Ok this is pretty gorgeous you guys. The fragrant, slightly floral tea flavoured cake with thick, sweet honey icing is lovely. I made 2 mini layer cakes but you could easily make this in a loaf tin or round standard sized tin.
I made this impromptu soup today and it was so lovely; thick, creamy, rich, full of vegies yet surprisingly low in calories.
I know, I sound like a complete knob asking people to use organic stoneground unbleached freshly milled plain flour but the reason for that is that I accidently purchased some online, thinking it was just regular old plain flour. Anyway, if you manage to get your hands on it, it’s a lovely, healthy flour which[read more…]
I think I must be quite mad because I made this on new year’s day for new year’s dinner – one of the hottest nights of the year quite possibly! Anyway, obviously something stuffed full of meatballs, gnocchi, cherry toms and cheese baked in the oven is going to be wonderfully decadent. We added a crusty baguette with[read more…]
Rice pudding is one of those comfort desserts I love, yet I’ve never been able to find a decent recipe until today. This turned out creamy and lush and full of childhood cinnamon and vanilla flavours – if you really wanted to turn it up a notch, you could replace 1 cup of the milk[read more…]
So I made a little bundt cake today – I say little, because I halved this awesome recipe but only had a 24cm bundt tin and fretted for half an hour while it was baking. It turned out perfectly though! The crumb is amazing – fairly dense yet somehow light and fluffy and the flavour is pleasingly[read more…]
I love nothing better than a bowl of spicy, hearty dahl and warm naan bread – comfort food at it’s best. This one has some sweet potato in it, just to sweeten things up a bit.
It’s the time of year for chicken soup! Here in Queensland we’ve gone from the longest, hottest summer to sudden and very icy cold temperatures and this soup cheered me right up recently. It’s said that chicken soup has magical healing properties and I do feel that’s true, however in order for this to happen[read more…]
On needing to use up oats, peanut butter chips and raisins and looking for the perfect oatmeal raisin cookies one night, I decided to go directly to a good source and found this great recipe (is anybody else so confused by the over abundance of recipes online now? I know I know, I’m part of the problem). Anyway,[read more…]
I love Speculoos (cookie) butter and often smash it between Speculoos cookies but am always on the lookout for baking recipes using it. So I found this recipe for cookie butter chips, then whipped up a spicy sweet loaf cake. You’ll need 24 hours for the Speculoos chips to set before you make the cake.
I know toasted muesli is super popular and I really like it myself, but there’s just something so wholesome about raw muesli. Combined with dates, spices and golden syrup, this muesli has a nutty, chewy texture and is reminiscent of sticky date pudding. Because of the dates, this is quite high in sugar, so you could think of[read more…]
Carrot cake always reminds me of the uni refect, 2nd year. The vegetarian café I’d often go to served the best carrot cake with lashings of cream cheese icing and good coffee. I’d kid myself that carrot cake was good for me, what with all the carrots and walnuts and things. However. After stacking on 10kg, I realised all that carrot[read more…]
So in the interests of being healthy this January due to some questionable food choices recently, I made a pot of lentil soup! Lentil soup will always be one of those comfort foods for me; this one’s thick, hearty, spicy and was brilliant with toasted, buttered sourdough. [read more…]
I’ve seen Speculoos spread around recently with everyone saying how delicious it is (had never heard of it before) and had to try some. I mean I’ve bought the bikkies quite a few times, usually for Christmas but this is sort of a spicy cookie butter, it’s amazingly good. I purchased my Dutch goodies from here.[read more…]
I made some sweet little orange loaf cakes at the end of winter, using whole oranges. So not surprisingly, they’re Intensely orange flavoured, bitter/sweet and super soft. I added a bit of almond essence for a stronger almond flavour but if you’re not into that, leave it out or add vanilla instead. They are a teeny bit[read more…]
So I made these cute, tasty little curry puffs yesterday. The filling is spicy/sweet and surrounded by crispy puff pastry; dipped into tomato sauce, they made for a brilliant afternoon snack with a beer.
I eat buckets of hummus and always have some in the fridge. Nothing wrong with buying a tub but making it is so simple. Make it soon! This one is spicy and rustic and if you have it with heaps of carrot and celery sticks, you get most of your daily vegies in one hit then[read more…]
Sometimes a simple loaf is just the thing. I loved how hearty yet soft this lightly vanilla scented loaf was with chocolate chips inside and sticky ganache all over.
I made these zesty, bright pancakes one recent weekend; the syrup is so deliciously sweet and full of floral honey and orange flavours. I make ricotta pancakes quite often; ricotta makes pancakes fluffy yet slightly custard-like inside unlike the cake texture of your classic buttermilk pancakes, but lovely just the same. There’s heaps of syrup so if you[read more…]
I love my lentils and beans and things and this dish is something I make quite regularly in colder weather. It’s a hearty, spicy, vegie packed cottage pie with French lentils; I prefer French lentils as they keep their shape and have a nice bite to them. Lentils are a brilliant sub for meat and even carnivores don’t miss[read more…]
I love a good coleslaw and I’m always always looking for ways to use red cabbage (if I have to sauté cabbage in butter one more time ..). So I found Nigella’s New Orleans coleslaw recipe in one of my many cookbooks recently and remembered how delicious it looked when I spotted it ages ago. [read more…]
Fennel is a vegetable in the carrot family which is perfect for salads; it has a slight aniseed flavour which is very subtle and palate cleansing. I had this pleasingly crunchy salad on it’s own while Ant had some oven baked chicken alongside. I think it would also go really well with Atlantic salmon. It has quite sweet,[read more…]
I know, I know, I posted a granola recipe a couple of weeks back but have I ever said on here how much I love salted pistachios? I’m a little bit obsessed actually. Give me a big bowl of dry roasted, salted pistachios and I’ll sit on the lounge happily shelling and eating them like[read more…]
I love me a chicken salad, it’s the one thing I make or order from cafes quite regularly. This one is a little different though; spicy roast chickpeas give the salad a lovely crunch and flavour. The crisp salad, herbs, flavoursome chicken pieces with a bit of parmesan made this a lovely lunch last week. I stuffed[read more…]
I haven’t made cocktails in absolutely ages I realised the other day. So I bought a heap of grapefruit and oranges and whipped up a fresh, zesty, ruby grapefruit orange cocktail packed with citrus flavour. And you could make this with any other white spirits; Bacardi or gin for example.
I whipped up a deliciously spicy, crunchy, cold weather inspired toasted muesli a while back, just from ingredients I had on hand. It’s not full-on ginger in flavour, just enough to give a sweet, warm flavour however if you’re a real ginger fan, add a bit more fresh or ground ginger to the recipe. This is nice[read more…]
You guys, these are so good! And you might think lemon and sweet potato are an odd pairing but actually, the zesty lemon works really well with the sweet, creamy potato, particularly with spices. This is a bit of a fancy take on the baked potato with topping I usually make, and it made for a hearty,[read more…]
This caramelised vegetable, hearty pasta dish with fresh herbs and salty cheese is so easy; just roast some vegies and toss through cooked pasta and fragrant garlic oil. Serve with lots of cheese and crusty bread!
This is stupidly easy but the end result is so gorgeously wicked. With just a few steps, you end up with a generous slab of chocolate studded with whatever treats you like. I loved the jewel like appearance and chewiness of the dried fruit with some crunch from sunflower seeds (well basically I used what I had[read more…]
These are so easy to whip up. I love how the chocolate chunks were all melty warm from the oven. I used a friand tin to make them a bit fancier but a normal muffin tin will do.
