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Showing posts from September, 2015

Simple September

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Spring time! Gosh, this month has gone by too quick! I have been quite busy with research (currently finishing up data extraction) so haven't been able to write up proper recipes. Also, my mum came to visit (for her birthday) so she has been taking care of most of the chores now and I have been doing minimal cooking. Here are some shots from our mini party and other simple eats this month- Woke up early to make brekkie for mumma- capsicum, kale and feta frittata Chocolate raspberry slice Red quinoa, chicken and potato balls Sweet potato and pecan brownies Coconut cupcakes Carrot energy balls (mum)- I call them 'high energy balls' because of the amount of sugar she puts in them! Chicken buns (mum)- not the healthiest as these are fried but they make good party treats! Green tea cupcakes with orange icing I tried being artsy :P That's all for now :) x

High tea - planning

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Last Sunday, two of my good friends and I held a fundraising high tea party. We started planning for this way back in July. During our first meeting, we had a brief discussion over what organisation we should fundraise for. We were thinking of doing Cancer Council because the proposed date we had for high tea would be around Daffodil day. But in the end, we decided to go for one close to women. We picked National Breast Cancer Foundation because all of us had a personal experience knowing someone who has suffered or died from breast cancer. Food Next thing we had to decide was the menu, we each discussed items that we could contribute. We wrote ourselves a shopping list and a brief plan of when to bake what. We had our high tea on a Sunday afternoon so we planned that we would do shopping on the Monday, start baking from Thursday. We wanted to allow ourselves plenty of time because we were going to try some experimental desserts and we knew that these would take time

High tea- final day

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Presenting some of our best shots and reflections on our experience. If you'd like to read about the background story/ beautiful chaos we had, see the other blog on  planning  :) Menu Sweet Chocolate cheesecake Butter Cake with buttercream icing Sweet potato and almond brownies Scones Semolina cake with cinnamon and lemon syrup Coconut macarons Red velvet cupcakes Vanilla thins Jelly shots Cream biscuits Sponge cake with whipped cream icing Mini coffee cupcakes with caramel icing Chocolate biscuits Lemon Shortbread Savoury Pinwheel sandwiches (chicken, egg and vegetarian) Curried chicken pastries Spinach ans ricotta pastries Sun-dried tomatoes, olives and polenta muffins Sun-dried tomatoes, capsicum and feta tarts Drinks Strawberry iced tea Masala spice tea Various pink Schweppes drinks (raspberry, pink grapefruit and blood orange) Butter Cake with buttercream icing Coconut macarons Sponge

Father's Day 2015

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I asked my daddy, "what kind of cake do you want for Father's Day?" He said, "just a plain cake with nothing on it." He's just too easy and kind on me! Happy Father's Day!  I've spent so long looking for a perfect card for this Father's Day but they just don't seem to be have what I was looking for. I wanted something with a nice long message but all the ones I saw had dull cover pages. Then I came across this superdad one and I found it to be quite appropriate for us because he has been like a 'superhero' to me. I ended up getting this cute tatty bear one and thought I'd just write my own long message here and force him to read this later :P So here it goes... To my dearest best daddy in the world, Firstly, I hope you like the card and the other presents. I thought I'd get you this superdad tatty bear because you have been like a 'superhero' in my life. You may not know how to fly l

Loss and grief- the sister I never met

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As you can tell from the title, this is not my usual cooking or dining shenanigans story. This is actually quite sensitive so only read if you're okay with a mushy topic like this. Today, I had the privilege to attend a talk at my work where a lady spoke about the loss of her newborn baby. She was absolutely amazing, I'm not one that usually gets emotional hearing other people talk about their losses but I did get teary in this one towards the end. It only took me a few seconds to work out why, it was because it triggered something else. But first, I want to share the lady's story before I tell you mine. The lady spoke about her baby who died two days after he was born because of hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. This basically means, for some reason her baby had stopped receiving oxygen a week prior to her labour. He was in NICU after he was born but he had never opened his eyes, he had no brain function. She spoke about all these memories she made with her baby w

Bittersweet winter

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Winter is officially over and spring is here! I know most of you are probably super excited but I'm a little sad winter is over.  Yes, I'm one of those weird people that enjoy a good cold weather, contrary to what most people think about winter.  You might be wondering why!  Well, let me give you a few reasons and see if I can win you over :P Firstly, you could pretty much wear anything and get away with it as long as you wear a nice looking coat. You could be wearing the tee you wore last night under your classy coat and still end up looking good. Winter is so forgiving, you don't have to worry about colour coordinating your outfits.  Same goes with shoes, you gotta decide between ballet flats or sandals or whatever else you wear. In winter, it's so much easier because it's too cold to wear anything else :P Just slip on some boots with any random socks you find and you're good to go!   As you can see from this picture- I'