Wheee it’s a giveaway! This giveaway is only available to Aussies and Kiwis, sorry everyone else!  I had a very friendly chap called Victor contact me about doing a promotional post for a website called Groupon (yes it sounds like coupon!) I don’t normally do this type of thing, but he offered me two $50 vouchers for my readers - so on your behalf I accepted graciously. I know you all like free stuff! There is one website with deals for Kiwis at Grouponnz and another for Aussies here at Groupon Austrailia.

They have some amazing deals on there that you can spend your $50 voucher on. To give you some ideas they have baby slumber pods, Sworovski crystal jewellery and personalised iphone cases. As well as things you can hold in your hand and get in your actual post box, they have some really fantastic deals on travel and holiday packages (Thailand anyone?). These are really heavily discounted and just amazing value. I’ve got to say, I’ve got my eye on a trip to Wellington. I’d like to see my darling daughter when she gets back from gallivanting all around the world!

Just to make it clear, I am not gaining anything from promoting this other than the opportunity to give you a $50 voucher. Neat huh ?

Ok, so what do you need to do to be in the draw for one of two $50 vouchers?

All you need to do is visit either Groupon Austrailia or Grouponnz and leave a comment telling me what you would like to put your $50 voucher towards. I’ll do a random draw to see who the lucky ones are.

Edit: I’ll leave this giveaway open until April lst (NZ time) for the one voucher and 24 hours for the other, I noticed some of these deals have quite tight time limits on them!

Now for all you folk that can’t participate in the giveaway, I’m sorry! I do have an interesting recipe for you all. These are bar cookies, a New Zealand slice. This recipe came from a fundraiser cookbook back in the 60’s. If you’re a sixties Kiwi kid like me no doubt you’ll recognise this slice; you might have had some in your lunchbox as a child.

The interesting thing about this is that my recipe for jumble is completely wrong. Somewhere along the way it morphed into something that only barely resembles the original. It’s now more like a chocolate, coconut version of ginger crunch. The original jumble is soft and cakey, but you can almost break your teeth on this version if if you’re not careful! It is not a soft slice. So just to be clear, if you wear dentures - this one is not for you! Alternatively if you would like to make a soft cakey version, simply add an egg to the mix.

This is so sturdy it makes it the perfect candidate to be rattled around in a lunch box and still be presentable at lunch time when your hungry little person is looking for their treat.

It will keep well for a couple of weeks in a sealed container.

Lunchbox Jumble

• 100g butter (softened)
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of flour
• 1 cup of dessicated coconut
• 1 tspn of baking powder
• 1 large Tblspn Cocoa
• splash of milk -  just enough to mix to hold the mixture together
• whole egg (optional) if you would like a soft version.

Cream together the butter and sugar

Add the remaining ingredients and press into a Lammington pan (30 x 19 cm)

Bake for roughly 15 minutes at 180C 350F until the cake begins to move away from the sides of the pan and springs back when gently pressed with your finger.

Ice/Frost with a simple confectioners sugar icing.

• 2 cups icing/powdered sugar
• 1 large T butter
• 1/2 tspn vanilla
• 1 large T sifted cocoa
• boiling water to mix

Ice this while it is still slightly warm. Sift dry ingredients into a small bowl, add the butter and vanilla. Add boiling water slowly in very small amounts and stir until a spreadable consistency.

Sprinkle with a little dessicated coconut. Cut while still slightly warm.

Good luck to those of you keen to win a voucher! Remember to leave a comment to be in with a chance to win.

Red Pepper Marmalade is not the kind of marmalade that you spread on your english muffins in the morning. It’s a relish, a sweet and spicy relish which pairs perfectly with cheese. It compliments soft creamy cheeses with it’s vivid red colour and spicy undertones.

My mother first introduced this to me many years ago. It’s been in my hand written and messy recipe book for a long time now. Kit wrote the recipe down - he loved it so much. He never writes down recipes!

It’s ideal to make when red peppers are in season and inexpensive. Although you could make a single jar easily in the middle of winter if you were longing for the taste of summer and buying out of season peppers. This recipe makes roughly six one and a half cup jars. Some to keep and tuck in the pantry for those grey days and supper cheese platters and some to give to others that need a little spot of something bright in their day.

Just looking at the ingredients - you know this is going to taste great. Vibrant, fresh and colourful - simmered together to make this beautiful relish.

More about the giveaway at the end of the post.

Red Pepper Marmalade

• 8 large red peppers/bell peppers (two of them finely sliced)
• 3/4 cup of lemon juice (roughly 3 lemons)
• zest of two lemons
• juice of one orange
• 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar
• 4 large cloves of garlic - crushed
• 1 onion finely chopped
• 2 cups of sugar
• 2 Tblspns tomato paste
• 1/2 tspn of chilli powder - more or less according to taste
• 1/2 tspn of salt
• 1 tspn fresh rosemary
• 1 tspn of fresh basil or marjoram

Place 6 of the peppers, the herbs and onion in a food processor - pulse until coarsely chopped.

Add to the other ingredients in a saucepan. Such beautiful colours! It’s just so vivid.

Bring to a boil stirring, then simmer for roughly 10 minutes until thick like jam.

Seal in jars. If you want to keep this for some time seal in sterilised jars using your favourite method.

We love to eat this with cheese or spread into a sandwich. Everyone in our house has a favourite - it seems to go well with many different kinds of cheese.

We tried it out with this Kapiti cheese - it was a nice compliment to the saltiness of the cheese. Leah preferred it with a Mainland blue. Isaac - liked it with cream cheese.

I have some put away in the pantry for another day, but within the afternoon I made this, this was all that was left of the first jar.

There is no reason why you could not make this with orange or yellow peppers, I’m sure the result would be equally as good.

The Giveaway

To celebrate my 100th post this week I decided I would do a small giveaway for the the blog. I have two giveaways to send to two winners and I will send them anywhere in the world. The giveaway will be open for a week until Feb 28th NZ time and then drawn after that.

The first of these is a Kiwi classic - The Edmonds Cookbook. This little book contains so many New Zealand recipes and is in almost every New Zealand household. It’s a real gem, even after cooking for so many years I still find myself referring to it.

The second giveaway is for these four little children’s egg cups. These are a follow up to “what is an egg cosy?”.

I’ll try my best to get them to the winner in one piece, but they are ceramic - so all care no responsibility taken on my part.

What do you have to do to win? Just leave a comment stating which item you would like to win and the name of a recipe (can be a baked item/dessert or a dish) you would like to see featured here. I’ll make the winners recipe suggestion - which could be .. err interesting :)

The winner will be chosen at random.

Best of luck to you all!