Retro Recipe: French Egg Casserole

One of the retro cook books from my collection is ‘The Nancy Spain All Colour Cookery Book’. I like the little anecdotes that Nancy shared along with her recipes:

“Well, Stirling Moss and I once argued passionately about Welsh rarebits all one evening. Stirling (like the late Charles Dickens) adores toasted cheese and swears it isn’t indigestible…”

I wonder if ol’ Stirling would like the recipe of Nancy’s that I decided to share? Maybe not, as it doesn’t have cheese in it.

French Egg Casserole.
1/2 pound medium sized onions, sliced
2 tablespoons butter
2 level tablespoons cornflower
1 pint milk
salt & pepper
dash of grated nutmeg
4 hard-boiled eggs
2 tablespoons white wine

Sauté the sliced onions gently in the butter, until tender but not browned. Add the cornflower and mix well. Gradually add the milk and cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring frequently. Season and add white wine. Cut each hard-boiled egg into 4 pieces lengthwise. Reserving some for decoration, mix remainder into sauce. Pour gently into a small casserole and top with egg, chopped parsley or browned onion rings.

Did you know: Nancy Spain’s Great Aunt was Mrs Beeton.

Miniature and Mini-Books. Part 1.

I love books. Books on all kinds of things; cooking, crafts, fiction, picture books and so many more. I collect a few different types, one I have already mentioned is Retro Craft and Cooking books. Another, is mini-books or miniature books. Most of these books, according to those in know, are less than 3 inches tall. I have a couple in that size range and some that are about 3.8 inches tall. I’m going to feature those books, plus share some interesting links in a series of posts.

The first is titled Gardens. It is 3.8 inches tall and was published in 1995. The reason why it is one of my favourite mini-books is due to the gorgeous pop-ups and the tiny envelope with gift card which allows you to sign the book if you give it as a gift. I found my copy at a second-hand book sale and it is one of my favourites. You can see images of this mini-book below.


I found some lovely links about miniature and mini-books, and will share them throughout this series. The first batch are below. Enjoy!

Books Are Good

Books are good. Very, very good.

I collect retro craft and cooking books and especially love to find books that have an inscription, notes, pieces of paper marking pages etc. One such book is below. It is ‘Modern Gelatine Cookery’ and has an inscription to Elizabeth from her Mama and was given as a present at Christmas in 1973. I like to find books like this and keep them cherished.

My Five Favourite Eurovision Songs

For Pip’s Five Favourites, I thought I would share videos of my five favourite songs from Eurovision 2010. The year I finally picked the winner! Straight after watching Eurovision, I went onto iTunes and bought these five songs, I loved them so much! In no particular order:

1. Lena – Satellite (Germany) and the Winner! Yay!

2. Hera Björk – Je Ne Sais Quoi (Iceland)

3. SunStroke Project & Olia Tira – Run Away (Moldova)

4. Juliana Pasha – It’s All About You (Albania)

5. Josh Dubovie – That Sounds Good To Me (United Kingdom)

I love collecting!

Above is a blurry, but artistic (yes?) photo of some of our collection of things. On a very cool, retro wicker shelfy thing. If you squint, you can kinda make out some of my squirrels, my Japanese Kitty bowls, a lucky Cat, my London bus collection, a retro clock from my Mum & Dad and some of my plastic fruit. I lurve me some plastic fruit. And miniature food, but that’s another story. Oh! – and you can see my cow milk jug! I looked for that for ages and was quite chuffed when I found one!

Can you spy our faboo flower lights in the back? They are from Ikea and are so pretty. I want some fairy lights too, to hang around my desk. The shiny and sparkly is always good!

On another note, what are some of the regular meme type things that bloggers do every week? I’m out of touch and would love to know what is around now. Share?

Playing with Hipstamatic

I recently found some old scrapbook stickers or stencils that I bought in the late 80s. I’m not totally sure what they were called, if they have a proper name. They are a sheet of images that you cut out and then glue to your scrapbook or letters.

Spying them on my desk I took some photos and played with one of my favourite apps, Hipstamatic. Love, love this app, you can get some really fun photo affects with it. It really is worth the money if you like taking photos with your iPhone.

Cooking Time!

The collage above shows some of the things I’ve been cooking lately. The first four are from when I cooked Chinese Barbecue Chicken & Pork. I didn’t follow a recipe, as is typical for me most of the time. In this dish I used some pork rashers (spare ribs without the bone), broccoli, beans, chinese vegies and some chinese barbecue sauce. Very tasty!

*The photo with me taking a water chestnut from the tin is because I like eating them straight from the tin (as well as the baby corn). Nom. I also nibble frozen peas, frozen chips and raw vegies while cooking. Yes, I can be strange. woo!

The next four photos are from my cooking of a treat for my Husband’s Birthday.  He requested Shadrani Fish from Consuming Passions (Book II) which has white fish fillets, eggplant and tomatoes with seasonings. To serve with it, I made a Potatoe & Pea curry. I did follow the recipe for the fish but the potatoe & pea curry was my own.

The last photo is of the cake my darling Husbitect wanted; The Cherpumple! Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the same pies or cake mixes as used in the recipe. I baked an apple pie in a vanilla cake mix which turned out lovely. The only non-apple pie I could find was a berry crumble. I baked that in a butter cake mix. Crumbles don’t like to be Cherpumples. They go all gooey. Oh well, it’ll make a nice crumble on its own. I frosted the apple pie cake with vanilla frosting and it was all good. Yay for making tasty cakes! I will however, be attempting the Cherpumple again! I must make the whole thing.

The video for The Cherpumple, by Charles Phoenix is a must see. Trust me, you will love this. I know!

Tea Time

Long time, no updates = bad Alysha.

Hoping to really get back into blogging after a very long break. Not just the odd entry but at least an entry every two or so days. How do you get back into blogging after a long break, any tips?

Had a lovely Christmas and New Years. Shall try to do a post covering that at a later date. I have photos, just haven’t written about them yet. We spent some time over the last couple of months visiting op shops and antique stores admiring expensive things and buying a few more affordable items. I’ve mentioned my love of vintage cook books here before, and I am happy that my hubby also enjoys them and loves to find some classics as much as I do!

More posts to come on Christmas, New Year, craftyness and vintage yummies!

My Place and Yours

That’s nyoice, that’s different, that’s unewesyewl!
Theme by Little Suitcase.

noice

Last week’s theme was about quirky features in your home. The one above is a quirky feature in ours (rental). The pantry cupboard has a door knob on the inside as well as the outside. And it has a lock. That’s right, you can lock yourself in the pantry cupboard.

Maybe the person who installed the extra door knob wanted to sit in the shelves and pretend to be a packet of flour. Or perhaps they had a secret identity and liked to hang upside down in dark places like a fruit bat. Whatever the reason they would have to been very tiny as there is not much room for a person in there. The mind boggles.

To play along, visit the lovely Pip!

My Place And Yours : Blog Headquarters

Eeeyha! Posting to you from alyshajane.com’s secret headquarters, complete with lots of pink, kitty and squirrel things. These are all required as alyshajane herself is powered by copious amounts of pink and cuteness. Amongst other things. This post is for Pip’s My Place and Yours. The theme this week comes from Ninon.
Click to see a bigger version (opens in new window):alyshajane.com HQ

For this photo I tried my hand at panography, a technique that gives a wide-angle view of a scene comprised of many photos. Like photo stitching, except you can see the joins. I’ve always liked this technique and now that I’ve had a go, I can see many more in my future. You can find a panography tutorial at Photojojo & more examples at Flickr.

The three white squirrels in the front aren’t normally in front of my keyboard; cute as they are, they’d make typing a bit difficult. My lovely hubby just bought them for me while we were out doing grocery shopping. Whenever he hears me take a sharp and awe-struck breath or shriek “Eeeeee” he knows that I have spotted either Kitty or Squirrel cuteness. If I see both together at one time, I’d possibly pass out from glee.

P.S: I recently tried making a video of my desk/blog HQ which you can see on Flickr.

What's hot + what's not

Time for another round of What’s Hot + What’s Not.

Hot.

Gems

* Little Gems. Organic chocolate drops in pretty pastel colours. Bonus is the pretty box.
I would have taken a photo of the gems themselves except they’ve all been eaten. Oops. Maybe next time.

Palazzo

* Palazzo biscuits from Aldi. Scrumptious butter cookies covered in dark chocolate.
These are seriously good, our current fav amongst chocolate biccies. And they have pictures of various architecturally famous buildings on them. On this biscuit is St. Marks Square in Venice (or so I am told). Which is upside down in this photo whoops. (Upside down, Miss Jane!)

* Thursday night means “Costa’s Garden Odyssey!” Tonight he visits the community garden in Katoomba, in the Blue Mountains. Plus there are VIKINGS! So excited.

Not Hot.

* Email spam and adverts all over web sites. I especially dislike the animated ads and the ones that have videos that suddenly pop out over what you’re reading. V. annoying.

* It’s stopped raining. It is getting closer to the hot summer weather. Not good. I want winter back again.

* Viruses. Hubby is not feeling well today and might be coming down with a cold or flu. Begone, bad cold – leave my husband alone!