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Perfect pastry for the tropics

Perfect pastry for the tropics © Clare Richards 2009 – 2010

Pastry can easily be a very ordinary thing. Too hard, too soft, too stodgy, too thick when cooked; the dough too sticky and wet when mixed, or too liable to melt on you when rolled out. Add to that the very different [...]

Eating Christmas

Moreton Bay bugs and lobster, then this © Clare Richards 2009

It is a quiet, still, warm Boxing Day morning.  The fridge is a lot emptier than yesterday with only some ham, a little turkey, 1/2 a tropical rocklobster and a succulent slice of local wild barramundi in there awaiting further munching.  I’ll probably play [...]

Family banana bread recipe

Our family has been munching this banana bread since I remember, and like the rest of  my family I’ve never been an immaculate cake maker.  More often than not they end up like this one, so I have no interest in entering the Rosy Levy Berenbaum league.  But it tastes great, and lasts well.

If you [...]

Sweet potato, papaya, lime and passionfruit salad

© Clare Richards 2009 Sweet potato, papaya, lime & passionfruit salad

I love papaya for breakfast, but it is not very sustaining on its own.  Sweet potato is amazing in its capacity to keep you going for hours and hours, but can be a bit on the heavy side to eat on its own for breakfast.  [...]

The strange life of a cookbook writer, and chilli pumpkin

© Catseye Productions

I don’t know what this process has been like for others, but one side effect of recipe testing is that I don’t always have the time or energy to make myself a really good meal through the day, as I’m distracted with researching and testing ingredients and recipes.

Not often being in the mood [...]