The Darking Cook's Challenge July 2010

This month's challenge was an interesting and completely unexpected one, we had to make our own nut butter. What is a nut butter you ask? Well, think of peanut butter and then apply that to other nuts. You choose the type of nut (e.g., peanuts, walnuts, cashews, pecans, almonds, hazelnuts, macadamias, etc.). Then puree the nuts into a paste or butter.

Once we had decided on what nut butter to make we had to then use the nut butter in at least one savoury dish and an optional desert.

As this month the World Cup soccer is on I decided to try to use my nut butter in at least one South African dish. After much searching I settled on a curry for my savoury dish (not South African but we enjoy eating curries in South Africa) and then a traditional Melktert for my desert.

The Darking Baker's Challenge June 2010

My second Daring Baker's challenge was another recipe that I have always wanted to try but had never had a reason to... pavlovas... Not the usual kind mind you, chocolate ones, with mascarpone mousse and mascarpone cream!

I have to admit that at first I was a little disappointed with the challenge this month. It is the World Cup after all and I was hoping that the challenge would either be something South African or soccer orientated however once I got over my initial disappointment I decided to challenge myself and adapt the challenge to make it fit in with the World Cup.

The Darking Cook's Challenge June 2010

This month was my very first Daring Cook's challenge and after completing my first Daring Baker's challenge I was really excited to see what this challenge would bring.

Our hostesses this month, Evelyne of Cheap Ethnic Eatz, and Valerie of a The Chocolate Bunny, chose delicious pate with freshly baked bread as their June Daring Cook’s challenge! They’ve provided us with 4 different pate recipes to choose from and are allowing us to go wild with our homemade bread choice.

The hostesses did a lot of research this month as to exactly what does and does not constitute a pâté as there seems to be so many interpretations. During their research they also came across the term “terrine” quite a lot, and in a lot of cases, the two words appeared to be interchangeable. Technically, a terrine is a baking recipient, usually ceramic or porcelain, with a lid – but it can also refer to the contents of the recipient. Some of the pâtés they looked at were designed to be unmolded onto a dish and then sliced, while others were meant to be left in the jar or baking dish they were prepared in, and merely used as a spread.

Happy Home

A dear friend of mine recently bought her very first house and as a housewarming gift I decided that I wanted to give her something more meaningful than a dish for her kitchen or something along those lines and so I did a bit of reasearch into traditional housewarming gifts.

I found two websites that gave me an idea (I forgot to take down the urls before closing the sites so if you recognise them please let me know so I can give credit):