Tag: special occasions
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St Patrick’s Day Recipes
It’s St Patrick’s Day on Monday, so here are a couple of ideas to help you celebrate. They’re not green, but they are Irish, so it still counts – and even better, they are FAILSAFE. The Apple/Pear Barley Pudding is really delicious, and if you have the time or inclination, can be be presented very… Read more
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Oscar’s Heart Love Cake
The commercialism of Valentine’s Day reached Oscar this year. Hubby and I usually ignore it, but Oscar insisted that we needed to have something special for dinner, so we made a “heart love” cake. I had shared some instruction on Facebook for a heart cake made from a square cake and a circle cake, but… Read more
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Beautiful Crystal Bay Prawns
Prior to Christmas I had read on one of the Facebook forums about Crystal Bay prawns. Most prawns are soaked in Sodium Metabisulphite as soon as they are caught. So even if you can tolerate amines, these are not suitable if you are trying to avoid preservatives. Crystal Bay prawns are the exception. They are available… Read more
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Last Minute Christmas Baking (and my final post for the year)
Four more days until Christmas! Are you ready yet? It’s been a bit of rush here, on top of moving, organising for our house to be demolished and finalising our building contract (the thought of my new kitchen keeps me going 🙂 ). We had a street party last week (our old street) and I… Read more
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Ice Cream Bombe
With Australia Day coming up and many Australia Day Barbecues happening round the country I thought it would be timely to post this Ice Cream Bombe recipe, as it makes a great dessert on a hot day (and there’s a good chance it will be hot). My inspiration for this recipe was Domestic Diva’s Ice Cream Bombe,… Read more
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Final Post Before Christmas: Finnish Christmas Stars
This is my last post before Christmas and my last recipe until at least mid-January. I’m going to finish of the year with some Finnish Christmas Stars (I didn’t realise that pun until just now 🙂 ) that I made to take to our street party. Finnish Christmas Stars (Joulutorttu) are very to easy to… Read more
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Christmas Baking: Sticky Golden Syrup and Chocolate Buns
I found this recipe in Notebook magazine some time ago, and thought it would be great for Easter as an alternative to Hot Cross Buns. Unfortunately I didn’t get to make it then, but it is just as good for Christmas. It was also lots of fun to make with Oscar (and messy), just don’t… Read more
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Christmas Gingerbread House
Last weekend I attended a Gingerbread House course at William Angliss College to learn how to make gingerbread dough and assemble a gingerbread house. The course was a lot of fun and we made the most gorgeous looking Gingerbread Houses, and the gingerbread dough was delicious. They are very easy to make, which was good… Read more
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Salads for Summer and Christmas
I’ve already listed a few salads for Christmas in my Christmas Menu post; but with the sudden appearance of the warm weather I have been experimenting with a few more that I thought I would share. The inspiration for this post came from the Orgran Vegetable Spiral Pasta that I recently tried on Oscar. He initially… Read more
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Christmas Golden Syrup Cakes and Cashew Maple Syrup Custard
A few weeks ago I came across a recipe from Quirky Jo for Cashew Honey Vanilla Bean Custard. It looked and sounded delicious, so I thought I’d try a maple syrup version, sans Thermomix. But then I would need something to serve it with, so I decide to also make some of the Golden… Read more
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The Christmas Menu
Christmas isn’t that far away now, and even though I am writing a post about Christmas menus, I still don’t know what I’m doing for Christmas lunch! Â The location is still up in the air pending other family commitments. Â But I’m not worried, we’ve had three Christmas Days since we started the elimination diet… Read more
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Meatloaf for Christmas? Absolutely!
I’ve never made meatloaf before, in fact I don’t think I have every eaten it. I’m not sure why, but it’s just never appealed to me before. Domestic Diva posted a meatloaf recipe a few weeks ago, which I thought Oscar might like because of the egg inside it. But before I could try it,… Read more
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Christmas Carob Syrup Cake
After making Okonmiyaki last week I had quite a bit of carob syrup left over and was looking for something to do with it. Â In the back of my mind I was also looking for some ideas for festive Christmas fare, so when I came across this recipe from Fast Ed for Carob Syrup Cake… Read more
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The Birthday Party
The party is over, we’ve cleaned up, the jumping castle has gone and I’ve finally managed to have something to eat and a couple of glasses of champas. Oscar had a great time and his response to his Chuggington Cake was Wow, Wow, Wow! Not bad eh? The cake did take a while, but it… Read more
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Baked Donuts
I was inspired by the Baked Doughnuts recipe on Real Meals to give them a go myself; I’d always assumed there was something difficult about them, but these looked easy.  It took me ages to find a doughnut tray, in fact I couldn’t find one at all, but I did come across a mini bundt tray with 12… Read more
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Devil’s Food Cup Cakes
I just had to try this recipe when I found it. Devil’s Food Cup Cakes that had nothing in them – no dairy, no eggs, no sugar, gluten-free, soy-fee and corn-free! I was sooo impressed that I made them several times trying various combinations – carob/cocoa, milk/rice milk/almond milk, butter/nuttelex/oil, rice malt/maple syrup. I made a few… Read more
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The Birthday Week – Two Chocolate Cakes
Hubby and I have our birthdays two days apart. Before Oscar came along we usually just had one celebration and never bothered with a cake. Now there is an expectation of a cake and “party” for each of us. Last weekend was birthday weekend, and it was a chocolate fest. To reduce the amount of left… Read more
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Easter Lunch/Dinner: Stuffed Roast Chicken and Chocolate Squidgy Log
With Easter coming up, I thought I’d post two recipes that we use for special occasions (lunch or dinner) – stuffed roast chicken and squidgy chocolate log. The squidgy chocolate log recipe is one of my husbands specialities, from before I even met him. It’s not his recipe though, it’s from Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course (omnibus edition… Read more
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Christmas Wrap Up and Boxing Day Leftovers
Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas Day and have been able to have an enjoyable long weekend (apart from those enormous hailstones and storms in Melbourne). Our Christmas Day was very enjoyablel. Our Oscar-friendly menu went down very well, with the only things not suitable being the prawns (sulphates) and… Read more
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Christmas Cake Decorating Part 2 – Royal Icing
I’ve finally finished my Christmas Cake and I’m quite pleased with it. The Royal Icing part was actually quite easy and I had enough left over to let Oscar help me make some Christmas Tree shapes to decorate the top. And as it’s Christmas we used a little bit of natural food colour to make… Read more