I love, love, love dates in any form - fresh, dried, Sticky Date Pudding (mmmm), stuffed with cream cheese or on a cracker with blue cheese.

And they are great in this Yummy Banana & Date Bread!

I always seem to have a few bananas from the bunch that go brown before we eat them, so banana bread is a good way to use them up.

Quick tip: Overripe bananas can easily be frozen and used later to make Banana bread, cakes or muffins.

In our house, Banana bread disappears very quickly any time of day, but my favourite way to eat it is warmed or toasted with a little butter for an indulgent breakfast. If you plan on toasting this bread, though, it’s best to omit the Lemon Icing.

300g dates, pitted and chopped
185ml (¾ cup) water
150g butter, chopped
450g (3 cups) self-raising flour
155g (¾ cup, firmly packed) brown sugar
3 medium (about 300g) overripe bananas, mashed
3 eggs, lightly whisked
1½ tsp vanilla extract
160g (1 cup) icing sugar, sifted
1 tablespoons boiling water
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
zested rind of 1 lemon (for decoration)

Preheat the oven to 180°C and line a loaf tin with non-stick baking paper.

Place the dates, water and butter in a medium saucepan and bring to the boil over medium heat. Remove from heat and stir until butter melts. Set aside to cool slightly.

Combine the sifted flour and sugar in a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Gradually stir in the date mixture, banana, egg and vanilla until just combined.

Pour into prepared pan and bake for 50-55 minutes, or until deep golden brown and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. If the bread seems to be browning too quickly, cover with a piece of foil.

Leave the bread to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.

To make the Lemon Icing, combine icing sugar, water and lemon juice in a small bowl and mix till smooth. Drizzle over the cooled loaf and sprinkle with zested rind. Allow icing to set before serving.

Adapted from recipes on Taste

I realise that by showing you my methods for keeping track of recipes I might be exposing myself in all my control freak glory, not to mention a fair bit of geekiness. But you already knew that, right?

I have to confess I am a compulsive recipe collector. I love reading cookbooks, food magazines and food blogs. But I have real trouble keeping track of recipes I’d like to try. When it comes to actually cooking the meal I often find myself rifling through scraps of paper, magazines, books, and web bookmarks to find that recipe I’m thinking of.

When we moved to Mexico we didn’t move our furniture or household gear but we did send some boxes of clothes, toys and a few books. There’s no way I could have brought all my cookbooks so I needed a way to take my recipes with me, particularly since I knew I wouldn’t have access to English language cookbooks. So I set myself the task of going through all my cookbooks and scanning the recipes I wanted to take. Let me tell you, it was a MAMMOTH task! But at the end I had my entire recipe collection on my computer.

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This recipe is definitely in the top ten favourite meals in our house. Even the kids gobble it up with no prompting or bargaining from us! Like just about all my recipes, it’s very easy and the prep is pretty quick. It takes 1 hour to cook so its not a last minute option, but it can be prepared in advance and it freezes well. I usually serve it with mashed potato and greens, but it would go equally well with rice or buttered noodles.

olive oil
600g chuck steak, diced
4 onions, peeled and halved
125g bacon, chopped
1 tbs tomato paste
1 tbs plain flour
¾ cup red wine
½ cup beef stock
1 tsp minced garlic
250g mushrooms, quartered

Pour olive oil into a large saucepan, heat and cook bacon, onion and steak over a medium heat until browned. Stir in the tomato paste and cook for 1 minute, then add the flour, stirring into the steak mixture well. Stir in the wine, stock and garlic and then cover, lower to a simmer and cook for 45 minutes.

Stir in the mushrooms, cover and cook for 10 minutes, then serve.

The bonus is that it was adapted from a Weight Watchers cookbook, which called for Weight Watcher’s bacon, olive oil spray and stock made from stock cubes. These “light” options are interchangeable from the full fat versions - just use whatever suits you (or your waistline).

I saw this recipe the other day posted by Dee at Words, a new blog I have been visiting, and thought it would be a good recipe for a bit of Mother/Daughter holiday baking.

Sultana Cookies Recipe

They are seriously yummy and very quick and easy to make. There’s plenty of easy sifting and mixing for the kids to do and they are baked in no time, which is good for impatient munchkins.

I used milk chocolate instead of the dark chocolate called for in the recipe. I suspect the dark chocolate would have looked a little less “turd-like” on top of the biscuits, but they were still tasty.

As Dee suggested, you could leave the chocolate off altogether. That way you could conveniently forget about all the sugar and butter in them and pretend they are healthy. They’ve got sultanas in them after all!

As usual, I left planning dinner to the last minute tonight and almost forgot that I got chicken drumsticks out of the freezer yesterday. I got distracted looking at menu planning and home organisation tools online. How’s that for ironic?

This recipe is really quick to prepare, although it does take an hour or so to cook, so it needs some forward thinking.

12 chicken drumsticks
4 large potatoes, peeled, cut into quarters
½ cup vegetable or chicken stock
1 tablespoon tomato paste
3 teaspoons dried rosemary
1 teaspoon ground paprika
½ teaspoon sea salt flakes
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
3 garlic cloves, crushed
¼ cup olive oil
steamed vegetables, to serve

Preheat oven to 220°C. Place drumsticks and potatoes in a single layer in a large roasting pan. Combine stock and tomato paste in a small saucepan over a mediumlow heat. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes or until combined. Set aside to cool slightly.

Combine rosemary, paprika, salt and pepper in a bowl. Sprinkle over chicken and potatoes. Sprinkle garlic over chicken and potatoes. Pour stock mixture into base of roasting pan (do not pour over chicken). Drizzle oil over chicken and potatoes. Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes or until golden and cooked through. Serve with steamed vegetables.

Great for midweek dinners - cheap, easy and tasty.

Hope you enjoy!

Recipe Source: Taste

I really miss Hot Cross Buns at Easter. They are normally a staple in our house this time of year, but you don’t seem to be able to buy them in Mexico. So, I’ve had to resort to making my own at times and I have to say they are surprisingly easy. When we lived in Saudi Arabia I made batch after batch around Easter time and Rocky would take them in to work to share with his (Western) colleagues. I didn’t put crosses on those ones, just in case it offended any of the locals!

At home, the chocolate variety are very popular these days, because, you know, it’s not like we have enough chocolate at Easter time. In Mexico the tradition of masses of chocolate doesn’t seem too common though, so I thought we were quite justified in having the chocolate variety.

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I’d really like to be better at Menu Planning, but some days I just don’t have the chance or the energy to think about dinner until the last minute. So I like to have a few recipes up my sleeve that are quick to make and need ingredients that I always have in the house.

Jump in the Pan Chicken is one of those recipes. It comes from a cookbook I’ve had for a while - Simple Food by Jill Dupleix, one that I use often because everything in there is very simple to make and tasty. It’s a great recipe to make on days when you’re feeling frustrated - all that pounding of the chicken breasts is great for releasing tension!

Jump in the Pan Chicken

3 skinless chicken breasts (around 150g each)
2 tbsp plain flour
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1 garlic clove, crushed
4 bay leaves
2 tbsp capers, well rinsed
125ml dry white wine
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp flat leaf parsley

Place each chicken breast between two sheets of cling film, or in a zip-lock bag, and bash flat with a meat mallet or rolling pin. Pound them until they are really thin and breaking apart.

Tear the chicken into little rags with your fingers, and toss lightly in the flour, seasoned with salt and pepper.

Heat the olive oil and butter in a large, heavy-based frying pan. When hot, add the chicken, scattering the pieces so they don’t clump together. Instead of stirring, move the pan on the heat and flip the chicken pieces until lightly golden, so they jump in the pan.

Add the garlic, bay leaves, capers, sea salt and pepper. Remove the pan from the heat, add the wine, and return to a high heat. Let the wine bubble away, again juggling the pan like crazy.

When there is only a little wine left, add the lemon juice and parsley leaves, and jiggle the pan until the sauce comes together and looks creamy. Serve immediately with rice, noodles, mash, couscous, or just a green salad.

Serves 4.

I’m always amazed at how creamy this dish is without a hint of cream in it. Don’t be scared off by the capers, if you’re not a fan of capers - the flavour is very mild. I made this the other day and discovered that we had no white wine in the house. (Strange, but true) I found using (non-alcoholic) fizzy apple cider a perfectly fine substitute.

This recipe is adapted from a Donna Hay classic and is one of my never-fail, stand-by, throw-everything-left -in-the-fridge type recipes. I start with the basic egg mixture and use whatever vegies I have. My lazy twist on the traditional frittata recipe is to bake it in the oven using a cake tin, pyrex or roasting tin. It’s much easier than on the stove and under the grill! I never seemed to have the right fry pan, or a grill to be able to do that anyway, so this method was borne out of necessity! Read the rest »

I’ve never cooked Lamb Shoulder before; never even seen it in the supermarket in Australia, but Lamb is pretty hard to find here in Mexico, so whenever I see it, in any form, I grab it. In fact the Lamb Shoulder is similar to a Leg of Lamb and can be cooked in similar ways - roasted, slow-cooked, braised, to name a few.

I chose a very simple recipe to roast my lamb shoulder, because I have a killer gravy to go with it - one of my Nanna´s signature dishes - Tomato and Mint Gravy. I served it with roast potatoes, broccoli (because my kids are mad for “little trees”) and roasted capsicum (because my husband and I love capsicum in any shape or form).

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This is one of my Nanna’s signature recipes and is always requested in our house when we have Roast Lamb. I’ve never been very good at making real gravy from the drippings, so this is an easy and really tasty alternative. I often baste the lamb with a bit of the gravy part way through the cooking.

Tomato and Mint Gravy

½ cup tomato sauce
½ cup water
2 tablespoons brown vinegar (or balsamic or red wine)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons mint jelly or mint sauce

Mix all the ingredients together in a small saucepan and heat. Serve hot with Roast Lamb. It’s that easy!