Now stay with me, I know half of your turned off your lights when you saw the addition of anchovies. But believe me when I say that this particular recipe is not strongly fishy. In fact the anchovies provide the salt and the caramelised onion provide the sweet. Onions are one of those vegetables that I dislike in the raw format but adore in the cooked format.

The onions take quite a while to caramelise, about an hour in fact, but you don’t have to stand over them stirring. For the first 5 minutes you might want to push them around the saucepan just to make sure that all of the slices get enough heat and butter but for the next 30 minutes after that you can pretty much leave it alone and get away with stirring it two or three times. That doesn’t mean that I’d recommend you leave and do the shopping, I wouldn’t go that far, although a spot of online shopping is most definitely recommended and isn’t that why god invented online shopping?

For some reason whenever I make this in Summer, I need to ensure that the windows are all closed. Flies love the sweet smell of caramelising onions.The caramelised onions can be made ahead of time and stored in an airtight container for 2-3 days so all you need to do before you have guests coming over is to assemble it which takes about 10 minutes and can be done while the oven is preheating.

The taste of the Pissaladière is certainly something delicious and a force to be reckoned with. Even those who normally shun onions, olives and anchovies find themselves ditching their prejudices with every delicious, crunchy bite.

Read More

I’m not a huge cookie eater. It’s not because I don’t like them, in fact I love them but my husband isn’t partial to them and he’s the main recipient of my baked goods. So it’s easier to avoid the inevitable weight gain (aren’t biscuits so moreish?) and not make them. The recipe for these came from a great blogging buddy Barbara from Barbara Bakes. She was the lovely woman who sent me a Pay it Forward package full of amazing goodies from America. Included in these were Hershey’s Cinnamon Chips, which are delicious white chocolate and cinnamon flavoured chocolate chips with just the right amount of cinnamon.

Cinnadoodles with distinctive crackled top

I was unfamiliar with the Snickerdoodle so I looked it up. It’s an American sugar cookie with a distinctive crackly crust and crispy texture coated with cinnamon and sugar. I had this on a list of things to make and when my husband asked me if I wanted to make anything for a bushfire fundraising event in his office I jumped at these. They were simple, easy to divide up and easy to transport. And the best part? Absolutely delicious, crispy and crunchy and delicious with a cup of tea. He gladly reported back that everyone in his office loved these and there were comments from “This is like sex in my mouth” to “Mmmhmnonomnom” (i.e. Cookie Monster ravenously eating cookies). The recipe was sought by many.

If you don’t have any cinnamon chips, and in Australia, I’m guessing you won’t unless you too have a candy fairy like Barbara that can send you goodies, I’d say you could melt some white chocolate and stir in a judicious amount of ground cinnamon, cool and set it and then break it up into small pieces. It’s a fiddly way of getting around it but if you’re a cookie lover that adores Cinnamon, you’ll find it worth it.

The bushfires are a very sad time for Australia with almost 200 dead and countless animals dead or injured with their habitat destroyed. Luckily this adorable koala was saved. And if you want to donate to the Bushfire appeal, you can do so on:

The Red Cross of Australia
RSPCA Victoria
Wildlife Victoria
The Salvation Army of Australia

And here are some brilliant koala photos NQN reader SydneyGal sent me.

Read More

I have to confess something, I cheated on this Valentines Day. Not in any matrimonial sense, but in a cooking sense. I used the same macaron batter mix for these Strawberry and Red peppercorn macarons as I did for another macaron recipe. Given the high temperatures I couldn’t bear to do much baking and I thought that killing two birds (or in this case dishes) with the one mix would do.

We don’t do anything particularly huge for Valentines Day as our wedding anniversary is only a couple of weeks afterwards. This year we’re celebrating by going to New Zealand’s South Island (if anyone has any tips on the South Island I’d love to hear them). Still we felt the need to celebrate it in some way so what better way than with food. Sure, Valentines Day is, like weddings, pretty much for the girl in the relationship. I had a debate with my husband about Valentines Day – he asked what we were doing and I reeled off a list of girly themed things including movies, food and perhaps a picnic, weather permitting. He asked why there weren’t any guy things scheduled and, exasperated I reiterated that Valentines Day is really a female thing. That’s why things are shaped like hearts, not power tools.

However Men, at the very least, if you whipped these up, you would score some major points with the woman in your life and for many men, that’s about as romantic a notion as you would get. I have to say though that for all of his bloke-isms, my husband is a romantic where it counts. My engagement ring was one thing that I was thrilled and surprised by. We were never the couple that people would have pictured together, yet somehow it works. And another unlikely pair that is said to go well together is strawberries and peppercorns and for this occasion what better shade of pepper to use than pink peppercorns.

Read More