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Sheet Pan Sausage & Veggies with Satay Sauce

April 3, 2018 By Laura Leave a Comment

Sheet Pan Sausage & Veggies with Satay Sauce - a quick, easy and super tasty sheet pan dinner with colourful veggies, tasty sausages and a killer satay sauce! Great for weeknights and meal prep.

Out of all the things I cook and we eat THIS is our favourite. Ok...one of our favourites up there with Spaghetti Bolognese & anything Mexican. But we probably eat this Sheet Pan Sausage & Veggies with Satay Sauce once a week. Why? It's so super quick and easy!!

This sheet pan dinner has it all - flavourful sausages, colourful veggies and an epic sauce. Plus, dinner is on the table in 45 minutes of which 30 minutes is waiting for it to cook in the oven. Hands free! That's what I call a weeknight meal. And if you're out all day, you can even cut up the sausages & veggies in the morning and keep them in the fridge until you're ready to cook them. ...

My Favourite Carrot Cake Recipe

March 31, 2018 By Laura 45 Comments

My all time favourite Carrot Cake recipe - loaded with grated carrot, crushed pineapple, crunchy walnuts and smothered in cream cheese frosting, this will become your favourite carrot cake recipe too!

Hands up if you love carrot cake?! Carrot cake seems to be synonymous with Easter and spring, but there's just one problem with that. Down under it's autumn! And while I can make up the connection with carrot cake and Easter (Easter bunnies eat carrots I guess?) the spring thing has me thrown. If you ask me, carrot cake with all the cosy warm spicy flavours just screams autumn to me, which actually works out much better!...

Our Easter Brunch Menu

March 29, 2018 By Laura 2 Comments

Here is your Easter Brunch Menu inspiration! Tips for hosting an Easter Brunch as well as what we are having, plus all recipes!

It's nearly Easter! I have not been this excited about Easter since I was a kid. Christmas gets me every time but Easter doesn't quite have the same build up or excitement for me...until now! Because clearly in my world, having a kid makes everything more exciting! I mean, she's not even walking and I have little egg shaped maracas to hide in the garden for her so that we can have an Easter egg hunt but so that I can still hold onto the "no sugar until she's one" ideal. Come on, she's my first kid!...

15 Minute Ham, Cheese & Tomato Croissants

March 22, 2018 By Laura 2 Comments

The easiest and tastiest 15 Minute Ham, Cheese & Tomato Croissants - they come together and are ready to eat in only 15 minutes! Perfect for Easter brunch or just any old weekend breakfast!

Popping in with a super quick and easy Easter brunch idea for you today! I'm definitely not going to go as far as calling this a recipe - think of it as more inspiration!

These Ham, Cheese & Tomato Croissants are one of our favourite things to eat for weekend breakfasts. Now that our mornings revolve around feeding, changing and entertaining Sadie we are much shorter on time to put together fancy brunch in the weekends. The best thing about these is that they take 5 minutes prep work and 10 minutes cook time so they can be made, eaten and cleaned up all while Sadie takes her morning nap. Perfect!...

Homemade Burrito Spice Mix (with free printable labels)

March 18, 2018 By Laura 19 Comments

If you love this recipe, you will love the Burrito Spice E-cookbook! The ultimate collection of recipes that use Homemade Burrito Spice Mix including beef burritos, nachos, chicken strips for tacos, refried beans and everything Mexican!

This post was originally published in July 2015 - it has been retested, rephotographed, rewritten, and republished (to make it better for you!) in March 2018. I've also made labels for you to put on your spice mix jars - download the free PDF here

Homemade Burrito Spice Mix (or taco seasoning) - the perfect blend of spices to make your favourite Mexican meal in minutes! Perfect for beef burritos, nachos, chicken strips for tacos, refried beans or anything Mexican! | thekiwicountrygirl.com

This shouldn't come as a surprise to you (um, hi - I have a food blog), but I love to cook. The thing is though, cooking is something that didn't come naturally to me. I've always been a good baker but cooking has taken some practice. I think it's because I'm a methodical, rule follower type - the specifics of baking are my jam, but throwing ingredients into a pan and making an amazing meal - not so much. But way back in 2015 something changed for me when I discovered herbs and spices! I know (insert eye roll here) they've been around forever, but learning about and understanding what herbs and spices go together and with other ingredients changed my life!

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Hot Cross Bun Cinnamon Rolls

March 17, 2018 By Laura Leave a Comment

Hot Cross Bun Cinnamon Rolls! The perfect combination of delicious cinnamon rolls with all the spices and dried fruit that you love about hot cross buns! A must have for Easter brunch.

Ok, how is it almost Easter already? Wasn't it just Christmas?? Anyway, I'm pretty excited about Easter this year. Like Christmas, it's one of those holidays that suddenly becomes more magical when you have a kid. Even though said kid is not allowed to eat chocolate this Easter. C'mon, she's my first baby...I'm allowed to be strict!

Unfortunately for her, she's also not allowed these Hot Cross Bun Cinnamon Rolls. Bad luck Sadie, because these babies are for sure the best bread related recipe to come out of my kitchen, definitely this year, maybe even ever. I love my regular cinnamon rolls - which, by the way I have just updated the baking time to LESS...less is more as I have learnt this time around. Normally I would go for 20-25 minutes baking time for my rolls, covering them in tinfoil after 12 minutes or so to stop them from going too brown. No more!! 15 minutes baking time. The end. As soon as those tops start looking a little bit golden brown, whip them out of the oven and they will be the soft pillowy, spicy sugary rolls of your dreams (just mine?)...

My Favourite Easy Lasagne Recipe (step by step)

March 6, 2018 By Laura 7 Comments

My favourite easy lasagne recipe - step by step photos and instructions to help you make the perfect lasagne and impress your dinner guests! It's a family favourite!

There is no denying it...lasagne is definitely not a quick meal. Even my favourite easy lasagne recipe is a labour of love, but it's one of those meals that when I have taken the time to make it and Josh walks in at the end of a long day, it makes me feel like I am winning at the wife game. Especially when there is garlic bread too.

Lasagne is one of those recipes that everyone has their own take on. The classic "my mum makes the best lasagne" trick. The cool thing is, I am someones mum now so when I'm eating this I imagine Sadie telling all her baby friends that her mum makes the best lasagne...ha! She doesn't even eat it yet. But what I'm saying is, make this recipe and then alter it as you please so that it becomes YOUR lasagne! I have to admit, I really just use this recipe as a rough guide. When it comes to cooking I barely ever measure anything out and I usually always make it slightly different. But if I was to measure and be precise, this recipe is how I would do it....

Tutorial: Simple baby change mat

February 13, 2018 By Laura 2 Comments

How to make a simple baby change mat - if you can sew a straight line, you can make this portable baby change mat - perfect for in the nappy/diaper bag or as a baby shower gift!

Hey guys! Ready to sew today? This simple baby change mat is the perfect sewing project for beginners - honestly, if you can sew in a straight line you will have no problems whipping up one of these babies!

It's amazing what you find out you need after you have a baby. When we were preparing for Sadie's arrival, the amount of stuff I realised we would need was quite overwhelming. So I went for a simple approach - I got the absolute essentials and if I was slightly unsure about if I really needed something, I left it and figured I would get it once Sadie was here if necessary. And for the most part this strategy worked really well. There were still things we had that we never used and I definitely made a couple of panicked phone calls to friends to come to the rescue (yes, you will need newborn sized clothing even if they only wear it for a few weeks!) but mostly, we did well....

Life with Sadie - 7-8 Months

February 9, 2018 By Laura Leave a Comment

I thought that I would do 2 monthly updates from now on but wow, it has been an action packed 2 months!

December with Sadie was pretty much all about Christmas! Having her around made Christmas even more exciting and I went way overboard with the Christmas outfits! It was fun taking Sadie on her first trip to cut down our Christmas tree - she was more interested in the tree than the camera of course! ...

Small Batch Caramilk Cupcakes

February 7, 2018 By Laura 3 Comments

Small batch Caramilk Cupcakes are the perfect way to enjoy that highly sought after Caramilk chocolate without sacrificing the whole bar!

If you live in New Zealand or Australia you will understand the current Caramilk situation. If not, let me explain. There is a type of chocolate that has invoked hype like no other in this country for quite some time. Apparently it used to be a thing (I'm too young to remember!) but last year, Cadbury reintroduced Caramilk as a limited edition bar. It went NUTS! People who remembered it took a trip down memory lane and people like me who had never heard of it got on board to see what all the fuss was about. Um, worth the fuss!...

How to start a herb garden (for less than $11!)

February 5, 2018 By Laura 3 Comments

It's summer which means it is the perfect time for growing! I have the perfect project for beginner (or expert!) gardeners today - how to start a herb garden for less than $11!

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Homemade Frappuccino Recipe

February 1, 2018 By Laura Leave a Comment

Your favourite coffee shop drink made at home - here's my homemade frappuccino recipe!

Hands up if you love iced coffee?? Yes! But hands up if you don't love shelling out $7 for one? Also yes. Oh and also kind of important...the nearest coffee shop to us is 1 hour away. Anyone else?

And if we are going into huge detail about why it is so essential to learn how to make these at home, how's this for a first world problem? Here are the locations of the only 2 Starbucks anywhere near to us.

1. Right in the middle of town where parking is a nightmare
2. On the top floor of a shopping mall.

Do you know how hard it is to get to these sorts of places with a baby??

First up - is the baby asleep? If so, forget it. No stopping. If she's awake we're doing it. So we find a park, unload the pram, load the child into the pram, walk to the coffee shop, order coffee and wait. But what's that? She needs a nappy change. Get the key...the KEY! for the toilet to change baby and by the way, there is not a chance the pram is fitting in there...my nappy bag barely fits! Change nappy, load baby back into pram, pick up coffee. Realise you've forgotten to attach the cup holder to the pram and have a face palm moment. Awkwardly push the pram one handed back to the car. Kid into the car, pram into the car, locate the coffee and the keys that both got put down somewhere in the backseat area. Get in the car and finally sip the coffee. I mean, it's delicious and kind of worth it, but what a MISSION! ...

Easy Healthy Homemade Granola

January 12, 2018 By Laura 14 Comments

Healthy homemade granola - a simple recipe to make your own healthy granola from scratch. Cheap to make, delicious and fully customisable!

Ok, so I've talked about how much I love healthy homemade granola until I'm blue in the face - clearly, I have an addiction. But it's a good one right? Breakfast food, healthy, cheap and easy to make. We're all on the same page.

But while I've shared a bunch of awesome flavour ideas, I haven't shared the easiest, healthy homemade granola recipe that I actually make all the time. The flavours are fun for when I am a little bored of "normal" granola (um, actually never) but at any given time you could walk into my house and there would be a jar of this granola in the cupboard....

Christmas Cheese Log

December 21, 2017 By Laura 6 Comments

The perfect quick, easy & delicious Christmas appetizer to feed a crowd! Make in advance and serve with crackers and toasted bread.

4 sleeps til Christmas!! I'm picking you've all got the Christmas menu sorted - someone is doing the ham, someone has the pavlova under control and the trifle is ready to be assembled. But let's talk about the snacks! Because while all this prep is going on you're going to need something to keep you going, and what is better than a Christmas cheeseboard complete with a festive looking (and tasting) Christmas cheese log!...

Santa's Little Nightcap

December 16, 2017 By Laura 1 Comment

Is this not the most perfect Christmas cocktail?? Santa's Little Nightcap is the best drink to leave out for the big man on Christmas Eve.

Remember learning how to make cold brew coffee? Here is where it comes into play. Cold brew coffee + Baileys + vodka + whipped cream and cinnamon = the perfect nightcap. It's creamy, cold, caffeinated and delicious. Great for summer Christmas but the Baileys & vodka warm it up so it would also fit right in up there in the Northern Hemisphere!...

How to make Cold Brew Coffee

December 14, 2017 By Laura 1 Comment

Summer is all about iced coffee and cold brew is my favourite way to drink it! Here is how to make cold brew coffee at home - perfect for hot days!

Have you jumped on the cold brew coffee bandwagon yet?

It has been unseasonably hot here so far this summer and for me the thought of a hot cup of coffee doesn't quite hold the same appeal as it did when it was cold. But the baby doesn't sleep through the night anymore so coffee is clearly still an essential part of surviving the day, which is why I needed to know how to make cold brew coffee. And so do you!

It's the perfect drink for this time of year - straight out of the fridge, poured over ice, caffeinated goodness. The awesome thing about cold brew coffee is that you can make it in advance and leave it in the fridge for a few days. No trying to cool down freshly brewed coffee quickly to make an iced coffee, no mucking around with blenders and ice-cream (not that I'm ever opposed to an ice-cream iced coffee!) but this is icy cold coffee in pure simplicity....

Life with Sadie - 6 months

December 11, 2017 By Laura 1 Comment

I've spent a whole lot of Sadie's life being happy that she is growing and sad that I don't want her to not be a teeny baby anymore, but I have to say, I think 6 months is my favourite age so far! She has changed so much this month - much more noticeably than any other month so far. Sadie is really turning into her own little person now which is so fun to see!

This month she has started copying little noises and facials we make. Josh & I both realised we are guilty of going in with big open mouth smiles which she is definitely doing now! She is still pretty happy entertaining herself but always looks at you to check in and make sure we are still there and watching her. ...

1 Basic Dough - 4 Slice and Bake Christmas Cookie Recipes!

December 7, 2017 By Laura Leave a Comment

This one super simple cookie dough becomes four easy and festive slice and bake Christmas cookie recipes! Great for Christmas parties, teacher gifts or a cookie exchange or something to leave out for Santa!

I have the cookie recipe to end all Christmas cookie recipe dilemmas today - 1 basic dough, 4 slice and bake Christmas cookie recipes!

If you were starting to wonder how you were ever going to decide where to start with your Christmas cookie baking (just me?) look no further. These 4 slice and bake Christmas cookie recipes will see you through to the big day and beyond!...

No Bake Strawberry Cheesecake for 2

December 3, 2017 By Laura Leave a Comment

No bake strawberry cheesecake for 2 - the perfect easy small batch dessert for Christmas, Thanksgiving or date night - plus, they're refined sugar free and lightened up with Greek yoghurt!

It's December!! The 11 month ban on all things Christmas has been lifted and I am now allowed to go completely Christmas crazy for 1 whole month...eeeek! Plus I really feel like this holiday season is going to be the best one yet....not only do I have so much more time to be at home making Christmas cookies and doing fun Christmas crafts, I have a little holiday elf to help me. Well, not so much with the helping, but more with the making Christmas so much more exciting....

Homemade Mint Slices

November 26, 2017 By Laura 11 Comments

Homemade Mint Slices - New Zealand's favourite biscuit made at home! Crispy chocolate biscuits topped with peppermint fondant and coated in chocolate.

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, which pay me a small commission for my referral at no extra cost to you! Thank you for supporting The Kiwi Country Girl.

I have the best November treat for you today...Homemade Mint Slices! After how much you all loved my Homemade 100's & 1000's biscuits I thought I would make it a bit of a thing to try all of our favourite homemade biscuits and cookies at home! After all, you know I'm 100% obsessed with trying to make anything you can buy. So if you have a favourite that you want me to try, let me know!

Homemade Mint Slices have actually worked out to be pretty timely - mint slices have just been voted New Zealand's favourite biscuit! Yes, I live in a country where this is news. Plus all that chocolate & peppermint-y goodness is the perfect "sort of Christmas but I'm trying to pull back until December" treat!...

Lemon Roasted Asparagus

November 21, 2017 By Laura Leave a Comment

Lemon roasted asparagus - the perfect quick & easy side dish for early summer BBQ's. Ready in 20 minutes it's fresh, lemony and tastes like spring!

Coming at ya with the quickest, easiest & most spring like vege side dish I know - Lemon Roasted Asparagus! It's going to be your go-to for early summer BBQ's and the it's 7pm and I don't know to serve with {insert main course here} panic that really seems to happen on a daily basis around here. Maybe it has something to do with the almost 6 month old that suddenly becomes super needy at that time of night!

Asparagus is definitely one of those vegetables that you either love or you hate. I used to be firmly in team hate until I was pregnant! For some reason asparagus was one of those weird cravings - to begin with I think it was because it was in asparagus roll form at a party - the asparagus was wrapped up in white bread and cream cheese which were pretty much the only 2 things I ate during the first trimester! But then I grew up a little bit and suddenly couldn't get enough of the stuff. The only thing I don't like about asparagus is how short the season is! I was just getting in the asparagus zone last year and then it was gone - rookie first timer. This year I am way more prepared which means eating lemon roasted asparagus everyday!...

Oatmeal Chocolate Lactation Cookies

November 16, 2017 By Laura 8 Comments

Oatmeal Chocolate Lactation Cookies - full of oats, LSA & brewers yeast (and chocolate!) and the perfect snack for any new breastfeeding mama! Plus, I've included instructions for freezing the dough so you can have fresh cookies at a moments notice!

Ok so let's get straight into the weirdness that is this post. I have to admit, I never thought the words "lactation cookie" would be something I said, let alone wrote on here, but you know - strange things happen once you've had a baby!

But before we get into the recipe can I just say to all the breastfeeding mamas out there...you are doing an amazing job!! Breastfeeding is hard! I definitely thought that it was going to be easy and would come naturally and would be a beautiful experience. Ha! So naive....

Life with Sadie - 5 months

November 7, 2017 By Laura Leave a Comment

Sadie is 5 months old! As much as I don't want her to grow up too quickly, she is really starting to develop her own little personality and gets more and more fun every day which is amazing!

At the start of this month we moved Sadie out of the bassinet and into her cot full time. Like everything, this was far more traumatic for me than her! She handled it really well and her sleeping didn't change at all for the first couple of weeks. We also started a bedtime routine for her this month. At 8pm she has a bath, pj's and sleeping bag on, story, feed then bed at 8.30pm. She cottoned onto the routine really fast and it's working perfectly for us. She's in bed early enough that we can still watch a bit of TV before we go to bed but it's late enough that Josh actually gets to spend some time with her when he gets home from work. Yay!...

Chocolate Halloween Mummy & Skeleton Cookies

October 29, 2017 By Laura Leave a Comment

Chocolate Halloween Mummy & Skeleton Cookies - perfect for Halloween parties, trick or treaters and for making with kids!

I'm back with another fun Halloween recipe...are you ready? Chocolate Halloween Mummy & Skeleton Cookies! What a mouthful. But these cookies - they're perfect for Halloween, spooky but fun, delicious and great to decorate with kids. Well, maybe...I did mine with a sleeping baby and that was pretty easy, it might be harder with actual grown up kids!

They would also be the perfect thing to have in your trick or treat basket at home - no one else is going to have Mummy & Skeleton Cookies!...