salad days

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My fella Adam loves salads. Kind of unexpected in a bloke, you'd perhaps think the big classic roast dinner or lovely Italian pasta might be the big hitters (that's me TOTALLY projecting, they'd be my favourites right there) but Ad loves a salad. Pretty much anything green and fresh. 

Here's one I made on Sunday to take to my sweet nephew Nate's 2nd birthday party/picnic in the beautiful botanic gardens in Camden.

Spinach + roast pumpkin + cherry tomatoes + toasted pinenuts and sunflower kernals
Dressed with mix of olive oil + balsamic vinegar + lemon juice

Fresh and yummy.

My sister Suze made the birthday cake:

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Oh yes. The classic awesomeness of a butter cake with spectacular green icing and freckles. Doesn't get any better.

Butter Cake (our Nan's recipe)

125g butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 cups self raising flour
1 cup whole milk

Beat butter and sugar until creamed. Beat in one egg at a time.
Stir in one cup of flour. Add half the milk. Stir in the other cup of flour. Stir in the other half cup of milk.

Bake in moderate oven (180deg) for about 30 mins.

Really, greasing, flouring and lining the pan takes longer than throwing this cake together. And it never fails. It's an awesome recipe to have memorised. 

Icing is usually approx 2 cups icing sugar mixture + 3 teaspoons of milk + 2 teaspoons of soft butter or margerine. Add food colouring by drops and decorate with treats!! 

(Birthday cakes tend to break colour/sugar/additive rules in my house but you usually only get one piece and birthdays are a wonderful excuse to break some rules.)

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Birthday boy.
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Is that REALLY a chocolate freckle? Has MUM seen it?

xxx

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