[my kitchen almost rules]

Well it tasted liked it ruled, but it was almost a disaster... My culinary vision...Ground Beef Roulade infused with spinach cream cheese served with corn on the cob, peas, maple syrup carrots and garnished with potato rosti.

I experienced first hand only a glimpse of the pressure, so sorry, I ain't gonna nominate for any of those cooking shows full stop - and I only had four meals to make, not a dozen - and only one course!!

There was a bit of everything that seems to happen on My Kitchen Rules for me tonight, well, except for me resorting to tears, but then again, my meal was still edible and not a complete failure.

Firstly, I got that glimmer of cooking nirvana where everything goes to plan - the spinach cream cheese with minced garlic, tarragon and basil blended beautifully with the stick mixer (and had a lovely flavour), and then my ground beef mix with fresh breadcrumbs, onion, zucchini, an egg and a dash of the previous herbs came together nicely in the food processor and then rolled out into a nice rectangle without sticking to the rolling pin.

And then my perfect service came crashing down into a flaming heap, literally! Talk about dramas on top of dramas!!! My mince wasn't rolling around the cream cheese tightly enough (I reckon it needed time to refrigerate out flat first), and then when I finally got it to roll, the filling spewed out the ends and on the final join, which was totally NOT what I had in mind. I rolled it using cling film like I'd seen on Masterchef and set it aside in the fridge to firm up. It turned out I really needed to allow another hour for this roll to chill and firm up, but as I wanted the kids to eat before 8.30pm I thought I'd better get onto cooking it after only a measly 10 minutes (in the freezer!)

My next drama was that I didn't have a frypan (or hotplate) big enough to a accommodate my entire 'roll', so I had to straddle a stainless baking dish across two hotplates to fry it off on the outside before putting it in the oven. While holding the baking dish with an oven mitt and attempting to flip/roll the meat over, it flopped onto the other side splashing oil at the back of the stove and onto one of the hotplates...which then caught fire! A quick smother with a tea towel and the cooking could continue. ...and then the top of the roll split open...arghhhh! I carefully drained the excess oil from the baking tray and then disguised the split on the top with some strategically sprinkled mozarella cheese and then put it in the oven.

Fortunately my roll of meat 'set' so I could cut a large slice for each plate, and thankfully the veggies weren't an issue, as they steamed perfectly in the microwave.

I did have one major technique that was a big success though - my potato rosti. After peeling the spuds I used the potato peeler to make 'shavings' and then splashed some vinegar on top and gave it a good mix up. Just like lemon juice, the acidity of the vinegar ensured the potato didn't turn brown before I got to fry it off in 'clumps' of golden crunchiness.

I guess this meal was just fancy meatloaf with veggies and crispy chips, but hubby and I thought it tasted fabulous. The kids weren't entirely convinced though, oh well, sometimes you've just gotta give it a go. Don't know if I'll bother with such fussiness again, as plated up it didn't look all that spectacular; but I'm mostly glad there wasn't a film crew following me around! Here's to experiments in the kitchen!! ;)

[greenhouse mods]

South-east Queensland's climate and my new greenhouse didn't see eye-to-eye...it was just way too hot in there for my poor plants, so I had to quickly make some mods!

Firstly within a couple of days after building it I cut a back door in, and didn't zip up the front and kept it open. A few days later I could see the plants were still not happy despite being well watered. So mod 2 came into play ... I added some shade cloth inside (zip tied to the frame). A few days later I thought the plants would be happy again...but alas, no. Time for mod 3 - I installed a sunroof! (Basically I cut open the roof and folded it back.) The new ventilation lowered the overall temperature, and with a few rainy days about it also meant the universe watered both sides of the greenhouse where my plants were! Win win!

[my little greenhouse]

I'm a bit surprised how much I'm enjoying gardening ... I guess because it's exercise with the bonus of a nice garden ... I've always been a multi-tasking kinda girl.

Over the last couple of years I've been growing cuttings and collecting a few seeds after things have flowered - so far I've just been propagating plants for around my garden - and the challenge of seeing what grows and what doesn't has been rewarding. The added bonus is that it costs me next to nothing... there's nothing I hate more than buying a plant that goes and dies on me! To keep things nice and cheap I just kept recycling pots from the few plants I have bought over the years; but now I'm really getting into it, I've run out of pots! Not to be beaten, I started recycling our empty 2L milk bottles (my boys drink so much, if we had a paddock, I'd consider a house cow!). Every other day when we finish a bottle, I wash it out, cut the bottom off, drill a few drainage holes, and 'voila' a free pot!

I'm not a total scrooge though, and I did lash out last week when a special became available at an online store, and bought a little 1.5m square greenhouse. My little greenhouse arrived during the week and yesterday afternoon I played garden Mecchano and put all the bits together to build it. Today I've gone around my garden beds and collected all the little pots I had, including some orchids and other plants I'm babysitting while my Mum is away travelling. It's all looking a bit professional now, so my vague plan of putting up my excess plants for sale online for a bit of holiday pocket money is looking closer to becoming a reality!

[secret garden orchids]

I love orchids, and these little beauties are in full flower right now. What's especially good is that they last a few weeks. :)

[butterflies & dessert]

I'm getting back into the groove of home baking for school lunches ... and made the cutest butterfly cupcakes today ... and as an added bonus, they're sugar free! I used Xylitol in the recipe instead of sugar, and dusted the top with Stevia (Stevia was also used to sweeten the whipped cream). I can't say the whipped cream is super healthy, but it's a teaspoon's worth, so not too much, and it's oh so delish, and so light and fluffy.

I used my favourite Patty Cake recipe from my Grade 9 cookbook, Everyday Cookery (by Helen Bunney) ... I keep going back to this resource ... just back-to-basics cooking, it's great, no frills, just practical recipes with ordinary ingredients. As a personal triumph, I think I've finally found the technique to get these little beauties so they work every time ... a food processor to mix everything together! I don't know what is different to using my electric beaters, but it just seems to turn out so light and fluffy using the food processor. Maybe I've just had dodgy beaters all this time? Who knew? I thought it was the oven that was too hot/not hot enough that made my previous attempts little lumps of lead. Apparently not.

An accidental dessert...

I had some ripe bananas in the fruit bowl, so was contemplating making banana cake to use these up. I also had some mangoes (from the tree in our backyard) that were starting to get almost past their use by date, and thought, 'I wonder if I swapped mango for the banana would it work?' Feeling brave after the cupcakes turned out so well, I decided to bite the bullet and give it a go.

My mango cake turned out quite dense, and I sandwiched it with a whipped cream filling ... which looked pretty, but was a bit too strong (flavour-wise) on it's own. I was a little disappointed, and thought I'd serve it up as dessert with a scoop of vanilla ice cream - it was just what was needed to balance out the stronger taste of the pudding/cake. Winner! And there are 10 more servings in a container in the freezer for us to enjoy periodically over the coming weeks. Happy days.