​A few years ago, my husband has started making his own sauerkraut. So with his last batch I decided to make this sauerkraut soup.

This is a family favourite, you will see a few chunky bits of sauerkraut, that is on purpose, as my family like it chunky, rather having it shredded super fine.

You can make this with store bought sauerkraut, I try to buy whole leaves so again, I can shred it how I like it, but if can't find whole leaves, normal shredded sauerkraut is just fine. Rinse the sauerkraut in cold water only if it tastes too sour.

With regards to the ribs, try and find ones with a lot of meat on them. And if you do, buy a few, they freeze really well.

With the beans, you can substitute in red kidney beans also.

So if you want to try a little traditional comfort food, give this soup a try, it's delicious.

Serves 8

​1.2kg shredded sauerkraut, rinsed and drained
1kg smoked pork ribs, cut up into individual ribs
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon vegeta
2 small red chillies, halved

Zaprzak:
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large onion, diced
2 heaped tablespoons plain flour
1 tablespoon ground paprika
​
2 x 400g tins borlotti beans, rinsed and drained
Salt and pepper, to taste


Put the smoked ribs in a large saucepan. Top with cold water and bring to the boil. Simmer for 5 minutes, drain. This is done to remove excess salt from the ribs. If you know the ribs are not salty, you can skip this step.
​
Place the cabbage, ribs, garlic, bay leaf, chillies, vegeta and some pepper into a large pot. Add 3-3.5 litres of water. You want enough water to cover the ingredients, but also be loose to stir around. Bring to boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 1 hour.

Remove the ribs from the pot, take out the bones and chop up the meat. Return the meat to the soup.

Make the Zaprzak: In a medium frying pan add the oil and onion. Sauté over a medium heat until just starting to colour. Add the flour and paprika, stirring constantly, cook for 1-2 minutes (you may need to add a splash more oil if it feels too dry). Add 1-2 cups of cold water to the zaprzak, mix to make a smooth paste and add it to the soup. Bring back to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Taste for seasoning, add salt only if needed. If your soup is too thick, you can add a some boiling water to it, if needed.

Now add the beans and simmer for a further 10 minutes, taste for seasoning, add salt, pepper or a little extra vegeta, if needed.

​Ladle into bowls and serve.

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​My daughter recently showed me someone making these on Tiktok, so I figured I'd try them. 

My kids response was 'these taste like cheese and bacon rolls' (from bakers delight),

These take about 10 minutes to make, then add about 18 minutes in baking time. 

Super easy, super tasty, something you need to try.

​Recipe adapted from a TikTok clip I saw by Jennifer Hanlon

Makes 8 rolls

2-3 rashers bacon, rind removed, diced, about 1 cup once diced
1 1/2 cups greek yoghurt, I like Farmers Union
​2 cups self-raising flour, plus 1/4-1/2 cup extra when kneading
1 cup grated cheese


Cook the bacon in a frying pan with 1/2 tablespoon oil. 

Preheat oven to 200C/180C fan forced. Line a baking tray with baking paper.

Place flour and yoghurt in a bowl, stir to combine.

Place 1/4 cup of your extra flour onto your bench. Place yoghurt/flour mix on top. Knead dough for about 4-5 minutes, if it's sticky add a little more of the flour.

Divide into 8 even balls. Place onto your prepared tray, flatten slightly, ensuring the rolls are touching.

Add cheese on to the rolls, Sprinkle with bacon.

​Bake for 18-20 minutes.

Allow to cool slightly.

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​This is delicious.

​Recipe adapted from Family Circle cookbook 'Fantastic Cocktails & Mixed Drinks

Makes 1

Ice
30ml Cointreau
20ml tequila
20ml strawberry liqueur
45ml orange juice
4 strawberries
​

Add all ingredients to a blender and blitz, blend well. 

Pour into a goblet or large martini glass. Serve with a straw.

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​I have not tried this but buns can be made up to a day in advance and steamed to re-heat before serving.

​This is something that is worth trying, it is not hard, but it does involve a little time. The flavours are amazing.

Pork Bun Base:
3 teaspoons active dry yeast
300g bread flour
55g caster sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons instant skim milk powder
2 teaspoons sea salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
35ml vegetable oil

Prawns:
1kg frozen peeled green prawns, remove tails
1 cup plain flour
2 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
2-3 cups panko bread crumbs
vegetable or sunflower oil, for deep frying

Sriracha Mayonnaise:
1/2 cup mayonnaise, I like Thomy
1-2 tablespoons Sriracha, this is to taste

To serve:
Soft salad leaves
Fresh coriander leaves
Fresh long red chillies, seeded, finely sliced
Extra Sriracha
​​
To make the buns: combine the yeast and 170ml warm water in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add the flour, sugar, milk powder, sea salt, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and start the mixer on medium speed. Add the vegetable oil and mix until the dough comes together. Reduce speed to low and continue to mix for 8-10 minutes. Remove the dough, place in a greased bowl, cover with a tea towel and allow to rest in a warm place for about two hours or until the dough has doubled in size.

Meanwhile, Crumb the Prawns: Prepare three bowls, one of well-seasoned flour, one with beaten eggs and milk and one with breadcrumbs.

Individually dip the prawns in the flour, shaking off any excess. Dip into the egg mixture, allowing any excess egg to drip back into the bowl, then cover with the breadcrumbs, pressing down lightly to help them adhere.

Place on a tray lined with baking paper. Repeat with all the prawns. If not frying straight away, cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator.
​
Back to the buns: Once risen, transfer the dough to a work surface, if the dough is sticky, dust a little flour on your dough. ‘Punch down’ the dough by kneading it for 5 minutes. The aim here is to remove as many air bubbles as possible. Use a rolling pin to roll the dough out to 1/2cm thick. Then use an 9cm diameter pastry cutter (or a plastic cup of the same diameter) to cut out rounds. Remove the excess dough. Dip your fingers in vegetable oil and lightly spread the oil over the surface of your rounds. Fold rounds in half and flatten slightly with the rolling pin, rolling from the fold to the edges. Place on a square of baking paper and place onto a tray. Repeat with remaining dough (excess dough can be re-rolled and used). Cover the folded rounds and set aside to prove for 30 minutes.
​
Frying the Prawns: When ready to cook, one-third fill a deep-fryer or large heavy-based saucepan with oil and heat to 170°C, or until a cube of bread dropped into the oil turns golden brown in 20 seconds. Cook the prawns in batches for 2 minutes, or until golden and just cooked through. Drain on paper towel and sprinkle with fine sea salt.
​
Cook the buns: Pour about 4 cm water in a wok (steamer should not touch water) and bring to rapid simmer over medium-high heat.

Place 4 to 5 buns in your steamer basket, I do it in two steamers at a time, so I can cook 8-10 buns at a time, cover with steamer lid. Steam, in batches for 6-8 minutes or until cooked through, I steam them for 8 minutes.
​
Serve buns hot. To assemble, open up your bao buns gently, then I like to start with the sriracha mayo, then salad and coriander leaves, prawns, another drizzle of sriracha mayo, sriracha and chillies, if using.

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​Oh how excited I am to bring you this recipe.

This bread is so easy to make and is the softest most delicious flat bread I have ever made. My family have gone nuts about this bread, it is their favourite, and I have made it so many times recently because it really is that good. The bread once cooked is steaming hot and soft and fluffy and absolutely fabulous.

The reason I love doing our Eating Around the World Adventure is because of recipes like this. Without doing this we would never have tried so many amazing things that we have discovered. Now we are currently in San Marino on our food adventure, and finding recipes from there can be difficult. So for this recipe I found that in San Marino they make piadina or piada as it is also known, it is their version of street food. So I found this recipe which might not be from San Marino, but it's traditionally eaten there so I found that to be close enough.

The dough is so easy to make, especially if you have a strong cake mixer with a dough hook. But don't worry, I have doubled this recipe (which makes too much dough for my mixer) and have kneaded it by hand and it was perfect. The dough is so soft and easy to work with, and once made it only needs to rest for 30 minutes. The reason I now double the recipe is because you can keep it covered in the refrigerator and use it over 2 days, could be more, but it never lasts that long in my house.

The fillings-my family keep it simple. Some like ham or salami or turkey with cheese, tomato and basil, I love prosciutto, bocconcini, tomato and rocket or basil. I read you can even do a sweet version using nutella as your filling.

Here are some filling suggestions I liked from the original recipe
Parma ham or other cured meats (salami), soft cheese (the original squacquerone or cream cheese or ricotta) and rocket;
Roasted/caramelized onions and sausage
Cooked ham, fontina or taleggio or asiago cheese, mushrooms and mayonnaise
Porchetta with onions
Roasted capsicums and sausage
Cooked ham, mozzarella, mushrooms
Parma ham, mozzarella or bocconcini, tomatoes and basil
Frankfurt, cheese, tomato sauce and mustard 
Roast beef, mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato
Roast beef, rocket and shredded Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
Canned tuna, mozzarella, tomatoes, oregano and mayonnaise
Mozzarella and grilled vegetables
Smoked salmon, dill and mayonaise or sour cream
Smoked salmon and cream cheese
Tomatoes, rocket, mushrooms and shredded Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
Sliced turkey breast, fontina or taleggio or asiago cheese, mushrooms and mayonnaise
Nutella or Nutella and mascarpone or Nutella and banana
Fruit jam or ricotta and fruit jam

My husband even used this dough as a pizza base last night and it worked really well. So if you are feeling like a homemade pizza, but need a quick dough. This worked very well.

This is one thing every body needs to try, it is so good, I cannot tell you how much we love it.

Recipe adapted from www.ilariasperfectrecipes.com/

Makes 5 piadina

500 grams bread flour
4 tablespoons (80ml) extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
310ml full cream milk
​

In a large free standing mixer with a dough hook, add the flour, oil, baking powder, salt milk. On the lowest setting turn on the mixer and allow all the ingredients to mix together. 
Once a dough forms, knead the dough for about 5 minutes until quite smooth, uniform, soft but no sticky (if it’s sticky add more flour). If you are kneading by hand, knead for about 10 minutes.
Make a ball and cover the dough with plastic wrap and let rest at least 30 minutes at room temperature (if the dough is being prepared more than 1 hour in advance, you can keep it in the fridge and when needed remove 1 hour before using it).
Divide the dough into 5 pieces. Heat a non-stick pan over medium-high heat.

Roll out the dough into a circle with a rolling pin to the desired thickness, I like it about 3-4mm. If your dough is sticky add a little flour to your bench, though I find I don't need it.

Once the pan is hot, add raw piadina, prick it all over with a fork to avoid air bubbles (sometimes I do prick it, sometimes I don't) and cook for about 1-2 minutes for a thin piadina, 2-3 minutes for a thicker one or until forming brown spots on the bottom.
Then flip and cook for about the same time.

Remember that piadina should be served hot, so it’s recommended to have your fillings ready.
Once cooked you can serve piadina immediately by placing your desired filling on a half and then close to a half moon or cutting it as is into triangles to use as a bread-substitute.

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​This is a truly amazing cake. It is absolutely delicious. 

This is a cake that makes you feel you are eating a pie, as it is so full of apples, it has the filling consistency of pie. Then the crust, some of it is cake like, some of it crisps up and it's just fabulous. The flavour is fabulous, it really is. The apples, the cinnamon, the vanilla, I think this is my favourite cake ever.

With the vanilla, three teaspoons go in, at first I thought it was too much, so I tasted the batter with two teaspoons, but I thought it could do with more vanilla, so I added an extra teaspoon, it was perfect.

With the cinnamon, I'm going to leave it, to taste. The original recipe uses 1 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon sugar, and only scatters it over the top layer of apples. I chose to add a sprinkling of ground cinnamon and caster sugar on every layer of apples, so that every apple has a little cinnamon and sugar on it. You really don't need much, but I like cinnamon in every bite.

Supposedly you can add frozen or fresh berries through the apple slices, but I haven't as yet.

You will need a 26cm springform tin though, as you won't be able to get the cake out of a normal tin, it is not a cake you can flip out. I had one at home, as I think I have every tin possible. 

This is truly one of the easiest cakes to make and tastes amazing. This is something you need to try.

​Recipe adapted from the cookbook Monday Morning Cooking Club The food, the stories, the sisterhood

Serves 10

6-8 Granny Smith Apples, peeled and sliced
1 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon caster sugar
​
3 eggs
345g caster sugar
375ml light olive oil or vegetable oil
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
225g plain flour
​1 tablespoon cinnamon sugar, for sprinkling


Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan forced.

Grease and line the base and side of a 26cm springform cake tin.

Place one layer of apple slices in your prepared tin, sprinkle with a little of the cinnamon and caster sugar. Add another layer of apple, sprinkle with a little cinnamon and caster sugar. Keep layering apples and sprinkling with cinnamon and caster sugar until the apples come about two-thirds of the way up the side. 

​Make a batter by beating the eggs and caster sugar until light and fluffy. Add the oil in a slow drizzle, then add the vanilla and beat well. Stir in the flour with a spoon.

Spoon the batter on top of the cinnamon covered apples and sprinkle the batter with the cinnamon sugar. 

Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Cool in tin.

Serve warm with cream or ice cream. It's great just as is also.

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​This is a recipe that I cooked over 20 years ago for my parents and they loved it, I made it quite a few times for them. However when I moved out of my parents place, I had lost the recipe. And as I have the memory of a goldfish, I couldn't remember it.

Then one day I was flicking through a folder I had at home and I found the recipe. So off my husband went to the fish markets and he bought some crabs. My neighbours came over for a last minute get together and I was serving this dish. I hadn't made it in so many years, even I forgot what the end result will be. Well, we got so messy eating the crab, it is messy, but we were all licking our fingers, the shells, and picking at all the deliciously flavoured crab meat, it was lovely. The sauce was delicious. We were a mess in the end, but it was so worth it.

I was very tempted to call this recipe "I gave my husband crabs tonight" (sorry, had to put that in, as he loved this dish). But I though not in the end, kept it as stir fry crab.

I recently made it for my family again and my kids all loved it to. It's a messy dish to eat, but the joy my kids have while eating it, is so good to watch. My oldest actually said, when we get married and you want us all to visit together, just tell us you're making crab. I thought to myself, too easy, as this is so quick and easy to cook.

Now I serve it with rice, because the crab alone will never fill you up, so you do need the rice to make it a meal.

You will need to purchase a crab 'fork', it helps get the crab meat out of the shell, and you will need a cracker, to crack the hard claws.

So if you're looking for something quick and easy to make for dinner, this recipe is for you.

​Serves 4-6

5 blue swimmer crabs
2 tablespoons sunflower oil
2 medium onions, diced
2 tablespoons grated ginger
2 tablespoons Sriracha
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons sugar
2/3 cup tomato sauce
2 eggs, lightly beaten

3 spring onions, sliced, to garnish
Rice, for serving


To clean the crabs, pull off the hard shells from the top, and the smaller flap from the bottom. Discard. Cut away the grey fibrous tissue on both sides. Rinse crabs quickly under cold water, remove the yellowy 'gunk'. Cut the crab into two pieces

​Heat a wok over medium-high heat and add the oil. Stir fry the onion and ginger for 2 minutes, until the onions begin to soften. Add the crab and 2/3 cup of water. Simmer, covered for about 3-5 minutes, stirring occasionally. The crab will start to go orange in colour.

Add the sriracha, salt, sugar and tomato sauce, stir. If you think the sauce is too thick and an extra 1/3 cup water. Cover, allow the dish to cook for another 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Finally, pour the beaten egg over the simmering dish, stir it through quickly so it doesn't scramble, and cook for a further 1 minute. Taste the sauce for seasoning.

Transfer to a serving plate and top with the sliced spring onions.

​Serve immediately with cooked rice.

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​Spring is here, the warmer weather has arrived. It is time to get back out on my balcony and enjoy the beautiful Spring evenings we have in Sydney.

I love cocktails, I love relaxing on my balcony after a long day, sipping on them and just enjoying the moment. This one is light, it is not too boozy, it is great as a light festive drink at parties. Great to serve up in a punch bowl, it won't get anyone drunk, but it is refreshing and a pleasure to drink.

I found the strawberries actually gave it a subtle flavouring the longer it stayed in the wine.

I really enjoyed this one. So simple, yet so lovely.

​Recipe adapted from a Donna Hay magazine

Serves 6-8

1 bottle (750ml) chilled Jacob's Creek Twin Pickings Pinot Gris
1/4 cup (60ml) light agave syrup
3 cups (750ml) chilled soda water
250g strawberries, hulled and sliced
4 sprigs mint, to serve


Mix to combine the wine, agave, soda water and strawberries in a 2 litre capacity jug.

Add some ice and the mint sprigs.

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​This is one of the fastest and easiest dinners you will ever make and it's delicious. 

If you like, and we do, you can make the same stir fry using scallops, it's so good.

​A combination of both prawns and scallops is amazing to.

As the recipe only feeds 2-3 people and I have 5 people in my family, I actually get one other member of my family, usually one of my kids, and we cook both a scallop and a prawn version on the same night in two small woks side by side. It only takes a few minutes to cook, and they quite enjoy cooking. I haven't mastered Asian cooking, so am scared to just double their recipes, so I do it this way. If you don't have a wok, a frying pan will do. Or you could simply add a few more extra pieces of prawn, there is enough sauce to do so.

So if you are looking for a quick mid week meal idea, this is so good and so easy to make.

Recipe adapted from everydaygourmet.tv/ 

Serves 2-3

​2 tablespoons vegetable oil
12 green prawns, peeled and deveined
1 knob of ginger, finely minced
3 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
200g snow peas, trimmed
​
Sauce:
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoons Shaoxing wine
2 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon hot chilli sauce
1-2 teaspoons cornflour

Combine 1 tablespoon of the oil with the prawns and ginger in a small bowl.

In another bowl whisk together all of the sauce ingredients.

Heat a wok over high heat and add the remaining oil and the garlic, mix for 30 seconds, add the prawns. Once the prawns start to change colour (1-2 minutes) add the snow peas, followed by the sauce. Stir constantly until the sauce thickens.

​Serve with steamed rice.

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​This is one of my favourite cocktails. It's coffee flavoured and is absolutely delicious.

Try it with a scoop or two of vanilla ice cream as a dessert.

​This is one of the easiest drinks to make and is great after dinner, instead of a coffee.

​Recipe adapted from Family Circle cookbook 'Fantastic Cocktails & Mixed Drinks

Makes 1

30ml vodka
30ml Kahlua
60ml milk
Ice

Place ice in a tumbler. Add vodka, kahlua and milk. Stir.

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