In My Tropical Kitchen December 2025

It's officially the "Silly Season" for many of us here in Tropical North Queensland, during the lead up to Christmas in the heat of Summer, meaning more fun, more parties, more socialising, more shopping, more air-conditioning, and more cooking including Christmas indulgences, and just the predictable hype involved in the lead up to Christmas. We are very low key about all of this now in our home, with just a couple of Christmas parties and a few lovely catchups with friends. For those working and living in the fast lane, it is probably a very different story though. 

Once again it's time to be sending this post to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings for the monthly  In My Kitchen event. If you would like to join in, send your post to Sherry by the 13th of the month. Or just head over to her blog to visit more kitchens. Thanks for hosting this event once again Sherry, it's a lovely initiative and unites all of the keen bloggers and cooks around the world.

We have been very much looking forward to the arrival of the pre-Christmas stone fruits, particularly the cherries, plums, peaches, and lychees, and the mangoes, oh the mangoes, and we were so excited when Mango season finally arrived in mid-November. The Kensington Pride or Bowen mango is for us the only mango to buy. We are rather spoiled in this part of the world for this particular delicacy. It's sweet and tangy and so easy to eat. Bowen is a coastal township about 192 km by car along the Bruce Highway, North of where we live in Mackay, and is the home of the Bowen mango. The story goes that the Kensington Pride mango was developed from a gift of mangoes and spices give to a customs officer in Bowen, Queensland, and was later selectively bred on a property named "Kensington". This is how we eat a mango. Just remember to wash your face after you eat one, ha, ha.

Gnocchi is generally a restaurant choice for me. So I decided to try something new, and I made this wow of a gnocchi dish. Pan-fried Butter Sage Gnocchi was delicious. I'm rather sold on it now. Next time I make it I'll add more sage though. Can you believe this is the first time I have cooked gnocchi for us?  Recipe coming when time allows. Thanks to Ben from Havoc in the Kitchen for the inspiration to make this.

I have a really soft spot for homemade Salmon rissoles, we just love 'em, and making these is a very thrifty way to stretch the family budget. So important for many families at this time of year. I used the recipe on my HRK blog for Salmon Rissoles with a delicious Herb and Spiced Yoghurt Dressing, but I simplified it this time by using onion instead of shallots, pink salmon instead of red salmon (cheaper), and dried mixed herbs instead of fresh (because it was raining cats and dogs and I didn't feel like going down in the heavy rain to collect the herbs.) They were still delicious and Salmon rissoles are just so comforting to eat. Here is where you find the recipe for my more gourmet Salmon Rissoles, but the simpler recipe still works extremely well. This recipe makes 10 rissoles.

Easy Salmon Rissoles with a simple salad, always a winner at home

Some low calorie meals that I cooked during November were delicious and whilst low on carbs, were certainly not lacking in any flavour or deliciousness.

A nutty Chicken Katsu Curry was topped with flaked almonds instead of breadcrumbs and served with a simple curry sauce flavoured with apricots and five spice. 

Very tasty

BBQ Lamb chops served with a side of delicious crushed minted peas and feta, was a winner of a dish and a real favourite of Mr. HRK's. Please find the recipe here. It was really all about the crushed peas, mint and feta, but the lamb chops also certainly hit the spot. Finger lickin' good.

An easy Goats Cheese Frittata was very moreish  and cooked up in a jiffy on one of those rare days when cooking wasn't one of my priorities. Leftovers even tasted great for lunch the next day. Frittatas are the perfect way to cook a fuss free, nutritious and light meal using eggs, and finishing it off in the oven is a game changer.

And then on a day when I really did feel like being in the kitchen, I cooked up this batch of Italian meatballs in tomato sauce. Delicious! We ate  them over a couple of days and they are now on rotation in this kitchen. I am such a fan of meatballs and all those rich Italian flavours.

How is your Christmas baking coming along? Rum balls, Christmas fruit cakes, Rocky Road, White Christmas, and Apricot Balls, they are all on my to do list, but thankfully some don't require baking. Our Christmas Brandy Plum Pudding this year will be a smaller one left over from last years batch, and I think that's ok. It's been in the frig for 12 months, so I'm heating that up for Christmas Day lunch this year. If you check out my post for this Plum Pudding, we will be eating the 2nd one, which was cooked in the retro pudding steamer. We will flambée it in brandy, as is the tradition, and we'll rave about it as we always do, ha, ha.

I baked some little Christmas cakes, muffin sized. Some will be wrapped and given away as Christmas gifts. My Christmas cake recipe loaded with Bundaberg Rum, made 12 muffin sized fruit cakes. So I've made two lots of Christmas cake batter this year, one for the muffins, and one for our Christmas cake. Have you noticed there are now only 11 cakes in the photo, three guesses for who had to eat one as soon as they came out of the oven. And it wasn't me. Mr. HRK strikes again.

I also made these one year from the same recipe. I still use my Mum's Christmas cake recipe which the whole family love. It never let's me down.

It's a wrap!

Rum balls are always a favourite in our house so yes a batch of those has been rolled as well.

Chicken Marbella 

I submitted this American Chicken Marbella recipe as part of Jo's Brookford Kitchen Diaries November Cookbook Club where Thanksgiving, or a favourite family recipe with meaning was the theme. Chicken Marbella with a piquant mix of olives, prunes and capers is one of my very favourite meals to eat and cook. Gosh it seems ages ago that I did this.

Can you really own too many neutral linen dinner table napkins? I needed to invest in some fresh new ones.

These are actually sage green in colour.

And recently on the blog, this dish has been very popular. A low carb Tuscan Chicken , cheese and broccoli bake. We really enjoyed this dish.

I was shopping for Christmas gifts and other bits and pieces and I spotted this adorable beaded Bookmark. I'm an avid reader, so this will be lovely to mark the spot in my book of choice. I loved this little indulgence, but it is also functional and is in my current book right now.

Book lovers club

We had our final Bookclub get together yesterday, where we discussed books that we would like to read next year. So many great reads to choose from, and quite a few were taken from the ABC Radio National's Countdown of the top 100 books. We worked through the whole lot of them (100), which was a marathon effort, and we were surprised that between us we had already read a lot of them. The Winning Book, Number 1 on the list, was Trent Dalton's Boy Swallows Universe. No surprises there. Do you have a favourite book selected to read over Christmas?

A breakfast catchup with wonderful friends P & J at one of our very good Indian restaurants called Roshni by Raj, was very enjoyable. Three of us ordered the Crab and Prawn Paratha which contained some very subtle Indian spice and seafood flavours. It's a flaky flatbread folded with soft crab, prawns and chilli jam, and topped with crispy curry leaves. I think it would be possible to make this one in my kitchen.

Mr. HRK ordered Roshni's Bada Breakfast, or the Big Breakfast. It was beautifully cooked.

At Roshni Restaurant

I have a very new iPhone, and this photo of Mr. HRK and me, and the Indian food photos are the very first ones to be taken on my new phone. I'm on a steep learning curve now, yikes, managing the transition from a Samsung to an Apple iPhone. However, I think I am going to love it.

Warm wishes,  

Pauline