes? (Alright, I’ll let this slide as it was a French restaurant.)

Because the dentist needs more money

Tags: review, tea party, Wellington

Warm Sausage Couscous Salad

This is the delicious result of using stuff that needed using in the fridge and pantry.

Make me a sandwich, of sorts

I fear that Abby has developed what I will call “SSS”, or “Strange Sandwich Syndrome”.

I believe it may be be hereditary, skipping a generation. Let me explain…

My dad once made himself a cake sub with the leftover Domo-kun cake I made. He doesn’t like sweet things much but was hungry, so he stuffed cake inside a bit of French bread and voilà – a cake sub.

After the cake sub, he invented the trifle sandwich: Vogels bread with trifle from the previous night’s dessert. Seriously, that man should just admit he likes cake.

My dad also decided he needed more fibre with his meal, and could only bother with making toast with peanut butter. So he had his peanut butter toast with a side of mesculin.

Look what I made

And now it appears that Abby has SSS. The other day I made her pikelets (small pancakes), and she loved them. But that was not enough – she needed a sandwich…

Is it a pancake? Is it a sandwich? No, it's a pandwich!

So she decided to make one with a pancake. And what would one put inside a pancake sandwich? Rice cracker snacks of course.

Step 1: Put crackers on pancake

Step 2: Fold pancake in half over rice crackers

Step 3: Devour pandwich

Let’s hope this is a positive sign of an imaginative chef in the making. That, or she’ll just make weird sandwiches and call it cooking! (As foodie parents, I hope it’s not the latter, but if so, we will try not to judge – until we try it that is.)

What have we hair

So I gave Cameron a haircut this weekend – well not a proper one because I only trimmed off the long bits out the front that hadn’t fallen off when everything else there did. Makes him look less old-man-with-alopecia.

I thought Cameron had a lot of hair but after comparing him with Abby at four months old he doesn’t look like he has enough!

We have hairy babies

Banoffee Tart

Being a busy mum, I have bugger all time to do anything else these days, like blogging for instance… But I can still pretend I can bake dessert (which is still quite mumsy really).

You can do wonders with just puff pastry, caramel (premade stuff in a jar or can) and bananas – well, you can do one wonderful thing: Banoffee Tart.

Looking good already

Cut, slice, spread, assemble and bake at something like 210° C for 20 minutes… I can’t remember but they should be puffy and crisp, and delicious. A sprinkling of cinnamon and/or chocolate before baking makes it look and taste a little fancy.

Busy-mum banoffee tarts

Here you kiddies – now mummy needs a drink.

Tags: baking