'tis the season to be merry ...

We call it the silly season for a reason.  Everyone gets a little bit silly at this time of the year.  There are lots of parties and lots of get togethers with all sorts of people.  Work functions, friends, families, end of year breakups everywhere and all of this brings with it lots of eating and drinking.

As a non-drinker I think it has been at least a good four years since I had a drink.  I don't not drink because it is better for me, well kind of it is that but it is because some years ago I had a significant growth on my liver and I had that removed.  For a little while after that it was great I could enjoy a drink or two and not feel sick but then it all came back basically my liver just doesn't like me drinking anymore.  Perhaps I did far too much of it in my younger years (I know I certainly had more than my fair share!)

Anyway, these days I don't drink at all.  Which I think has been really great for my friends and family who knew that they always had a designated driver.  These days sadly, I am not even that useful.  I am not allowed to drive for now and I don't drink.

With all this merriment upon us it can be quite a little bit boring for me when we go out.  The standard non-alcoholic drinks that are on offer are usually fruit juice, soft drinks, soda water with flavouring or soda water with fruit juice or sometimes a non-alcoholic fruit punch a la '70s style with canned fruit chunks sometimes frozen in a ring!

So that set me on a mission.  I found the usuals as I mentioned above.  Then I discovered a few others on The Merry Thought site. 

Moscow Mule

And a few more Spring Cocktails here

In the past I have taken a bottle of Appletiser with me places so that with a little strawberry in it drinking out of a champagne flute I don't feel so out of place.  I don't mind a drop of Appletiser so I wondered if they had some ideas for mocktails and to my great happiness they did! 

Here are a few of my favourites and I am going to send this along to my Dad so he has the ingredients to make me a few over the Christmas/New Year break.  

Apple Garden Fizz 

Ingredients

Appletiser, to top (approx. 500ml)

Cucumber, chopped into 2cm chunks

8 strawberries, hulled and chopped in halves

12 mint leaves, torn

Apple, chopped into 2cm chunks

1 orange wedge per drink, for garnish

Lime juice, to taste

Ice

Method

Add all ingredients to an ice filled jug and stir well.
Pour into an ice filled wine glass
Garnish with an orange wedge and a mint sprig.

Fruit Cooler 

Ingredients

Soda Water

Appletiser\White Grapetiser

Strawberries

Apple

Crushed Ice

Sugar

Lemon

Method

Add all the ingredients into a jug except the ice and serve in a highball glass over crushed ice 

Virgin Mojito 

Ingredients

10 Mint leaves, chopped

1 Shot of Lime juice

1 Shot of sugar syrup

Appletiser

Top up with soda water if it is too sweet

Method

Mix all the ingredients together and pour into chilled tumblers.

Rim the glass with mojito sugar if you have it.

Berry Sweetheart

Ingredients

Red Cranberry Juice

White or Red Grapetiser

Honey

Method

Add all the ingredients and serve in a martini glass rimmed with sugar, ice and a slice of lime.

Apple Paloma

Ingredients

Appletiser, to top

60ml grapefruit juice

10ml lime juice

10ml sugar syrup

Grapefruit & Apple wedge, to garnish

Method

Add all the ingredients except Appletiser to an ice filled shaker.

Shake and strain into an ice filled highball glass and top with Appletiser.

Garnish with a grapefruit and apple wedge

To find these and many more ideas you can go to Appletiser.  You can also find lots more alcoholic and non-alcoholic options.  All photos and recipes for the Appletiser/Grapetiser mocktails have been used courtesy of Appletiser. 

I was also flicking through recipes of mine and thought that this might also work.  No photo sorry I haven’t made it yet!

Fruit Shaker

Any type of fruit you like that goes together would work here.

Ingredients

250g Strawberries

250g Pineapple

500g Sorbet (any that works for you would be fine)

500g Vanilla ice cream

Soda water

Method

Put it all ingredients into a blender and blend until all combined. 

Pour into a glass about 2/3 full and top slowly with soda water.

As you can see there are lots of really fancy non-alcoholic options that you can have and not feel as though you are missing out on all the fun.  Whether it be by choice or not you no longer have to feel like a social pariah if you don’t drink alcohol.

Have a great Christmas & New Year 

Til next time

Hugs
Cathy xoxo

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ...

Here we are the week of Christmas.  Australia is typically throwing at us some really unusual weather there are bushfires, storms, droughts, pouring rain in Wollongong and the potential for Tropical Cyclones up North later in the week you take your pick.  Though this is almost typical weather for the Australian summer these days.

As is usual for us at this time of year the kids are on holidays.  My eldest has come home from a week away with his grandparents sounds like it was great fun for him.  Golf, fishing, dinner out, birthday celebrations for my Uncle it was a hard week away.  Oh well back home now being put to good use.  

The girls are on their first full week of holidays.  It would seem that in reality they are still catching up on that end of year exhaustion that comes with school, end of year school concerts, dancing concerts and just being busy girls who never seem to be able to keep their room tidy.  Though a quick scan of my friend's on Facebook tells me that I am not alone in the battleground that is our children's bedrooms.  I think I will take the approach of simply closing the door and if they can't find it tough.  

I am truly not sure if the dogs are enjoying all these people home or not! 

We are in that last week, that final throw before Christmas is over and gone for another year.  It seems crazy when you think about it we have this huge incredible build up it lasts a day or two depending on the family celebrations and then it is over for another year.  I think most of the presents are bought with a good portion wrapped and under the tree, with the last few needing to be finalised this week.  

The wall of Santa photos plus some of my nephews

For me Christmas also means baking, making sweet treats, and all sorts of little things like that.  This year I have not made nearly as much as I would in previous years but that is ok. I am sure that people love me for more than just my sweet treats.  In saying that I have made a few varieties of fudge and some amazing passionfruit melting moments this afternoon because well I needed a pick me up! 

It's an old family recipe and they are so good! 

I am still trying to finish off a few handmade gifts.  Hopefully I will get it all done.  

This year for the first time in the longest time we are having a lovely little Christmas at home with just the 5 of us.  My plan for lunch is a Turkey loaf full of yummy goodness including bacon and some cold ham served up with veggies.  I can pre-make the turkey loaf on Christmas Eve so I will only need to cook the veggies on Christmas day.  I will try to remember to take photos and share the recipe if it is any good! Christmas with my family will be down the coast and with hubby's family is in a restaurant this year for something different (it will certainly save on cleaning up!) 

We have had our yearly Santa photo and this year was the first time since 2001 that hubby and I jumped in the photo too.  We figured it has been a while since we have had a family photo and this would make a cheap one lol.  It is likely to be another 14 years until we jump in again! 

We all love Santa who doesn't! 

Christmas time it seems is causing my anxiety to go through the roof.  Hubby told me today that I need to stop stressing about Christmas and let it all just happen.  I am certain he is right though it really is fair easier said than done.

He tells me to stop stressing yet he is the one with bottle of Bourbon stashed amongst my wool!

Anyway, I am off to eat my passionfruit melting moment and drink my Chai Latte.  I am sure we will all get through the next few days and see the enjoyment on the faces of the kids as they open up all their presents.  

Passionfruit melting moment

Chai Latte

Til next time 

Hugs Cathy xoxo 

Cake!

There is no such thing as too much cake, well there probably is but I am yet to discover a time.  I think mainly because I don't eat that much cake.  I love to bake and in reality I don't eat all that much cake compared to the amount of cake that I bake.  My hubby on the other hand probably would say there is too much cake in our house at times.  My mum once thought I was going to kill him through food with the amount I was baking.

I have a tendency to bake when I am anxious or particularly low, I am not sure why I think it is because by baking I am giving people a part of me and sometimes that makes me feel happy for a fleeting moment or less anxious while I bake.  I was anxious on Tuesday because I was going out for the first time in the longest time to get my hair done at a friend's salon but I was going it alone, I had no-one holding my hand.  I know it is silly I really shouldn't have been worried but I was and ultimately she did the best job so there really was nothing to worry about at all.  Here is the before & after shot.

This week I have made the most lemony, lemonicious, lemon cake with crunchy topping.  Honestly this was pretty divine the recipe came from Sammie at The Annoyed Thyroid, the only change I made was that I substituted the flour for a gluten free self raising flour premix bought at any supermarket.  This cake could be easily made without a Thermomix by in the cake mixture simply substitute raw sugar for caster sugar and instead of peeling the lemon grate it and then just mix all the ingredients in a normal mix master.

Today I had a beautiful mate dropping by and while I saw that there was still some lemony goodness on the bench it was in reality a couple of days since I had made it.  I am nothing if not a good hostess and I will not serve stale cake up to anyone except well maybe family.  Though typically cake doesn't really last long enough to get stale around here, except of course lemon cake because the kids have decided they don't like it.  

So I did what any good hostess would do.  I made another cake!  This time I made the gorgeous Chantelle from Fat Mum Slim's Epic Chocolate Fudge Cake.  I did modify this a little bit mainly because I had the Thermomix there so I used that, basically I just popped all the ingredients in at the same time and mixed on speed 5 for about one minute.  I also used gluten free premix plain flour.  

Chantelle bakes hers in a square tin and decorates with sprinkles.  I only had a round tin down and wasn't climbing a ladder to get my square tin and well frankly I wanted white chocolate on top instead of sprinkles.  So I blitzed some white chocolate in the Thermomix to get my sprinkles and it is a round cake! 

The cake itself is pretty amazing but seriously the ICING was something else all together!  

I think all in all that is a pretty successful baking week.  Now all I need to do is learn how to take better photos of my cakes! 

Thank you to both Sammie and Chantelle for sharing your amazing recipes.  Have a great weekend everyone.  

Happy baking 

Cathy xoxo 

Test Kitchen

It's been a while, a long while in fact, since I wrote on here.  So much has happened in that time.  Our renovations are I think, almost, finally finished.  Well at least the building side of things.  It would seem that there are lots and lots of things that we are going to be working on for what I would imagine years to come.  But the super exciting news is I have a second toilet and shower for the first time in forever and as of today I have a new bathroom door on our old bathroom that also has a lock!  It's the little things that make me happy but to have two working toilets with two locking doors is simply amazing!

The man of the house is still doing drive in, drive out and we are still working through this, some days are better than others, which means some weeks work better than others.  Overall I think we are making the best of the situation and we will make this work for however long it continues.

But back to the title test kitchen.  Some of you may know that I have been selling Your Inspiration At Home  products, this is a wonderful range of spices, vinegars, evoo, chocolate powders, teas and coffee (just to name a few.)

I have over the last few months been creating treats each week for my hairdresser for their clients at the wonderful day spa salon I go to.

I thought I would mix things up and step outside the normal range of taste sensations that I have been creating with the wonderful YIAH  chocolate powders.  This week I decided to infuse milk with the Marsala Chai tea and use that in the cakes I created, I was sure it would work but would everyone like it was the real questions.  Turns out that the answer was overwhelmingly yes!  

Here is the recipe and some photos from the Marsala Chai test kitchen.  

Basic Cupcake

Recipe

200g Gluten Free Flour

20g Corn Flour*

160g Caster Sugar

15g Baking Powder*

110g soft butter

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk 

1 teaspoon vanilla

Method

Infuse 1 cup of milk with 4 tblsp Marsala Chai tea for at least 12hrs (in the fridge) when that is done strain the tea from the milk and set aside to use. 

Preheat oven to 175C

Sift flour, cornflour, baking powder into a mixing bowl on a low speed mix well 

Add butter and mix well on low speed until the butter is covered in flour

Add 1 egg at a time mix well between each addition, then add vanilla 

When the eggs are combined into the flour and butter mixture, add 1/2 cup plus 2 tblsp of infused milk mix well on a low speed, turn up to a medium speed and beat for approx 2mins until well combined and mixture looks light and fluffy. 

Divide evenly between 24 muffin trays (using a 6cm ice cream scoop you will get approx 24 evenly sized cupcakes, using a tupperware melon baller you will get approx 72 mini cupcakes)

Bake in pre-heated oven for between 15-17mins

Icing 

400g Icing Sugar 

150g butter soft

40g milk (I used the left over marsala chai infused milk)

Beat all ingredients together well.  Pipe onto the cooled cakes using a rose tip and sprinkle with vanilla sugar. 

This exercise got me to thinking there are lots of amazing flavours in the YIAH range, would they also work as cupcakes?  And so the test kitchen happened.  With another friend we trialled Raspberry Mojito, Maple Bourbon Balsamic, & Choc Raspberry Truffle Red Velvet cupcakes.  

Here's a photo from the test kitchen (not nearly as pretty as the cakes I created earlier in the week but certainly just as yummy!)  The biggest decision will be working out which flavours to make for the gluten free guests at an upcoming family 21st! 

Sounds gourmet but its not really ...

Tonight I answered a blog question what's for dinner at your place? I typically have staples that I go to most nights. I have a couple of reasons for this I know the kids will eat them with minimal fuss and they are easy. As much as I love to cook I find the monotony of cooking for kids difficult. My kids will eat meat and veges, they will eat broccoli, typically they are pretty good with the boring. It's the meals with flavour or a little different that they get fussy with. But of course they are the meals that I love.

Most nights I find myself cooking two meals. My hubby & I probably only eat with the kids once per week. This is just something that has always been, maybe not great but works for us. Ours kids have always had an early bedtime and he is a shift worker, so many nights hubby isn't home. I like to get the kids into bed and eat in peace. Now they are old enough to not need my help to eat I will often use the time they are eating to prepare our dinner. Sure it is more work for me to make two meals but at least I know they are eating well and we aren't fighting over meals.

Anyway tonight I made my super easy Chicken Soufflé. It is a dish my nana used to make when I was a teenager (very scarily nearly 30 yrs ago!) My Nan learnt to make this when she went to a council run how to use your microwave course when she first got her microwave (that had a dial knob for the timer!!!) Cooking it tonight it brought back memories of being in the kitchen in Caringbah as a girl watching Nan cook. I learnt so much about cooking and my love of creating meals and cakes that bring smiles to those I love from those days spent watching Nan. I look back and realise that whilst it felt boring to me the life Nan lead, she was a beautiful homemaker, she sewed school uniforms for the local uniform shop from home for extra money for her & Pop. I realise now that they lived a frugal life but boy we were loved.

There are so many things about my childhood I miss and one of them is the opportunity to tell my grandparents all four of them how much I loved em and how much of an impact they all had on my life. Very sadly both of my grandmothers and one grandfather passed away befor ei was married or had children. One thing that probably make me saddest is that neither of my grandmother's met my children especially my gorgeous girls. I watched one of my grandmother's my Nan slip away from us ever so slowly with Alzheimer's it robbed her of so much but allowed me to appreciate how fragile life was. My other grandmother Nannie was taken suddenly in a car accident with my Pa. That was the day my life changed forever. I don't think that you ever really recover from that kind of shock.

My Pop was a beautiful gentleman someone whom I had the privilege of spending lots of time with after my Nan passed and before he died because I was in a fortunate position of not working and being available to take him places. Pop was in a wheelchair towards the end and he knew that I would take him shopping to Miranda Fair at Christmas time because I could park in the disabled spot if I had him with me. I'm sure he really hated shopping but went so that I could get a good parking spot!

I'm so lucky now that my parents have an amazing relationship with my three children and I hope that they grow up with the beautiful memories I do.

Whenever we would go to dinner at Nan & Pop's I would be asked what did I want for dinner I would always say chicken soufflé. I am slowly introducing different meals into our kids diet and tonight they had chicken soufflé, which sounds gourmet but its not really.

Here's the recipe in case you want to sound gourmet one night.

Chicken Soufflé
Ingredients
1 onion finely chopped
1/2 cup chopped celery
3 rashers bacon chopped
125g mushrooms sliced
2 tbspns shallots chopped
Chunk of butter
Can cream of chicken soup
Ctn sour cream
3 cups cooked chicken (a BBQ chicken shredded)
1 cup SR flour
1 cup grated cheese
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk

Method
Combine the first six ingredients in a microwave proof bowl cook on high for 10 mins
Add soup, sour cream, chicken cook for a further 6 mins on high
In a mixing bowl combine flour, eggs, milk, cheese spread across the top of the chicken mixture
Cook for 8 mins on high

Serve with salad or greens or alone whatever works.

Nb this recipe is for a 500w microwave (this was the best 30yrs ago) I adjust times to suit my microwave for the first two but find 8 mins on high in my 1000w microwave for the topping is needed to cook it.

I hope you enjoy our family chicken soufflé. What are some of your fond childhood memories?

I love to bake, what do you love?

I love to bake, more than that I love to spend time making really yummy things that I know my family and friends will enjoy to eat. I would say that I really have somewhat of an addiction to food magazines and I definitely indulge in far too much food porn and all of this only serves to fuel my desire to cook for everyone.

Some would say this really isn't a problem they know that anytime I am asked I will definitely whip up some kind of decadent gooey dessert that is totally fat and sugar free (ok so it probably is neither of those things at all but it is guaranteed to be gooey and decadent!). Of course a couple of years ago when our big boy was diagnosed coeliac I thought my world was going to end, little did I know that all the diagnosis did was open up a whole new section of cookbooks for me to drool over!

As far as the coeliac diagnosis went to say that my first reaction was one of shock and disbelief and I even looked at the dr and said surely not surely it could be something else ... You know less lifelong and less life impacting (I was thinking purely of how this was going to impact my life and my low affair with food to be totally honest!!) I look back now and realise how silly that reaction was, given I have such a love affair with food really I was probably best placed to deal with this challenge thrown at us.

In the just over two years since the diagnosis the variety of food available in the stores has grown exponentially, this largely I would think due to the fact that it is now fairly trendy to have some kind of dietary requirement and wheat intolerance is right up there at the top of most lists. But there are still so many things that you simply can't buy so what is a girl with a love affair with food to do but experiment.

In the past couple of years I don't think there isn't a family favourite that I haven't converted into gluten free. Of course there have been a few failures along the way like the strawberry shortcake that I made for my dad's birthday last year it didn't quite turn out, and I am sure there were more. But I would think that overall most of the conversions have been more than successful!

Last weekend I discovered a totally decadent banana roll with cream cheese filling, I was just waiting for an occasion to make it (mainly because as much as my man loves my cooking his expanding waist is testament to that) he just doesn't need me to make cakes for him! When we invited to a friend's house for a post Australia Day BBQ I knew I had the perfect place to try out my new find.

Of course as with lots of recipes this one was found on the web made by a lady in the states and wasn't gluten free so was going to need some modification. First substitute was the flour typically is use a gluten free premix bought from the supermarket mainly because I am not sure if mixing my own flours would be cheaper though this will be something I will investigate this year. Then partly because I couldn't find my baking soda and partly because I didn't read the recipe properly prior to making it I used SR flour instead of plain plus baking soda and baking powder.

Often times I find that making a sponge can be daunting and overwhelming but since Christmas I have made three chocolate sponge rolls and now this so I have decided its all in the attitude if I have the attitude it will fail then well it quite possibly will. Making a sponge that also had fruit in it was certainly a new experience but it worked and cooked perfectly.

The next step was a little tricky and is probably the most overwhelming part of making a sponge roll and that is the rolling. The trick that I read in this recipe is to roll while still partially warm and cool it rolled this will help the roll to stay rolled.

The last step and this is the bit that made the already very yummy banana sponge simply irresistible and also some more modification from me to the source recipe. The source recipe called for whipped topping something I had not heard of and upon researching decided I would do without and substitute with pure cream instead! The filling compromised of cream cheese and brown sugar whipped until the sugar was dissolved then I added the pure cream and whipped until it was thick then came the fiddle part unrolling spreading the filling and re-rolling.

I am pretty sure I put too much cream in but there were absolutely no complaints. Just before serving I drizzled some caramel topping over the roll as she had in the picture. When I brought it out for dessert there was no complaints about any of the modifications in fact I would argue that probably no-one even knew they had happened.

I get a real sense of pride when people eat my baking and say nothing because they are too busy eating. Sure I probably do like to do it for the compliments because I think in life we all do things that we know we are good at but in honesty I don't mind if I don't get compliments I really do cook simply because I love it. I'm pretty sure this is an inherited gene my mum and both grandmothers are/were great in the kitchen and I hope that I will pass this love onto our kids.

What is something you love to do or are really good at that you hope to pass onto your children?

Til next time