Halloween Nails

Halloween might be my favorite chance to do themed nails each year! The students in my classes always enjoy them and I love doing something a bit spooky and fun. This year I've gone for some eyes in the dark and thought I would show you all how easy it is!

You will need a just a few things for this look:

• Base and top coat
• White polish
• Black Polish
• Red Polish
• Green Sharpie
• Detail brush

I use gel polish, so the colours I have chosen are from Gelish, Gelish Mini and IBD, but this would work exactly the same way as regular polish, except with the gel you don't need to wait for it to dry between layers.

1. Apply a black base to the thumb, forefinger and pinky. Apply a white base to the middle and ring finger. For me and the colours I was using I had 3 layers of black and 2 of the white. 

2. Using the Sharpie, draw the eyes over the white base. I didn't wipe the sticky layer off and I was happy with how it turned out, but you might like to wipe off the sticky layer. If using regular polish you need to be very sure the white polish is totally dry.  I drew the eyes on by doing the side and base like a triangle and joining them with a slightly curved line before filling them in using a stippling kind of motion to avoid streaks. 

3. Next I added the pupils using red polish and the detail brush and cured it (or allow to dry somewhat). 

4. Using the same brush I outlined the eyes and then carefully filled in the rest of the white space. If you are using regular polish, you might be able to do this in one coat, I needed to apply two coats to cover the white fully.

                                                   

5. Carefully apply top coat to give a nice shine to the look. This could also look really cool with a matte top coat everywhere except the actual eyes!

And that's it! Using the sharpie made this design really fast and easy. Especially when doing my bad hand, where I always have trouble doing details like the curve of the eye. 

Are you doing anything fun on your nails for Halloween? Link me to it if you are, I'd love to see what you do!

Seared Scallops With Creamy White Wine Sauce

So yesterday I went to Costco and finally got some of the sea scallops I have been seeing each time I go.
They come in a 900 gram bag for about $42 at the moment, although they were cheaper near Christmas so I guess they were on special or the price fluctuates according to season (which is what I hope, it makes me think they are fresher if they aren't kept long enough to avoid seasonal prices!).
I had seen this video from Foodwishes on Youtube a while ago and thought it looked so good. So I made my own. I didn't follow the recipe exactly, but it is very similar.

                                    

Ingredients (serves two):

•  6 sea scallops
• pasta (mine was a mix of spaghetti and linguine), I use the measuring thing at the top of the container to measure how much.
• 2 garlic cloves crushed, chopped or grated. 
• Dry white wine, I used around 3/4 of a cup I think. 
• 3 heaping tablespoons of cream, I used the Philly cream for cooking because I was too scared to have it separate and ruin the very expensive scallops!
• Parsley, however much you like, I used about 2 cm worth of that bunch, chopped. 
• Oil, butter, salt, pepper, chili flakes, Parmesan and lemon juice as you see fit. 

Method:

1. Defrost the scallops on a rack over a plate to allow any excess moisture to drain. Rinse and dry them VERY thoroughly.
2. Season Scallops with salt and pepper.
3. Boil water and have pasta boiling before starting anything else as it all cooks very fast once you get started.Always check on it, turn it off when slightly underdone and leave in the pot or drain when done and have ready to add to the sauce.  
4. Heat a fry pan with some oil to a very high heat and carefully add the scallops. Leave in the pan without moving for about 1 and half minutes, or a tiny bit more, for each side. All the recipes I read said one minute, but I felt that mine were a little under done and they were in there for a bit over a minute each side.
   
5. Remove the scallops and set aside. Turn the temperature down and add the butter and garlic.
6. Before the garlic has a chance to crisp, add the wine and chili and allow to simmer. 
7. Add the cream and lemon juice and simmer to your desired consistency (this happened in the time it took me to get an extra dollop of cream and some more lemon juice, it's very fast if your pan was really hot to start with). Turn heat right down.
   
8. Add the pasta and parsley and stir through to heat pasta if it has been out of the pot.
9. Serve the pasta on plates with salad, with the scallops on top and some Parmesan cheese!
   

This was a really yummy and fast meal. I think it would be excellent for a dinner party as it is quite fancy, but doesn't require a lot of work and isn't overly filling, meaning more room for appetizers and desserts! 

The Scallops were excellent I think (not that I have a lot of experience) but I found they have a nice mild taste and are really sweet. They were not rubbery or chewy, but did not fall apart either. 

Sushi with the Sushezi

A favourite meal for us is our home made sushi. I have a kitchen contraption specifically for the job called the Sushezi, it basically allows you to get the placement of ingredients right and squash everything together a lot more easily than you would be able to by hand. You can really put whatever ingredients in it you want, this is just what we do. It kind of developed over time and now we always just have the same fillings because we luff it.

Ingredients:
Sushi Rice (any short grain works)
Sushi seasoning
Kewpie Mayo
Cucumber
Packet cheddar cheese or cheese sticks
Avocado
Seafood sticks
Nori Sheets
Spray oil

1. Wash and cook the rice according to instructions. I like to use my microwave rice cooker for this job. After cooking add a good amount (I think the original recipe I used had about 1/4 cup listed, but now I just add and taste) of the seasoning to the rice and refrigerate while you get the other ingredients ready, so it is not too hot to handle.

2.Slice up everything into strips.

3.Open up the Sushezi, spray lightly and press rice into both sides. Use the stick part (technical term) to press a dent into each side to put the fillings in.

4. Add your fillings, snap the Sushezi shut and use the stick to press everything together.

5. Press out the rice roll onto your Nori sheet. Roll it up adding water as needed to soften the seaweed and stick it together around the roll.

6. Wrap tightly in cling wrap and refrigerate until cold.

7. Unwrap, slice, serve!

We also made some 'free form' sushi piles with the left overs that we ate while waiting for the rolls to cool down.

Mini Savory Tarts

Yesterday was the hen's night for one of my best friends from my cheer days. Instead of bringing gifts, everyone brought a dish to share and the recipe so she could make a scrapbook of them to keep. Such a cute idea and a way for everyone to give something meaningful and lasting. 

This particular recipe is great because it's so easily changed to suit whatever you like. I imagine it could even be made sweet with some vanilla in the cheese mix and something fruity on top!

Basic Tartlets (makes 48+ in mini quiche tins)

6 egg yolks

250gm Mascarpone cheese

1/3-1/2 block cream cheese

Salt

Pepper

Puff pastry

1. Pre-heat oven to 200c, lightly grease mini muffin tins.
2. In a bowl add egg yolks, mascarpone and chopped, soft cream cheese and whisk until smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste.
3. Cut circles of puff pastry to fit muffin tins and press in.
   
   
4. Add fillings and bake for 15-20 mins (or more) until golden.  Be careful of over-filling at the egg mix does expand a bit.

 Caramelized Onion Filling

1/4-1/3 block of butter

2-3tbsp sugar

4 onions, quartered and sliced

Cherry tomatoes, halved and de-seeded

Good quality pesto

1.   Melt butter in a heavy based pan over medium heat.
   
2.  Add chopped onions and stir to coat.
   
3.  Maintain a medium heat and stir occasionally; you may like to drain excess oil at times.
   
4.  When the onions have begun to turn golden brown add sugar, 1 tbsp at a time to help the process. Give each spoon several minutes to mix and cook down to avoid over sweetening.
   
5.  Set aside in a bowl lined with paper towel to cool when golden brown and sweet to taste.
6. Spoon onion mix into tartlets, top with cheese mix, pesto and tomatoes to garnish before baking.
   

Marinated Feta and Capsicum Filling

Yarra Valley Marinated feta, crumbled

Marinated roasted capsicum strips

1. Spoon in cheese mix, top with capsicum and crumbled feta before baking.
   
    

Easiyo Yogurt- Home Made Yoghurt

Today I had a lovely trip down the Smith's Beach at Philip Island. It was busy, but not TOO busy. It was actually a nice amount of people to watch surfing and snorkeling etc, without everyone being on top of each other. If I was a better blogger I would have taken photos. But I didn't...oops. This might have been somewhat related to the downside of my day which was the large filling I had to get in the morning. The dentist was great and it didn't hurt at the time but has been very uncomfortable all day since the anesthetic wore off.  So dinner today will be some home made yogurt, jam and berries so that there is minimal chewing involved.

I thought I would share my recipe with you while I'm at it. I got this from another blog some time ago and I can't seem to find the same one any more. THIS blog looks like it has a similar recipe however and a few variations such as coconut milk which might be very tasty to try out. My recipe varies only slightly in that I will use a couple tablespoons of sachet mix (eg. Easiyo mix or similar) to get the culture in there.

Home-Made Yogurt
just under 1L milk (I use long life)
100g milk powder
2 Tablespoons yogurt mix.

1. Whisk your powders with about 1/4 - 1/2 the milk until it is dissolved. 
   
2. Add the rest of the milk and whisk again.
   
3. Boil water and fill your Easiyo thermos to the fill line.
   
   
   
   
   
4. Put the lids on and wait 8 hours or so until your desired taste and consistency is achieved. Move to chill in the refrigerator. 
   
5. Eat with yummy toppings!
   

The current batch I have isn't my best. I didn't measure out my milk powder and used too much I think as I used half a sachet of vanilla yogurt to get the nice flavour...that is also quite old powder that has been sitting open in the fridge for some time. Also I left it for longer than normal. So many reasons for the strange texture I got, kind of gooey like honey but thicker. It taste really nice those, just a nice mild not too sweet vanilla. Of course once you add all the jam and fruit like me the 'lower sugar' reasoning is redundant. 

If you have never tried making yogurt before I highly recommend the Easiyo maker. It's easy and cheap and so much nicer than store bought!