Baking Catch-up

I've not posted about any baking since the disastrous Shrewsbury biscuits, but it has been going on - minus a few photos, sorry!

The next biscuits attempted were Coconut cherry macaroons - delicious! They were great - although I don't really like glace cherries and I made them during our Lent fast of chocolate and alcohol, so they didn't have the dark chocolate drizzled on the top either....but still tasty.

I've then also tried Fudgy nut conversation stoppers

These again went really well although the fudgy almost stained glass windows in the biscuit seemed a bit odd, but were supposed to be there according to the photo in the book!

Then today I tried Rhubarb crumble biscuits as the garden rhubarb is just ready for picking - you can see it just peeping out of the side of the biscuit...

My biscuits seemed a bit misshapen, but there were no photos in the book to guide me - also, the rhubarb is chopped into 1cm pieces and then folded into the rest of the mixture. Although very tasty, it is quite soggy in the biscuit even when fully cooled. This might well be why the recipe says they are best eaten the day they are made. I suspect when I go to the tin in the morning, the rest of the biscuit will be as soggy as the rhubarby bit!

We've also been trying to find recipes to use up veg box veg. Usually we try to be good at using veg box veg, but sometimes there's something we get for 2 or 3 weeks on the trot and just cannot keep up with - beetroot, leeks, courgettes and even pears lately have all been sat lowly rotting in the fridge!

So, with the beetroot I tried beetroot crisps - a good way of using the beetroot and when I get them right they're lovely. But the cooking time seems to be very variable and 2 minutes too long goes from slightly undercooked crisp to burnt nasty. I haven't quite mastered these yet but need to keep trying.

The leek recipe we've found is this one, which is a great leek and smoked salmon tart by James Martin. It does need a few ingredients more than just the leeks, but it is not difficult, very tasty and uses a good 4 leeks.

Pears - hmmmm, just chopped them and popped them in the freezer ready for a pear crumble or (hint, hint), some more pear and vanilla butter.... 1 and a half kilos put away on Friday thank you very much.

And finally courgettes - Leigh made an amazing big breakfast potato and courgette rosti (Good Food magazine this month) to use those up. Potato and courgette rosti with bacon and eggs on the side - yum, yum yum. Only used 1 of the 4 courgettes, but what the hey!!