The Back Yard Lemon Tree

Recipes, Side dishes, Vegan

Claudia Roden’s – Moroccan Sweet Potato Salad with Green Olives

When I was a kid, my mum used to roast the purple-skinned, white-fleshed sweet potato, and the orange sweet potato or kumara was an exotic rarity. Kumara is now a staple of your average fruit and vegetable shop and it is almost impossible to find the old fashioned white sweet potato my mother used to…
View recipe: Claudia Roden’s – Moroccan Sweet Potato Salad with Green Olives
Appetisers, Snacks, Dips and Spreads, Recipes, Side dishes, Vegan

Ultimate Tabbouleh and Smokey Baba Ganoush Recipe

Tabbouleh and baba ganoush would have to be my two favourite things to eat in the world. If I were given a choice of my last meal, that is what I would choose – I would need some flat bread to eat with them and, perhaps, if I was feeling greedy I would ask for…
View recipe: Ultimate Tabbouleh and Smokey Baba Ganoush Recipe
Recipes, Side dishes

Party Potatoes: The Ultimate Comfort Food for Christmas Day

I don’t think it’s a good idea to get too fancy with the food on Christmas day. What you need is lots of homey soul food – salads, seafood, cherries, mangoes (and more cherries), pavlova laden with summer fruit and some kind of potato dish, of course. Potatoes, roasted, baked or in a salad, are…
View recipe: Party Potatoes: The Ultimate Comfort Food for Christmas Day
Appetisers, Snacks, Dips and Spreads, Preserves, Condiments, Sauces, Recipes, Vegan

Authentic Parsi Tomato Chutney Recipe: Zingy, Sweet, and Irresistible Chutney Delight!

I’ve found it hard to get into the swing of Christmas this year. Even before the incomprehensible horror and sadness of the Newtown school shootings, I just couldn’t seem to get motivated to buy presents, bake biscuits or even pull out our Christmas tree from the top of the cupboard for my son to decorate.…
View recipe: Authentic Parsi Tomato Chutney Recipe: Zingy, Sweet, and Irresistible Chutney Delight!
Pasta and Noodles, Recipes, Tofu, Vegan

Barbecued Tofu Steaks with Sesame Noodles and Pickle

Got a pesky vegetarian or, god forbid, a vegan coming to one of your meat lovers Christmas barbecues and you don’t know what to cook for them? This marinated tofu is the answer. While you could just let your vegetarian guests eat salad, it is nice to offer them a bit of cooked protein so…
View recipe: Barbecued Tofu Steaks with Sesame Noodles and Pickle
Cakes, Cookies, Biscuits and Sweet Things, Recipes

Christmas Baking: Refrigerator Biscuits Recipes for Hot Weather

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the kitchen and do a bit of Christmas baking, Sydney gets hit with a heatwave and it’s difficult to work out what you can possibly bear to eat, let alone turn on the oven and bake Christmas biscuits. In the humid heat of early…
View recipe: Christmas Baking: Refrigerator Biscuits Recipes for Hot Weather
Appetisers, Snacks, Dips and Spreads, Pancakes, Fritters, Dumplins, Recipes, Vegan

Vegan Spinach Zucchini and Pea Fritters: Karen Martini Recipe

When I was a kid, fritters were an easy Sunday night meal. My mother always made two kinds: lamb fritters, made with leftover lamb from the roast the night before, and corn fritters (with creamed tinned corn). We ate them with tomato sauce – that was pretty much dinner and, I have to say, I…
View recipe: Vegan Spinach Zucchini and Pea Fritters: Karen Martini Recipe
Cakes, Cookies, Biscuits and Sweet Things, Recipes

Classic Buttermilk Scones Recipe for Traditional Australian Morning and Afternoon Teas

One of my earliest memories is of my mother taking me to her weekly Country Women’s Association meetings while my older brother and sisters attended school. We lived on a farm just outside Wagga Wagga and my mother attended a small rural branch of the CWA near the farming community of Brucedale, where we lived.…
View recipe: Classic Buttermilk Scones Recipe for Traditional Australian Morning and Afternoon Teas
Pulses – Beans, Lentils, Recipes, Rice bowl meals, Vegan

Delicious and Nutritious Cuban Black Beans Recipe with Turkish Carrot Pilaf

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why Cuban black beans taste so good. They’re incredibly easy to make, cheap and you can easily make a big pot of them and feed a crowd. Just eating them makes you feel like your doing yourself a healthy favour, but not in some dour low-fat, heavy wholemeal kind of…
View recipe: Delicious and Nutritious Cuban Black Beans Recipe with Turkish Carrot Pilaf