Childhood Favourite

What was your favourite dish growing up.... I am pretty sure my little sister Alice's was roast or spag bol. An early memory I have is mum asking me what I wanted for my birthday supper.. I clearly remember asking for chicken in a white sauce with mushrooms with rice and peas. I am not sure what this says about me as a child but it is great. Its been raining in Melbourne the last couple of days and I was craving comfort food

Joe made this dish and its a variation on the Chicken Fricasse mentioned about. Here is what you will need for two with leftovers.

2 diced chicken breasts
1 white onion
200g of mushrooms
2 carrots
250ml cider
150 ml of double cream
2 spring onions
pinch of paprkia
pinch of flour and a knob of butter
salt and pepper to season


Preheat oven to 180 degrees

Soften the onion and mushrooms in a casserole dish, so that the onion becomes opaque not brown. Once softened, empty out of the casserole and leave to one side.

Now colour diced chicken breasts in a little olive oil and the paprika, once coloured, add back in the mushrooms and onion, add carrots, spring onions, cider, cream and seasoning and bring to a simmer.  The sauce will be quite runny, a little trick to help thicken is to cream together butter and flour to create a paste. Drop this paste into your sauce and stir.

The cider we used is called Apple Head, it is made by Thunder Road Brewery an awesome boutique brewery that Joe's sister's partner Dan works for. If you are ever in aussie you must try out their beers.

Now pop the top on your casserole dish, or cover your ovenproof dish with tin foil. Put in the oven for around 30 to 40 minutes. Check to make sure it doesn't dry out too much and that it simmers gently.

We served ours with brown rice and some kale.

Not sure if this was mum's original recipe, but thank you :)


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The Smell of Freshly Baked Bread

I love the smell of freshly baked bread,

It makes me a little sad that with all the low carb diets out there people don't enjoy yummy homemade bread. Treat yourself occasionally, try this basic bread recipe, these are so much better than shop bought bread rolls.

What you will need to make your dough:

500g of Strong White Bread Flour

Pinch of sea salt

7g of yeast (this is one yeast sachet)

1/2 tablespoon caster sugar
2 tablespoons of olive oil
325ml lukewarm water

Mix your yeast, water, sugar and olive oil in a jug, leave to one side you will see this should start to create what I can only describe as a scum on top.

Measure bread flour into a bowl, make a well in the middle and pour in a little watery yeast mixture at the time, mix together with hands, or a spoon. Mix until you create a ball of dough, add a bit more flour it is feels like its too wet to create a ball. Dust a little flour on top and cover with a clean tea towel.

Leave your dough somewhere warm (on a radiator, an airing cupboard, or in the sunshine if you have any going spare). Let the dough rise for about an hour... have a glass of wine or tipple of choice.

Once the dough has risen, it should be about double in size.

Flour a work surface and kneed the dough to knock our any air, do this for about 5-6 minutes. Divide your bread dough into roll size portions and shape however you like, top with seeds or dust with flour. If you don't want to use all your dough it freezes fine wrapped in some clingfilm. Here are some examples of bread roll shapes.

I made ours into kaiser rolls. There is a great little You Tube video to show you how to do it.

Once you have created your rolls, place on a baking tray and leave to prove for 10 minutes covered in a tea towel (they will rise and expand a bit so leave space between them). Whilst the rolls are proving preheat your oven to 200 degrees.

Bake in the oven until golden brown for around 20 minutes.

Serve hot and buttered, or keep for packed lunches in the week.

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Another Day Another Bay

It has been the most glorious weekend in Melbourne, around 32 degrees with a little bit of breeze.

We have spent most of our weekend down in Sandringham which is about a 20 minute drive along the coast from Port Melbourne.

Since moving to Aussie I have discovered the wonders of Stand Up Paddleboarding (SUP). It's is not as easy as it looks and a great abs workout. On Saturday we went down to Sandy Beach HQ with some friends and spent an hour messing around on the water, falling in and generally having lots of fun.

Sandy Beach HQ run great lessons or let you hire out boards for $25 an hour. We love it so much we are going to be looking out for some boards on eBay.

I couldn't take any pictures of us boarding, but it looks like this...

Following a well needed lunch of toasties we hit Sandringham beach. One of the few beaches I have come across in Melbourne that gets deep quickly making it a great place to swim, and watch the boats from the local yacht club.

It has been a thoroughly relaxing weekend, I am heading home and am looking forward to a lazy Sunday roast and a catch-up Skype back to the UK :)

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Something Fishy

I don't know about you but I do love coming home and having dinner cooked. So I was a very happy bunny when I came home from work this evening and not only had Joe cooked dinner but it included smoked salmon, yum yum.

This little beauty was created by Joe no recipe and he has kindly shared his super culinary skills... this is quick and easy, but packs a punch and is really fresh.

This will serve two. Firstly, cook enough pasta for two, whatever shape or style you desire... we had rigatoni

Griddle some french beans and some bread crumbs in a little olive oil

When the pasta is cooked drain and pour into a mixing bowl. Add in the french beans and bread crumbs, a small pack of smoked salmon, a handful of capers, juice of a lemon, a pinch of chilli, two chopped spring onions and some fresh rocket or spinach leaves... whatever you have handy.

Super quick, super yummy.... so yummy I ate mine faaaaar too quickly!

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Sticky Lamb Kofta Wraps

This is a little recipe adapted from a Jamie Oliver 15 minute meals www.jamieoliver.com

If you like spicy flavours and want a bit of a twist on your chicken or beef wrap you will love these yummy koftas serves in fluffy greek gyros and paprika tzatziki

Feeds four or two if you are feeding a hungry boy and want a couple of sticky koftas left over for lunch.

What you will need...

For the sticky koftas
500g of lamb mince
1 small white onion
1 tablespoon dried chilli flakes
1 tablespoon cumin
1 teaspoon cinnamon
A handful of fresh coriander
salt and pepper to season
75g finely chopped pistachios
honey for drizzling

For the paprika tzatziki
1/2 a cucumber
1/2 a lemon
1/2 a cup of zero fat greek yoghurt
1 Teaspoon paprika
Handful of mint

Gyros, or pita breads to serve

To make the tzatziki, grate you cucumber and squeeze out all of the water with your hand or using a tea towel - this stops your tzatziki becoming too watery. Then simply in with half a cup of greek yoghurt, your lemon juice, chopped mint and paprika. Set to one side to serve later Too easy mate!

For your koftas, finely chop your onion and add to a bowl with all your spices, chopped coriander and half of your chopped pistachios (we keep the other half for later!)

Add in your lamb and thoroughly mix together with a spoon or your hands. Your mix should then make about eight koftas, shape into fat sausages and flatten the slide slightly, this will help you cook the koftas more easily in a pan.

Now the sticky bit, griddle your koftas until golden on all sides, then just before serving drizzle with a little honey and the remaining pistachios. Warm your gyros in the oven and you are ready to eat!

Serve your koftas in a wrap with your tzatziki and some salad - I manage one wrap, Joe will easily eat two.... enjoy :)

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Port Melbourne Sunsets

The sunsets in Port Melbourne are amazing, I just wanted to share some snaps from the other night, it had been a boiling hot Monday so when I got home from work we went for a swim before bed and took these snaps

Enjoy....

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Sunny Sunday

Melbourne weather is amazing! It is so nice to have a summer, this weekend was especially nice, so we decided to take the hour and a half trip down to Queenscliff

Queenscliff is a pretty little seaside resort at the entrance to Port Philip bay, the opposite side to Point Nepean. The water was crystal clear and lovely.

Even though Port Philip bay is enormous the entrance is tiny so great for watching container ships

We even tried to get a little arty with our new camera.

Any suggestions of other beaches around Melbourne please let me know, we want to make the most of the rest of the summer.

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Welcome to my new blog!

So... I thought I would start writing a blog, somewhere to share our new life down under, and the things that I am interested in...

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