W.W. Sweet Chilli Sauce

 I have finally been able to get my chilli bush to grow and produce an abundance of chillis! so what to do with them? Make Sweet Chilli Sauce of course.  After testing and searching through a whole lot of recipes I found this one from the Australian Women' Weekly.  I have only tweaked it a bit but have made several batches and it works every time.

Keep it in the fridge once it is made, or if you want to keep it longer out of the fridge just us a canning/preserving system.

Ingredients

250g fresh long chillies

3 cups white vinegar

2 cups water

2 cups white granulated sugar

2 teaspoon salt

2inch piece of fresh ginger

6 cloves garlic

Method

Remove stems off chillies, peel ginger.  Chop into pieces and place in food processor with 1 cup of water.

Process until chillies and ginger are very fine.

Place remaining water, vinegar, salt and sugar into a saucepan and simmer to dissolve the sugar fully.

Add the chilli and ginger mixture to the saucepan and cook uncovered
on rolling simmer for 20 minutes.

Peel garlic and process to a fine chop, then add to the saucepan and cook for another 20-40 minute.  It should be reduced to about half. 

Take the saucepan off the stove and allow to cool for 10 minutes.

Pour into sterilised jars and allow to cool on the bench before refridgerating.

Special Occassion (like Xmas and Easter) Biscuits.

 This recipe is for biscuits that hold their shape and icing that sets hard!   Note: using PURE icing sugar not icing sugar mixture for this.

Sugar Biscuit Dough

Preheat over to 180C

Beat 125g soft butter and 110g caster sugar and 1 egg until JUST COMBINED (do not overbeat).

Add 225g Plain Flour and 1tsp vanilla bean paste.  

Beat until it just comes together, then kneed until smooth.

Cover with clingwrap and chill for 30 minutes.

Roll out about 3mm thick and cut out shapes.

Bake in preheated oven, rotating positions of baking sheets halfway through, until cookies are light golden brown around edges, 10 to 12 minutes. 

Let cool on sheets 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

Royal Icing

Whisk 1 egg white and 1teaspoon of lemon juce in electric mixer.

Slowly add 240g pure icing sugar, increase speed to high for 5-7 minutes until it is a thick paste.  Cover with clingwrap until it is being used.

Add colour as required and decorate biscuits as simply or complicated as you like.

Mayonnaise in 10 seconds flat

When I saw Matt Preston do this on Masterchef I did not believe it actually worked, in fact I made the mayo an hour earlier than I needed to because I did not believe it.   But it does!  It's the same basic mayonnaise recipie I have tried to make lots of time, but using a different method. Believe me I have tried dribbling in the oil, I have tried using the blender - but mayonnaise has never worked for me at home.

Well, here is the link online: http://tenplay.com.au/channel-ten/masterchef/recipes/slow-roasted-lamb-with-flatbread-and-mayo.  I have just put the method into this recipie, as it seems to make more sense that way.  To make it you need a stick blender and its cup.  
A couple of things to remember:

• be gentle with the ingredients
• the yolk needs to be whole
• put the basket of the stick blender over the yolk, so that the blades immediately blend the yolk
• then gently bring it up the blender cup to make the mayonnaise.