A new personal favorite, I’ve come to really enjoy this simple and easy recipe for homemade pasta. It has three times the flavor of store-bought pasta, and is much cheaper to make. If you love pasta and got the patience to make your own, give this a try … you will not be disappointed the least bit.

Always good for a breakfast treat, or a quick brunch-type thing … hell … anytime really; these rolls will be sure to tantilize your taste buds and make you forget all about those 12 pounds you’re trying to loose. I mean, really; what’s the point of eating if you can’t enjoy it every now and then, right?

My own personal touch is to add a little bit too much brown sugar and a little too much cinnamon to the mix for that extra sweet taste that I’ve grown up with.

For topping ideas:
> cream cheese frosting

Go ahead … indulge your sweet tooth. It’s not really a sin. It just sort of feels that way. I was looking around for some frostings that I could put on a fresh batch of cinnamon rolls, and I found this cream cheese recipe that supposedly is the recipe that Cinnabon uses for their famous rolls. So I whipped it up really quick, spread it on the rolls, taste-tested one or two of them, and give the frosting two thumbs … way up!

This is for those people who love to cook from scratch. The consistency was the same as store bought and it probably cost about the same to make, but its handy to have this recipe for those days I dont have puff pastry in the freezer. It is relatively easy to make but the time consuming part is the constant refridgerating to roll out, which had me swearing out loud every now and then. I discovered that it is IMPOSSIBLE to contain the butter and once I had resolved myself to this it went a little smoother. Try sieving flour onto any escaping butter so it doesnt stick to your rolling pin.

Good luck.

One thing I can say about this recipe, “Brilliant! Brilliant! Brilliant!” Unfortunately in the States there are no meat pies, so I have resorted to making my own. I found that the puff pastry on the bottom would go soggy unless I poked holes in the pie tin. This recipe creates the PERFECT pie base.

Make a few pies at once and put into the freezer for those nights you don’t want to cook.

The first question that you Aussies are going to have is “what the hell is pudding?” and no it is nothing like OUR pudding. It is kinda like a thickened flavoured custard I guess, so in place of pudding I guess you could see if it was possible to set a custard. This was a delicious, if a little time consuming, pie. It took the ordinary strawbery flan and changed it around combining a flan with a cake.

Definitely worth a try especially if you have some time up your sleeve.

Nothing says summer; feels like summer; or tastes like summer than being outdoors and grilling. Especially when you’re grilling brats.

Man, I could tell you some good stories about my summers as a child; growing up where you could get a brat and a pop for 50¢ during Maxwell Street Days in Lodi, Wisconsin. How my grandparents would always have brats and hamburgers just about every day at the cottage for lunch. Or how during Labor and Memorial Days in Madison, Wisconsin, there is a brat festival which sells millions of brats over the weekend for a buck a brat these days. Instead, I’ll share with you the fact that you’ll love boiling them in beer instead of water, simply because of the taste that they give off. It also gets rid of some of the fattiness, but who cares when they taste this good? And you’ll want to look for “Johnsonville Brats,” that’s the best brand if you can find them in your local store.

To be perfectively honest with you, I’D KILL FOR A BEER BRAT. They’re that damn good.

This is a great muffin recipe. I first stumbled accross this recipe when watching The Barefoot Contessa one Sunday morning in my pajamas. Whilst I love all of her recipes one must be wary that there is no Fat Free in her vocabulary, in fact I am sure she has a contract with butter and fat producers to not only double but TRIPLE the fat content of all of her recipes.

Originally it was made with banana, museli and cocount, but our house swinging more in favour of apple cinnamon concoctions we changed it around. What has resulted is muffins full of deliciousness, stuffed into a very easy recipe.

Enjoy.

This is not a recipe for those who don’t like egg, or raw egg. But it is a great alternative to a store bought creamy dressing, it tastes great and is very simple to make. I generally serve this up at least once a week tossed with romaine lettuce and some fresh parmesan cheese. To make it into more of a meal instead of just a side dish try a combination of croutons, sundried tomatoes, anchovies,bacon and chicken.

Whilst the original recipe suggests it keeps well, I usually make it the night I am going to use it due to the raw egg content.