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Rob baked my birthday cake, Nigella's Blonde Mocha Cake.



I think a birthday is a good time to take stock, I've been meaning to do this blog post for some time.

Making: the most of leftover roast chicken with a salad for dinner tonight.
Cooking: I need to cook a pavlova using my new pavlova plate (seen above with my birthday cake on it), as you can cook it straight onto the serving plate.
Drinking: Lanson Champagne (a birthday treat for myself).
Reading: I have been on a roll, after nearly a year-long break from reading fiction. I finished my two Christmas books from Rob, both Alexander McCall Smith. I finally finished Mr Wigg, which has sat next to my bed as I found it so poignant, and could see the end coming. Next up is the Book Thief.
Wanting: Some Ridgeline Pottery dinner plates.
Looking: at the Australian Open tennis online, after missing my annual tennis fix for the last three summers.
Playing: Taylor Swift's "Shake it off" on a loop just to see the girls dance.
Wasting: home grown lettuce on the girls, we hopefully put it on their plate every time we eat it, but they are not fans.
Sewing: um, nothing.
Wishing: for summer to return after a week of rain and wind.
Enjoying: Call the Midwife and Sherlock on iView. Late to the party, but that's ok. Except that I cry in every episode of the former, every birth, no matter what the outcome, big fat tears rolling down my face.
Waiting: for the girls to sleep through the night, any tips?
Liking: the abundance of flowers in our picking garden at the moment.
Wondering: how I will cope tomorrow with my first day at work after a month's holiday.
Loving: my little family.
Hoping: to blog a little more this year.
Marvelling: at the expanding vocabulary of Maggie and Elisabeth, and the way they are actually starting to talk to each other.
Needing: a hair cut.
Smelling: the oriental lilies from the garden, the tree like Barbaresco.
Wearing: my pyjamas of course!
Following: Lisa Kingston, a local flower farmer on Instagram, and working up the courage to ask if I can come and learn how to make up bunches of flowers.
Noticing: how big the ornamental pear trees that line our driveway have grown.
Knowing: I should go to bed.
Thinking: not sure how much conscious thinking goes on for me at the moment.
Bookmarking: children's toys for buying next year for the girls birthday and Christmas!
Opening: lovely thoughtful gifts and cards from my family and friends. Rob's special gift was a set of black pearls. They are beautiful.
Giggling: at the Evian baby ads.
Feeling: grateful.

I might try to do this again once a month.....

Hut Christmas 2013 - baking and food

We woke up on Saturday morning and consulted the cook books for baking and food inspiration. Stephanie Alexander's glazed ham was chosen.

We baked a gluten free version of her Christmas cake on Saturday too, so we will have to see what we think of that. 

We were quite relieved to track down our ham today after a morning in town yesterday (the farmer's truck broke down delaying delivery at the market). 

The days have been grey, cool and drizzly, so we both did some baking today, Rob made a gluten-free version of his Mother's shortbread recipe and I made some gingerbread and candied cumquats. 

On Wednesday we'll eat ham with some vegetables or a salad, and I'll make Maggie Beer's almond and cumquat pudding (converted also to gluten free) with home made vanilla custard ice cream.

What is on your Christmas menu?

Birthday week and party

On their actual birthday, we had a very quiet day. We woke up after snuggling and their morning breast feed headed out to the living room. Rob made them a mini stack of pancakes each, we topped them with a candle and sang Happy Birthday.

The girls had a stack of gifts waiting to be opened, but we found they quickly lost interest, so we savoured gift opening all day and the next. They loved the wrapping and ribbons best!

Rob headed into work eventually. We had a quiet morning together, the girls napped and then we ate lunch.

Rob came home with their favourite dinner. Steak and pink eye potatoes. They are so good at eating, and love to feed themselves. Now they are in their new high chairs, we can actually enjoy our dinner too. Using both hands is quite a novelty after 8 months!

We headed to bed together not long afterwards. 

After a restful day, party preparations swung into action. We had invited some of the NICU nurses we got to know over the 16 weeks in hospital, some friends and family. As usual my job is to plan and organise, poor Rob I hope he didn't feel too hen-pecked. We went for a casual lunch menu.

Ocean trout gravlax with Pigeonhole molasses and rye bread and horseradish yoghurt cheese.

Slow roasted (24 hours) free range pork shoulder (Berkshire from Bruny Island via Vermey's), served in buns, slaw and apple sauce.

Lemon coconut cake with cream cheese frosting birthday cake.

Triple chocolate brownies (both normal and gluten free)

Rob had started the gravlax on Tuesday night. On Friday I baked the brownies.

Saturday was a big day. We were up at 6am, juggling baby feeding and wrangling with our various tasks. I picked some fresh flowers to arrange. The week before I had decorated the room with rainbow fabric bunting and my favourite (signature) honeycomb paper decorations. I chose an array of flowers in the colours of a rainbow, red roses, orange and yellow lilies and poppies, green Blechnum fern fronds, blue and purple delphiniums, blue Nigella and pink ranunculus.

I quickly made up the Annabel Langbein lemon and coconut cake. The recipe is super easy and made a large cake and two smaller smash cakes.

Then it was Rob's turn. He started Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's 24 hour slow roasted pork shoulder. After rubbing in a paste of chili, ginger, garlic and oil into the scored skin, it went into a very hot oven for half an hour to start the crackling. Then the oven was turned down and the pork turned over and you cook it as low as the oven will go. Rob then headed outside to mow the lawn, and scythe the sides of the driveway. I made the cream cheese frosting for the birthday cake, but decided to ice the cakes on the day. We fed the girls early, and were feeling smug about just cleaning the house (I'd been doing some of it amongst baby wrangling) and some more food preparation. Then the power went out. Not only do we lose power, we also lose running water. Rob headed off to do some last minute shopping and pick up hot chips for tea. With the furniture rearranged, no power and the kitchen in disarray it felt like we'd just moved in, as we sat eating our chips on the floor.

The power came back on after an hour and a half, and I admit I headed to bed with the girls for their last feed, whilst Rob stayed up to cook. Apple sauce to go with the pork and a creamy coleslaw.

The morning started early, feeding babies, and Rob picking up fresh bread and buns, and ice for drinks. Despite forecasted showers, it was sunny and warm with a breeze.

I gave the girls a wash while Rob did a final vacuum and mop, then I tried to get the girls to sleep. Poor Rob headed outside alone to tackle a cheap 6x3m marquee I had bought. Of course the breeze picked up. I watched uselessly inside under breast feeding babies and rushed outside to help as soon as they were asleep. But the frame had twisted and kept unclicking as soon as you let one section go. After one last attempt with the gaffa tape, we baled, took it apart and decided we'd be cosy in the hut.

Our friends arrived then to give us a hand with the last minute prep. I passed the babies over and headed off to have a much needed shower. With the marquee debacle behind us, we got back on track, Rob and our friends slicing the gravlax, fresh rye bread, and mixing the drained yoghurt with horse radish. Meanwhile I fed the girls a quick lunch. Rob cleaned up too and we were all ready when the guests started to arrive.

More presents to open for the girls.

The hut is set up well for parties. We turned the breezeway into the bar.

The main room opens up and creates lots of space for sitting and serving food.

The gravlax had cured perfectly to a ruby colour.

The pork was ready, I love these photos of Rob and our friends chatting as he carves.

The slaw and salad a perfect accompaniment to the tender meat. 

Soon guests sat around inside and out munching happily on pork-filled buns. 

The girls even sat in their high chairs and munched on some meat.

Next course needed some final prepping, but soon the cakes were ready.

Ready for "happy birthday" to be sung and blowing out their candles. The girls listened as we all sang and then we helped blow out their candles.

Then the real fun began. We put them in their high chairs and placed a mini cake infront of each them. At first they looked confused, then Elisabeth plunged her hand into the cream cheese frosting and quickly transferred the handful to her mouth. Maggie used a different technique, she face planted the cake, licking the frosting and creating a frosting beard. They had all of us in fits of laughter as they continued to demolish their cakes with their individual styles (they didn't actually eat much cake!)

Eventually we cleaned them up, but they had had a fantastic time! 

As most guests left a few others arrived and we sat and relaxed as both girls fell asleep on the window seat. Everyone remarked how laid back the girls were, and I admit they were happy to be passed between guests for most of the afternoon. 

We headed to bed tired but very happy.

Hut Christmas 2013 - cookbooks

I love Christmas baking. When I was a teenager I started making all my families requests after my school year finished: rum truffles, cherry hazelnut truffles, white Christmas, fudge, snow men meringues and mars bar slice. 

A bit more traditional now, we make puddings, fruit mince, fruit cake, Speculaas, gingerbread, shortbread, Turkish delight, cranberry and pecan cookies and chocolate fruit slice. 

With Rob now gluten free and our girls keeping us busy this year, I think we'll do a GF cake and maybe some almond biscuits. 

Do you have special treats you like to bake at Christmas?

My top four Christmas baking bibles. 

Raspberry coconut cake

I love Instagram. For many reasons but especially when I find out about new recipes.
At the moment I crave anything sweet. Breast feeding two babies has turned me into a ravenous eater. I can't muck about if I get a free 5 minutes, I eat.
Rather than feeding my sweet tooth with chocolate (which is what I have been doing) I have been trying to bake an almond based cake for snacking on. For two reasons, Rob is on a gluten free diet, and an IG friend, @jenni1029, kindly sent me a book "Mother Food" which notes that almonds are lactogenic. Since then I've regarded any cake with almond meal as an essential dietary requirement. So I was a bit excited when I saw this cake pop up on my IG feed. The recipe was kindly passed onto me from @brionyk and she had sourced it from @andykitten.

Robert's Coconut cake

125g butter
125g SR Flour (or as I did 60g GF flour, 70g almond meal and 2 tsps baking powder)
1 cup desiccated coconut
3/4 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup of milk

Heat oven 180 degrees
Line 23cm round cake tin

Melt butter and allow to cool.
Mix all dry ingredients together.
Pour in butter and mix.
Mix eggs and milk together and then add to batter and mix.

Pour into cake tin and top with frozen berries, like blueberry or raspberry.

Bake for 25 minutes (I baked mine for 55 minutes until the middle stopped wobbling and a skewer came out cleanish).

It is delicious and we've nearly eaten the whole thing already. It is easy to bake and easy to eat.

I love Instagram.

Monday's Menu {Christmas baking has started}

The Christmas baking has started, with a sudden realisation that Christmas is only 5 weeks away I thought we'd better get our skates on.

So I prepared a double batch of fruit mince (started with a Nigella recipe then tweaked it a bit). We used lovely Amarena dark coloured glace cherries, golden raisins, Rob's home brewed apple cider, and hazelnuts in place of almonds.

While that was cooking away I soaked three separate batches of dried fruit. A double of our standard fruit cake mixture to make two cakes as gifts, the pudding mixture (my grandmother's recipe) and a Gourmet Traveller pudding mix that we used for our Christmas cake.

The Gourmet Traveller mix includes the following:

300gm prunes, chopped
150gm each currants, dried cranberries, raisins and chopped fresh dates (we used dried ones this time)
100gm natural almonds, chopped

These are all placed in a bowl with the rind of an orange.
Then I warmed 100gm cumquat marmalade (we always have plenty of our homemade marmalade), 60gm quince jelly (meant to be quince paste, but we always have an abundance of jelly), 125ml muscat and 60mL brandy (meant to be Grand Marnier) in a saucepan over low heat until the marmalade and jelly are combined. This is then poured over the fruit and left to soak.

On Sunday I made the pudding and our cake (I use Stephanie Alexander's recipe from the Cook Companion). It feels like Christmas now.

Our regular menu has included over the last week:

Monday: Asparagus, broccoli, peas and broad beans.
Tuesday: Silver beet, carrots, parsnips and cauliflower cooked with a little water and butter.
Wednesday: Antonio Carluccio's tuna linguine: with garlic, ginger, parsley, chilli, tomato passata and of course tuna.
Thursday: Penne pasta with bacon, with our garlic, fresh peas and broad beans, and Parmesan.
Friday: Vermey's BBQ sausages in squishy bread and our home-made tomato sauce.
Saturday: Mt Gnomon pork rack with carrots, pink eyes and broad beans.
Sunday: Pan-fried pink eye potatoes with our carrots, broad beans and peas.

It may look vegetarian, but we had been out for lunch a few times last week and eaten meat then, so only felt like vegetables in the evening.

What's been on the menu at your home this last week?

Monday's Menu

Hello again.

I couldn't resist posting twice.

As you know I was at a conference all week, and as you do, I ate morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea all week. Oh I felt like I was going to explode. I'm terrible I can't walk away from those sweet treats. As a consequence our evening meals were more like snacks.

Monday: Left over roast pork, cabbage and apple, rocket toasted sandwiches.
Tuesday: Rocket salad, with soft boiled eggs, speck, croutons and black pudding (much to the horror of many on Instagram).
Wednesday: Cheese, crackers and olives
Thursday: Steamed broccoli with chilli, lemon oil and anchovies.
Friday: Pasta and meatballs.
Saturday: Roast short rib of beef with thyme, baked potatoes and rocket salad. Followed by the sticky maple pecan cake
Sunday: A big lunch out, at Fish Frenzy, Blue eye trevalla and chips for Rob, crumbed scallops and chips for me and grilled fish and chips for Rob's daughter. It was nice, but I ate far too many chips and definitely didn't need dinner.

What was on the menu at your place this week?

Sticky maple pecan cake

This cake proved popular last night on Instagram, I promised to post the recipe.

For the cake:
225g butter, at room temperature
210g caster sugar
5 eggs
210g self-raising flour
85g pecans, roughly chopped

For the icing:
220g butter, at room temperature
200ml maple syrup
4 tablespoons milk
340g icing sugar, sifted
Pecan halves, to decorate

Preheat the oven to 180degC. Grease two 20cm round cake tins and line the bottoms with grease proof paper.

Beat the butter and sugar together until pale and creamy, then beat in the eggs one at a time. Sift flour over the egg mixture, then fold in. Add the pecans and fold in. Spoon the mixture into the tins, smoothing the top with the back of a spoon. Bake for 25 minutes until golden and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

To make icing beat together the butter, syrup, milk, and icing sugar until smooth and creamy. (Mine split, cause the butter was warm but the syrup was cold, so I warmed it in 10 second bursts in the microwave, whisking after each burst until it was smooth, of course then it was quite runny so had to sit in the fridge!)

I split the cakes in half, then built the cake up, spreading the icing between each layer, then decorated the top with the extra pecans.

Serves 8, best eaten on the day it was made.

Monday Menu {the Hoot cake}

Well this last week was all about one thing the cake. My sister sent me a text a while ago with a photo of a Hoot cake (up until that point I admit I had never heard of Giggle and Hoot). It looked doable. I gave them a few types of cakes to choose from (for inside) and they decided upon a caramel mud cake.
So over the last couple of days the cake took shape, I baked two mud cakes, made some buttercream, Rob sandwiched them and covered them in the white fondant (he's much better at that than me, and believes he has a second career in plastic surgery if he ever desires a career change), then the cake was carefully transported to my sisters. Where, on a very cool and miserable Friday evening, she and I set to work with 2 kilos of coloured fondant and that photo. We're pretty proud of our effort. Although it didn't start promisingly when I was quickly trying to make some royal icing to use in sticking the bits together with. I hit a spatula in the mixing bowl with the electric mixer throwing icing sugar and goopy icing all over me and the bench and the wall. My sister just heard me say "oh no". She had the good grace just to laugh at me, and the damage wasn't too bad. But we moulded and rolled and cut and came up with:


My sister had cooked up a storm, baking cupcakes, jelly cakes, scones, biscuits. meringues, fudge and fairy bread. I offered to make a second cake just in case the 40 guests were still feeling hungry. I quickly made the Annabel Langbein lemon and coconut cake on Saturday morning, covered it in cream cheese frosting and added some pink mini bunting. I left the coconut out of the icing this time, as I thought that last time it made it look a bit lumpy.


The party was a great success, the birthday girl walking around (yes she can walk), dancing to music, opening lovely gifts and being loved by all her many Aunties, Uncles, grandparents, great grandparents, great aunties and uncles, and friends. I'm not sure what she thought of the Hoot cake, she smiled and looked intently at it, and seemed shocked by us all suddenly bursting into song. But she knows how to clap and clapped along with us.

I got the icing from a new-ish cake decorating shop in South Hobart, A Tiny Bit Marvellous. A bit like a lolly shop for cake decorator professionals and wannabes like me!

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing and doing some de-beige-ing.
The menu this week (apart from the cake):
Monday: leftover beef and quince tagine with pumpkin and fennel couscous, and a fennel and orange salad.
Tuesday: a fish-less paella, with roasted red peppers and olives.
Wednesday: a spinach and pine nut omelette.
Thursday: Tomato pasta sauce, with red peppers, olives and fetta.
Friday: THAT cheese (1792, a washed rind matured on a piece of Huon pine board).
Saturday: Beef, mushroom and red wine pie.
Sunday: Beer braised ham hocks, with fennel, apples and cabbage.


What's been on the menu and your place?

Monday's Menu: one word - cheese

This weekend was all about cheese.
I can't believe I ate cheese with bread or crackers for dinner three nights in a row. Well actually, maybe I can. Rob was on a field trip all weekend, so we thought we'd head to Bottega Rotolo and pick some cheeses for an easy dinner. We chose three (with Tina's expert guidance) a Shropshire Blue (that bright orange cheese), a Rondin de Brebis (sheep's cheese) and soft Saporini (cow, sheep and goat's cheese), with a bottle of Jansz and a loaf of Pigeon Hole bread it was the perfect way to finish off the working week. Rob headed off on his field trip early on Saturday morning, and I headed into town to shop for food. I had to pick up some little pork chipolata sausages from the Wursthaus and they were cutting a large wheel of Pyengana cheddar. I had the best of intentions, it was going to be saved for a treat to share at Easter. I had organised a lunch for my Mother's birthday on Sunday, and decided to do roasted chicken wings two ways. Rob was catering for the uni students with the same recipes on his field trip. Nigella's one pan sage and onion chicken and sausage, and Ross Dobson's lemon thyme chicken wings. They went down a treat yesterday, with some roast potatoes and salad. My sister had made a pavlova which was delicious and I made a lemon and coconut birthday cake (see the recipe below).
Anyway, I was so tired on Saturday after cutting up a zillion chicken wings and baking the cake I decided just to eat the left over cheese for dinner. Claudia accompanied me on the window seat, she loves cheese almost as much as us. Last night Rob returned home, and as I'd had the big birthday lunch, I wasn't feeling particularly hungry, Rob felt like a snack. I said "Well I bought a piece of..." resulting in us munching on cheddar with two dogs sitting very neatly beside us drooling!
Culinary highlights other than cheese, include sausages with home made relish, scrambled eggs and silverbeet, chicken and mushrooms casserole on pasta, and meatball soup.

Annabel Langbein's Lemon coconut cake. 

The cake is from Annabel Langbein's book Free Range in the City. Easy, delicious and feeds my massive family!

3 cups sugar
4 eggs
finely grated zest and juice of 4 lemons
2 cups neutral oil (I used rice bran)
1 3/4 cups plain unsweetened yoghurt
1/2 cup desiccated coconut
4 cups self raising flour
a pinch of salt

Coconut Icing
75 gm butter, softened not melted
250g cream cheese
1/2tsp coconut essence
4 cups icing sugar
1/2 cup desiccated coconut

Preheat the oven to 160C. Grease a 28-30cm springform tin and line with baking paper.
Place sugar, eggs, lemon zest and juice, oil and yoghurt into a food processor or mixer and whizz to combine.
Add coconut, flour and salt and pulse until just combined (don't overmix). It will be lumpy but that's fine! Transfer to the tin and bake about 1 1/2 hrs, until cooked (check with a skewer into the middle or until it's springy). Cool in the tin.
To make the icing put all the ingredients into the food processor and whizz or beat until smooth. It may need to go into the fridge for a little bit to firm up before you use it. Spread the icing over the top and sides of the cake.

Monday's Menu

Lamb souvlaki and soup. Had to have the souvlaki with out pitta bread, as the ones we had bought were a little green when we went to use them!
New York Times salted choc-chip biscuits. Still perfecting the recipe, we became addicted to them on our weekly visits to the C & C cupcake factory market stall. Now that Michelle and Jo have moved onto exciting new adventures, we have have to feed our own addiction.
A lunch date with Rob at Tricycle, we ate this chicken slaw (delicious mayonnaise) and little cakes with coffee. I admit to not being great company- sinus pain from hayfever was sending me a little batty last week, so my mind was all over the place.
Dinner at Mum and Dad's on Thursday.
The return of the cheese platter, a nice goopy soft cheese with a layer of truffles, a blue cheese called Fourme d'Ambert and a 24 month old piece of Parmigiano Reggiano to nibble on with a walnut and fig Pigeon Hole baguette.
One of Rob's students gifted him a grow your own mushroom kit, so we ate oyster mushrooms with rib-eye steak, and vegies.
I made the easiest chocolate cake ever, a prune version of Nigella's store cupboard chocolate cake. Any cake with a ganache icing is a winner for me.
Finally chicken wings and chips for an easy Sunday night dinner.
Again, after looking back at our week, I think some green vegetables are in order!

Monday's Menu, and our weekend

Our life returned to it's normal pace on the weekend. Like anybody living on a bit of property the grass on our block had taken off over the last couple of weeks, after the combination of frequent rain and the warmer temperatures. Sadly after one day of brush cutting our not-so-trusty brush cutter spluttered to a halt a couple of weekends ago. I was cleaning the windows at the time and could hear Rob fiddling with it, pulling the trigger, cleaning a filter, pulling the trigger, I was waiting for him to kick it into the dam, but he was apparently resigned to the fact it would need to be serviced. (It was serviced last year at great expense so we were more than a little disappointed with it dying already). I know like Michelle he has a scythe on his wish-list for Christmas, but we really needed to cut our grass now! Apart from looking so untidy, I was getting increasingly worried about the dogs and snakes.
So we took ours to the doctor (a new doctor mind you) and next door is a place where you can hire them. So the drone of a 2-stroke was our weekend companion, it took Rob 10 hours over 2 days to cut the grass around the hut, down the drive, in the orchard and garden and around the nut orchard. It looks so much tidier. I know we'll need to do it again before the whole thing gets cut for hay but it made me feel a lot better.


So whilst Rob was busy outside I baked a carrot cake on Saturday and our first Christmas cake on Sunday. We took a moment to marvel at the colours of the sunset on Saturday night, and over the weekend I kept finding the dogs snuggling each other. It was pretty darn cute, although I'm not sure Nigella entirely approves of the adoration from Claudia! She tolerates it.



The menu at the hut this week: salmon on soba noodles, a salad with Asparagus and new season pink eye potatoes, I made red pepper pesto (with almonds) then stirred it through pasta, we had a chorizo, potato, zucchini and ricotta frittata and finished off the working week with a quick lemon linguine.
We always start our Saturday morning off quite virtuously at the gym for a weights class, but then it quickly deteriorates from there, with a visit to Jackman & McRoss for small white chocolate and peach tarts and cream buns. We picked up some lamb shanks and were tempted by a tasting to buy some wagyu beef sausages.
So Saturday's dinner was a simple one of sausages, Pigeon Hole bread and home made chutneys. Rob roasted the shanks in quince jelly so we ate them last night with roast potatoes and some beans. With enough left over lamb for souvlaki tonight and lamb soup tomorrow!

Monday's Menu

We had a great cooking week this week. With the warm weather (even in the evenings) we have been using the Weber BBQ to cook as much as possible.

I think this regular post is helping us raise the bar, we’re thinking about trying new recipes and making the food we eat more presentable. I’m very thankful to have a husband who loves to cook for me, and that it’s a passion we can both share. I have to say that he introduced me to good food, although I was interested in cooking before I met Rob, he made me think about making the most of every meal we eat.  Sorry just a little sentimental moment there; back to the food.

After our lunch party last weekend, we enjoyed the left over cheeses, with a salad for dinner on Monday night.

One of our friends had given us a selection of her chutneys and relishes on Sunday, and I desperately wanted to eat them with some good sausages, sadly by the time we got to the butcher, Rob decided to skip the sausages and buy rib-eye steak. So he cooked it on the Weber, and we ate it with some cubed potatoes and wilted spinach.

Wednesday night we were home quite late (Rob had been up to the Tarn Shelf at Mt Field setting up a transect to measure with his students), so I quickly cooked us puttanesca.

Thursday was our show day holiday, it was a perfectly sunny day, Rob decided to brush cut the orchard, so I stayed inside to keep the dogs away, and with the sea breeze I could feel my hay fever symptoms flare up. So I thought I’d make us a quick Lebanese feast for lunch. I’d made some lavosh for a work lunch the day before, and we already had some labneh balls in oil in the fridge, so I rolled them in za’atar. I made a batch of hummous and our favourite red pepper and walnut dip. Then I put together a green salad with lots of mint and a sprinkling of sumac. That night it was Rob’s turn, our new favourite recipe for the BBQ is chicken wings marinated in lemon (juice and rind), olive oil, garlic, thyme and chilli flakes. We served them with some grilled Asparagus.

We bought a pizza stone a couple of weeks ago (our oven has a pizza setting we were yet to try) so we thought we’d give it a whirl. Rob made up a batch of dough and we used up all the bits and pieces in the fridge, tomato passata, olives, anchovies, grilled red pepper, labneh cheese, and parsley as a topping.  The first one we tried to move from a tray onto the hot stone, which was quite unsuccessful, it just stretched the already thin base out so we rolled up the edges and left it on the tray.

The second one Rob quickly put together on the stone. They were different, I quite liked the one with the bready edge, but the one baked on the stone was super crunchy. Maybe we have a new Friday tradition?

We were slightly indulgent on Saturday morning picking out a selection of cupcakes from Jo and Michelle’s Salamanca stall.  Rob had a lemon curd and berry ricotta crumble cake, whilst I couldn’t go past the vanilla and rhubarb and the chocolate and honey. They are so good, that neither of us really want to share! We have to wait and hope that they’re there next week.

We ate a dinner of couscous, Lebanese green beans (cooked in tomato and onion with allspice), and grilled eggplant, zucchini, fennel, peppers.

Finally Sunday, the trial run of the chicken wings had gone so well we ate them with some roasted kipfler potatoes, watercress, a garlic and rosemary ciabatta. Our friend's children loved the wings (even with the chilli).  Then the cake.

What was on your menu this week?