Pepperoni Pizza with Julianna sauce and a steaming cinnamon apple cider anyone?????

[Julie]

I am loitering in the goodreads hallways again and got a little hungry. Hmmmm, what other foods took your fancy in my books. Well, here's the origins of those foods....

Forbidden Foods ( Ps,I have blogged this before)

In the story, Caramel visits her buddy Jorde at his parent's pizza shop. Mrs Oregano is busy making a pot of fresh "Julianna Sauce". So you may be wondering, just exactly what are the secret ingredients of this delicious sauce and why they made it into my book.

Well, Julianna sauce does actually exist, coined by myself and my husband because it is a mish mash recipe that i made up myself but it has become our staple pizza base sauce. So enough chatter, here it is.

"Julianna Sauce Recipe"

4 Cloves of Garlic, a glug of olive oil, 2 bottles ( 600g) of Passata, 1 tin of diced tomatoes, 2 glugs of red wine, 1 glug of port, a huge bunch of Italian Parsley, a huge bunch of Basil, 1 tsp of sugar, 1/4 teaspoon of chilli powder.

In a moderate pan, fry the garlic in the olive oil for a few minutes until translucent,then add in the passata, tinned tomatoes, red wine, port, parsley, basil, sugar and chilli powder. Bring to a simmer and let bubble away for about an hour until it is thick. Stir occasionally. Freeze into tubs for future pizza shenanigans or glug over chicken schnitzel with jarlsberg cheese.

So why Sticky Date and Chocolate Cake with Caramel Cardamom Syrup. Well it is an actual recipe from a Tupperware cookbook called Cook. I can't obviously detail the recipe but it is as good as it sounds, with a little embellishment of adding cardamom to the caramel sauce. That was for the book lol. It is a cake that I have often made for family occasions and it is a hit every time.

So why Cinnamon Apple Cider. Well that is a slight embellishment from a Caramel Apple Spice drink that you can get at Starbucks. I used to travel extensively through the UK and US and the one thing that I wish we could get in Australia was a real Caramel Apple Spice. Sadly we just don't do them here but I of course had to put them in my book.

So why Mulberry Pie. I have to say that mulberries are so rarely seen on the supermarket shelves in Australia but when we were kids there were mulberry trees in every second back yard. They are divine and much sweeter than a blackberry. I miss them greatly but I think they leave alot of purple bird poop over cars and houses so mulberry trees are not so common. My parents have a air chalet in the country ( sounds very swish but its not really) and my Dad is itching to plant a mulberry, however the neighbours would probably complain. One day I will have a mulberry pie again, fingers crossed.

[Carolyn]

Kid's cooking book? I love it these are real recipes.