A Surprising Turn of Events…

Not long after we returned from our lengthy visit to France, I was asked to consider locating a commercial kitchen in order to cook for a local business. We thought about it, discussed the idea, and the search began. We needed a public hall with a commercial kitchen available for hire on a daily basis. It took a little while, but finally we located one just 20 minutes from our home. The next stage in the process was training. I enrolled in an appropriate course and this was done on line. Then there were council applications to be submitted and meetings/inspections held, along with a plethora of other issues to deal with, and then of course the testing of recipes and menu planning …

This week we finished our fifth cook. It has been a crazy and hectic journey, but we are now becoming far more efficient and time savvy. We are very proudly using locally produced ingredients and it is around these ingredients that our recipes are created. At this point, the beef, eggs, cheese, olive oil, and the majority of our veg are produced very close to home – within a 25 kilometer radius, and our milk is also local, but from a little further away. How lucky are we to be able to source such beautiful ingredients so very close to home.

For me, our packaging needed to be environmentally friendly, and with some advice we ended up with a beautiful product, in fact the bases are fully home compostable and the lids can be placed in your recycle bin. On top of this, I think it looks amazing.

So what are we cooking… We are preparing pre-packaged meals in single and family size, such as

Lamb Kofta in a Rich Vegetable Sauce with Handmade Gnocchi,

Continue reading →

A little boy’s holiday

I recently took a trip to visit my beautiful 87 year old mother. She lives in a nursing home in Stawell which is a 500 plus kilometer drive from where I live. I thought it might be the perfect opportunity to take our three year old grandson, Cooper, for a little holiday, but chose not to tell her.

When I told mum that I would be visiting, I also told her that I had been making quince jelly, and slow cooking and bottling the fruit as well, because our beautiful old quince tree had been loaded – I think we picked two wheelbarrow loads! Mum loves quinces and asked if I could bring a jar of jelly and a small jar of the quinces. While the food at the nursing home is wonderful, she obviously doesn’t get the homemade treats that she used to make herself, not so long ago. Continue reading →

True Friendship…

True friendship…

I received an unexpected phone call a couple of weeks ago. It was my friend Pauline! We had not seen each other for many years, and it was pure chance that I found her phone number last year and managed to get in touch with her again.

They were heading off for a couple of weeks in the caravan, and as her husband, John, said, they would be passing our front door, so it was the perfect opportunity to finally spend some time together again. They suggested a cup of tea around 11 am – I suggested lunch. It was agreed, on the condition that I did not go to too much fuss! I agreed – no fuss, not too much cooking….

But what to make… Continue reading →

The Joy of Cooper

Recently our gorgeous three year old grandson, Cooper came for a sleep over, I am not sure who was more excited…

Our son, Christopher and Cooper visited me at work, and we made all the purchases for the weekend ahead. I asked Chris if Cooper liked fish fingers, and he said he likes food if he can hold it. So included in our purchases where some lovely little flatty (flathead) tails, freshly in from Lakes Entrance, along with some favourites, bananas, blueberries, strawberries etc. They left with all our purchases while I continued to work for the rest of the day – Cooper was super excited about seeing his Papa.

By the time I arrived home that night, it was quite late, so we kept it very simple. A BBQ with everyone hopping in to help. Continue reading →

Getting back on track…

The last seven or eight months have been very full on, and I feel as if I have lost control of my goals and dreams…

So it’s time to change all of that and pull myself back on track. Time to become a little more routined and diligent, to pursue my dreams and be the person that I want to be… Continue reading →