Daring Bakers do iced Sugar cookies

The September 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mandy of “What the Fruitcake?!” Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking.

She asked us to use a theme of what September means to us.  Well as I said in the last post September is when Noddles has his birthday parties and indeed when my own birthday is so it takes no guessing to work out I made football biscuits.

As well as the normal recipe Mandy gave us a bunch of alternatives and I decided to use the one from Gluten Free Girl. They worked out very well indeed and went down a storm with the small boys who came to the party.

I made two teams of players and a ref as well as a bunch of footballs. Sorry it's so short a post but check out the Daring Kitchen as all the many and wonderful different versions the Daring Bakers made will be up there shortly.

Menu - 20th to 25th Sept 2010 and birthdays

As you will see from the tickertape at the top of my blog Noddles was seven a month ago but over here that is at the same time as the August bank holiday which is one of our main national holidays and we have learnt his friends all tend to be away so we schedule his party for after school gets back. Therefore last weekend we had a football party !

 The cake was iced by Noddles himself with a little help and we have a football game between the girls and the boys with a adult ref ! For those americans in the audience that is real football or what you call soccer :)

For the cake I used this easy vanilla cake from BBC good food and just subbed in a gluten free flour mix, I didn't even add any Xanth gum or similar and it was great. Good texture and quite moist. Has lasted well too though Treestump feels the way to eat it is to lick the icing and jam off it and then try and pass off the actual cake to someone else !

 Blowing out the candles.. which made him jump as the additional ones were sparkler candles but they didn't really get going till he tried to blow them!

Today in contrast is my birthday which I am spending quietly at home waiting impatiently for my Kindle which I have treated myself with to turn up.. trouble is it isn't due to be delivered for a week or so yet which is a down side of buying the new hot product !

Now the next question is do I spend the rest of my birthday money on a dehydrator?

Anyway on to the menu which is late this week.
Oh I should also mention it is British Food fortnight so I may possibly have a few extra traditional British dishes this week such as Chip shop fish and chips and dumplings :)

Monday - boys had chicken dippers, smiley faces and peas, I had Dietary Specials sausage rolls instead of chicken dippers. I know not a great meal but the boys love chicken dippers !

Tuesday -Home made chip shop style Fish and chips cos I love then and it's my birthday :) Again very unhealthy but yar boo to that !

Wednesday - cauliflower cheese (which generally involves more vegs than just cauliflower)

Thursday - Chicken noodle soup

Friday - Nice big veg and bean stew - exact ingredients to be decided later ! Served with dumplings.

Baking - cheese scones and I am really tempted to try and make squashed fly biscuits otherwise known as Garibaldi biscuits.

Weekly menu - 6th Sept - 10th Sept

Beach huts at Hengistbury Head.

Taken on summer holiday.

This weeks Gluten Free Menu swap is being hosted over at Gluten Free Smiles who has chosen peaches as this weeks ingredient. As you will see below we tried a new dish last week using peaches and it was good enough to add to my list of dishes to do again. There are also reasonable priced fresh peaches available currently, possibly not actually cheap but they don't actually grow here or at least not outside walled gardens and the occasional other sheltered private house. If anyone grows them for sale in the UK I've never come across them. As a result they aren't something we eat much fresh but we do treat ourselves to a few punnets over the course of the season or nectarines which in some ways I like even more which we almost always eat straight or cut up with berries and cream. As a result we normally only cook with tinned peaches.

So on to the menu
Firstly what we actually had last week.
Monday  using up leftover mince
Tuesday - Lamb chops
 Wednesday -  Pork with peaches and black bean salsa, serve with rice. Quite liked this would do it again. Many people said they used a full tin of black beans and next time I probably will to.
Thursday - Sausage and potato wedges
Friday - Battered fish and boiled new potatoes from the allotment.  Slightly healthier than chips but spoilt but using the remaining batter to do battered mushrooms later that evening !

Rather more meat on there than I like to plan so this week is going to try and balance that out.

Monday - Beef stew (OK the balancing comes later in the week the beef needs using up I am actually planning to cook that Sunday night to eat Monday)

Tuesday - Potato bake (potatoes, egg, milk, onion, possibly a bit of bacon baked in the oven) served with greens.

Wednesday - Salmon stir-fry with noodles

Thursday - Tomato and eggs.

Friday - out and about all day so it will be a grab and run day. I will try and bake some easy to eat bits and pieces in advance.




Baking - cheese biscuits, apple muffins, banana bread.

Dinosaurs ate my tomatoes !

Exhibit one - the tomatoes.

As you can see there are clearly teeth marks on a couple of them. So Treestump who was hovering suspiciously around them was asked. "Are those your teeth marks in the tomatoes?"

Answer " No not my teethmarks !  Dinosaurs !!! "
So there you have it must be true my two and a half year old says so Dinosaurs ate my tomatoes !!

In more likely news I am ridiculously pleased with my baby parsnips which we will have roasted for tea possibly drizzed with honey. Why? Because they are the thinnings from the allotment and I have a good bunch more nicely growing bigger for later in the year. Parsnips are often difficult to get to grown and I have failed on many things growing wise but potatoes and parsnips it seems I can do !

Baby 'Snips, still muddy from the ground.

Also I have a lovely present from a friend.

A purple knife ! What could be better? Cuts nicely too and the cover fits very tightly meaning it could be taken camping and be both safe and unlikely to get it's edge ruined.