Category Archives: Family favourites

Pumpkin fruit cake

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You know, I have never been a fan of fruit cake and I place the blame squarely on this recipe.

My mum was a take it or leave it type of person.  If you didn’t want what was on offer, then you could go without.  Many times I would be starving, as only a child can be, and I would ask mum, ‘What’s to eat?’  The answer was, invariably, ‘There is some pumpkin cake in the tin.’ There was always bloody pumpkin cake in the tin!!  For the whole of my childhood, I don’t remember there ever being another variety of cake in the tin. Continue reading →

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Aunty Margaret’s cheese biscuits

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Aunty Margaret was always my favourite Aunty and I was lead to believe I was pretty special to her.  When I was little, my mum told me the story (I don’t know whether it is true or not) that, when I was born, Aunty Margaret told her,  “You have enough daughters, this one is for me.”  Aunty Margaret always wanted a daughter but had two sons.

I named my first doll Margaret and, many years later named one of my darling Bichons, “Maggie”, both after this wonderful woman. Continue reading →

Date and Nut Loaf – Mark II

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My sister, Sandra, sent me a text after my last post with mum’s recipe for date and nut loaf.  It was a little cryptic in part.  It included ‘a few spices’ which I interpreted as something one conjures up when faced with ‘mixed spice’ in a recipe and you don’t have ‘mixed spice’.

Continue reading →

Peanut Cookies

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2013 07 18_0465 copyOk, ok … I know it is politically incorrect to call biscuits ‘cookies’ in Australia but this recipe is entitled Peanut Cookies in the biscuit chapter of The CWA Cookery Book and Household Hints 42nd Edition (1992).

Can you believe it?  42 editions by 1992?  I just checked on-line and found they are up to the 53rd edition.  Amazing.  For those who don’t know, CWA stands for the Country Women’s Association, an Australian organisation of women living in the country.  Stereotypically, they get together periodically for tea and scones and a good chat but, in reality, they have done a lot of good work for a lot of people. Continue reading →

Marinated Chicken Wings

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Everyone has their favourite marinated chicken wing recipe…  this one is mine.  There will be no negotiations entered into.

I have been eating this dish, consistently, for 39 years – yep, 39 years.  My mum used to make it and, when I left home, I took the recipe with me.

Continue reading →

Pea and Ham Soup

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What’s with the weather?  It is days since I have seen a ray of sunshine. Not that I am complaining, I love winter.  It is just that it is so unlike Perth.  The heat goes on for so long, you can’t imagine it ever coming to an end, especially, with a cold, wet spell like this.

But it has and it is time to bring out the big guns.  It’s cold, it’s wet and we all need some pea and ham soup to cheer us up.  Now, I appreciate that you probably have your own way of making it but just in case someone out there has never made it or has lost their family recipe, this is what I do. Continue reading →