chocolate chip hot cross buns

After days and days of delicious fruit filled tea brack with mug after mug of tea in the afternoon, my original plan to make traditional fruit speckled hot cross buns at some point during Holy Week, began to loose its lustre. I had loved every fruity slice of dark, moist, spicy tea brack but it felt more and more like hot cross buns would be more of the same, albeit in adorable itty bitty yeasty bun form.

roti mariam (fried bread)

This is the bread that spawned my easy yoghurt naan, which spawned my easy garlic herb and sesame naan. So I guess you could say she's now a grandma? Hubs was having an evil craving, but I convinced him pan fried naan was what he really wanted, instead of fat sodden discs of deep fried dough. He bought it, for a while, but the beast once again reared it's greasy head and hubs would no longer be denied. 

I recently made a biryani and the first words out of hubby's lips were, "Got roti mariam?" When I grinned sheepishly, he glared and declared, "Enough with the freakin naan! I want roti mariam!". He can't seem to enjoy his biryani without a pile of these crisp, bronzed and blistered breads beside his mound of golden rice and spiced meat. 

guinness and cheddar soda bread

Can you tell where I'm going with this? I'll give you a hint. Leprechauns love green almost as much as they love gold. Ok, so I'm not Irish, not even Irish-descended, which is why I've refrained from calling this "Guinness and cheddar Irish soda bread". But maybe Scotland's close enough? No? Well I guess the only way I could make this even remotely Irish then, is by pouring one half of a Guinness into the mixing bowl, and the other down my gullet?

easy yoghurt naan

Last week, the man of the house had a craving for fried bread, greasy, deep fried bread, no less. I try to please the collective family belly as far as I can, but I just have this aversion to deep frying that goes beyond health concerns or a greasy kitchen.

Alright, I'll come out and say it; I am afraid of deep frying. It goes back to my first week in the hot kitchen at culinary school, all those years ago. I was tasked with deep frying potato croquettes for that night's dinner service at the training restaurant.

sweetcorn bread and ice cream sandwiches

Ever get the kind of craving that makes you do kinda stupid things? Like walking over an hour, covering seven grocery stores because you're hit with the most vicious longing for mint chocolate chip ice cream? Then sitting down on a park bench and dissolving into tears, because there wasn't a single tub in all the ice cream freezers within the two mile radius you just trudged on foot, while your cousin, (who's more like your sister, and sweet enough to trudge beside you when you suggest mint chocolate chip ice cream) looks at you like you've lost your mind, cos she doesn't know you're pregnant, because, heck, even you didn't know you were pregnant. 

Okay, so I'm not being hypothetical.... but you do get what I mean, yes? Of course you don't, because you, not afflicted with pregnancy brain, would have just gone, pronto, to an ice cream parlour and asked for a triple scoop *gaa-aaah* I'm now safely beyond the brain addling powers of pregnancy, though I've lately caught myself fantasising about grandbabies. Whaaaat??!