The new lounge

So I take Mum to a furniture shop. She has this new contemporary house which is all white an minamalist and her furniture is busy and floral! Time for an update. Something comfy, hard wearing and long lasting that will suit the new house. Soft white leather, not too close to the ground, she's having a knee replacement in January. Nice and beachy with good quality stuffing and frame. How good is this??  Ok talked me into it! I'll have one too.  We'll take 2 lounge suites please. That's how to make a salesmans day!

The new 30 second tent

Got a new 30 second tent. Took Richo 40 seconds to erect it. His excuse "it's my first time!"  My answer "Not fast enough! Do it again" Good Heavens! Anyone would think he was getting paid by the hour!! 😄😄😄😄😉

Unsuccessful shopping trip

Mum is visiting and forgot her birdseed for the Buddy Bird. So off to town we all went. 30kms from home ( with no public transport) little car (mums pride & joy) goes cough !! Splutt!! Warning light STOP!!  Coasted to the roadside (in a bus zone) and Failed to Proceed ( that's Rolls Royce talk for died) NRMA came. Uh oh cant fix but can tow... Where to ?? No answer on the phone for 3 mechanics.  Just take it to your workshop. What do mean they can't look at it til next week? How do we get home?  All available members of the potential rescue team are with the stranded vehicle. Ah! ring the neighbour and hope she didn't start Happy Hour early. Huge Thank you to Denise for coming to fetch us. Tow truck can only carry 2 passengers! Just one more example of 'threes a crowd'. What are we supposed to do when there is more than 2 occupants in the car. 

The good news is wE GOT THE BIRDSeed 😄😄😄😄😄

Chocolate Ripple Cake. Happy Birthday Nathan 🎂🎂🎂🎂🍰🍰🍰🍰

Katie asked for our help with a recipe for Chocolate Ripple Cake. Its her husbands birthday of Friday and he asked for this cake. Havent made it for a long time so it was great to revisit an old favourite. We even made an individual version of the same dessert, just a different presentation but just as yummy. This no bake make ahead dessert tastes great is economical and easy to throw together and you can dress it up pretty too. http://youtu.be/3CWP5OwgGuo. Hope you check it out for yourself and make a cake without heating up the kitchen. A great summer recipe.

Cheekyricho Candied Pecans

We love candied nuts of all varieties and often buy them warm crispy and fragrant from local produce markets, cooked at the stall by the producers and served in little paper cones with the top folded down. It's usually cheaper to buy 2 so we do and intend to keep one for later. They invariably never make it home. With me making my best sad puppy dog face at Richo so I can have the last one. We also buy fresh nuts from the farmers in an effort to support local producers and embrace the practice of being a 'Locavore' hopefully reducing our footprint on the environment and keeping  our money in the local community. The food Is  fresher and the farmers always have handy new ideas to best utilise their produce whether it be in the preparation for the table or serving it. So it's a win win for everyone. I shared my Macadamia Brittle recipe idea with one stall holder and a few weeks later his wife was telling about this wonderful recipe in YouTube using their nuts. She had no idea she was talking to the creator of that recipe. We had a little chuckle about the complete circle her little round nuts had turned, from the tree to the table. We were both grateful for the feedback. 

So Richo talked me into buying some Pecans, the plan was to make some Thanksgiving Recipes,  at the time I didn't realise Richo was all but addicted to Pecans. Before I knew it there was only a small bowl left for me to show you.  These ones apparently had harder shells he couldn't readily break with his fingers to eat, so they became the Survivors. We joke about call this dish Survivor Pecans but you would never find it and that would defeat the purpose of sharing the recipe with you. So check out our cheekyricho YouTube channel to find our Candied Pecans. The last known Survivors of the Pecan species in the cheekyricho kitchen. (You'll keep Richo)

Cheekyricho Pumpkin Cheesecake

I love Pumpkin Pie & Richo loves baked cheesecake. For those of you celebrating Thanksgiving we have brought these two iconic desserts together in one delicious creamy home baked dessert. You can make it a day or two ahead of that celebration dinner you have planned. Great for the vege smugglers, kids will never know it contains pumpkin (eeewwe) and the grown ups will appreciate the two tone lusciousness of this rich creamy dessert. A lot easier to make than it looks, it's bound to become one of your most requested dishes. Did you know Pumpkin Cheesecake is rated as one of the top 10 all time cheesecake favourites! What's your favourite? Let us know and we will cook it for you. Cheekyricho kitchen has become somewhat of a Cheesecake Factory of late as we try and test new and exciting Cheesecake varieties to bring to you. So you can expect more delicious summer desserts. In fact we have dedicated an entire youtube playlist to just Cheesecakes, if you're a Cheesecake fan you won't want to miss that and if you're not check us out anyway, it's never too late to convert;-))

How to peel a kiwi fruit unless than 30 seconds

Richo recently made me a Daq-kiwi which is our invention of a Kiwi fruit cocktail. Tasted lovely but he was very slow to carefully peel the kiwi fruit preventing waste from excess fruit sticking to the skin. He now uses my method of skinning the fruit quickly, easily and safely. Delivers a neat little peeled fruit with minimal wastage. Perfect for decorating those flans & pavs. They don't need to look pretty for the cocktail because they are being blitzed but I was able to keep the production going smoothly peeling while he jiggered & blitzed. Everyone got a fresh icy bright tasty cocktail at the same time and we got to enjoy the spring sunset together. Sadly the sky was tainted by smoke from recent bush fires but the colours in the afternoon sky where magnificent.

We uploaded videos of both the Daq-kiwi and the disrobing a Kiwi on our cheekyricho YouTube channel if you're a Chinese gooseberry fan you won't want to miss either video.

Make Malaysian Kaya at home.

Going over some photos of our Malaysian trip and it reminded me to try and find Kaya, a sweet coconut & egg jam. No one sells it or has heard if it where we live so I decided to make my own, next problem we encountered was where to get Pandanus leaves necessary for the flavouring. No joy there so we bought some Pandan extract, which unfortunately is very highly coloured. I used less than half a teaspoon full to achieve the desired flavour which left me with an almost kryptonite coloured Kaya. If you can forgive me the deep colour you will praise the flavour of this delicious sweet coconut flavoured jam with a hint of Pandan flavour and a hell-of-a-lot of colour. Couldn't separate the two and the flavour was the primary concern. Will be featuring it on our cheekyricho YouTube channel this week. If you know the product you will appreciate the simplicity in making it and if you haven't tried it before. Now's your chance to make it at home.

2 ingredient Jelly Ribbon Scrolls. That are like eating an edible Yoga Mat check it out on our cheekyricho YouTube channel this week.

2 ingredient Jelly Ribbon Scrolls. These are so easy and pretty. Like eating an edible Yoga Mat. Great for your next colour theme party or kids party table, they would be right at home in different colours to grace your next festive or family celebration dining table. Check them out this week on our cheekyricho youtube channel http://youtu.be/RR3B8RdbTqw

River Bank Repairs

We went to help some friends maintain the river bank. It was a very hot day and the river water was warm. Days like today you don't mind paddling around in the water . The tide beat us but gives us an excuse to get together again after the full moon for another working bee.

Cherry Clafoutis cheekyricho YouTube recipe

This delicious easy French Classic Pie uses fresh organic cherries in a crustless almost impossible pie recipe. Its creamy, rich and loaded with flavour. You can check it out and so much more on our cheekyricho youtube channel http://youtu.be/aD1eJGPqvzY

How to make a Flemington Fling

Its Melbourne Cup Day, the annual Horse Race Event that stops the nation. This is the only day of the year when you will get a park in the main street. Everyone in offices and banks will be sitting around a TV or radio watching and listening to the Australias most famous race. Office Sweeps are everywhere and even non gamblers break with tradition and have a bet. I dont know enough about horses to offer an opinion regarding a potential winner.  I had a horse called 'Taffy', as a girl,  but he was definitely no racehorse ;-))

I do know something about cocktails and this Flemington Fling invented for the Melbourne Cup by the Fling Bar is really refreshing and delicious. Its light and tart and great for sipping raceside while you watch history being made again. Remember the winning horses name because sometime in the future you are going to need that knowledge when playing a trivia game.

We hope you try our Flemington Fling, it may just become one of your summer favourites.

check it out and plenty of other delicious cocktails and mocktails on a cheekyricho youtube channel.

http://youtu.be/jIc8cGoNSwQ

DaqKIWI

Should be eating more fruit! How about drinking it? This cute little cocktail is not too sweet and is a Dauquiri Kiwi Fruit concoction we invented and called it a DaqKIWI.  Make one n go sip it by a pool.