Australia Day Celebrations

The Lucky country, Aussie land, The land down under, Land of Oz... Which ever name you know it as, Australia is one of the greatest places on earth (my own bias opinion). The gorgeous beaches, lush rainforests, stretching bushland, cute native animals, perks of having cities situated on the beach, bountiful land and the most amazing diversity make this place one of the most beautiful places to live. Every January 26th on Australia day (invasion day) the nation comes together to celebrate everything we love about being Australian. We drink (lots of) beer from our eskys, we go 4wding, we hit the beach, we listen to the triple j hottest 100 countdown, we feast on our favourite foods, we swim in our backyards while the snags are cooking on the BBQ, we enjoy the heat and we throw parties to commemorate the arrival of the first fleet landing on our shores in 1788.

This year we started the day off with a cruise down the highways of the north coast beaches in our 1980 ford Cortina which has been re-engineered and done up to look (and run) like a million bucks! Cruising up and down the coast we saw so many people hitting the beach with their mates, carrying trampolines to the beach to play/ lay on and many in their million dollar mansions overlooking the shore hosting parties from their balcony pools.

Next we went to the Reindl Mamma's for a nice family lunch and so all the kids could have a run around in the sprinkler. The boys cooked up a beautiful barbeque of t-bones, chops and sausages and the ladies prepared some veggies, quiche, salads and some chicken for the boys that are in the process of shredding.

When we got home Lexi and I prepared a party feast with all of the foods i could think of at the time that scream Australian to me. We decorated the table with a blue PVC tablecloth, a giant Australian flag and some flag bunting then laid out all the foods. We had burger rings, pavlova (the cream wasn't thick enough), an antipasto plate of ham, salami, cabanossi, cheddar, brie, crackers, sun dried tomatoes, french onion dip and sweet chilli deli mix (OK so the antipasto plate wasn't ridiculously Australian), jaffas, minties, a biscuit selection of vovo's, timtams, Anzac biscuits and wagon wheels, party pies, sausage rolls (with tomato sauce of course) and an Australian themed trifle with red and blue jello and some red, white and blue sprinkles i found from my new favourite eBay store apenfold123.

The table looked so good full of some our favourite foods and it was a great way to celebrate the things i love most about being Australian!

how do you celebrate being Australian on January 26th?

T

Piñata Cones

There are always those events that pop up through the year where you are asked to bring a plate of food. Sometimes you get given a specific item to bring but more often than not, the only "suggestion" we're given is 'sweet or savoury'. If lucky you might get a weeks notice, but chances are if its something for a school event; your child will tell you as they're on their way to bed that they need something amazing to take to school the following morning. This is pretty much what happened for the end of term class party at Lexi's school.

I was given the heads up on thursday night that, not only did i need to supply a plate of sweet food for Lexi's class, but there was a list at the classroom where parents had to write what they were going to make, so there was no double ups. I had the choice to buy a package of lamingtons or similar just as a bit of a cop out, or to go all out and make something really special. i decided i wanted to show off a bit.

After browsing Pinterest i finally found something that caught my eye;

credit: www.pomyslodawcy.pl

i loved it and decided to do my own take on it. I decided to bake the meringue in the cone instead of doing them separate and gluing them together with icing as the picture suggests, i also did them in flat bottom cones to make it a little easier to take them to school and for display purposes.

To start you need 3 egg whites (i used 125ml of carton egg whites), a dash of vinegar, 3/4 cup of caster sugar and a splash of vanilla extract. Start out by whisking the egg whites til they're nice and frothy. Next add the sugar a little at a time to ensure optimum break down of the granules and add the vinegar too. You need to turn up the speed of the beater and beat til stiff peaks begin to form and then whisk in the vanilla.

Once the mixture has formed firm peaks, set it aside and begin on the cones. Line a tray with baking paper (for any drips) and set out the cones, this recipe calls for 12 cones. Fill each cone with lollies to the brim of ice cream cone but don't allow them to sit higher that the top of the cone. Next fill a piping bag, or cut the corner off a ziplock bag and make an "ice-cream cone swirl" on top of each cone and sprinkle 100's and 1000's on half of each swirl.

I put "girl" colours on one half of the batch and "boy" colours on the other half. I also did another 12 meringues without cones as there is 23 kids in my daughters class. Then you need to put them in the oven at 100*C til the meringue starts to colour, which from memory, was about 10-20 minutes.

Once cooked the cones will need to rest in order to cool enough to put in containers. When we took the treats in to school, Lexi took the lunch boxes from under the pram and showed them around to her teachers and school mates, and, as i had hoped, they were a huge hit. So glad i decided to go al out instead of being lazy and sending a box of cookies or similar.