Summer heart wreath

I bought a woven heart wreath earlier in the year which I decorated and hung outside by our front door. I started with little Easter eggs, then changed that to spring flowers (sadly I forgot to take a photo of this).

Last week I decided to become summery with some butterflies and dragonflies, although summer doesn't seem to be coming just yet! It is our street party in a couple of weeks so I decided to be patriotic and chose red, white and blue colours for the decoration.

I used my Big Shot die cutter to cut out the butterfly and dragonfly shapes in craft foam and then painted them with glitter paint to add a touch of sparkle. I also changed the pink bow from my Easter/Spring version to a red gingham bow and then attached each shape by sewing it on with red thread.

I am so pleased I bought this heart and know I will have lots of fun changing it to suit the season.

© 2013 Nicola Noble: Please observe the rules of copyright and blog etiquette. If you use my ideas or images, please link back to my blog. And do let me know - I'd love to take a look.

Gluten-free cheesy scone topped cottage pie

I wanted to try making something different for dinner tonight, so I thought I would try topping beef mince/cottage pie with cheesy scones instead of mashed potato. It needed to be gluten-free so that I didn't have to make two versions and the end result turned out yummy.

I struggle using gluten-free flour for pastry-type things as the resulting "dough" can't be rolled out (it just doesn't form a cohesive dough) but I have previously discovered a recipe for scone pizza base that uses an egg which really seems to help.

The resulting cheesy scone topped cottage pie turned out really well and got the thumbs up from all of the Snowball family - and they are a hard bunch to please, especially Mr Snowball!

If you are interested, I made the beef mince base by adding onion, carrots, orange pepper (so the kids thought it was carrot!) and peas to the mince, together with a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce and a crumbled beef oxo cube.

The cheese scone topping would also work really well with a chicken base, with mushrooms etc. I think I will give this version a go sometime soon.

Gluten-free cheesy scone topping

Ingredients
225g gluten-free self raising flour
pinch salt
75g butter
160g grated mature Cheddar cheese

rice milk (about 2tbsp)
1 egg

Rub the butter into the gluten-free self raising flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the grated cheese and about two tablespoons of rice milk, then add the beaten egg and bring together into a dough-type ball.

Break off golf ball size pieces of the mixture, flatten slightly in your hand and place on top of your ready prepared beef mince.

Bake in a preheated oven (200⁰C/400⁰F/Fan 180⁰C/Gas Mark 6) for 20-25 minutes, or until golden on top.

© 2013 Nicola Noble: Please observe the rules of copyright and blog etiquette. If you use my ideas or images, please link back to my blog. And do let me know - I'd love to take a look.