This is my very favourite fruitcake recipe, given to me by my mother. So simple to make and never ever fails. It's deliciously moist and keeps amazingly well if ever given the chance. Mostly, I find it eaten in a couple of days.

Ingredients:
1 440g can crushed pineapple in natural juice
125g butter
1 cup sugar
500g mixed fruit
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1 teaspoon bi-carb soda
1 cup plain flour
1 cup SR flour
2 eggs
pinch salt

Line a large cake tin with baking paper. Preheat oven to 170 degrees for fan forced ovens.
Drain pineapple. Put pulp into saucepan with 1/2 cup juice. Add butter, sugar, fruit, spice and bi-carb. Bring to boil and simmer 3 minutes. Cool. Stir in 2 beaten eggs and sifted flour and salt. Pour into cake tin and smooth the top.
Bake for 1 to 1 and 1/2 hours. Test with skewer at 1 hour. Cover cake with brown paper if browning tooo quickly.
Turn out onto cooling rack. Keeps best in a metal tin.

Lemon Chicken Soup

Winter is upon us and it's time for some warming soup. I usually make hearty, thick soups but when a friend cooked this for me, I wondered why I had never tried it before. It is so simple and, like many simple dishes, simply bursts with flavour.

Lemon Chicken Soup

125g chicken mince

4 tablespoons uncooked rice

2 litres good chicken stock

2 - 3 lemons

2 eggs
 pinch pepper and salt to taste

Mix chicken mince, rice, pepper and salt together. From into small balls. Bring stock to the boil and drop in balls. Simmer for 30 - 40 minutes or until balls look cooked. Cool slightly. Blend the juice of the lemons with the egg. Stir gently into the soup. Serve with crusty bread.

NB: Make sure the soup is off the boil or the mix will separate.