Weekend Cooking: In My Kitchen (September)

Welcome to the first Saturday of the month where I usually share everything I have made over the previous month. I missed last month as we were on holidays so there wasn't a lot of baking happening. There also hasn't been a lot of baking happening since we got home either!

I did make a Raspberry Swirl Pavlova Wreath which came from Donna Hay's Christmas cookbook. No, I haven't decided to celebrate Christmas early. One of our friend's daughters lives in Dubai and was bringing her British boyfriend back to Australia for the first time. Our friends are originally from South Africa and so we had a South African/Australian barbecue to welcome him, and, as one of the few born and bred Aussies in the group, this was my contribution.

In theory, I was joining in on a baking class this week to make a celebration cake. The idea was that every day you would receive instructions and several day there was a live class online that you could cook along with. The first cooking step was to make meringue kisses using the Swiss Meringue method and mine didn't end up working so I am a bit behind. We now have guests all weekend, so I might just need to make it myself just by following the written instructions. The only element that I do have made so far is the raspberry compote.

We did pick up a few trinkets on our travels. We picked up this platter as we were flying out of Johannesburg. We didn't really intend to buy any souvenirs from South Africa, other than Dino, but we ended up seeing a few things we liked at the airport. We really liked how colourful this plate is, and the representation of the boabab tree and animals.

Have you ever heard of a spurtle which you use for making porridge? We bought this one at Mary Queen of Scotts house in the small border town of Jedburgh in Scotland. The woman in the shop insisted that our porridge will taste even better than they normally do. We'll see!

My husband doesn't say that he wants something we he insisted that we needed these salt and pepper shaker, just as a bit of fun! Now to fill them up with salt and pepper and start using them!

I also bought my team some Percy Pigs from Marks and Spencers in the UK, but I forgot to take picture. 

The final thing that we bought in Scotland was this glass globe filled with whisky. We aren't really whisky drinkers, so there is every chance that this will just sit on the shelf looking pretty but I am okay with that!

If you would like to see more about our travels check out the posts that I have linked below.

We picked up this book of WWII recipes from the Imperial War Museum in London. Such an interesting place to visit. There were a few different options as far as cook books go, but this was the first one I saw so it is the one that I ended up buying.

I have also acquired two new cook books. The first is Kin by Marie Mitchell and the second is Romy Gill's India by Romy Gill. I am also counting down the days until we receive the new Nagi Maehashi cook book which should be here in a couple of weeks. Can't wait.

We have had some foodie adventures since we got home. Last weekend we did a fancy afternoon tea at Koi Dessert Bar, which I will hopefully post about soon.

New Recipes

We have tried a few new recipes in the last month. All of them are from Nagi Maehashi. Two are from her cookbook, Dinner, but the Honey Garlic Chicken is from her website.

Zuppo Toscana 

Honey Garlic Chicken with Cauliflower Fried Rice 

Sesame Garlic Vegetables with rice

Weekend Cooking posts over the last two months

Greek-ish by Georgina Hayden

What We Ate on Holidays: South Africa

What We Ate on Holidays: London

What We Ate on Holidays: Scotland

What We Ate on Holidays: Scotland/Hong Kong

Afternoon Tea Diaries: The Library at County Hall

Cook the Books: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

The Resistance Bakery by Siobhan Curham

Weekly meals

Saturday - 
Sunday -  Grilled cheese on toast
Monday - 
Tuesday -Spicy Pork and Bean Noodles
Wednesday - Pork Chops with mash and broccoli
Thursday - Ice cream with Nutella
Friday - Smash burgers

I am sharing this post with In My Kitchen hosted at Sherry's Pickings

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page