Food & Lifestyle Scene

This cake is super easy – once the oranges have been poached you just throw 5 ingredients in the food processor. After it has cooked you can cover it with the orange syrup, top with caramelized orange slices or dust with icing sugar. Because it’s so moist it keeps really well. Like all dessert cakes it should be served with cream and / or ice cream. Just don’t buy reduced fat cream as i accidentally did last night, as it will never thicken!

Yes, you read it correctly. Thrash metal vocalist, Schmier, loves cocktails.  In our chat last night, Schmier stated that in Germany, “we have a big wave of cocktails with gin nowadays”. Schmier’s favourite one at the […]

With lime and coconut, this cake has the flavours of my favourite icy pole. I got this recipe from a free Coles supermarket mag, and it’s a cracker. All I did to change it was adjust the cooking time as the original recipe suggested to cook the cake at 160 degrees for 2 hours, but I prefer to cook my cakes slightly higher and for less time. It’s delicious, makes a really large cake and it keeps well as it is so moist – ticks all the boxes! You can decorate it however you like. I’ve just piped circles on the top of this one, but I have also topped it with lime slices and also flaked coconut. Anything that carries on the lime/coconut theme works well.

Wreath-shaped pavs seem to be all the go at the moment. They are of course just a regular pavlova mix shaped differently. If you don’t have any raspberry essence you can just make a regular vanilla pavlova. Top with whatever fruit is in season. As a tip, make sure you measure your largest serving plate before making the wreath, you don’t want to be in the awkward position of not having a plate big enough to put the pavlova onto. I also mark out the shape I want on the back of the baking paper first – for me making an even circle shape is harder than it seems!

Rice paper rolls don’t really need a recipe – veggies, noodles, meat, whatever, wrapped in rice paper. However this chicken recipe is great, and adds extra depth to rice paper rolls. The veggies I’ve listed are of course just a suggestion, use whatever you have to hand. I tend not to put noodles into my rolls, but if you like you can cook up a pot of thread noodles and add them to the mix. Regarding herbs, any combination of Vietnamese mint, coriander or regular mint works really well. If you’re pressed for time and can’t make the sticky caramel mix you can just poach or pan fry the chicken thighs, or just use a BBQ chook.

Growing up in Perth, especially in the 80s (when I was in my 20s), was a time of growth. In fact Western Australia was known as the “State of Excitement”. There was Alan Bond, of America’s Cup fame (whose front lawn I use to park my ford panel van on when visiting his next door neighbour), Lang Hancock, and all the corporate types.