Staff morning tea

Tomorrow I'm one of the staff members who's turn it is to bring it something for the fortnightly morning tea... a pretty safe bet is sausage rolls so thats what I've gone for! I think its pretty hard for home made sausage rolls to be anything less than delicious! It just depends on what you mix in with the meat to make them stand out...

The sausage meat itself was already great - it smelled really good, but so far, all the meat I've gotten from Drovers Market in Wanneroo (Corner of Wanneroo and Burns Beach rds) has been pretty awesome. If you're looking for a recipe though, I dont really use amounts or anything with sausage rolls, it just depends what I have in the house... This time I used 2 tsp of some gourmet mustard made with Newcastle Brown Ale which I bought off the net from www.prideofnorthumbria.com, a chopped spring onion, a squirt of HP sauce, S&P, an egg, and 1 tsp of minced garlic. I squished it all together with my hands (its really hard to do it any other way...) and then wrapped it in puff pastry and put them in the oven at 200 celcius, and took them out when they looked, and smelled ready! They were golden brown and puffy, and of course, I had sample one! Deeeeelicious! I think the mustard gives it a really nice tang, and the fact that its made with a dark ale gives it a bit of an edge - its good stuff! I normally add tomato or barbeque sauce but this time I added HP sauce and I think that will be an inclusion Ill stick to - really nice and not quite as sweet as the others, its nice n smokey instead...

I had some puff pastry and a couple of spoonfuls of sausage meat left, so I decided to make some pinwheels as well. I just spread some passata on the pastry and then spread the meat in the middle from one side to the other, then layered it with grated cheddar cheese and chopped spring onions, with a generous sprinkling of S&P. Rolled it up, cut em up into approx 1,5cm lengths and in the oven they went! The smell was pretty awesome, and watching the pastry puff up was a slow, satisfying entertainment. It was also quite cold so being by the oven was a good place to be!

Again, they needed to be tested, of course, quality control ;) they're pretty yummy! All the goodness in the sausage meat went into the pinwheels, even though there wasnt much meat in it, its pretty flavoursome and so these little mouthfuls are very moreish! With about 5 other people bringing something in, it should be a nice little feast!

And speaking of feasts, the year 10 home ec students have an assignment where they have to plan and execute a 3 course meal, and their "customer" has to be a teacher. So 3 of my kids that I have in science came barging in one lesson asking if they could cook for me! So on monday I get to go to "cafe 10" which is their little cafe they'll set up, and have a 3 course italian lunch cooked by my year 10s! Being nice to your students certainly pays off! Well... Ill decide that once I've tasted the food!

Quick edit: sausage rolls went down a treat - though loads of other people bought them too! But mine were the only homemade ones and one of the teachers sought me out to tell me they were delicious! woohoo!