Thursday, August 28, 2008

Wedding Shower Cookies


Before we went on holiday I went to a wedding shower for my friend Susan. We had to take something for the pantry or the bathroom, so of course I took something for the pantry! I bought a lovely tea towel (I actually have a bit of a tea towel obsession – I love buying new tea towels!!) and a little dish and then filled the little dish with these wedding cake cookies. I wrapped the little parcel in cellophane with a big ribbon bow and it looked really lovely.

The biscuits are shortbread, decorated with rolled fondant icing and piped royal icing. Once again, close up they don’t look marvellous, but from a distance they looked quite good.

After a week eating fish in Rarotonga (which was fantastic as fish is my favourite and everywhere we went it was delicious) my husband felt like a steak. So, last night for dinner I cooked steak. In my view sirloin steak is the most tasty for a simple evening meal – although I do love the melt in the mouth texture of scotch fillet. I made a paste for the steak of black, pink and green peppercorns (pounded in my mortar and pestle to a chunky crumb) mixed with a couple of spoonfuls of horseradish, a clove of crushed garlic and some oil and sea salt. I rubbed this into the steak about 30 minutes before cooking the steaks 2 - 3 minutes on each side for rare (the steaks were about 2cm thick). I served them with a a potato dish made by frying off 4 sliced garlic cloves with a teaspoon each of ground cumin and ground coriander, ½ tsp chilli flakes and two tbsp tomato paste. I then added about 500g waxy potatoes cut into medium sized cubes and 1 cup water. I put the lid and simmered the potatoes for about 30 minutes until cooked and the liquid reduced. The potatoes were really tasty. Broccoli was our green vegetable.

Incidentally the week before we went on holiday, broccoli was 59cents a head at Pak n Save. I bought it from the fruit and veggie shop yesterday for $2.99. The only green vegetable I could get under $3 was bok choy and half a cabbage – it will be interesting to see the price of greens at the Takapuna markets on Sunday.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a great wedding gift! The cookie is lovely.

When we got back from Hawaii and all of that delicious seafood, we dropped off our bags and drove directly to a steakhouse. ;)

Cakelaw said...

Welcome back. Beautiful cookies, and a very nice gift.

Deb said...

The cookie looks gorgeous. Yes, vegies have taken a real price hike in the last week. I did a double take in the supermarket yesterday when I saw the prices.

Maria said...

What gorgeous cookies!!