Blog Posts

  • Some tracks from the upcoming release of The Great Gatsby are available for listens via Spotify:

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  • More baking – this time a purple and white swirled rosette cake for the mother of one of my best friends who is celebrating a birthday this weekend. Can you believe this is my first purple cake? It’s travelling to Okaihau today so I hope it has a safe trip!

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  • Been baking. These are vegan cupcakes with cream cheese flavoured duotone buttercream roses. I know, cream cheese and buttercream do not sound vegan. Did you know professional buttercream is made from vegetable shortening? It keeps better*. Thank goodness – doing a cake decorating course without sampling the frosting would have been rather difficult. These babies will … Continue reading “”

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  • Cute! I helped Nathalie at work to make a cake for her little brother Aaron’s 8th birthday this weekend. It’s a dirt race-track with grass, if you can’t tell! Cake is eggless chocolate cake with vegan chocolate buttercream, the grass is tinted vanilla buttercream. The banner may be my proudest moment, so THAT’S why I … Continue reading “”

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  • Facebook chat is the lowest form of communication. The only people who do it are your best friend from the third grade and your aunt. Sending smoke signals would be cooler. Ryan O’Connell

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  • Photo galleries at work sometimes have amazing images submitted. Coast has a competition to “win a second honeymoon” by submitting a photo from your wedding day. This has to be my favourite image, but there are lots of W T H photos too.

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  • Why I Read Thought Catalog

    Link: Why I Read Thought Catalog Sometimes there are hits.

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  • After the storm

    Go-to playlist. Piles of folk/pop/dance/rock (I hate genres), that feels good and is perfect to read or work to.

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  • Spiced roast veges

    For Alex. Tasty variation on the standard roast vege fare. Substitute whatever you have – pumpkin, sweet potato, potatoes, garlic, shallots, spices etc. This is what I used in a dish for girlfriends here for Friday night potluck… Would be nice with pumpkin/sunflower seeds too. Ingredients 2 large smooth golden kumara (sweet potato), peeled and … Continue reading “Spiced roast veges”

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  • Sugar free Raspberry/Chocolate vegan Smoothie

    Fiona had the most amazing raw, gluten/vegan raspberry and chocolate cake for her birthday last weekend. So good. I’ve taken to slicing and freezing overripe/surplus bananas for smoothies. I find they make them super creamy even without any kind of milk, more so with milk. A thicker “smoothie” negates any ice cream craving, this recipe … Continue reading “Sugar free Raspberry/Chocolate vegan Smoothie”

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  • The profile photos of everyone in the Camp a Low Hum Facebook group have a certain flavour about them.

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  • Tiny Furniture (2010) written, directed and starred in by Lena Dunham. Just had to screen grab these outfits. Aura especially. Little review on Letterboxd.

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  • The anti-social social networker

    Invites to events on Facebook are a pain. About 2% are events I actually have any interest in attending. The other 98% are marketing or promo fluff which clog my notification centre and send annoying push notifications. Worse, some aren’t an event at all but a plea to “vote for me!” or “do you like sausages?!”. I’d hate … Continue reading “The anti-social social networker”

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  • Vegan Coconut & Cardamom Pancakes

    This weekend I learned that pancakes don’t really need eggs in them at all. And after two mornings in a row cooking vegan pancakes, I’m feeling a bit smug about this delicious discovery. Also, they are “superfast” to make. Eggs creep me the hell out. Some will have heard the story of a particularly disturbing … Continue reading “Vegan Coconut & Cardamom Pancakes”

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  • My dear friend Sherry was the first baby born in Taupo in 1988. Having a birthday on New Years day sucks for so many reasons, including the hassle of usually not being to able to celebrate with friends. Another of her friends organised a surprise tea party for her this weekend gone, I volunteered to make a … Continue reading “”

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  • Roasted Portobello Mushrooms on Spinach/Kumara SaladFor Lauren <3 This tasty recipe sounds harder than it is. I wrote it for the mushrooms and salad to be prepped together. I think it would serve two but as quite a light meal. The dish would also work well with Pumpkin in place of Kumara (though pumpkin would … Continue reading “”

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  • Made some adorable cupcakes for my workmates to celebrate our last day of work for the year tomorrow. I had these cute red and white polkadot cupcake cases from Look Sharp ($5NZD for 25, bargain!), and filled them with lemon coconut cake. The frosting is white chocolate marscapone buttercream, and I bought a bag of … Continue reading “”

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  • The Greenest Salad

    This recipe from 101 Cookbooks is a winner. My garden is bursting with lettuce at the moment, asparagus is in season and broccoli is also very cheap. It’s definitely worth toasting and adding the pistachios, I only used a small amount but they went very far.  Yum.

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  • I was out of town for the birthday of a dear friend, so decided to make her a birthday cake to celebrate belatedly. I’d seen this rosette frosting used on some cakes by The Couture Caker (hi Laura!) and wanted to give it a shot. It’s so easy to do with a 1M Wilton tip, … Continue reading “”

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  • Coconut & Chia Spiced Oats I’ve been eating oats for breakfast for a long time now, and am starting to play a bit more with what goes in them. This morning I was feeling like coconut, and this first try recipe is a hit! Oats Oat Milk Vanilla Essence (1 tsp) White Chia Seeds (1 … Continue reading “”

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