Blondie's Recipes | Finding Feasts

How To Make Your Own Ginger Beer

How To Make Your Own Ginger Beer. This is an incredibly easy skill to master and will from this point on be a recipe you will make often.

To start with you will bring to life your very own ginger bug, not unlike a sourdough starter that lives and breaths. You give it water, food, warmth and air and the wild yeasts in the air make it their own.

The health benefits of ginger is widely know and although a tiny amount of alcohol is produced during the process it’s certainly not enough to counteract the benefits of the ginger elixir.

Merry drinking! Blondie

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Crispy Skin Salt & Pepper Roast Chicken

Finding Feasts - Salt and Pepper Roast Chicken — Click image for the best roast chicken recipe ever.

Roast chickens are one of the most delicious and easy to make meals there are. I will generally make one on a Friday or Saturday so the family has cold chicken meat to eat with sandwiches if I’m out on a job on that weekend.

This recipe is called Crispy Skin Salt & Pepper Roast Chicken for a reason so don’t be scared by the amount of salt in this recipe as the end result is not salty. What you will be left with is crispy skin brimming with flavour and juice that can be used on it’s own, drizzled over the sliced chicken or made into a gravy.

In regards to style of cooking, this is not a ‘leave and forget’ recipe, this is a hands on, cook while your preparing the vegetables or salad for your dinner type recipe. You will be turning it over several times during it’s cooking process so in essence it’s a rotisserie style but in your oven.

Lip smacking goodness – Blondie 🙂

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Two Weeks In America – What To Do?

Two Weeks In America – What To Do? – After getting back from our big, but all too short American adventure just over a month ago, I can now sit down share all the wonderful and exciting things we got up to.

Finding Feasts - New York in a week — Top Of The Rock – Rockefeller Centre

Finding Feasts - New York City in a week — Times Square New York, 42 St

Finding Feasts - Los Vegas with a kid — New York-New York Hotel & Casino Las Vegas

To begin with, I’m a bit of a research freak so having this amazing holiday land in our laps (I will explain shortly) with a relatively short turn around was a bit all consuming. From the, “ok, this is actually going to happen” to getting on the plane, left me with just over 1 month to organise. This may sound like a long time for some but when you are planning a holiday with a set budget (hubby refuses to use credit) and three people all liking different things, getting as much prep work done at home is your saving grace.

These are the basics of our American holiday…

Where: Los Angeles then on to Las Vegas (road trip!) and then to New York.

People: We started with family friends in LA then parted ways; they went off to Canada and Master 10, hubby and myself took on Las Vegas and New York.

How long: 2 weeks from go to whoa.

Budget: Excluding the return flights from Sydney to LA we went a smidgen over $11,000 AUD.

Road Trip – LA to Vegas via Route 66

New York has been on my personal dream list for as long as I can remember and my son has been wanting to go to F.A.O Schwarz Toy Store ever since seeing the movie, Big (darn it! missed it by only two months) but apart from those isolated dreams it has always been a holiday to Finland while using my brother-in-law’s London house as a base (he owes us BIG TIME accommodation wise) that has been on the family holiday agenda. Holidaying for my husband and I has always been the getting to the destination, not just waiting around for planes at an airport to get to your chosen point on earth. One of the main reasons that America was never on our immediate radar was there are just no stops from Australia to America, it’s all air travel… long, looong air travel.

But life throws you in directions you would never expect, and this is exactly one of those situations.

A dear friend of ours, Ali, who we have known since school, died a year ago, November 2014 from Motor Neuron Disease or ALS. It was a devastating loss and one of the worst, most heinous diseases you will ever come across. Before he passed he requested for us to join his wife and their two kids on a trip to Disneyland, to fulfill a dream holiday they had been wanting to do together, but the disease prevented this from happening. Melissa has been one of my closest friends since we met at the age of 13 in high school, Ali and my husband have been friends since 15 or so… a lifetime for all of us really.

So this is it, with Ali’s wish a Disneyland holiday was born; three adults and three kids, the perfect combo for such an expedition. Mel was looking at fulfilling all the girly stuff with 6 year old Bailey – and I do mean all of it, while husband Nick and I were fully prepared to be dragged around by Mel’s son Bodie (11) and our son Sebastian (10). This was purely the kid’s holiday, they ruled the agenda, where they wanted to go was where we were going to go. We were there to feed and water them and do every single ride available.

Finding Feasts - Disneyland California in a week — Disneyland Califonia

So now the planning… Disneyland is supposedly at it’s quietest time when our school holidays start in late September early October so that worked perfectly, (especially for Nicko, who loathes, absolutely despises crowds and waiting in queues – more of that story coming up – haha) plus the weather is getting milder so we won’t be melting under the Californian sun (more of that untruth coming up as well!). Next, what to do while we are there? While Mel and the kids had decided right off the bat to do a week or so in Canada after Disneyland (a train into the Rockies, staying at Whistler then a seaplane back to Vancouver) Nick and I were tossing up ideas about leaving it as just a quick jaunt; Disneyland and then back home to Sydney. Then driving to San Fransisco over a few days was thrown in, eventually coming up with quite possibly the most quintessential America trip we could do in our two weeks… Los Angeles to Las Vegas to New York! WOW, this was going to be a big one!

Los Angeles. Las Vegas. New York. Each city is a visual library of everything you have seen your entire life. They have each been written about, sung about, stories made into stage shows and movies. If you think about America chances are that it will most likely evoke pictures from one of these three cities.

If you have ever wanted to do such a trip but were worried about the length of time required or how much of a budget you need, then here is our breakdown to help you set up your own budget and itinerary plus reviews, tips and helpful advice.

Read about our entire trip here >>

Happy planning! Blondie

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Kids Christmas Trifle – the cheats version

Easy Christmas trifle — Click image for recipe

Kids Christmas Trifle – the cheats version … Sometimes you just need to have something on the table, especially when you’ve forgotten or have no time to think. This is where this great looking but super easy dessert comes in… I was in need of a kid’s dessert for Christmas and I had run out of time to really sit down and plan something.

You can certainly make your own jam/jelly rolls and custard. Even take the time to make a true fruit jelly but if the last thing you have is time then this is it, just perfect for the kids christmas table.

This is a feel as you go type recipe as everyone will have a different size vessel, just buy a little more than you expect.

Tips:

If you don’t have a large, clear trifle bowl (and who does really) then pop into your local St.Vincents de Paul or Salvos or any op shop and buy a glass vase for next to nothing, which is what I did… At least you can use it for flowers afterwards.

Assign your kids to making it as they will love the sculpting and designing of such a centre piece.

To hasten the setting time of the jelly be sure to use a shallow tray (roasting tray if need be) rather than a deep bowl.

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Hot Smoked Salmon & Dill Tartlets

Hot Smoked Salmon & Dill Tartlets – It’s party time! Birthday parties, Christmas parties, end of work parties… parties everywhere!

Finding Feasts Recipes

So, what do you make to feed to the masses? These Hot Smoked Salmon & Dill Tartlets are a must for six very good reasons…

You can make lots of them very easily – plan on 2 to 3 per person.
A great stomach filler – ideal for when drinking. Plus, it’s always such a disappointment when food doesn’t sustain you when at a party, especially when the party is around lunch time or dinner time.
They can easily be eaten with one hand – very important as bubbles will be permanently occupying the other.
Mess free – you want the bling to be from champagne and diamonds not drips of oil.
These can be made ahead of time and then frozen, if necessary.
You can serve them hot or cold – Great for parties at a park, think Glamour Picnic Parties… just don’t forget your heel protectors!

Happy party season! Blondie & Bella

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Beef Stroganoff w/ Spinach & Herbs

Finding Feasts - Beef Stroganoff — Click image for recipe

Beef Stroganoff w/ Spinach & Herbs is a favourite among most families for it’s flavourful, meaty, mushroomy goodness.

This recipe is easy to add more or less meat and mushrooms according to mouths being fed as there is plenty of sauce. If you have lots of sauce left over then use it in another pasta dish, just add some more veggies and maybe some bacon or bake some potatoes (skin on) smash them, Jamie Oliver style, and then pour the sauce over them, throw in some steamed vegetables and you have a very easy and tasty dinner with minimal effort.

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Eggs w/ Spinach, Mushrooms – Brunchtime Recipe

Finding Feasts - Healthy Breakfasts Eggs-with-mushrooms — Click image for recipe

Eggs w/ Spinach, Mushrooms – Brunchtime Recipe is a deliciously simple meal to make that can be enjoyed at any time of the day really.

I know alot of people find it difficult to cook a perfect fried egg so my tip for making perfectly cooked eggs, that is, a nice firm egg white and a runny yolk, is to cook on a low flame and cover with a lid. You can peek inside every now and then to check on the eggs but be sure not to let out too much heat while you do so. You also don’t need oil if your pan is well seasoned or non stick, the oil in this recipe is really for the mustard seeds and mushrooms.

Such yummy goodness – Blondie 🙂

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