Be involved in our Cookbook!

(The above images are a wedding cupcake tower I made for Hamish & Laura's wedding - and is one of my favourite recipes!)


After the recent success of our fundraising venture for our charity - "Kids for Cambodia Charitable Trust" we have decided on our next venture and that is the publishing of a cookbook!

We have seen with our fundraising how much can be achieved with community support for the children of Cambodia and how we can further their needs for a good education.

We are very proud to say that the foundations have since gone down for a secondary school for the children of Makak, a very exciting project to be involved with as the children of this remote area have never had the opportunity for an education past the age of 10 years old.

Our vision for this project is to have a book with recipes that are family favourites, perhaps something you enjoyed from childhood and reminds you of home, or of special friends, recipes that are simple yet stylish with a fresh twist and would be at home served to family or when entertaining.

We are hoping to achieve with this book a feeling of home, a warmth and a reminder of perhaps where you learnt to cook - for me it was with my mum and grandmother - although Friday nights were always cooking fish with my dad and always served with mashed potato and homemade coleslaw!

These cookbooks of tried and true family favorite recipes are always a success, and as a passionate cook and the owner of more recipe books than I care to admit to they are ones that are turned to time and time again.

If you would like to share your favourite recipes for consideration for our cookbook we would love to have them. Final submission date is APRIL 30TH 2011 and you may submit as many recipes as you wish, just as long as they are all recipes you have made many times, work and you love.

What we would like you to do:
1: send me via email - green33@xtra.co.nz your recipe, along with a short paragraph about the recipe, perhaps where it came from, if it reminds you of a childhood memory any notes that you think are suitable, or if it is a new favourite!

2: The heading title (from below) that you see it placed into

3: Name of the recipe, serving size if applicable, plus all steps, cooking times etc.

Your name will be credited to the recipe - so a great way to hand down your recipe to your children

Recipes will be collated under these formats: (final chapters will depend on recipes submitted):
Breakfast dishes
Lunch/light dishes
Nibbles
Mains
Vegetable, sides, and salads
Desserts
Celebrations - this can mean birthdays, weddings, christmas, easter, anytime!
Baking
Pantry Basics - sauces, preserves, dressings etc - in fact if it doesn't come under the other headings!

I am also hoping to have a special chapter filled with recipes from well known chefs/resturants - including their tips and tricks!

Recipes will be chosen on ease of making, appeal, style, point of difference.

If your recipe/s are included in our book you will receive a 20% discount on the purchase price of the book. We are aiming for a pre-2011 Christmas release - so a fantastic gift to give to family and friends.

We hope you will join with us and support in the making of this fundraising cookbook venture, and please feel free to send this email onto your friends and family who may wish to share and see their recipe in print - at the same time supporting our Charity - in fact the more people you send this on to and tell about it the greater variation in recipes we will have to put into the book - lets all make this book a huge success!

Bad, Bad, Blogger!!!

Hi everyone, where has the last few months gone??? December 1st and it is the last few days before Sophie heads away on her big trip. The nerves, excitment are all starting to hit home - and thats just me - her mother! I know that Sophie is very excited about what is ahead of her and very much looking forward to it!

Well there is some fantastic news after our fundraising evening here in Ashburton at the end of July. Initially we had the dream of raising enough money to perhaps build a classroom onto the existing primary school in Makak - but - we are very proud to announce that because these children didn't previously have the opportunity of an education past the age of 10 years old, primary level, we are in the position to build a secondary school - so to give the kids an opportunity that they haven't had before is incredible - and all down to the wonderful support we have had within this amazing community of ours!

The foundations went down on November 20th so as soon as I get photo's from the village I will post them here so we can all follow the progress.

There are exciting things in the pipeline for further fundraising that I am working on, inititives that will keep the momentum going and keep the school funded and in the future build on what we have already achieved and give more children the chance of a secondary school education - something we here in New Zealand take for granted.

I will put up information on a separate post about the next venture and hope that you will join us and become involved!

Well off to pack Sophie's back pack ready for her to have her build up day on Friday with the rest of the team, and for her very early morning flight on Saturday morning!