Garlic butter and Parmesan monkey bread!

It is a cold wet wintery day today and perfect weather for baking, all warm and snug inside. With all the winter bugs around at the moment, a good dose of garlic will be welcome.
I use my regular bread dough recipe:
9cups strong flour (around 12% protein)
3 3/4 cups warm water
3tsp dried yeast
3tsp sugar
1tsp salt
Mix and knead.You won't need all this dough for the monkey bread. I used about 1/3, but if you are going to the trouble of baking bread, you may as well put the oven to good use and make some bread for another day.

Garlic butter:
3-4 cloves of garlic minced finely,
150g butter melted
1/2 tsp salt
Combine in a bowl.

150g finely grated parmesan cheese.

After the dough has doubled in bulk, just take little random bits, roll them in melted garlic butter, then in fine grated parmesan cheese. Toss into a greased pan. After all the dough has been used up, drizzle any extra butter and sprinkle any extra parmesan over the top. When I'm not holding a camera, I do this double handed so it takes half as long ;)

The finished product. Mmmmmm

 A few extra loaves made in my new vienna trays.

I like my razor sharp lame for slashing the tops. Kept well out of reach of children of course! Here's the lame in action.

Finishing off on the Coverpro coverlock.

This is for Zofia ;)

Pearl wasn't happy as I had to comandeer the iphone to make the movie clip :) I hope  you can see despite my ham fists getting in the way lol.

Egg drought and a secret cache! Mince and sausages.

I thought my ISAs had stopped laying as all of a sudden, there was only 1 brown egg from them per day. The other hens were laying fine, though having been sick this week I hadn't a chance to really keep tabs on what was coming in. I thought maybe it was the feed as I had switched to a local farmers formulation.I was worried they were unwell too. I had planned to lock them in last night to see if they were laying elsewhere but got home late and I forgot.
Today I heard a cackle from the carport. I went out there and couldn't see a chook but the bale of straw stored there had been pulled around with lots spilling down onto the concrete.
Hmm... I wonder...

And there was the secret cache of 21 EGGS! Plus at least one broken, though there were no shells visible (bit of a worry). The chicky babes had been holding out on me!

I had been so careful with the eggs the last week with the egg drought but now we have a glut lol. Lucky it has been so cold and they are all good still. 

 I have my eye on a new shiny kitchen gadget. A stainless steel mincer from Gaganis.

They have a range of sausage attachments. 

I am imagining really yummy gourmet sausage sizzles this coming Summer without all the nasties usually found in your average supermarket snag. I'm still in the thinking/research/comparison stage though. I think I would prefer stainless steel rather than one of the rough cast zinc plated or aluminium models.

If you have any mincer recommendations and good sausage links or recipes I'd love to see them!