A sort-of recipe (and week 18 of my 2015 photos)

Week 18 (20-26 April)

This is a highly disorganised sort-of recipe, because like many things I cook, I made it up as I went along. I follow recipes for things that aren't very forgiving but otherwise I like to experiment a bit. Quantities are vague or guesses, because I didn't use any measuring tools whatsoever. It's titled 'Apple Filo Dessert' because although it's somewhat strudel-y I don't know what else to call it.  Presentation is conversational and informal, because.

Apple Filo Dessert

First, make cheat-y stewed apples. Take one apple, peel if you wish (I didn't), remove the core and chop into small, flat slices. Put in a microwave-proof bowl with a tiny bit of water, a spoonful of brown sugar, a handful of sultanas, a knob of butter and a sprinkling of cinnamon. Stir. Cover bowl with a plate/lid/whatever and microwave for a minute or two, however long it takes for the apple to go soft.

Next, prepare filo pastry. When mine defrosted it turned out to have split into quarters along the fold lines. No worries. I can work with this, just a bit of a jigsaw, and small serves instead of one large one.

Melt a couple teaspoons of butter in a small dish. Lay one piece of filo pastry on a board and brush it with butter. Put another on top, and brush with butter again. Repeat until the pastry is at least five layers deep. Tidy up the edges if you want. Place slices of apple, overlapping, along one edge of the pastry, make sure some sultanas get in there as well. At this point you can choose to either fold or roll the pastry - I made three, and the one that's shown is rolled but really, be as creative as you like here. Once that's done, put in a baking tray on baking paper and brush with butter again. These were baked at 180 degrees celsius for half an hour, but if you make something larger you might need to wing it and guess the time...

Enjoy hot, or let them cool. They're pretty darn good either way.

Here are the rest of the week's photos - this was the last of the catch-up weeks I started in the last post but I left this one as the week hadn't finished yet - and then I woke up on Sunday to find the internet was out across the area, and it just came back a few hours ago.

The rose has been edited minimally, Mum has one variety 'Jubilee 150' which is so bright you'd swear it'd been photoshopped when you look at it. The autumn leaves are also in Mum and Dad's garden, it's putting on a very colourful display at the moment.