Monday, June 22, 2009

not quite flowers


I made these cookies last week. They are meant to be flowers, but it was only after I cut them out that I realised that my flower cookie cutter is actually not very flower like! It had far too many petals. So, the flower cookies didn’t turn out as I had hoped, so I just made them a bit squiggly instead. On Saturday morning I went over to Millies and bought a new flower cutter. I can’t wait to use it.



Last night for dinner I made this delicious pasta dish. The recipe was from Rachel Allen Bake. It was a baked pasta dish, but the interesting part was that you didn’t have to pre-cook the pasta, just add boiling water and cream to it (I used evaporated milk which worked just as well) before you added the rest of the ingredients. The rest of the ingredients included a can of crushed tomatoes, capers, chopped olives, basil and I used chopped ham. Then you covered the top with parmesan, feta and grated cheddar. This dish was so simple, but really really delicious. I would definitely make this again. I was amazed that the pasta did cook through (there were a few crunchy bits on top, but I actually quite liked those). It was very tasty and made great leftovers for today’s lunch.

8 comments:

Chris said...

Hi Tammy,
Oh those flower biscuits look gorgeous-I really like the cutter, they are so funky.Your new one must look spectacular.That pasta bake looks yumm.Any chance of the recipe, I'm not too good at winging it.
Chris

SassyCassie said...

Those cookies are adorable! I've been reading your blog for awhile and you are sooo talented!

Anonymous said...

Tammy,

The Rachel Allen Pasta bake looks fabulous. I'm with Chris - would you be able to post the recipe? Would love to try it.

Cheers, Wilma

Tammy said...

Hi Chris and Wilm

I amended the ingredients in the bake to be 250g dried pasta, mix with 120ml boiling water and 200ml evaporated milk, a can of crushed tomatoes, 3 garlic cloves, chopped, a handful of stoned olives, chopped, a couple of tbsps of capers, 200g chopped ham, 1 tsp sugar, salt and pepper. Mix all together and put in a lasagne style dish. scatter over crumbled feta, grated parmesan and cheddar and bake at 190c for about 50 minutes or until the pasta is cooked through. You could vary the ingredients as you wish and using cream instead of evaporated milk would make it richer (but I dont think that is necessary for an everyday kind of dish)

Tammy

Jan said...

I think your cookies look great!!, love the icing colour. I have stacks of cookie cutter but have not had the time to use any yet

Cakelaw said...

I think your biscuits are very pretty - they look like flowers to me.

Leslie said...

Those flower cookies are so adorable! Great job! And the pasta bake sounds easy and delicious. Love not having to boil the pasta!

Chris said...

Hi Tammy,
Thanks so much for sharing the recipe.You are a gem.
Chris