Biscotti di Nocciole e Cioccolato

Another Sunday, another batch of biscuits. I have been trying to file paper today and the sheer boredom of it drove me to baking. 

These are from my Italian biscuit book again (and I got my first butter stain on the book). I suddenly had a craving for something with roasted hazelnuts and chocolate and chose these biscuits. I think it is probably illegal for an Italian baking book not to contain at least one recipe with chocolate and hazelnuts.

Recipe (I can't usually be bothered typing these out as this isn;t really a baking blog but these are so 'mazin I want everyone to bake them).

225g roasted, skinned, chopped hazelnuts (I wanted to use mine up so I used more like 260g)

113g butter

90g brown sugar

85g white sugar (I had run out of white sugar so used all brown)

1/2 tsp vanilla

pinch of salt

1 egg

180g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

210g bittersweet chocolate, chopped.

Cream butter and sugar. Add vanilla, salt, eggs and mix well.

Mix baking soda and plain flour together then add to wet mixture and mix well. Stir through chopped hazelnuts and chocolate. Cover or wrap dough and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Then you can either be lazy like me and just roll small round biscuits by hand. Or you can do as the recipe suggests and make two logs of the dough, then freeze for 1hr (or apparently up to two months). After they have been frozen slice 1/2 cm biscuits.

Either way bake at 180 degrees for about 12minutes.

After baking eat one all gooey and warm. They would actually be amazing as a dessert warm with vanilla ice cream. I plan to eat them with cups of tea.

Life after thesis..

Life after thesis is going along nicely. I just finished my first post-thesis project. Not an academic one, a catalogue essay for a photographer. I will post more about that later, my part is done but it won't be all done till June. It was very pleasant to work on something very different, but still tangentially related. It was garden related and so even though it was academic it did make me realise that I have a vast(ish) knowledge of gardens now, which I certainly did not have when I started my thesis. Especially considering I didn't even start out working on garden history.

I have my research assistant work, which is quite repetitive at the moment, but in a soothing way. Also I can do it at home to my own timetable. I also have two abstracts to work up as soon as possible, and then two papers to write in April before I go away in May.

I have also been baking. These 'Biscotti di Linzer' are from a book of biscuit/biscotti recipes my friends bought me in Rome as a thank you for house sitting. I have a lot of jam to use up so I made these jammy ones. They were very delicious. It is was a very simple recipe, just  basic butter, flour, sugar biscuit dough (I will post the exact amount tomorrow as they were perfect). The roll it out, cut out the biscuits, cut out holes in the middle of the biscuit (a screw cap off a wine bottle works well). Bake. Cool. Then jam them up. I used plum jam.

Recipe as promised:

170g butter (i used unsalted)
100g granulated sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
260gm plain flour
pinch o f salt
Icing sugar for dusting
65g jam

CReam butter and sugar till fluffy, add vanilla. Combine flour and salt in a bowl and then add to butter mix and mix till well combined. Wrap dough in cling film or cover bowl and put in fridge for 30mins.

Roll dough out on a foured surface to about 5mm thick. Cut biscuits out in equal numbers. Cut holes (as I said I used a washed screw cap from a bottle for wine for this). Re-roll scraps for more biscuits.

Place on a baking tray pined with baking paper and bake for 10-12 minutes at 180 degrees.

When they have cooled then create the sandwiched biscuits by adding half a teaspoon of jam on teh bottom and sandwiching the  biscuits with the holes on top and dust with icing sugar.

One comment I would make is that this recipe didn't make lots of biscuits, I think about 15-18 because of the doubling up. So either double the mixture or perhaps make them slightly smaller, or both.

Went to my friends' gallery opening last night. The last one at that gallery. End of an era. My campari. 

My shoes, I bought these for $6 at Target, they are bronze and I love them, but are falling apart as they are cheap and I keep riding a bike in them.

My orange dress and grey tights. So glad it is tights weather now, I get bored of having to just have flesh coloured legs.

Chinese take away. Yum.

 

Recipe book recommendations and red wine.

Dog cuddles.

A scorpion in alcohol. We didn't open this, it wasn't that kind of night.

A nice whiskey.

Today I was a  bit worse for wear after a late night (well not that late initially, but it was after I decided to stay up till after 3am drinking tea and writing tweets with lots of typos in them) so I just plonked on the couch, but in a guilt-free-no-thesis way. I had a little bike ride at lunchtime and then retreated to tea and cupcakes. The cupcake was a present from my local wine bar, which just turned 1 year old.

I stewed some pears that I had forgotten about and which had gone very soft. They are tasty though I over sugared them a tad. I think if I will need to eat them with some tart yoghurt to balance them out.

 And a photo of my breakfast the other day for no special reason except as general proof that the internets is all just people going on about what they ate.

Some food snaps

I take a lot of photos of food. I think the ole food photos are a real digital camera phenomenon, I used to take the odd one on special occasions with my film camera, of cakes and the like, but not very many. I think most people take them now. Sometimes I think if I didn't photograph a meal it didn't actually happen. I always mean to post them, like a lot of things, but then I don't. So here is a random selection of January ones.

Homemade choc croissants, just store-bought puff pastry rolled around squares of dark chocolate, brushed with a big of egg on top. Made these for New Year's day breakfast.

Artichoke tart on the deck. I think I posted this in another post. I realise I haven't done enough sitting on the deck. I did a lot during my first week here, but then it rained for a week, then I forgot to, then it was HOT. This week should be fine and not hot though so I must do it again.

Omelette and fennel and white bean salad. Cooking omelettes on gas is a revelation! So much quicker. 

Cheese platter at tapas place in D'ford, the cheese was pre sliced, which I don't really like as a rule, plus one cheese was under the bread so we didn't see it till we had finished the bread? The cheese was still pretty tasty though.

Walnut bread, this suddenly looks very dark on the blog. Anyway, it is walnut bread from Himalaya Bakery in Daylesford, buy some if you get the chance and eat it freshly sliced with cheese.

Or toast it and eat with plum jam and coffee.

Prosecco at the Perfect Drop. Any place that serves prosecco by the glass wins my vote.

 Taramasolata with radishes. I think I need more radishes in my life.

Freshly picked blackberries, raspberries and mulberries. I ate these with yoghurt.

Coffee at Woodend station from the coffee man. Good coffee, crisp morning, sunlight, feeling of virtuousness for getting up at 6am, leopard print scarf. Win.

Tea and blueberries with yoghurt. I like to vary my breakfasts, some people eat the same thing every morning, I could never do that, it would be like eating the same dinner every day. Do you vary breakfasts?

This was one breakfast, mmm freshly baked scones.

Pancakes with mushrooms, tomatoes and cheese, grilled. Pancakes are also super easy on the gas stove, there is also a proper grill, which I don't have at home either (my kitchen is pretty basic).

 I love beaujolais, even if I do have an aversion to pronouncing it correctly. You can put it in the fridge and drink it chilled.

My friend's pavlova. Was super dooper tasty. I had two pieces.

That's enough for now. What have you been eating lately?

Stylish blogger award

I am currently sitting on the couch wearing old leggings and a $5 singlet and watching the cricket and I thought what better time to respond to an award for being stylish. The award is from MissKittyCat.

I now have to tell you seven things about me, I don't know what really.

1. Yesterday I shocked Daylesford by parading down the main street in a completely paisley outfit. They may never recover. Part of the outfit was bright blue paisley pedal pushers from Witchery of all places, but Witchery circa 2002, doubt we would see them there now...
2. I have judged the people I am housesitting for because they have no anchovies in their cupboards. Honestly.
3. I love Buffy and I am watching it all again from the beginning at the moment. I have watched season one and now into season 2.
4. I love scarves as in the silk style ones not woolly (though I do like those too), I have many, luckily I'm not at home or I would probably go and count them and discover I had 60 or 70 or more! I do have 6 with me in D'ford, which probably says a lot.
5. Hmm i'm running out of things now. I know, I made scones this morning. Only second time ever, I almost ate them all at once. They were so soft and creamy I couldn't tell where the butter ended and the scone began (If I do say so myself). Here's a pic.

6. I have been in the Vatican Secret Archives. It's pretty amazing but not dusty or musty or anything like that, more concrete with metal shelves, like your average library. Well except for the amazing documents.
7. Finally I have nearly finished my PhD, how excitement. And on that note I should get back to work.

Apparently I have to tag or award or something so here goes:

Snippets of my Life
What Katie Did Next
Minx in Black
Maxie et Zuel
A Flash in Japan
The Sunday Sesh
Yikes Machine
FickleLand 

Is that enough? Have I lived up to a Stylish Blogger award?

Sunday

Went to visist my sister and Hamish the Wonder Dog. We had soup, and apple and apricot crumble and caught up with my great aunt. Hamish is a bit sad as Mum has been away for so long, but this is not his sad look this is his 'is your camera food' look.

These are the tomatoes for the roast tomato, onion and capsicum soup. Despite the time of year the tomatoes are pretty good, I got them from John at Tomato City at the Vic Market, he gave me a few extra. I also got a free banana at another stall, I obviously had my market mojo going on.

The roasted stuff, the soup is very nice you just cut the tomatoes, capsicums and onions (with skin on) in half and roast with some garlic cloves and then take the skins off and bung it all in a saucepan with some stock and blend tills it's smooth. I was thinking today that I would probably like to add some chilli to it at some point...

Here it is all ready to nom on. I didn't eat all the bread, it was to share.

This is the apricot and apple crumble, I poached some apples and then added some tinned apricots. The crumble had some golden syrup in it, my sister's suggestion via someone else. It was nice, made it sweeter but in a tasty way. If I used golden syrup again I would probably add a bit less sugar to the crumble.

I ate this in front of an open fire, with dogs sleeping in front of it and a cup of early grey tea. Perfect winter's afternoon.

On another topic I bought some new Mimco hair accessories yesterday and the week before. I like them a lot. The hair combs are usually so spensy but these were hugely reduced. I like Mimco but a lot of the barrettes are so blinged up and heavy that they won't stay in my hair as it is so thin.The combs work much better. When I bought them yesterday the sales assistant said 'OMG these prices are crazy' like she had only just realised they were on sale. I felt like replying 'No what is crazy is that your plastic hair combs are normally $50'. But I just smiled an said 'yeah OMG WOW.'