Happy Christmas!

Well I've been up to my eyes in the Christmas run-up, this is the first minute I've had to get online!

I will have plenty of recipes and posts after the festivities, but for now I will just post a bit about the wedding cake I put together for my brother and his now wife, for their wedding which was held in Markree Castle last weekend... 

Here it is!

Thankfully it all went smoothly, metaphorically and literally, with only a few bumps in the icing! The tiers were all different, with the brides mothers famous fruit cake on the bottom, and then I made a chocolate orange cake for the top tier and a chocolate biscuit cake using my own recipe for the middle! All went down a treat! 

I will post the chocolate biscuit recipe soon, I'll need to make it again to see how much of everything I put in, its my own recipe that I put together as I always find other biscuit cakes too buttery and sickly sweet... 

But for now you'll have to make do with a picture!  Happy Christmas Everyone!!!!

And of course BEST WISHES TO MY LOVELY BROTHER FERGAL AND HIS GORGEOUS NEW WIFE CAT!!

Ten on ten.... December

Woooooo! I'm actually posting this ON TIME!!!

Here it is... my contribution to the Ten on ten project for December...

Betty Spaghetti!

I had some pastry left over last week after a gorgeous Sunday lunch that I will tell you about soon.  I also had some cooked spaghetti in my fridge. So hoping to use up one or the other I then suddenly remembered a post I'd seen over at Michelles brilliant blog !

It was for something called Spaghetti Pie, which looked really delicious, done in the oven encased in cheese and sauce! With my leftover pastry though, I thought "I wonder if I could wrap spaghetti in pastry?" for an actual Spaghetti Pie! Only one way to find out... 

Needless to say it was delicious, pasta - good, pastry - good, cheese - good, I mean whats not to like! The leftovers the next day were even better and I would make this again for a picnic to have cold with salad, which is how I ate the leftover slice and it was delicious.

Here is the recipe in case you ever fancy a slice of Spaghetti Pie.  Take it as a rough guide only, you can do this with any combination you like!

Spaghetti Pie

You'll need

300gms cooked spaghetti

400gms minced meat

150gms chopped tomatoes

1 chilli pepper, chopped finely

1 tbsp tomato puree

1 onion, chopped

125gms parmesan

125gms Philidelphia cheese

125gms grated cheddar

Leftover Pastry, either puff or shortcrust is fine

Method

Heat the pan and add a dash of olive oil.  Fry the onions, chilli and garlic with the meat until nice and brown,  add the tomatoes and the puree.  Add the parmesan.

Remove from the heat. 

With a scissors, chop the spaghetti into small pieces, maybe 4cms.  Stir into the sauce.

Line your pie dish with pastry and spread the philidelphia cheese thickly on the bottom, cover with the spaghetti mix and top with the cheddar.  

Brush milk around the sides of the pie and cover with more pastry.  Prick this top and decorate if you wish. Brush with beaten egg and bake until golden brown.  

Yawn!

Ooh I have been asleep! So I shall get back into what may turn out to be a flurry of posts by playing a quick game of Tag... I have stolen this from my friend Lisa on Facebook, but sure its all in the name of fun!!

Rules:
* Grab the book closest to you. Now.
* Go to page 56.
* Find the 5th sentence.
* Write that sentence as your status.
* Copy these instructions as a comment to your status.
* Don't go looking for your favourite book, or the coolest one you have -- just grab the closest one.

*Post your sentence to your blog and reference back to me! 

My offering is "Name association was big, as were my presumed interests in vaudeville and politics"

Come on - PLAY!!!

If anyone knows what that is a quote from they get extra kudos!!! ;-)