peanut butter cookies

The combination of two of my favourite foods - cookies and peanut butter.

***
peanut butter cookies

oven:
150 degrees Celsius
fan forced

ingredients:
makes 40 cookies

• 1 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 1/2 cup plain flour, sifted
• 1/2 tsp baking powder, sifted
• pinch of salt
• 100 grams unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 1/2 heaped cup crunchy peanut butter
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 - 3/4 cups toasted peanuts, crushed

method:
1. Put oats, flour and baking powder in a small mixing bowl and leave aside. Cream the butter and sugars until pale in colour and turns light and fluffy.

2. Add in the peanut butter and beaten egg and stir until combined.

3. Add in the crushed peanuts and oats mixture. Stir to combine.

4. Roll 1 Tb of dough into a ball and flatten with your hand. Place cookies on a lined baking tray.

5. Bake for 13-15 minutes or until golden brown in colour.

grub in a newsletter

Hate it when the mail gets all crinkly! Mail box is too small...

A fair few months ago, I was asked by Tsunagaaru staff if I could allow them to publish one of my articles I posted on the forum (which they will shorten) in a newsletter. It was nothing bad, and my net friend on Tsunagaaru had already said yes, I said yes immediately to stop any delays.

Saying yes, we both had to fill in a questionnaire and survey about our experiences of the forum. It was actually pretty easy to do.

Message - click to enlarge

I was really surprised to see a letter from The Japan Forum with a thank-you note attached to two copies of the newsletter. Actually, I was going to go online and have a look, but it was really nice that they sent me hard copies of the magazine.

Although has nothing to do with this blog, I hope it's a small step to future publications.

Part of my article - click to enlarge

My article was about Australian schools which my net friend found interest in and decided to post a comment, which followed a series of comments after.

Tsunagaaru is a really good place to study Japanese especially if you're in school (since you need to be a student to participate). You can read about Japanese student's lives, read about other students living in other countries and even post your own story! A bit like blogging, however there are a few rules to abide to.

I highly recommend you join this forum to learn Japanese :)

Grub was featured in The Japan Forum's 国際文化フォーラム通信 No. 85 2010 January Edition page 13. If you are interested, the newsletter can be found and read here.

coconut ice - coincidentally the italian flag

It was a Friday afternoon, and I remembered I promised Magster that I'd bake her something from last year. Unfortunately exams and homework was in the way and never had the chance to do so.

I have free periods on a Friday afternoon which means I can go home during lunch. I didn't feel like baking, so I decided to make her coconut ice instead.

See the Italian flag? Hint: Look back right.

Coconut ice is like a 2 coloured layer confection consisting of desiccated coconut, icing sugar and condense milk as it's core ingredients. I didn't want to make the traditional 2 coloured layer coconut ice, so I made a 3 layered one! Coincidentally I only had pink and green food colouring, so the Italian flag it was (only the real Italian flag is red on the side and not pink).

I reduced the sugar by half as I thought it was too sweet if I added the whole amount in. Note that condense milk contains sugar as well. Also didn't want my friends to overdose on sugar and go hypo in class and I felt that it was sweet but not over whelming sweet. Feel free to adjust to your taste buds.

***
coconut ice
adapted from quick and easy coconut ice

ingredients:
makes 20 x 20 cm cake tin

• 1 cup icing sugar
  (originally 2 cups)
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 395 mL can condense milk
• 4 cups desiccated coconut
• few drops of food colouring (optional)

method:

1. Put icing sugar, cream of tartar, vanilla essence in a mixing bowl. Add in condense milk and stir to combine. Add in the coconut and stir to form a ball.

2. Divide the mixture into 3 parts and knead in food colouring to your own liking. Knead until colour is evenly spread.

3. Line a 20 x 20 cm cake tin with baking paper and press one coloured mixture at the bottom until even. Repeat for the remaining colours.

4. Wrap and refrigerate until firm and cut into desired size.

***

Lizzie said the coconut ice looked like mini water melons.

What do you think? Italian flag or watermelons?