when butter hits the fan

It splatters everywhere and it sticks and can't come off curtains or walls easily - I know this because I had to help clean it up after a schoolie was high and went nuts in his apartment. It also generally leaves a mark.

That's how I felt like yesterday. I felt like I had just walked into an "apartment" (my thesis) and had gone nuts with several pats of soft butter, leaving a giant mess everywhere and leaving me to clean it up.

How on earth do you clean that up?

Well, when I was a Red Frogger I was part of a team. We walked into the apartment ready to help; we were cheery and eager so each of us took to a section of the apartment with paper towel to scrape off the butter and then cleaned it with spray.

Last night I just exploded all over my poor housemate (who is also working on her thesis). It's like I walked into the messy thesis and cracked a hissy fit, refusing to clean up the mess that I didn't really create. Not exactly the most mature of reactions.

So what should I do this for my thesis?

As much as I would love to have a whole team work on my thesis, unfortunately I'm not allowed to. But I am allowed to have people feed back on it, so they will make up my team (feel free to volunteer!). I guess the plan is to just take to it one splat of butter at a time - first with paper towel and then with spray - until I have a nice, shiny and clean smelling thesis.

This is what you get if you google "butter sculptures"

Thanks to Anna-Lena and Kara for calming me down from my freak out. And apologies to Erica for ruining your One Tree Hill time.

#thesiscountdown = 17 days

Procrastination Pie

I had one small task for over the weekend - to take the corrections and edits to my methods chapter of my thesis and rework my chapter. Not a big task, one would think...

I didn't finish it**.

I did however manage to clean my room, re-organise my books, go to a party at my Professors house, throw out a whole bunch of stuff, go shopping twice at three different shopping centres, slow cook a lamb roast into a ragu, pick my friend up from the airport, enjoy lunch out with my friends, go to church, plant some plants in the garden, muck about with my Goodreads account, attempt to mow the lawn (the ground was too wet though), watch seven episodes of "The Newsroom", sit in the sun and read books whilst drinking pomegranate tea, re-arrange the furniture in the lounge room only to put it all back in the same place and bake a Roast Pumpkin, Spinach and Ricotta Pie. Even now I am procrastinating from the task; it is Monday morning, I've been at work for an hour now and I've typed one sentence of actual work stuff!

Anita's Procrastination Pie

So as the recipe has been asked for, here it is:

Roast Pumpkin, Spinach and Ricotta Pie with Puff Pastry. 

Pastry
250g butter at room temperature
250g plain flour*
Sea Salt
100mL cold water

1. Chop the butter into cubes, sift flour over the butter, add a decent pinch of sea salt and rub together with fingers but not too well as you should still see chunks of butter. Add the water and combine until you have a firm dough. 
2. Roll out onto bench (you should be able to see streaks of butter throughout the pastry). Fold the bottom third into the centre, followed by the top third, and then half that (ie fold it back into a lump). Roll out again, re-fold and roll out for a third time. 
3. Chill the pastry in the fridge for 30mins
4. Roll out and use for pie (see below)

*the recipe I used called for "strong flour" but I didn't have any so I used ordinary plain flour, which worked out okay. 

Filling
1 large packet of baby spinach (I got the $5 packet from Coles)
1 375g tub of ricotta
1 butternut pumpkin
1 onion
Some garlic
Some nutmeg
Some chilli flakes
2 eggs

1. Dice onion, place in frypan with garlic and a dash of oil, fry until onions start to clear. Add spinach to the frypan and wilt down. Place to the side. 
2. Turn your oven on really hot (I had mine at 250 as that was the hottest it goes). Half your pumpkin length-ways, remove the seeds and place in oven. Bake until you can put your fork easily through the flesh. Remove from oven and scoop out flesh of pumpkin.
3. In a bowl, add cheese, eggs, nutmeg and chilli flakes and mix together. Add the spinach mixture and roasted pumpkin flesh to the cheese.
4. Line your pie dish with pastry, fill with cheese mixture and then top with pastry. Brush top with milk and bake in 200C oven for at least 45mins. 
5. Eat! Best eaten warm, I enjoyed mine with some salad and a glass of wine. 

It's not the worlds prettiest picture, but it tasted AMAZING! 

** Whilst I may not have finished my rework of my methods chapter, I did get through half of it, so it wasn't a complete waste of a weekend... (that's what I'll keep telling myself).

#thesiscountdown = 26 days

Lemon Coconut Biscuits

Long, long time ago, on a post back when, I said that I will be baking my way through the Australian Women's Weekly Big Book of Beautiful Biscuits #thebigbiscuitbakeoff...

Finally I dared to start this enormous challenge, and I think it went well. I don't plan on giving you the recipe, as I think copyright laws would frown upon that, but if you want to make these yourself you can find the recipe on page 35 of the cookbook. But here's some photos of my attempt with some thoughts on them:

1. Cutting out the biscuits was a bit fiddely

2. Brushing them with egg yolk left me with one egg white...

3. Don't make the curd, leave it to cool, and then reheat it... turns a weird green colour. 

The finished product!

Really tasty biscuits, would definitely make them again when I'm in a need of distraction or procrastination. Whilst I baked these biscuits, I also managed to bake two cakes, a loaf of bread and roast some chicken breasts stuffed with cheese and cranberries... Yeah, didn't want to be packing for my trip to Canberra (will upload photos from that later, I promise).

One month until MInfecDis thesis is due #thesiscountdown, am getting slightly worried but I know everything will turn out fine in the end. Can't believe I've almost finished! I'm sure that throughout the next month I will be baking a lot more due to increasing stress and procrastination! Watch this space/hashtag people!