Baking A Corned Meat Savoury Tart

All of us love a savoury tart, and I am sure you must too. I do not know where today's recipe originated from, it was given to my by a friend as a photocopy. However, it is one of the quickest, easiest and tastiest savoury tart recipes out there, so I am happy to share it with you in today's blog.

This is the photocopied recipe I was given. I adapted this to double in size for the purpose of today's blog.

Finely chop 2 large onions.

Cut the crust off 6 slices of white bread. I rarely have white bread in the house and have found that brown bread works equally well.

Cut the bread slices into small cubes. Put this, along with the chopped onions in a large mixing bowl.

Add 3 cups (750 ml) milk to the bowl and allow the bread to soak in the milk.

Add 30 ml cooking oil.

You will need 6 eggs.

Beat the eggs before adding it to the bowl.

Add 2 cans of corned beef. Chop the corned beef loaves finely before adding it to the bowl.

Here you can see the finely chopped corned meat.

Grate 2 cups of hard cheese. I used Cheddar cheese.

Mix everything together with a large spoon.

Prepare a baking dish with non-stick spray.

Pour the mixture into the dish.

Bake for roughly 45 minutes at 190 °C. Serve hot from the oven.

Marietjie Uys (Miekie) is a published author. You can buy my books here:
You can purchase Designs By Miekie 1 here.
Jy kan Kom Ons Teken en Verf Tuinstories hier koop.
Jy kan Kom Ons Kleur Tuinstories In hier koop.
Jy kan Tuinstories hier koop.
You can follow Miekie's daily Bible Study blog, Bybel Legkaart, here in English & Afrikaans.
You may prefer to follow the traveling blog, A Pretty Tourist.
For more crafty ideas and great products, visit A Pretty Talent on Facebook.
Remember to keep nurturing your TALENT for making PRETTY things.
You can subscribe to any of these blogs to receive regular updates by email, by simply registering your email address at the top of the applicable blog.

Paint An Impressionistic Violinist in Oils

Today I will show you how to paint a violinist in oil colours, using the impressionistic style. To paint this figure I make use of two surprising elements. Firstly, I use a huge palette knife, a no.16 to be exact, to paint with, and secondly, I mix my oils with a medium to assist in creating luminosity. I show you step by step how I went about creating this painting.

I use a masonite board measuring 50 cm x 64 cm as the surface I paint today's painting on. I start by giving it a proper cleaning with a wet cloth.

I then continue with my surface preparation by painting the whole board with Dala Acrylic Gesso.

Once the Gesso is dry, I paint the background Titanium White, using acrylic paint. This white background will assist in creating the luminosity that I wish to achieve with this painting. The acrylic paint dries very quickly, allowing me to continue much quicker than when I would have used oil colours, but you can use the latter if you are a purist.

I now stand my surface up on my easel and draw a very rough sketch in charcoal. Once the figure is in place, I brush the excess charcoal away with a clean brush.

I mix the first of my background colours with an orange, a brownish red and my Impasto Medium.

I decide that I want to add more yellow to this mixture.

Notice the large palette knife I use to paint most of this painting with.

This first colour is painted around the edges of the painting, encapsulating the figure in the center. This will assist in focusing the attention on the figure.

Next, I mix Buff Titanium with the Impasto Medium.

This colour is painted on the inside of the background.

I now use a cold purple along with magenta and Impasto Medium to mix the colour for the dress.

The majority of the dress in painted in this colour.

I mix the pure magenta with Impasto Medium to create highlights in the dress. I then do the same with the purple to create shaded areas, as well.

Progress photo.

I use the same mixture that I've used on the edges of the background to paint the violin.

Then I mix Raw Umber with Impasto Medium.

This is used to give definition to the violin.

I use two different flesh tones, which I mix with Impasto Medium.

The figure is painted in flesh tones and the hair is done with a mixture of the browns and reds already used in the painting. My name is signed in Buff Titanium. This painting is available for sale from uys.marietjie@gmail.com.

Marietjie Uys (Miekie) is a published author. You can buy my books here:
You can purchase Designs By Miekie 1 here.
Jy kan Kom Ons Teken en Verf Tuinstories hier koop.
Jy kan Kom Ons Kleur Tuinstories In hier koop.
Jy kan Tuinstories hier koop.
You can follow Miekie's daily Bible Study blog, Bybel Legkaart, here in English & Afrikaans.
You may prefer to follow the traveling blog, A Pretty Tourist.
For more crafty ideas and great products, visit A Pretty Talent on Facebook.
Remember to keep nurturing your TALENT for making PRETTY things.
You can subscribe to any of these blogs to receive regular updates by email, by simply registering your email address at the top of the applicable blog.

Making Traditional Greek Moussaka

Moussaka is one of those dishes that you immediately fall in love with. It has all the right ingredients for comfort food, consisting of potatoes, mince meat, and cheese. Add the lovely flavour of aubergines, and it doesn't get any better. In today's blog, I show you how to make a traditional Greek Moussaka.

Chop 3 aubergines into 1 cm thick slices. No need to peel the aubergines.

Soak the aubergine slices in salted water for roughly 10 minutes.

Slice a couple of potatoes into 1 cm thick slices.

Boil for 5 minutes.

Finely chop some fresh oregano, or use dried oregano instead.

Add oregano, garlic, bay leaves, mint and a cinnamon stick to a large pot.

Add lamb mince to the large pot and braise the meat.

Finely chop some onions and add this to the pot.

Add salt and pepper to taste and stir in a heaped dessert spoon of flour.

Add a tin of chopped and peeled tomotoes, as well as roughly half a bottle of tomato paste.

Add a dash of balsamic vinegar. Remove from heat when cooked.

Dry the aubergines.

Fry the aubergines on each side.

Make a white sauce. You will need butter/margarine, flour, salt, pepper, nutmeg and milk.

Heat the butter. Stir in the flour. Add milk. Flavour with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Grate some cheddar cheese (or parmesan).

Add half the cheese to the white sauce.

Spray a deep baking dish with non-stick spray.

Add a layer of mince, roughly a third of the mince.

Add a layer of potato slices.

Add a layer of aubergine slices.

Repeat the layers twice more.

Top the third layer of aubergines with the cheese sauce.

Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the dish.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180 °C for roughly 45 minutes.

Serve hot from the oven.

Marietjie Uys (Miekie) is a published author. You can buy my books here:
You can purchase Designs By Miekie 1 here.
Jy kan Kom Ons Teken en Verf Tuinstories hier koop.
Jy kan Kom Ons Kleur Tuinstories In hier koop.
Jy kan Tuinstories hier koop.
You can follow Miekie's daily Bible Study blog, Bybel Legkaart, here in English & Afrikaans.
You may prefer to follow the traveling blog, A Pretty Tourist.
For more crafty ideas and great products, visit A Pretty Talent on Facebook.
Remember to keep nurturing your TALENT for making PRETTY things.
You can subscribe to any of these blogs to receive regular updates by email, by simply registering your email address at the top of the applicable blog.