Beer Soup.

 Simple comfort food on a shoestring. 

Caramelise one onion in butter.

Add two slices of bread, all crumbled up. 

Add one can of beer and 500ml chicken stock.

Before serving stir in 2Tb sp of Crème Fresh.

You won't regret it.

Caramelised Onion Gravy.

Brown sliced onions in butter.

Add one teaspoon of sugar to caramelise.

Add Tb sp plain flour to make a roux.

Add 300ml beef stock and continue to stir over heat till gravy consistency. 

Mushroom Chicken with Broccoli and Rice.

 Oh, sooo good.

Recipe from Damn Delicious.

Didn't change anything, just added broccoli and Rice. Less than 30min beginning to end. Leftovers, if there even are any, make an excellent pasta dish for lunch the following day.

Tortilla Wrap Recipe.

500g Flour

4Tb sp cooking oil

250ml warm water. 

Combine flour and oil. 

Add water and kneed for 5 min till smooth.

Rest for 15 min. (With a glass of wine.)

Divide into 12 balls.

Roll flat.

Med-high heat dry fry pan.

Cook 1-2 min on each side.

Keep warm, wrapped in clean tea-towel. 

This will keep them soft.

Can be reheated in microwave 10-15 sec.

Keto Cupcakes......CAKE!!!!

OK, so the sprinkles aren't keto.....live a little.

Zucchini Cupcakes


1 Egg.
1Tbsp granulated sugar substitute
100g Grated Zucchini.
60g Ground Almonds
1tsp Baking powder
1tsp Vanilla


 - whip eggs and sugar substitute till its light and fluffy
- combine zucchini with egg mixture
- combine remaining ingredients
- whip it up





180*C for 25 min.      Makes 6


Ice with whipped cream or...

Cream Cheese Icing.

1 part butter, 2 parts cream cheese.
Vanilla and granulated sugar substitute to taste.
Whip it, whip it good.

Cooks Tips:

Mix can easily be doubled, tripped, quadrupled, you get the picture.

Peal the zucchini if you don't want green cakes....I'm just lazy, but pealing definitely makes them prettier and slightly softer in texture. But my kids like green cake , so....

Freezes really well. Defrosts within half an hour. Ice when you get it out of freezer, by the time it's defrosted it will be perfect.

3 Ingredient Rocket Cake...AKA Swiss Roll

This is totally my go to cake when I am pushed for time. It's also the perfect shape for a rocket!

It's also brilliant if you are short on butter or icing, or the fridge is low but you've got guests arriving in 30min and you want to make it look like you're some domestic goddess, but in reality you're just keeping the zombies at bay....


Here it is, don't be put off by all the words, it's literally 3 ingredients and no more than 30 min including washing up!







Swiss Roll....AKA Rocket Cake

3 eggs
100g (1/2 cup) Sugar
100g (3/4 cup) SR Flour
1TBsp optional extras...coffee, chocolate, dash of cinnamon...whatever takes your fancy

• Whip the eggs and sugar till it's light and fluffy. The beater should leave a trail when you lift it out.
• Sift in the flour (and any optional extras) and gently fold to combine the mixture. Try not to loose all that lovely air you've just whipped into it.
• Line a baking tray with paper (no need to grease). I use the roasting tray that came with the other oven.
• Spread the mixture as evenly as you can but don't obsess over it...it's just a cake! It's gonna be less than 1cm thick covering the tin.
• Bake 180*C for 10 minutes. (Not a minute more otherwise it become dry and too hard to roll...don't ask me how I know this ).
• While you're waiting for the timer to go off, hide away the evidence!
• Let the cake cool just slightly.
• Carefully upend the cake onto a bench sprinkled with sugar, and peal the paper away.
• Cover the whole thing in jam, and cream if you like.
• Starting at the shorted end roll it up into a nice Swiss roll. Don't try and get it too tight at the beginning of the roll, just get the roll motion started. As you get toward the middle you can make it tighter.

This was my babies 1st birthday cake....now he's 3!

I usually then wrap it in glad wrap and kind of firm up the roll a little (give it a gentle squeeze). Then I throw it in the freezer till I need it, unless guests are already at the door, then I pop it on a plate and put the kettle on.

Depending on the weather this won't take half an hour to defrost if it's been in the freezer for any length of time.


You can also make this into a traditional cake shape by rolling it slightly differently, as seen in this photo, but I will show you that another day.

Baking Bread....a wonderful sensory experience.

Ahhhh the smell of fresh baked bread, there is nothing like it.  I love making bread with my little helper.  Especially kneading the dough.  We rarely play with playdough anymore as we've pretty much got a batch of bread dough on the go every other day. It smells wonderful, tastes pretty good and the texture is just so lovely to work with.  As far as sensory play goes this one's definitely a winner in my book.

I usually just halve the dough and each of us work with our half and chat and laugh and swap and taste test and laugh and swap again until we think the dough is ready for a rest.

Later we come back to see how much it has grown.  My little helper is always amazed at how much the dough has risen. Then there is nothing but pure joy on his face as he pushes the blob back to the bottom of the bowl.




Versatile Loaf

500g flour
2tsp yeast
2tsp sugar
2tsp salt
300ml luke warm water

*Combine yeast, sugar and water.
*Leave this to sit for no more than 5 min.
*If it's all bubbly,  yeah! If not, it's dead, throw in away and start again.
*Add yeast mixture to dry ingredients.
*Kneed for 10 min or so.
*Leave in draft free place to rise, it should double in size.
*Push back down, kneed briefly and place in loaf tin to rise again. Only about half an hour, just so the dough is 3/4 to the top of the tin.

Bake. 180*C . 20min.

You can add saltanas or any other flavour you like to this base.