Vanilla – Mother Knows Best

Yes she does… my lovely Mum has pointed out a mistake I made in this post
In it I stated that VANILLA ESSENCE was a cheap, synthetic pretender to the real thing. It’s not. 
Vanilla essence is a dilute form of vanilla extract. It is still 100% natural vanilla and a quick read of the label will confirm this. [...]

T-Bone # Horseradish Butter & Salad

 

photo courtesy of PDPhoto.org
T-Bone steak has to be our favourite. I think it’s the combination of meat cooked on the bone (always so much tastier) and the fact you get the piece of fillet and the porterhouse – all in the one steak!
We don’t have it very often; mainly because we just don’t eat such [...]

Egg Free/ Nut Free/ Dairy Free Vanilla Cupcakes

Some of you will be familiar with my recipe for allergen-free/vegan chocolate cupcakes. You can find the recipe HERE. Well, my client requested vanilla allergen-free cupcakes topped with blue ‘buttercream” this week, so I set to work perfecting the recipe.
This is the result:

Some things that I did that I believe helped achieve this great result:

using a little [...]

Vietnamese Mixed Meat Rolls

 

Porky meats, pate, coriander, carrot shreds, cucumber, fresh chilli and nuoc cham  fill  delicious crusty, crackly crust, French-style rolls from the Vietnamese sandwich shop.
They cost $3-$4 each and are worth every cent – just delicious.
Depending on where you go, you might have the choice of chicken instead of pork, or different combinations of meats. The added veggies, [...]

Hint For A Fragrant Linen Closet

 

My lovely mum came over on the weekend to help me organise my linen closet.
 She know’s how it’s been a bit hard for me to keep up with all the things I want to do at home lately. Work and uni take up a lot of time
I love linen. My bed is a [...]

J’aime Jamie’s Potato & Salmon Salad…

Not a huge Jamie Oliver fan but this meal caught my attention and I knew I wanted to make it – soon.
Well, I saw it on TV last night, and made it for dinner tonight Happy days!
You’ve got a bed of baby spinach and other salad, whatever you fancy really.
On the top goes [...]

Chocolate Cupcakes # Rosie-Pink Buttercream

Thispost is for Michelle. She left a lovely comment about my cupcakes and requested the recipe for the chocolate ones. Well, this is one recipe I use. i think it’s special. the buttermilk makes the cakes light and lovely, and oil instead of butter improves the keeping qualities and lightens the mix. Don’t worry if [...]

Tonkatsu – our favourite Japanese meal…

Tonkatsu is wildly popular in Japan, and rightly so. This set meal consists of  breaded (crumbed) pork , steamed rice, finely shredded raw cabbage and a delish sauce.

I  also include a fried egg sprinkled with seaweed seasoning.
Here is how I make Tonkatsu.
You will need to buy some nice thin pork chops. If they are too thick the [...]

Beautiful Daughter on a Beautiful New Kitchen Floor

Remember how monty was laying a new floor in the kitchen?
I am so delighted with it. I just love to sweep it with my new microfibre broom/mop thing…
Well here’s a photo of it.

That’s my gorgeous dumpling of a daughter licking out the cupcake mixing bowl…

iPrimus: All Is Forgiven…

For now anyway.
The internet is purring away and everyone is happy again
I have to take this opportunity to thank a rep from iPrimus who emailed me after seeing my post – it was a very pleasant surprise and went a long way in restoring my faith in the company.
The power of the blog [...]