Yummy. That looks delish All.

He ate half of that skilletfull. Must have been alright! :)

Someone asked me for the recipe for those cupcakes, so here it is.

3 cups of SR flour
2 cups of Sugar (I prefer castor sugar)
1 cup of milk
1 stick of butter chopped up and softened
4 eggs

put all ingredients into a large mixing bowl (preferably electric mixer) and beat slowly till ingredients are incorporated, then on high for 10 minutes and it's done.

Put it in cupcake pans and bake in a hot oven for about 15 mins, or you can make a large cake (or two). Baking time will be around 30 mins on medium/hot oven depending on what size pan you use.

It's really important to have the ingredients all at room temp for this one. If they're a bit cold they don't tend to rise as well.

I did steak fajitas on the grill last night. They turned out pretty good with a nice tangy/smokey flavor.

Okay - this is in advance.
Like - I can't believe I expect to eat... or, I just didn't make...

Shop bought a selection of food to welcome Mum & Dad home.
I bought far too much, which is a family tradition, but I was buying special deals (3 for 2 etc) and it can all be eaten up until the weekend.

The wheel that turns the whole meal is an M&S fish platter which I saw a couple of months ago. We all love fish, so this should be a nice surprise. I will suggest we take some round to Grandad as well, who asked me for a salmon and cucumber sandwich yesterday and today (sadly, today I was in Tesco and they'd run out).

Pics of said platter below.
I will take pics of other items and post separately.

Forgot to take any further pics of the feast.
But here are the bare essentials - in a VERY blurry photo. Sorry, ir was while I was figuring out what should be heated and subsequent reheating times.

Add to the pic, tortilla chips & dip, baguettes, and the fish wheel as above. And laid out much better, on a set table with cutlery, napkins etc. I was very pleased.

Oh - some of the labels are a bit awry, but even with the blurring you should be able to work out which is which.

Smoked a small flock of chickens for tonight's barbeque. They lived in the smoker for about six hours, then I finished them in 225 deg oven overnight in the roaster you see here, with a foil tent on top and a bottle of porter in the bottom. I'm starvin!

Dang, that's a whole lot of chicken! Must be a large crowd comin'.

Makes my mouth water.

I went back and looked again after Tulip's comment - I had the scale of the photo wrong in my head. Them's whole chickens! I thought that was 4 sections on a UK sized grill pan.

I made my best ribs ever, this weekend. I've been experimenting.

I coated the ribs with prepared mustard, then coated with a variation on Paul Kirk's sweet pork rub. I smoked it at 225F using one chunk of hickory, three of oak and 5 or 6 of cherry (not all at once, of course).

I also made up a new sweet sauce that everyone seemed to like real well.

Sorry no pictures. It got eaten too quickly.

lamingtons the cheat's way.

Meatballs for dinner tonight! (Full recipe here, if you're curious.)

What's the cheats way?

You buy a cake instead of making it yourself (then cut it up and dip it in the chocolate icing and roll it in coconut) and you still get the credit for making it all yourself.

HA! You dirty dog. lol

Are you Aussie by any chance?