Just found my new fave pancake recipe. It’s tasty, but more importantly it’s simple. The pancakes are light and fluffy without spending time beating egg whites.

We experimented with the recipe because we were trying to use up leftover buttermilk from when Gerrod made a red velvet cake earlier in the week (yum!). You may not have buttermilk lying around, but it’s in the supermarket right by the milk and cream, and has a use by date a few weeks long, allowing you to buy it and then try the recipe when you get around to it.

It says it serves four people but I’d say three is more likely. We almost finished it between our two piggy appetites. Oops.

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 1/4 cup caster sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1 cup self-raising flour, sifted
• 1 1/4 cups buttermilk
• 1 egg
• olive oil cooking spray

Mum still has most of my childhood toys in their original boxes. No piece of Lego went astray. No doll was separated from its matching outfit. No shoe missed its mate. And while I’m nowhere near that efficient, I’d say that start in life has left its mark on me. I hate losing stuff. It makes me feel irritated and out of control. I can’t stop stewing over misplaced items. And since I’ll never accept that they’re actually gone, I can go on stewing for a long time.

At the moment we can’t locate a big square Decor cake container. We have the liftout insert for lifting the cake out, but it just serves to taunt us. Where on earth could the rest of the container be? I was determined that such things wouldn’t happen to us when we returned to Aus. We’d have a big enough home, and little enough stuff, that every item would have its correct place. I even bought a book called “Sorted” to help me set the house up in that way.

If only I could find the book.

On the day of Nathan and Kelly’s wedding we ventured out to Werribee Park to explore the grounds a little and visit the original mansion house, built in the 1870s. It’s been extensively restored and is the largest private residence in Victoria. If you’re interested in the history of the place there’s an overview here. Admission was $7 which, in my book, makes it one of the best value attractions I’ve ever visited.

This is not at all Gerrod’s kind of thing, so Mum and I went in to check it out while the three men (Dad, Gerrod, Oscar) enjoyed a stroll and a coffee outdoors. Turns out that Mum and I were so impressed we went outside to fetch Dad so he didn’t miss out (deciding it still wasn’t Gerrod’s thing). Mum and I even dressed up in period costume, which was an absolute hoot!

If you’re ever in the area, I’d highly recommend you check out the mansion and impressive grounds!

Today a lovely man delivered a parcel to my house and an innocent comment on the weather led to a discussion of why he chose to live in Brisbane. After growing up in Brazil, and stints living in London and Queenstown he moved here six months ago.

He knew he would love the sunshine and temperatures, after the cooler climates of Britain and New Zealand. But it’s the people of Brisbane he has found to be lacking in warmth. Six months in, he still hasn’t met his neighbours. In general, he says that nobody makes time for friendships or relaxation. Brisbane is no longer the big “country town” that it used to be. It has failed to live up to his expectation of being a warm and welcoming city where people stop to notice the weather and enjoy it together. He said that he is still giving Brisbane a chance, but if things don’t change he will simply move on until he finds somewhere better.

Just an isolated opinion? Perhaps. Could he do more to meet people? Maybe. But I’ve never known a Brazilian to be shy, and it made me sad to think that someone would pack up and leave this beautiful place because nobody had taken the time to make them feel welcome.

Oscar shares his birthday with Bruce “the Boss” Springsteen? Our (apparently) trivia-loving doctor shared that little chestnut with me recently.

I bet uncle Nick won’t have any trouble remembering the little guy’s big day!

It’s easy to set goals and resolutions in January, but difficult to keep them top of mind as the months roll by. To help me stay on track day by day I’ve found a great iPhone app called GoodDay. It costs 99c and is well worth it.

You set it up with a list of the things you want to accomplish consistently each day. Things like, “eat well”, “exercise”, “work on business plan”, “think positive”. Then each day you give yourself a rating out of 5. The app can then show you a bar chart of how you’ve performed in each area over the last 30 days.

It’s dead easy to use and is the most effective thing I’ve ever used to keep reminding you of what’s important to you in your daily life.

gerrod.com rating: 10/10.

Spaghetti puttanesca has become one of our favourite dishes, again because of how easy it is to keep the ingredients in stock and cook it up quickly. The most time consuming part is normally finding the recipe online to refresh my memory, but by posting it here I can overcome that hurdle!

I don’t bother measuring any of the ingredients, but it always comes out well. Lately I’ve taken to making a double batch. My reasons are two fold: 1) the leftovers make lunch or dinner the next day a breeze, 2) I recently ordered giant tins of tomatoes online by mistake and need to use them up.

Ingredients (serves 2)

• olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 400g chopped tomatoes, tin
• 1 tbsp capers, chopped if large
• 2 anchovies, drained and chopped
• handful pitted kalamata olives, sliced
• large pinch dried chilli flakes
• 200g spaghetti
• small bunch flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
• parmesan cheese

Method

1. Heat 1 tbsp oil in a pan, add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes. Tip in the tomatoes, capers, anchovies, olives and chilli. Simmer for 10 minutes until thickened slightly.
2. Cook the spaghetti according to packet instructions. Drain, toss with the sauce and the parsley and serve.
3. Enjoy with a sprinkling of parmesan!

Photo from jules:stonesoup‘s photostream on Flickr

I’ve recently discovered the Stonesoup blog, where a food scientist posts ideas on cheap eats, that take 10 minutes and have 5 ingredients.

Last night we tried the Broccoli with Tuna and White Bean Mash. Simple, tasty and genuinely ready in 10 minutes, without a sous chef and preheating/chopping etc. And if you use bottled lemon juice, it’s truly a pantry/freezer supper with no fresh ingredients required. Gold!

Ingredients (serves 2)

• 1 medium can tuna in olive oil (185g / 6oz)
• 1 packet frozen broccoli (500g / 1lb)
• 1 can white beans such as cannellini (400g / 14oz)
• generous knob butter
• squeeze of lemon juice

Method

1. Heat a large frying pan over a very high heat.
2. Drain the oil from the tuna and add to the hot pan with the frozen broccoli. Cover and cook for 2 minutes.
3. Stir broccoli, recover and cook for another 2 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, drain the white beans and place in a small bowl. Mash with a fork until you have a chunky paste. Season.
5. Test the broccoli. When it is tender and defrosted, add the tuna and butter and stir until butter is melted.
6. Turn off the heat. Add lemon juice and season the tuna broccoli mixture and serve on a bed of the white bean mash.

A very thoughtful friend (thanks Miss Melanie!) gave me a little stand-up rack of affirmations last year. Today’s seemed particularly fitting:

Judge each day not by the harvest you reap,
but by the seeds you plant.

Even the name makes my mouth water.

I’ve tried out a bunch of brownie recipes over the years. There have been good ones, which I’ve promptly lost all record of. And there’ve been bad ones that haunt me. Like the one that just wouldn’t set, so I stayed up until something ridiculous like 2am trying to make it work. The ingredients were so expensive I couldn’t bear to pull the plug. But finally this week I’ve arrived at one that I love and think I can replicate! Therefore it is being saved for all eternity (presuming Gerrod backs this up) on gerrod.com.

Most weeks I try at least one new recipe, and lately I’ve been getting most of them from taste.com.au. The website is great, and the advanced search feature rocks. I tend to choose things that have a “freezer friendly” tick, so that I can make more than I need and fill the freezer with back up meals and snacks. This recipe is no exception.

Ingredients (serves 10)

• 125g butter, chopped
• 300g dark chocolate
• 1 1/4 cups caster sugar
• 3/4 cup plain flour, sifted
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder, sifted
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 3 eggs
• Cocoa powder, to dust