I love the creamy texture and coconut flavour of this soup combined with sweet pumpkin and carrots and only a handful of other ingredients. It’s gorgeous sprinkled with chopped pistachios and a toasted cheese sandwich on the side .. a perfect Saturday lunch on a cold day. A swirl of Greek yoghurt wouldn’t go astray either[read more…]
I based this on your basic chickpea hummus but added baked sweet potato and a teeny bit of chilli. It seems I’ve always eaten hummus and tzatziki, I sometimes make these dips from scratch and sometimes buy them ready made, either way they’ve made up a large part of my lunches over the past 15 years or so. Seeing as[read more…]
I don’t know about anyone else, but I can’t get on with my day until I have my morning cuppa and going to bed without a cup of tea just doesn’t seem right. Tea is calming, comforting, it brings people together, has many health benefits, there are so many different flavours, and for these reasons, I’m[read more…]
A spontaneous dish I made initially to use up the rest of the broccoli in the crisper and have made quite a few times since. This rustic dish was lovely with simple ingredients; the freshness of broccoli, a subtle hit of chilli, some crunchy nuts and salty Parmesan, all piled up in a bowl invitingly. I served ours with avocado because[read more…]
It’s not so much a Bastille Day we had on the weekend, as a Bastille week because this is the second French dish I’ve posted. And why not after all? French food is amazing; classy and unashamedly seductive. And speaking of classy and seductive; I remember travelling by train to Paris years ago and sitting across a perfectly understated, stylish, sweet French girl[read more…]
I don’t eat enough of this healthy vegie. The other day I roasted some cauliflower florets with lemon, chilli and pine nuts and it was delicious; slightly sweet and spicy with a nutty crunch, and not at all like the cauliflower mornay some of us might remember from being kids.
I make massive pots of this amazing soup every autumn/winter without fail; in fact I decided to buy a huge pot to accommodate it because the first time I made it, I didn’t have a saucepan big enough and had to make it in two. Over the years, I’ve made it my own by adding different[read more…]
I don’t often use cake or bread mixes as I enjoy baking from scratch, however it’s nice and convenient to use them occasionally and they have come a long way in the past decade or so. I also appreciate that people don’t always have the time or inclination to bake from scratch; I’m definitely no domestic goddess, I[read more…]
I really enjoyed this cosy, spicy-sweet curry with classic spices, creamy sweet potato, nutty chick peas and fresh kale. Confession: I cheated and used a bit of curry powder. I realise it’s a bit 1980s, how-your-nanna-used-to-make-curry, using curry powder, but I find it adds a rounded, warm sweetness and works really well with the other spices, a couple of which are in[read more…]
Some days I feel like chocolate I just have a few squares of a plain, dark block with my coffee then there are days when I want comforting, creamy, sweet chocolate – it was the latter which inspired today’s post. I spotted a recipe a while back for Nutella hot chocolate and thought I’d give it a go[read more…]
This method of roasting chicken changed my life. Tender, fall-of-the-bone, fragrant and full of the good things in cooking; lemon, garlic and herbs. No more basting, cleaning the oven or worrying about a dry roast – you simply place a quickly prepared chicken into the oven, forget about it for 1 1/2 hours or so, then take the[read more…]
Ok. Eton mess in Autumn doesn’t sound a seasonal appropriate dessert but .. we live in Queensland, Australia and it’s warm still. British Eton mess is one of those luscious desserts which is so easy and is basically a messy pavlova all piled up in a bowl with whatever fruit you like, although traditionally, Summer strawberries[read more…]
I couldn’t resist buying these from my organic grocer; they looked so cool. I thought I’d show them off in all their funky 70s purple glory and just roast them in a bit of rosemary, sea salt, garlic and olive oil. I left the garlic in their skins as garlic is lovely this way, sweet and creamy when you remove[read more…]
Friands are sweet, little, oval teatime cakes traditionally made with almond meal and egg whites. I don’t make them that often, not because they’re difficult, they’re not at all, but because they use egg whites which means you then have all these lovely egg yolks left over. So last weekend for afternoon tea I put together a[read more…]
Here’s a fresh, delicate, little salad we had the other day and both loved. The peppery rocket, sweet, crisp pears and grapes, crunchy walnuts and creamy, salty Parmesan went so well together with the subtly sweet and tangy dressing.
No you aren’t dreaming or hallucinating. This really is a thing – a wonderfully inspired recipe I discovered recently by lovely Sydney blogger Katrina Meynink, (also freelance food writer and recipe developer and lots of other things). You could say I did a double-take. Cookie dough chocolate brownies – no way! As a long time brownie lover, I’m[read more…]
Happy Pancake Day to all my beautiful readers. This was really just a reason to make pancakes for breakfast today as I love them and to be honest, I never need much of an excuse. In my opinion every day should be pancake day! They were lovely; fluffy pancakes with the classic flavour combination of creamy peanut butter[read more…]
I found this wonderful recipe for healthy candy bars recently (check out the rest of the site, it has tasty recipes for healthy minded people). I have a big bag of quinoa puffs which, while I love to eat them for breakfast, I wanted to do something a bit more fun with, so I thought I’d make these chocolatey[read more…]
The other night I had a craving for some chicken and pasta so I roasted some Cajun spiced chicken breasts in the oven and served up a creamy, velvety rigatoni on the side. There’s no getting around it, this is the perfect way to cook chicken breast; it might be a bit easier to slice up the chicken and toss it around[read more…]
I’ve never appreciated the appeal of bread pudding – I always thought it would taste bland and I just couldn’t understand how bread belonged in a pudding. While shopping for Christmas I came across some brioche loaves which looked gorgeous and fluffy and sweet, thinking I would have some toasted with tea or something. But then for[read more…]
I made a pretty cake yesterday to celebrate my other half’s birthday. Happy birthday to my darling Ant. We’re on holidays at the moment and it’s wonderful. This cake was dreamy .. I really loved the chocolate flavour combined with a surprising fluffy cloud of vanilla frosting; kind of unexpected, like brown eyes with blonde[read more…]
I was thinking recently, there just isn’t enough spice around when it comes to baking. It’s not that easy to find ready made spice biscuits or cake in Australia and it’s not a favourite flavour for most people I know. Personally, I love the warmth of spice baked goods and they seem so comforting and[read more…]
I made a batch of waffles for breakfast this morning, using this simple recipe with a couple of adaptations. Nothing fancy required yet they were perfectly fluffy inside and crisp on the outside as waffles should be; the mixture made the perfect amount for my waffle maker (I really hate it when the mixture slops over the[read more…]
Is there anything better than the warming fragrance of home made cookies baking? These chewy, spicy and sweet cookies were a delight and were made with oil rather than butter. Just an excuse to have more I think.
I’m dedicating this post to one of my favourite eras, the 1970s, I guess because well, I was there but I wasn’t there (too tiny to appreciate it) … a time in history in amongst the idealism of the 60s and the materialism of the 80s. Back in the 70s, people … Drank a classic cocktail: Grapefruit[read more…]
I started drinking Chai tea a few years back. Being a tea and spice lover, I instantly appreciated it’s spicy, comforting, warming flavour and it became one of my favourite teas. I’d love to say this is a traditional recipe and I’ve certainly done my best coming up with some lovely flavours, however there are[read more…]
I realised, with only a month to go of winter, that I hadn’t made a big pot of chilli yet. I had all the ingredients for a vegetarian chilli and decided to go with sweet potato and black beans. This is a spicy, hearty chilli with a subtle sweetness, which goes really well with brown[read more…]
Sweet, doughy bites with the stickiest brown sugar butter glaze on the base which I just couldn’t stop picking at. It was worth washing the very sticky pan afterwards.
Like Nigella, I’m all for an easy chocolate fix. Nobody should have to wait very long for chocolate on those days when it feels necessary. The iconic Nigella dessert, chocohotopots – easy, luxurious, charmingly named little treats, remind me of a cross between chocolate brownies and pudding. Honestly, despite the kid friendly nature of them (Nigella’s son naming this dessert when he was[read more…]
I have Irish heritage – you might realise this when you meet me by my blue eyes and freckles which I inherited from my late grandmother. It’s also apparent by my surname which, while it doesn’t sound obviously Irish, is distinguishable by it’s spelling (people often misspell my surname by leaving off the ‘e’ on the end which annoys me a[read more…]
