Thanksgiving Down Under- Take 2

The view from our Thanksgiving buffet table.

Not your typical Thanksgiving to be sure, but it was a wonderful celebration.  This year we gathered with about 20 other American families for a huge potluck on the beach.  Some were my closest friends in Oz, some were friends of friends and some were cyber-friends I met for the first time that day.  But all of us had something in common.  We may be living on the other side of the world, but we're still Americans.  And I'm so thankful for that!

Over breakfast this morning:

Little Buddy:  Mom, did you know some "bygals" are round and have holes in them?

Me:  Bagels?  Yes, they are round with holes in them.

Little Buddy:  But not the Australian kind.  They don't have holes in them.  They're just round.

Translation:  Pikelets=Australian bagels (apparently)

Real bagels how we miss you . . . .

Tastes Like Chicken

Walking through the grocery store in Australia is still a mystifying experience. Here is a small sampling of the interesting products I found for sale in the chip aisle. Because you've always wanted chips that taste like . . . . meat.

Honey Soy Chicken

Not just BBQ- but BBQ Ribs

Moroccan Spiced Chicken and Lemon (really??)

Classic Honey Baked Ham

For the Purists: Chicken

Luckily for me they also have the standard "Sea Salt" and "Salt & Vinegar". Which is good for those of us who prefer our chips to taste like . . . chips.

Sugar Overload

Australia, in many ways, is strangely inconsistent. People here, it seems, are quite health conscious. Sport and physical fitness is heavily emphasized in school. But when it comes to birthdays, our school encourages children to bring cupcakes. I think they do this because they don't want kids bringing in full cakes that the teacher has to cut and serve! If every kid brings in cupcakes on his birthday, that would be approximately 2-3 sugary treats a month. It seems like a lot to me, but, when in Rome . . .

The Little Princess celebrated her 7th birthday one week after school started. She wanted to bring cupcakes and she wanted them to be special. Here's what we came up with:


Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

I've made these cupcakes before and, frankly, they didn't turn out so great. When I filled the cones with batter and baked them, they never "puffed up" properly, and my cones were sort of flat on top. So this time I decided to cheat. My new method is much easier, and the results are better, too.

Step 1:
Bake the cupcakes in regular muffin tins. For you lucky people in the U.S. who can buy decent cake mixes at the super market, this part is easy peasy. For those of us in Australia, well I'm getting pretty good at making cake from scratch.

Step 2:
Fill the cones with candy. We used Smarties, which are an Aussie version of m&ms.

Step 3:
Invert the cupcakes and "glue' them to the cones using royal icing.


Step 4:
Decorate with frosting and sprinkles.


Step 5:
Create some kind of crazy contraption to transport these beauties to school. Duct tape is your friend for this project.

I do believe the cupcakes were a hit. They certainly met the sugar overload requirement, and got rave reviews from the Little Princess and her friends.