One Bowl Easy Apple Cake with Cinnamon Apple Chips

Everyone needs a one bowl cake mix up their sleeve that is no fuss and tastes amazing. This is it, you don't even need to peel the apples. I don't know where the original recipe comes from, it's one of those ones from my childhood which is written on a recipe index card in my mum's scrawling hand with Terry Bac inked in the upper right corner, Terry gave this recipe to my mum many many years ago and it is still the apple cake we go back to time and time again. Thank you Terry! The apple pieces melt into little pockets of apple mush and the cake goes a dark moist caramel studded with toasty walnuts. Autumn on a plate... in Southern Spring. 

Pistachio, Orange & Fennel Salad

Sometimes you need to remind yourself to slowdown, to sleep more, to eat better, to appreciate the simple things like warm doonas and cuddling cats on a cold morning, or piles of yellow ginkgo leaves in the park. Whatever you are doing - or overdoing - it's almost the middle of the year and it's time to have a break, not take on so much and just say no to things to free up time for you. This recipe is simple, super quick to prepare, good for you and delicious. We have just had the first day of winter so to stave off a cold, and generally keep you feeling fit, pistachios are ideal as they are energy rich with mono-unsaturated fat, antioxidants, vitamin E, B-complex vitamins and full of beneficial minerals like copper, zinc and selenium. Combine this wonder nut with the vitamin C in oranges and fennel, your vitamins A and K (among many others) from spinach and you have energy in a bowl.

Roast Garlic and Butter Bean Dip

For a few weeks now I have had two beautiful bulbs of organic garlic sitting in what is meant to be a fruit bowl but instead has become some sort of bowerbird nest of seasonal bibs and bobs, only the bowerbird is colour blind and eschews the brilliant blues for the brown and autumnal. Russet leaves snatched up before they are sullied by the drizzle only to be crushed in my pockets. Dried leathery seed pods whose satisfying rattle amuse for two blocks then are absentmindedly shoved into my bag. Tiny conifer cones, seeds dispersed, gathered with notions of never to occur craft projects involving silver spray paint. Only remembered when I reach into my pocket on returning home and discover the rumpled (and lets be honest, suddenly drab) remnants of autumn... then I throw them in the bowl and forget about them once more.

Ode (Odour) to an Allium - Confit Garlic

Last week felt long. Late nights at work, yo-yo weather, saying yes to too many things and way too much coffee and sugar. My body definitely wasn't happy with last week, my shoulders have the tension of an olympic weightlifter without any actual strength; no amount of dewy moisturising mist with outrageous youthful claims would put me in the 95% of the people surveyed who look "10 years younger" and thank god for YSL touche eclat for those under eye circles lest someone mistake me for Fester Adams older sister. Enter the wondrous properties of my favourite allium - garlic (and a glorious weekend sleep in). These paper skin encased, pungent bulbs have been lauded for their medicinal properties for centuries, with everyone from the ancient Egyptians and Hippocrates to modern dieticians promoting its health benefits. On top of all that, it tastes great. Good for me and tasty? Hell yes I will eat you.

Easter French Toast

Happy Easter Sunday! I have tried making hot cross buns a few times in the lead up to Easter but haven't been completely happy with any I made (though they all vanished anyway). I am a planner, I like to have an outline of what I'm going to be making for the blog weeks in advance, plan what will be available in different seasons, or what festive occasion is coming and play around with recipes so when the time comes it's easy. So even though I wasn't happy with my hot cross buns I still thought 'I have Saturday to get them right'... then I woke up with a cracking headache. At this point I cursed myself for having: (A) decided to start a blog in the first place when I could have days of absolutely nothing stretching out in front of me; and (B) deciding that my blog would have groupings of 3 recipes! Idiot! 

Hot cross Easter pikelets

I don't know about you but the idea of spending several hours of my Easter weekend making hot cross buns just didn't appeal this year (plus I am yet to find a recipe that I really love and am willing to share). Instead these pikelets are super simple, quick to make and taste a lot like the real thing without all the waiting around or wondering how it is that shop bought ones stay soft for so long? Eat them warm or cold with lots of salted butter!

Sesame & Ricotta Hotcakes with Tahini Honey Butter

I am loving experimenting with pancakes in the lead up to Shrove Tuesday, they just may be my ideal food as they are quick to make and can be modified endlessly to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. While I usually tend towards the thin lacy crepe I feel it is my duty (tough though it is) not to neglect the thicker hotcake. Maybe my years of shunning the hotcake is unfair to a 'genre' of pancake but I have eaten a lot more mediocre thick pancakes in my time than I have crepe failures... there is just a lot more that can go wrong with the consistency. These hotcakes are super light and fluffy with the added depth and nuttiness of sesame seeds and tahini, a good source of antioxidants and calcium (these are practically a health supplement!).

Simple Tomato Salsa

Tomato salsa is so basic but so remarkably satisfying. I can demolish a large bowl in a matter of minutes as it hits all the receptors in my brain for good food - it's fast, fresh and full of flavour. My Great Uncle Henry, a strawberry farmer from Watsonville, California, was a gruff man with a penchant for bolo ties, a dead pan humour that terrified me as a child and could make fresh salsa using only tomatoes, fresh jalapeños and red onion that was out of this world. Maybe it was the Californian sunshine, the absolutely ripe red tomatoes or it could be the juxtaposition between the salsa and the crates of sweet fat strawberries we lived on but something about this tomato salsa was memorable.

Omelette: Classic

I don't overly like horses (already nervous around them, I was once on one that stepped on a snake and took off...) but I love the Melbourne Cup, mainly because as Victorians we get an extra public holiday. For me, long weekends mean sleeping in, cooking, catching up with friends and eating breakfast at any time of the day. Omelettes are quick and delicious and can be as simple or as fancy as you like making them great for lazy breakfasts or to share with friends for a weekend brunch.