Making strawberry jam

This wedding craft was what we made to give to guests - tiny jars of either either marmalade or strawberry jam. As we had a very small wedding of mostly family it was easy to make enough jars for everyone. Helps that hubby is a chef and we had access to a big kitchen to do it in. I printed names onto luggage tags and tied them on with string. Then tied a ribbon around with a bow. They then doubled as place cards at tables.

Iranian (Persian) Omlette

Made this omlette for dinner last Sunday and recommend the recipe. I think it would have fed 6 as a main (served with salads, pickles, flat bread) or 8 if served with a few other things (like falaffel maybe, or some more substantial salads). It had a nice creamy texture and great subtle spice flavour. It also worked really well as leftovers the next day for lunch. Recipe here but to be honest I didn't use a blender, I just chopped. I think what was most wonderful is just that lush mix of delicious herbs, and a way to eat dill, which I don't usually think to eat.

hey good looking what's cooking?

Well in this instance, gingerbread cookies and pfeffernuze. Spent a few hours late Sunday making mixtures, wrapped them and popped them in the fridge, then baked early Monday. Thanks to the (half)naked chef for last minute dash to the shops for ingredients I'd forgotten, use of funky kitchen equipment and not complaining even once about coming home to biscuit factory after a day spent at work serving food.

One only just realised hazard of the 'lets bake biscuits for Christmas' caper however, is the 'gee my porridge is taking ages to cook I might just have a few biscuits for breakfast' syndrome. Give me a beard and call me Santa, as I rub my rolly poly Christmas biscuit belly.

But am I deterred? Not in the slightest. This week - Miss Ali's passionfruit butter cookies I think...

Recipe cards for kids

I had two children's birthdays in my family a while back, both cousins, one of whom is also my Godson. Wanted to give them something that would encourage some kind of hands on activity, so bought dinosaur cookie cutters, found a good cookie recipe and painted and drew a little recipe card for him. Also bought a love heart shaped pancake ring (silicone with a funny handle for easy removal)and made a recipe card for pikelets on it for her.

Pasta almost counts as craft

Truly! Made this on the weekend - fresh spinach fettuccini, using my pasta machine, which I love. Just steamed one bunch of coarsely chopped spinach, let it cool in the liquid I cooked it in, mashed some more with a hand masher, and then used the kind of soupy broth as the liquid in the pasta. At first it seems like there will be big green blobs, but as you work the dough, pass it through the rollers etc, it becomes much more evenly coloured, and gets that very exciting extra special silky fresh pasta feel. Also did some plain dough and made pumpkin ravioli, with roast pumpkin, zucchini and finely chopped and sauteed onion and garlic. Yum!

"2" cake

Volunteered to make a cake for a combined 2nd b'day party, as my son is allergic to eggs. However, in the end, he got chicken pox a day or two before and we couldn't go but I still had to make a cake (it was too late to make other arrangements). Although I had planned to make something from the Women's Weekly birthday cake book, time constraints meant I had to switch to plan B - a Vegan Chocolate mud cake (muddy but not too chocolatey and not as unhealthy as it sounds), with icing decoration.

I also wish I could say I made the icing and piped it in a piping bag, but now you can conveniently buy tubes of the stuff at the supermarket. For emergencies only - in future I'd rather make my own and save on plastic packaging. But anyway, if ever you need to make a cake a *little* bit more special than usual, this is one thing you can do...