Ginger bread

Yesterday I took my first attempt at ginger bread. At biscuits in general actually! I made the pieces to a ginger bread house and cookies with the left over dough. Unfortunately I didn't get to taste them, my mom took out the last batch after I left and said that the flavour was quite delicious. I found a 5 star rated recipe online and tweeked it to suit the ingredients I could get my hands on. The dough was such a pleasure to work with.

Ingredients

1/2 cup Brown sugar
1/2 cup Maple syrup
1 1/2 tsp Ground ginger
1 tsp Allspice
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Ground cloves
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup Margarine
1 Egg, beaten
3 1/2 cups Flour

• Heat the sugar, syrup, ginger, allspice, cinnamon, and cloves to boiling in a pot, stirring occasionally.
• Remove from heat and stir in baking powder.
• Stir in margarine until melted.
• Stir in egg, then flour.
• Knead the dough on a floured surface until mixed.
• Divide the dough in half and use a rolling pin to roll it to your desired thickness (suggested slightly less than 1/4 inch).
• Cut to shape with a knife or cutters.
• Bake at 165 C for 12 mins.
• Cook on wire rack.

  

Christmas fun

After a good break of relaxing, socializing, and wrapping presents, I'm heading back to the kitchen to make some Christmas treats. I will also be hosting Christmas lunch for the first time, so I'll be sure to fill you in on my plans and how everything turns out. I'll have the time and space to get creative with sides as my mom will be bringing ham and making the turkey. She has a great recipe, I'll share it soon. At this point, I'm really excited to make a ginger bread house. I found a great video with tips on how to decorate it :o)

Mauritius

After an 8 and a half hour flight from Perth, I arrived in hot, humid Mauritius on Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, I've been sick with a fever and all since Tuesday! So I haven't been up to much but sleeping and recovering. I have, however, had one of my favourite mauritian meals; rougaille of salt fish with rice and orange lentils! With of course a side of masavarou. And tomorrow, farata is on the menu, which is another must try if you're on the island. Farata is a type of Indian wrap, usually served with curry and a chutney, for example, white bean curry and tomato chutney. If I can contain myself for a few seconds, I'll take a photo before digging in.

Rougaille is a tomato sauce that can be used as a base for many meats. In Mauritius it is commonly served with rice, and either sausages, or beef, or salt fish are mixed in the rougaille. In Mauritius you can buy fillets of salt fish (fish preserved in salt) a bit like in the picture below (grabbed from google images), usually snook if I'm not mistaken. The bones are removes and the fish is broken into small flakes and eaten on its own, in a rougaille, or fried with onion and chili as in the picture below with rice ect, or even as a seasoning sprinkled over mashed potato. In Norway that have a similar dish to salt fish rougaille called bacalao. If I. However, they soak the salt fish in water for several hours and break the fillet into larger pieces, cooking it within the tomato sauce.

For the next few days I plan to get better! Hehe, and if I am better by Saturday go and watch a surfing competition closer to where the waves break, on a little boat with a few friends. I the meanwhile I'm going to educate myself with acting lessons from the legendary Michael Caine. I've found a few videos on youtube, and have heard that he has written an amazing books bout acting techniques, so I'll see as I go, and let you know :o)