Tag: Donna Hay

How to make brownies

Annette8 Comments

I’m enjoying the rhythm of baking on Sundays. I’m tagging my masterpieces with #sundaybakingsunday on Instagram, and hoping people might find a little inspiration to get into their kitchens and make something a bit more fun that school lunches or a weeknight dinner. 

One of my fellow Blog With Pip students, Carolyn of www.carolynwritesitdown.com, suggested I bake something chocolate-y this week, and Donna Hay’s standby brownies came immediately to mind. They’re quick, simple and delicious – every single time!

The thing I really enjoy about baking is how simple ingredients, just six in this case, combine to make something so different from what they are when they’re just flour, sugar, eggs, cocoa, butter and vanilla extract.

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Here’s Donna talking about this recipe – watching her show really opened my eyes to what a great cook she is. Just goes to show that food that looks fantastic, can actually be quite simple to prepare. I like Donna’s food philosophy – fast, fresh and simple (she even encourages store-bought ‘cheats’ which is great when you’ve got other places, aside from slaving away over a hot stove, to be).

http://www.lifestylefood.com.au/recipes/15140/standby-brownies

So, another Sunday is almost done, which means there’s a sink full of dishes to do – but before that, I think I’ll enjoy another brownie and a cup of coffee.

How’s your kitchen looking? Let me know if you’ve got any great recipes you’d like to share.

Cheers,

Annette

 

How I went to France and met Frank Lloyd Wright

Annette11 Comments

 

bookscloseup

 

This may look like just a stack of books to the untrained observer, but it’s actually a photo of my passport.

Just by flipping open a beautiful book and drinking in the words and images it contains, I can be somewhere else in minutes, and completely alter my mood. No wonder there’s a history of book-burning – they’re practically hallucinogenics!

These books are some of the many I own which allow me to travel, first class, to places I’ve never seen, where I get to meet new people and peek inside amazing homes.

My books can take me anywhere – from the test kitchen of Aussie food guru Donna Hay to a breathtakingly beautiful French vista, or perhaps a weekend visit to the most famous home in America. I can cross borders, time travel and delve deep into other people’s artistry, or my own imagination.

I’ve always been a book lover. I don’t know why, or how, that happened, but I’m super grateful to be a bibliophile.

If you think I’m just a nutso bookworm who needs to get a life, I’ve got the backing of an esteemed doctor!

“Be awesome! Be a book nut!” — Dr. Seuss

And if you’re more of a rom-com lover, even the queen of that film genre has something to say about reading:

“Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it’s a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it’s a way of making contact with someone else’s imagination after a day that’s all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss.” — Nora Ephron

Thanks Doc, thanks Nora – I couldn’t agree more.

When was the last time a book transported you?

Where did you go?