DAD'S 70TH BIRTHDAY PARTY

We recently held a 70th birthday dinner for my Dad and 70 of his friends. The venue was the beautiful Pialligo Estate Winery with its beautiful gardens and food. We enjoyed dinner as the sun set and the kids explored the vast grounds. 

I think I was living overseas for his 60th birthday and my sister was knee deep in nappies, so this was a special milestone that we could not let pass without a celebration.  He said it was 5 hours of bliss so the goal was achieved, to make him know he is appreciated. 

He has always loved liquorice all sorts so this was the theme of his cake (by Cakes of Your Dreams) with a blue and green colour theme for the decorations (all from Spartys). My sister made the beautiful name place cards.

RECIPE: BEST EVER POTATO SALAD

There are some foods I will never give up and one of them is potatoes. This potato salad recipe has evolved over a few years and it is always a hit.

You will need:

• 2kg waxy washed potatoes skin on
• 6 eggs
• small bunch of chives finely chopped
• whole egg mayonnaise
• 1 tsp seeded mustard
• juice of half a lemon
• greek yoghurt
• salt and pepper
• cornichons
• green apple
• a few salad leaves (optional for colour)
• bacon (optional to add saltiness)

1. Cut the the potatoes into large 2inch pieces and boil them until cooked.
2. Hard boil and peel the eggs. If you run them under cold water until they are cooled they are much easier to peel. Cut them into quarters length-wise.
3. Dice two green apples and about 12 cornichons into little pieces.
4. Mix up the greek yoghurt, mayonnaise, wholegrain mustard, lemon juice, salt, pepper, chives to make the dressing.
5. Put the potatoes, apple, and cornichons in a bowl add half the dressing. Carefully combine to coat the salad.
6. Put the egg slices on top and drizzle with remaining dressing. It looks so nice to add a couple of chive flowers for colour.
7. You can add fried bacon pieces or crunchy grilled pancetta over the top too for salty crunch. 
8. Pulling through a few green and purple leaves adds really nice colour.

RECIPE: SWEET POTATO CHIPS

The weather has been a bit up and down in Canberra lately and sometimes I notice whispers of autumn. A yellow leaf, a cooler morning, the midday sun starting to slice through the north windows.

I have been loosely following the blood type eating plan by Peter D'Adamo with great results but I'm struggling to get back on track after Christmas. It is so easy to reach for a ham sandwich when I should be eating vegetables. 

We really felt like chips for lunch today and the girls love sweet potato so I made this chunky sweet potato chips. As sweet potato contains a lot of water, the trick is not to get them too sweaty and soft, try and get them crispy. Here's how.

Really easy recipe for sweet potato chips:
Sweet potatoes scrubbed but not peeled
Rice bran oil
Garlic powder
Dry polenta
Salt*
1. Preheat the oven to about 230C with a heavy based non-stick backing tray in it.
2. Cut up the sweet potato into relatively same size chunky chips. Leave the skin on but scrub it clean. That is where all the vitamins are and they help make the chips more crunchy.
3. Cover them chips in oil, garlic powder and polenta.
4. Take the hot tray out of the oven and spread the chips out nicely. Put them in the oven and after about 10-15 minutes turn them over. Cook another 10-15 minutes. They'll just look and smell ready.
5. Salt them and eat.
*Salt them at the end not the beginning otherwise the salt draws the moisture out during the cooking process which can make them more soggy.

DECOR SALE - 50% OFF

I'm clearing out all my decor items because as my kids get bigger my house feels smaller.

I'm taking half price off shields, pineapple mirrors, frames and mobiles.

Check out the decor sale here. Make sure you enter the promo code MIDSUMMER during checkout to get 50% off!!

There will still be lots of fun and new things coming out from me this year. More blog posts but also more craft and party supply.

DAN'S BIRTHBAE

We recently had a party at home to celebrate my husband's birthday. It was a beautiful afternoon with lots of old friends, oldies, and offspring.

We started with some Hungarian mini-langos and corn on the cob. After the BBQ and salads we ate a huge cake I made inspired by his favourite dessert from Eighty Six Restaurant, the caramel popcorn sundae.

Langos is really easy to make, but not particularly healthy (no big deal!). It is essentially fried bread dough that you then rub with garlic and top with sour cream and cheese. I'm a purist and I just like to rub with garlic and sprinkle with salt.

It is a really popular snack in Hungary that you can easily buy from food vendors. There are many variations, but I used this recipe as it seemed the simplest and was really happy with how they turned out. My grandmother would have fainted over their irregular shapes but they tasted great.

The birthday cake was a chocolate cake with caramel meringue buttercream and caramel popcorn. I used this recipe and it was delicious. I especially loved the caramel swiss meringue buttercream and the addition of coffee to the chocolate batter made it a perfect pick me up.

Because some words are so apt that you don't need to finish saying them for people to know what you mean.

I have been observing with enjoyment the use of the terms 'bae' (meaning babe) and 'hun' (honey) in social settings. I thought it would be fun to created some monochrome cake toppers with these words. Because some words are so apt that you don't need to finish saying them for people to know what you mean. And sometimes people don't want a number on their cake, especially if they are a total babe - age doesn't matter!

They are really cool little cake toppers and elicit lots of smiles. Birthday boy seemed pretty happy with them too.

You can check them out and purchase them in my shop.