The $120 Food Challenge

The $120 Food Challenge is a website for foodies on a budget. For recipes, ideas, budgetting tips and comments, go to http://120dollarsfoodchallenge.com

Chockful of kitchen wisdom, generosity and more than 900 inspirational recipes, The $120 Food Challenge is a website for foodies on a budget. To subscribe, comment or just to browse, go to http://120dollarsfoodchallenge.com

01/11/2022

The last public holiday before Christmas is cold enough outside to inspire some hours heating up the kitchen and the house. As much as I adore Seville orange marmalade, I can never find them, so have made this batch with navels and grapefruit for bitterness. Cooking marmalade is a two-step process, with the first being the gentle cooking over a couple of hours of thinly cut rinds and a poultice of fruit flesh, pips and pith tied up in a clean(!) cloth. Once the second stage - sugar and lemon juice added, and a hard boil until the marmalade wrinkles on a cold saucer - is done, the house is filled with orange perfume and the hot jam is ready to go into sterilised jars. I’ve added a spoonful each of Cointreau and Single Malt to each jar. They are cooling off now, upside down to maximise a tight seal. My Tipsy Marmalade is ready for a dark cupboard, to be stored until they are gifted in this year’s Christmas hampers to friends and family.

05/07/2022

Asked for a small bowl of ice for sundowner G&Ts. This is what I got.

05/07/2022

I’m going to be 60 next week. My sister asked me how that felt, and I was as surprised as she was when, after a moments reflection, I told her that actually it feels really awesome. After all the hard, hard times of ten years ago, I’m doing really well. I’m in a great place. A week in Phuket sipping cocktails is just the frivolous icing on the cake.

21/06/2022

My son is visiting so I was treated to Shakshuka for brunch. Really, why would I ever want to return to work in a crappy CBD office?

26/09/2021

Mum gave me a jam pan years ago, and for many years after it stayed in a storage unit and then later, in my garage.

It only makes a rare appearance, like today when a glut of beautifully fragrant strawberries at just $1 a punnet seemed too good to ignore.

I’m not a fan of making strawberry jam, mainly because it needs a lot of pectin to set it properly and it’s a temperamental thing to judge. But today it worked just right and now I have nine pots of jam to go.

And yes, I know it’s an aluminium pan, don’t @ me. It may look like a cheap ugly pan to you. But every memory I have of this, stretching back to childhood, is a good one. The jam pan stays.

21/02/2021

As you know, my beautiful friend Sandy Lowres has worked tirelessly to launch a new magazine for the over-40 woman, called WB40. The first issue launched two months ago and the second issue is almost ready to go

And then WB40 got Zucked.

In the stoush between Facebook and Murdoch, WB40’s FB page was deemed a media website and taken down.

I know how hard Sandy and a very small team work in this. It’s a gorgeous publication, and it speaks to us all. The first edition featured more than 40 micro-businesses run by women. It featured stories on women that we don’t read about in other mags. But now more than ever it needs your support.

Please. There are over eleven thousand of you and all I want is for a hundred of you beautiful angels to buy a WB40 magazine. How?

You can go to the WB40 website and subscribe here:

https://wb40.com

Or follow on Insta here: https://instagram.com/womenbeyondforty?igshid=148gz9rsla6xw and visit the online shop.

You can order a paper version for $14.99 or a digital edition for $7.99 and there are deals on a yearly subscription too.

Please. Support my friend. Support other women business owners too. Oh, and there’s a brand new recipe by yours truly thrown in with each edition.

27/12/2020

Eeeee!

23/12/2020

If anyone buys the print edition you can also chat with me about the recipes in there!

21/12/2020

I am beyond excited to have watched my dear friend Sandy plough all her energy and resources into this fantastic new magazine launch. For women, by women, full of relatable stories and issues we 40+ year olds face. You can buy a hard copy or download a digital edition AND be in the running to win a prize pack for subscribing.

And if that doesn’t tempt you, there’s a couple of new recipes from yours truly.

05/09/2020

When you ask for the recipe, and your grandmother says you have to add it to taste.

I admit I’m guilty of this: Once I went on a date and loved the meal so much I asked for the recipe. Having nothing to actually write with, I memorised it as much as I could then came home and, slightly inebriated, wrote it down on the first thing I could find - the cardboard backing from a pack of pantyhose.

Have never re-written it.