Simple food does not always mean quick to prepare, cook and serve. Simple food for me, is a celebration of natural flavours, seasonal produce, a lack of artifice and loads of love. This apple crumble takes some time to prepare – the apples are peeled, cored and sliced by hand before gently stewing – but…
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Apricot crostata
Crostata is a traditional Italian tart, usually filled with jam, but sometimes with ricotta cheese, nuts and poached fruit. The pastry is silky smooth, and the jam filling sweet and fruity. We make dried apricot conserve at our place as the filling, but you can use any not-too-sweet, good quality jam. Don’t be put off by the…
Read MoreLovely lime curd
Both my husband’s family and mine have a long tradition of growing citrus trees and making mouth puckeringly tart lemon and lime curd. The limes I used for this recipe were picked from the tree just before I made the curd. I have toned the amount of juice down a little in this recipe because…
Read MoreCranberry and almond loaf
Scrumptious is the word I would use to describe this cake. It is rich and buttery but not heavy or stodgy, and the lemon and almond give subtle but distinctive flavour overtones. Cranberries are one of my favourite dried fruits because although they are sweetened they still have lots of tang. The cake keeps well and…
Read MoreInstant raspberry gelato
Truly, this gelato takes less than five minutes to make and tastes absolutely amazing. Raspberries, along with peas are, in the words of Jennifer Paterson of Two Fat Ladies fame, the true successes of the frozen food world. When combined with just a little icing sugar, the juice of a lime and a touch of…
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“I’m living in the seventies” mango ice cream
Anyone who grew up in Australia in the 1970s will most likely remember a variation of this ice cream dessert. It stands alongside no-bake cheesecake and a really weird salad dressing as the quintiessential ways to use condensed milk, a core ingredient in many Australian kitchens of the day. The thing is, it tastes really…
Read MoreSticky roasted plums
Each year we travel to the small country town of Stanthorpe to celebrate the New Year with our dear friends Ewen and Elissa. They own a vineyard and winery and our time there is spent eating beautiful food and drinking their wonderful wines, laughing at anything and everything and talking about the things that really…
Read MoreGrown-up’s chocolate mousse
Silky, incredibly rich, and made with bitter dark chocolate slightly sweetened with honey, a little of this very grown-up mousse goes a very long way. However, it is very simple to make and only needs a good quality dark chocolate to make it shine. It is most important not to put the mousse in the…
Read MoreGin and lemon jellies – for weddings, parties, anything
Every summer we buy a bottle of really good quality gin and enjoy a regular gin and tonic in the late afternoon as the heat of the day is starting to dissipate. Turning a G&T into a dessert has long been on my to-do list and after a trip to Wellington in late November…
Read MoreWicked salted caramel pecans
Salted caramel seems to be the flavour of the moment and there’s a reason why – it tastes so astoundingly good. If you have never tried it before you simply must, although it is really addictive and you might not be able to resist once you acquire a taste for it. These salted caramel pecans…
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Simple food 