I have a gorgeous friend called Amanda who has a cat. Her cat however is not your ordinary cat. You see he has an adventurous life of his own. A few months ago he was was the victim of a recent attempted catnapping. It all started when Amanda’s cat went missing for a few days. Amanda knows the life that her cat leads and that he usually comes home but a few days did seem a tad too long. Suddenly days turned into a week and she started to get worried and put out feelers for her cat.
One day out of the blue, she received a call from a vet. It turned out that a woman who was holidaying in Sydney had taken a liking to Amanda’s cat and started feeding him. When the woman’s mother arrived in Sydney, they both decided that Amanda’s cat was so adorable that his new home was back at their home in Tweed Heads and booked a ticket for the cat to come home with them the following day. What foiled them in their catnapping attempt was that they took the cat to a vet to get some shots!
Thankfully, the vet was suspicious and decided to check on the moggy’s microchip details. Amanda’s details came up and she called her and their plot to kidnap him was blown apart! And the cat’s name? Biscuit (who has his own twitter account @biscuit_thecat).
These biscuits or cookies are really for Biscuit the cat in a way. You see they’re travelling cookies or condensed milk cookies that I originally saw on Cakelaw’s blog . I have a serious love for sweetened condensed milk and I was a bit smitten by this old fashioned cookie. They are easy to make and need no eggs - therefore they’re perfect for travelling! They texture of these is very much like cookies from yesteryear. As much as I love oatmeal cookies or those giant choc chip and macadamia cookies, sometimes a cookie’s best role in a performance is to dunk in a cup of milky tea or with a cup of coffee.
I should really rename these “The Travelling Biscuit” cookie shouldn’t I? 
So tell me Dear Reader, what is something that you always take with you when you travel? And what is your favourite mode of travelling? Car, train, bus or plane?
Travelling Cookies
- 225g butter or margarine
- 4 tablespoons condensed milk
- 1 1/2 cups self raising flour (or add 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder to the same quantity of plain flour if you don’t have self raising flour)
- 1/2 cup custard powder
- 1/2 cup white sugar for rolling
Combining the custard powder and flour with the beaten butter and sweetened condensed milk
1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Beat together the butter and condensed milk in a bowl. Sift together the custard powder and flour in a separate bowl, then combine with the butter mixture until a soft dough forms.
2. Roll teaspoons of the dough into balls, then roll in white sugar. Place balls about one inch apart on a lined baking sheet, then flatten slightly with a fork.
3. Bake the biscuits in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes or until cooked through. Cool on the baking tray.
|
May 16th, 2013
by Not Quite Nigella
The writing process is a perplexing one. I was recently asked what my writing method was and I found it difficult to describe. I suppose it helps that I’m on the garrulous side of talkative and if you get me started on anything to do with food, you’ll either have to feign having another appointment or hope that an eagle swoops into the room and carries you away…
The person enquiring suggested that I tended to write about significant events in my life and that’s true. And the significant things in my life, not surprisingly, relate to food. There was one time when we visited Taiwan. Our parents had booked us a tour on a bus-as my father is somewhat of a recluse and would prefer to do nothing, my mother realised that being forced to do things on a tour was the only way to leave the hotel room. I knew it was a bad sign when the driver get off the bus to pray for a while before we set off.
“Why is the bus driver praying” I asked my father.
“Because we’re going up a big mountain and the bus could fall over the cliff and die” my father said matter of factly.
“But then why is there a rainbow?” I asked because I always thought that when there were rainbows, bad things didn’t happen.
It was the most panicked I had ever felt and for the next few hours we sat in the coach with it winding around and around the mountain. I leaned as far right as I could just in case my weight might cause us to tip over and send us plummeting into the abyss. To quieten us down father slipped us a Toberlone-my favorite chocolate bar as a child. It was Swiss and I liked the book Heidi. Heidi lived in Switzerland which was so far away and had snow plus she got to eat the most divine soft white bread rolls…you get the drift right? With all of centrifugal forces at work, I started to get rather sick to my stomach and hours later we finally reached the top.
My stomach was still doing swirls around the mountain and I staggered from the bus into the restaurant looking like a slightly tipsy elf clutching my stomach. They deposited us all around a huge table for the large group of us and I sat next to my mother. Someone swirled the Lazy Susan in the centre pouring and passing tea for everyone and I looked around for a bathroom panicked as my stomach did Olympic level triple somersaults. I clutched my mother’s arm.
“Mummy, I don’t feel…”
And then The Exorcist happened. I released a torrent of Toblerone and lunch all over the table. Up until then I had never projectile vomited but my stomach was still swirling and so were its contents. Everyone else was caught up with being horrified – understandably, a small child had just vomited all over their dinner table. I don’t recall what happened immediately afterwards although I do recall going back to the hotel room with my parents and being given a small box of dumplings by a fellow bus goer who poked her head in to inquire how we were going and then commented on the size of our room being bigger than hers. I didn’t want those dumplings at all and my sister happily received a second meal. I remember closing my eyes to drift off to sleep and seeing her happily tucking into them. We never stood on ceremony or sentiment when there is good food to be eaten.
I still love rainbows. Another significant moment in my life happened today. My book “Not Quite Nigella” came out today. It feels odd to even write those words. And even odder that it is out but I’m not sure what will happen. I’m here behind my computer metaphorically with one eye closed sort of hoping that all goes well and it will be received well. In the last couple of weeks I’ve had some truly lovely and positive emails and phone calls from the media that have received their advanced copies. I’ve cried tears of happiness when they’ve said such kind things about it.
Click here to read the full story
|
April 24th, 2013
by Not Quite Nigella
What’s in a name? Well a lot it seems. Once upon a time, I knew a man called Roy McCool. I know, that’s quite a name isn’t it? His gorgeous fiancee used to joke that she was just marrying him for his last name. I must admit that merely by the fact of his unique moniker, I automatically thought that he was cool. Names are important after all and sometimes there are different names for the same item. Take for instance how in Australia we called cookies biscuits. But biscuits in America are really like scones here. And scones in America and Scotland are triangular in shape and sweeter while Australian scones are usually round. And let’s not even get into the difference in pronunciation!
Confused? Me too!
Well, a week or so ago I came across Maureen’s recipe for biscuits served with gravy . I always thought that biscuits were like scones but if you start to research things, there are lots of opinions going every which way. The only consensus that I could find was that biscuits are almost always savoury whereas scones in all countries are generally served sweet although they can be savoury. In Australia, you usually find them with jam and cream. Some Australian scone recipes use butter and have a similar ratio of ingredients to the American biscuit recipes.
Click here to read the full story
|
April 22nd, 2013
by Not Quite Nigella
This year’s Valentines Day passed by in a bit of a blur. Mr NQN was sick, I was busy working and it wasn’t until the day before that we realised in alarm that neither of us had organised anything. My thinking was that it’s usually time for the guy to organise something while Mr NQN’s thinking was that I usually organise everything so why wouldn’t Valentines Day be any different? Neither of us were upset, we knew that we could redo it but wanted to do something nice that evening.
The evening on the 14th I went to pick him up from work. It was a busy day on news sites (he works for one) and so he finished late, around 8pm. During the day, I had hastily cobbled together a decent-ish dinner after a hasty visit to the shops and some fast baking and I told him that we had dinner ready. But he needed to bring something too apart from his adorable self so I asked him to pop to the shops and get me something, anything really. Knowing that nothing was really open near where he works, I thought that I might get a single plastic rose or a chocolate bar. And I was really hoping for the chocolate bar.
Click here to read the full story
|
February 28th, 2013
by Not Quite Nigella
Dear Reader, I wondered whether I should start the week off with a slightly naughty story or not but then I figured that I probably should, because Mondays are if nothing else, hard to get through. Sometimes you meet people and sometimes you find out that they have rather interesting jobs. A friend of mine Celine was telling me about the mother of one of her child’s school mates. It turns out that this mum is a rather well known high class escort and Celine come across her website. She was sitting after dinner and sipping her coffee with her mother, sister and father when she brought it up.
Their eyes widened as they surveyed at the price list that detailed the services that she offered. Some of the services that this lady offered were the sort that you might have to google and poor Celine’s mother puzzled over some of them before asking, entirely innocently, a question.
“Why do Greek people have to pay $500 more?” she inquired earnestly. It fell to the job of Celine’s father to explain what that little menu item meant!
Click here to read the full story
|
January 28th, 2013
by Not Quite Nigella
What is NQN up to now?
NQN on Facebook
RSS
