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.

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!

Homemade Chocolate Waffle Cones

In the words of the soca singer Alphonsus "Arrow" Cassell I'm feeling hot hot hot, feeling hot hot hot; hear it from the top feeling hot, hear it from the top feeling HOT! Although unlike the song the last thing I want to do is party in this heat, instead I'd settle for sitting in a cold bath eating ice cream! I am obsessed with Maggie Beer's Burnt Fig, Honeycomb and Caramel ice cream which I will happily eat from the tub, unfortunately without some form of portion control I will happily eat my way through the whole tub, such is its deliciousness. Enter the Ice Cream Cone. Bowls come in many sizes but ice cream in a cone is limited to the size of the cone, and these chocolate ones are perfect mini-cones.

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!).

Nectarine & Mango Salsa

I have not eaten anywhere near enough stone fruit this season so am stocking up while I still have the chance. My favourite are white nectarines which seem to only come as rock hard or 'eat me now or tomorrow I will be brown'. So as well as 'au naturale', I have been brûléeing like mad to top Pavlova, yoghurt and ice cream; and now with a warm day I am breaking out the salsa. Sweet and chilli hot salsa goes beautifully with all summer foods - as a nibble with poppadums for a gathering, alongside a piece of grilled fish or with that addictive warm salty squeaky cheese haloumi.

Corn & Black Bean Salsa

Oh Melbourne, while I do love your idiosyncratic weather, sometimes... let's just say the Australia Day public holiday... I wish you were a little more consistent. After all it is summer, and summer in the 'sunburnt country', so one might reasonably expect sunshine, warmth and a lazy day around a BBQ wearing a hat and heaven forbid, shorts! Instead I ventured out for my morning coffee (to wash down a vitamin D) in long sleeves...

 

Today's current lack of sunshine aside, the long days and fresh ripe produce make "cooking" easy, for me summer food is all about colour, flavour and sharing. Salsa in its innumerable forms can make a great accompaniment for BBQ'd meats and fish, or on top of quick quesadillas toasted on the grill. Above all else it is a healthy, easy to assemble, flavour packed grazing food that can fill the gap between lunch and twilight on those summer days that feel dreamy and endless.

Lemons: Lemon curd

I have tried so many recipes and trawled the internet in order to find an easy, no fail lemon curd recipe that is super lemony (there is nothing worse than insipid curd), but should really have looked no further than Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion'. I am often heard saying in the kitchen, "what would Stephanie do?" and she has certainly never let me down. Stephanie debunks the 'whisk continuously in a double boiler and never let it boil or it will curdle' myth, which makes 'lemon curding' a whole lot easier.

 

Strawberry Jam: Scones with jam & cream

My good friend Belle's mum (the lovely Erica) makes amazing strawberry jam, full of large chunks of sweet, soft fruit - it tastes like real strawberries have turned to nectar basking in the spring afternoon sunshine... I do not exaggerate.

So at our last weekly catch-up when Belle casually said, "oh, I almost forgot, I have something for you", then pulled out a jar of homemade strawberry jam I was so excited and rushed for the spoon drawer and cracked it open. Bliss! Just like her mum's. It finally feels like spring is here...