These recipes are perfect to make at home for your family. Maureen shares her family’s best recipes that are easy to whip up. Read on to get her recipes and cooking advice now!
Your site has a lot of recipes that look delicious! Which recipes are your favorites to make?
It all depends on how homesick I am. If I’m missing my family or friends back home, one way I combat that is to cook old family favorites from back in my childhood days in Maine. Blueberry pie or homemade needham candy or whoopie pies always work as does my mother’s beef and gravy over potatoes.
If I’m feeling adventurous, I visit my foreign food blogger friends and try one of their creations. I made a Bulgarian Pitka bread not too long ago that’s usually made for weddings. At the time I had a friend in Bulgaria who was getting married and I couldn’t afford to go. I had pieces of bread dipped in butter and honey flying all over the kitchen table. There’s probably a secret to layering slippery dough pieces but it’s eluded me so far. The bread was wonderful.
I love to entertain and my friends have learned that they’re always guinea pigs. I never test a new recipe before inviting folks over. We learn together. I also like to have pasta parties where we all get in the kitchen and make noodles and ravioli and different sauces. Messy but fun.
Do you have any favorite cookbooks?
I collect (maybe 700) cookbooks but only a few favorites…
The Cook’s Companion by Stephanie Alexander is what I used to learn how to cook Australian. When I arrived in 1994, everything in the butcher shop window looked different except t-bone steaks. You can only eat so many of those day after day and with Stephanie’s help I mastered that Celsius oven.
Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan
The Best Recipes in the World by Mark Bittman
Cooking Downeast by Marjorie Standish. It brings me back to my roots in Maine.
What are a few recipes that your family requests the most often?
Last year, I made some caramelized onions with roasted garlic and a stuffed chicken breast with them along with some brie, rolled them in macadamia nuts and Parmesan, and after baking, served them with a sage and port wine cream sauce. I get asked for that a lot.
Stuffed Macadamia Chicken with Sage and Port Cream Sauce
My curried quinoa salad has been called vegetarian crack. It’s full of dried fruit, peanuts and herbs.
Curried Quinoa Salad
Another most requested are my chocolate macarons.
Chocolate Macarons
A personal favorite is my Moroccan Eggplant Jam…sweet, tangy, and perfect alongside other dips.
Moroccan Eggplant Jam
Do you have any funny memories from cooking in the kitchen with your kids?
I have some wonderful memories of cooking with my children but one really stands out. One birthday the kids decided that making breakfast for me was really important and it was to be sausage and biscuits. I wasn’t allowed out of my bedroom; it was a surprise. It was a surprise all right. They couldn’t find the flour and used baby powder instead. Thankfully making biscuits was more technically challenging than they could master so I was saved. The kitchen smelled divine for hours.
What are a few lessons you’ve learned from cooking over the years?
Don’t take yourself too seriously, there’ll be another meal in several hours and it’s okay to toss a failure to the dog.
Food is always better when shared
Clean as you go
If in doubt, set it to 350 and watch through the window
Cook something from scratch every day
Learn to make at least one signature dish that everyone raves about. It will give you the courage to keep cooking.
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Meet the blogger:
I live in Australia and originally created my blog at “Orgasmic Chef” to share recipes with my children who live in the states. It was costing a lot to get phone calls that started with, “Hi Mom, can you explain how to make your grandmother’s pork stuffing? I need it for the turkey for tomorrow.”
After a few months of having my blog online, I found there were other people who seemed to like what I was doing and before I knew it, I was hooked on blogging. I can’t decide whether I enjoy the cooking, the photography, the writing or the social media/promotion the best. I truly enjoy every bit and have met some of the most wonderful people and I have learned heaps about cooking from all over the globe.
My children are both good eaters but only one is a decent cook. My son lives in Atlanta and he loves to cook. He’s even done a guest post for BBQ Southern Style. My daughter lives in Washington, DC and Orlando and she mostly eats and boils water. She has her favorites that she’ll cook but she’s a geek who works in DC and her attorney husband in Orlando is a fantastic cook. I don’t know how they make it all work but they seem happy.
Home is on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland where I live with my husband, our dog Charlie and two very aloof cats who care only that there’s food in the bowl and the cat box is clean. I moved to Australia in 1994 after meeting John through an ad in an old bulletin board newsgroup which is what the Internet was before the WWW existed. My children were convinced when I was traveling 10,000 miles for a first date with an axe murderer but it ended up all right and I decided he was a keeper.
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