Easter Fun…

We hosted a BBQ for both families at our house this year… So we wanted to give our sofas an extra sparkle. Honey had some leather cleaner “somewhere” so I decided to check Google to see what the homemade recipes were like… www.graceandblessings.com/2012/02/29/homemade-leather-cleaner/ is pretty much the same as a few other sites I checked.

We used toothpaste and water then wiped it off and applied the polish to some of the tougher stains on the white sofa and the red sofa seemed to get clean with an initial wipe over and just the polish. It was a bit of hard work but the effort was well rewarded. Time to work off some of those Easter eggs and chocolate.

My neice (I like the Jane Austen spelling) was visiting for a few days and we made some Easter gifts… a way for some women special to us to get the chocolate without having it go their thighs… we made homemade dry shampoo from coco, corn flour and bicarb soda. Yea I had some left over. The HB cocoa powder was the only pure one available at Woolies.

Have you tried pork rissoles? I used some pork mince, eggs, grated carrot, dash of BBQ sauce and a good sprinkle of cinnamon and Chinese 5 spice. Pop that on the BBQ and it was delicious. This it the last one left…

We also had BBQ prawns, I made some dips to go with… homemade Thousand Island dressing (Mayo, tomato sauce and a dash of Mexican chilli powder to taste), Sweet chilli sauce on “Sour cream”- at my house its always Greek yoghurt, we also like aoli with them too.

Kudos to Coles, with their Fair Trade bunnies this year, they were quite nice tasting too. 

Very excited that I was also able to have  hot cross buns compliments of Coles this year too. They had a gluten, nut and dairy free option right next to the regular HCBs. Not in the freezer this time. (2 years ago I found them like 2 weeks after the fact, enjoyed them but it was nice to have one on Good Friday this year).

Good Friday

With visitors coming for lunch; I decided to make my sister’s family my guinea pigs… I have been missing Tuna Mornay- basically because I am too lazy to make it the “old fashioned way” lol. Honey had never heard of it but I found a few recipes http://www.recipecommunity.com.au/main-dishes-fish-recipes/basic-tuna-mornay-pasta-optional/31656 which you can do…

However, I realised its pretty much a béchamel sauce (found in the every day cookery book or here http://www.recipecommunity.com.au/recipes/french-bechamel-sauce/82101) prefixed with sautéed onions and garlic (and in my case lemon pepper) and add some canned fish (I have used tuna and salmon- bones removed), dijon mustard (a cup each of peas and corn if I can con Honey into it)  I have also switched in chicken breast (From a late in the day “special” chicken I bought the day before)… right at the end of cooking time (I only go as high as 80c as the TM bowl is easier to clean, I add 2-3 extra minutes cooking time)… I add cheese and cook for 2 minutes.

So I squeezed the extra ingredients into the margin and just open my EDC book to cook the mornay now, rather than juggle my computer or iPhone with the food.

Also another tip- I use powdered milk and make up 500mL with 67g of milk powder and water to the 500mL mark and stir. However, when I made the last Fish mornay with salmon, I used the fish water in with the water and milk powder to make it like adding fish stock. I fully intend to try this with “Tuna in spring water” next time.

Mum’s Tuna Mornay had boiled eggs in it, I used raw eggs (once again- lazy) in the salmon mornay but there was not that much difference in the texture or flavour.

I also serve my fish/chicken mornay with rice not pasta. So on “mornay days” I would get out the slow cooker 2 hours before we were going to eat. Cook a huge amount of brown rice (2:1 water to rice) pop it on the hotter setting; walk away… return 2 hours later to perfect rice (soft). If you like it a little more “together”, back off the cooking time about 10-15 minutes. The left over rice is fantastic the next morning for breakfast.

Judie