Comfort Food

Michele: Today we have been in Queensland for 1 week. After a week of doing things we have never done before I thought that we all deserved some comfort food -- tastes of home. The prescription? Chocolate chip cookies (aka American-style chocolate chip biscuits) and wraps.

Because it is typically a holiday rental, the house was skimpy on baking supplies. I bought a measuring cup and measuring spoons that have both imperial and metric units. Some Aussie recipes I've come across will mix units. For example, 150 g of butter and 1 cup of flour. We still don't have a proper cookie sheet or pot holders but tin foil in a baking dish and tea towels can suffice. The cookies... err biscuits... err whatever came out pretty well and the kids are delighted.

The wraps are one of our favorite dishes. Rice paper wraps that you load with noodles, chopped shrimp (aka prawns), cucumber, thai basil (aka green basil), crushed peanuts, sauce, and, if you are so inclined, cilantro (aka coriander). I love this dish because each person loads their own, which means that I don't suffer the whining from the kids that some undesirable element (e.g. bell pepper, aka capsicum) has made its way into their meal.