Pappardelle with slow roasted tomato sauce

My friend Jacquie recently made her first batch of pasta - it looked amazing. She let it dry on her clothes rack with the rest of her washing. Around the same time, Nadia mentioned she had noticed I hadn't included any pasta recipes on the blog yet. I felt the universe was trying to tell me something, the gods were speaking to me, I felt it in my waters: it was time to drag out the pasta machine.

A very Bennetto Christmas

This weekend my brother Paul, his girlfriend Alex and my Mum celebrated Christmas at my house in Melbourne. It's been busy, crazy and stressful year but we've all managed to keep our heads above water and smiles on our faces. It's hard to keep a Bennetto from laughing.

Christmas is CRACKERS!

Bonbons are an integral part of our Christmas tradition. Bad jokes, ill-fitting hats, cheap and nasty presents: it has our name written all over it.

Presents are wrapped baby!

If you're anything like me presents are normally wrapped on December 24 at 11pm. That's mainly because presents are bought on the same day at 5pm. This year I believe I've turned a new, more organised leaf.

Christmas traditions: Icecream plum pudding

We have fairly unconventional Christmas traditions in our family. There’s no turkey recipe going back generations, no angel passed down through the family to adorn the top of the tree. Our traditions are more festive season behaviours.

Gingerbread men

I need sleep. I started this post about six times. Each time I wrote the title “Fingerbread men”.

At first I thought Fingerbread men could be little gingerbread finger puppets, all cute and delicious and such. Then it dawned on me the alternative is cookies made out of fingers. Perhaps they’re seconds from an unsafe biscuit factory, the slogan on the packet reading “Made with the finest digits available: All pointer, no pinky”.

So. Yes. Sleepy. Incoherent. Rambling about unsavoury finger biscuits. Best I just hand over the recipe and catch some zzzs.

Passionfruit marshmallow

Right now in Australia, we've been hit with passionfruit fever. That's not some kind of tropical disease affecting your libido either. Passionfruit are cheap, in abundance and so tasty at the moment.

Panforte: the ultimate Christmas gift

I’m not a neat cook by any stretch of the imagination. I leave a trail of floury, eggy destruction in my wake. I’m proficient at most things in the kitchen, except the dishes. And although I’ve spent thousands of dollars on cookbooks, I can’t manage to keep to debris off them either.

Brown paper gift bags

I’ve been in my current job since April. I manage eight pretty excellent people. They made me feel welcome from day one so for our end of year celebrations I went nutso with Christmas cheer.

2012 Christmas series

This year, Matt and I decided to take the leap. Go “the whole way”. Commit to each other for realsies.