This Italian Chicken Casserole is inspired by a Sicilian Chicken recipe by Mario Batali, an Italian- American chef and restauranteur. He’s also one of the collaborators of New York’s popular Eataly, an emporium of all things Italian that was the single most visited place during my last visit to New York. Great for souvenirs, for a quick lunch, for afternoon tea (oh, the pastry counter!!), for an early evening glass of wine (oh, the wine bar!...

Fabulous lazy Monday meal – made from scratch, using my cheeky “shake and pour” shortcut pasta sauce! Spinach and Ricotta Spinach and ricotta. We stuff things with it (Cannelloni, Rotolo, shells!), we layer things with it, we roll it up in puff pastry and we wrap it in pastry. So why don’t we stir it through pasta bakes? This is a lazy Monday meal I’ve been making for years. I know it’s a little different, but it really is tasty....

An excellent starch + veg side dish, or light meal for warm days. Plus it’s alot more interesting than the run-of-the-mill bean salads around! White Bean Tabbouleh Salad I don’t know if you have people in your life like me who don’t exactly jump up and down at the mention of a bean salad. But throw the word “Tabbouleh” in there, and suddenly, it sounds a whole lot more interesting....

3 ingredient desserts are handy emergency recipes, like Chocolate Covered Strawberries and Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars. Everybody loves them and they’re so quick to make! Peanut Butter Cookies Having dictated this recipe to 3 people at the dog park in the past week, and having had all 3 approach me afterwards with varying forms of love/hate gestures (“THIS is YOUR FAULT!” one lady wailed, showing me her stomach 😉 ), I decided I had better move this up the posting schedule....

And PS – just wait until you see how soft these are in the video! Chicken Meatballs Monday Meatball Mania* is back – and fellow meatball lovers, I have a ripper for you today! Beautiful, juicy, super tasty chicken meatballs that are baked, not fried. No more rolling meatballs around in the skillet, tediously ensuring they brown as evenly as possible all over and praying to a higher power that they stay nice and round....

The foundation of this recipe is a double duty Enchilada Spice Mix that flavours the homemade Enchilada Sauce and also seasons the chicken filling. Chicken Enchiladas I like my Enchiladas plump and generously stuffed, rather tham skimpy on the filling I want the filling to be JUICY and full of flavour, rather than dry and crumbly inside. And I want the sauce to actually still be there when it comes out of the oven, not just a dried up crusty layer of red....

This is a story about five amazing women. Wives of Aussie farmers. Mothers with university degrees and professional backgrounds who also happen to be the “go-to” person for anything and everything that needs to be done on a farm. Something that many city folk like myself may never think about is all the millions of tons of fruit and veg that are deemed “not good enough” to be sold in stores....

(Or do as I do and eat this as a meal!) Roasted Cauliflower Cauliflower is just a great blank canvas to do all sorts of things with. It soaks up flavour well, it can be simmered in sauces (like curry), roasted (try this Parmesan Roasted Cauliflower next time), pan fried, blitzed to make Cauliflower Rice or pureed to make creamy low-carb Cauliflower Mash. It can also be lavished with a cheesy, creamy sauce for the ultimate Cauliflower Cheese!...

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting Fluffy and chocolatey, buttercream frosting is a classic favourite for smothering over cakes and cupcakes. This Chocolate Buttercream Frosting is: ✅ Perfect for piping – it holds its shape with swirls, roses etc ✅ Can be used for sandwiching between cake layers – it won’t ooze out everywhere like cream when you cut into the cake ✅ Fluffy, creamy, luscious and buttery. Totally indulgent and will rival any high end bakery!...

This is totally the sort of thing I make for company during the cooler months because it’s one of those meals that’s a crowd pleaser, can be prepped in advance then popped in the oven and left without checking on it. Low risk cooking that tastes fabulous – I like! Creamy Chicken in White Wine Sauce If I have a dinner party anytime during June – August (winter here in Sydney), chances are that I’ll make something like this Creamy Chicken in White Wine Sauce....

Keeps perfectly for days, serve it as is, stuff into soft rolls or wraps, crispy burrito style! Crustless Quiche If you were to drop round on any given day, there’d likely be some version of crustless quiche in my fridge. This, along with Baked Frittata, are two of my most used fridge clean out recipes because they’re both terrific quick dump-and-bake recipes. This does take 30 minutes or so to bake....

This is the “leftovers” recipe from the Juicy Cuban Mojo Pork Roast I posted last week from the movie “Chef”. I raved about the movie in that post so I won’t repeat myself! The real star of the movie are the Cubanos which are cuban pork sandwiches. I’ve had my share of great sandwiches, particularly during my foodie road trips across the US. But Cubanos….they have always held a special place in my heart, ever since that first bite I unsuspectingly took in a random Cuban diner in Miami....

Drip decorated Dog Birthday Cake Another year older … but sadly not another year wiser (just like every other year)!! 😂 Ahh Dozer, you may not be known for your brains, but that’s ok. You still have your looks to get you through life, and most of all you have a heart of pure gold. ❤️ In years passed, I’ve shared a 2 layer white-frosted Dog Birthday Cake, and last year it was Pupcakes....

This is the first of a 3 part Spanish Feast Special series that I’m sharing this week – complete with Spanish Wine pairings! Hola! Who loves Spanish Food?? Me, me, me!! Spanish food is made for gatherings. Tables laden with rustic food for sharing – no fussy giant white plates with a tiny portion of fancy food with names I can’t pronounce, garnished with tiny herbs and assembled using tweezers....

BONUS: They stay 100% crunchy for 2 whole weeks! (Possibly longer – I caved). Chocolate Chip Cookies – Byron Bay Copycat! Australia’s most famous cookie are Byron Bay Cookies. They come in all sorts of flavours, and three of the most popular ones are White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies, Triple Chocolate Fudge and the chocolate chip cookies. They’re sold at cafes all across Australia, and they are without a doubt the most well known cookie brand....

Also, don’t miss Lamb and Beef Doner Kebab Meat – looks and tastes just like the real deal! (Albeit on a much smaller scale…) Doner Kebab recipe It’s practically an Aussie right of passage to do the post-pub midnight kebab run at some point in your life. Usually at the tender age of 18 when we hit the legal drinking limit (cough, cough, no mum, I never drank a drop before then)....

And it just happens to be made with only 6 ingredients: Nutella, cream cheese, biscuits for the base, butter, cream and icing sugar (confectionary sugar). That’s it! This no bake sweet treat is dedicated to all those who declared it to be such torture that the last recipe I shared was a luscious hearty Irish Beef & Guinness Stew when they are in the middle of a heat wave. 😉 That some of my readers are currently freezing their tails off with me in the Southern Hemisphere winter while others are enjoying summer in the Northern Hemisphere makes it rather fun as a food blogger because it means I get to share recipes that swing between opposite seasons....

Am I the only one romanced by the idea of breakfast in bed but actually find it really impractical? It is so awkward to use cutlery with a tray gingerly balanced on your lap. And if it’s toast, pastries or muffins, I find myself holding the plate right up under my chin as I eat it just to make sure that I don’t get crumbs in my bed. So here’s the thing about this Mini French Toast....

“Perfect for feeding an army. You can make ahead, eat it with your hands and I swear, there is not a single dish or pan or utensil to be washed!” In my next life, I hope to be reborn with slim hands and long, elegant fingers instead of pudgy, midget hands. My friends call me “Baby Hands”. Truly! I do everything I can to avoid “hand shots”, but sometimes it just has to be done....

This is a reader-favourite recipe included by popular demand in my debut cookbook “Dinner”! Pad See Ew Pad See Ew, which means “stir fried soy sauce noodles”, is an extremely popular Thai street food meal and one of the most popular noodles dishes at Thai restaurants here in Australia. Making a great Pad See Ew at home simply comes down to two things: What goes in Pad See Ew I can’t remember where I originally got the recipe from....