As we go to air, SPRING has just sprung, but that doesn't mean it's too soon to be thinking about and planning for Christmas!

Chrissie has some great ideas about how to stress less, enlist the uncles, keep seafood front and centre, and make the perfect, crunchy roasted potato.

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Chrissie Swan guest-hosts again on this episode that gets your head into the Christmas spirit! And no, it's not too early to be thinking about it! (IYKYK)

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Chrissie Swan joins Yumi again to discuss what contingency plans should be made to INDEMNIFY A SISTER against running out of dessert...!

APPLE CRUMBLE:

2 cups of plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup brown sugar

250g butter

Mix all the above in a food processor until just barely combined.

Tumble on top of a baking dish with 4-5 cups of stewed apple down the bottom.

Bake at 160C fan-forced for 45 mins.

Serve with vanilla ice-cream.

FOR TICKETS to the In-Conversation Sami Tamimi and Yumi Stynes, click here

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Chrissie Swan and your food fix host Yumi Stynes used to eat a lot of weekend lunches together when they lived in the same city.

Back then it was crunchy, chewy bread, butter and maybe a burrata.

But that was 15 years ago. What now?

MAYBE, it's a foccacia.

There's a great Karen Martini recipe here - ignore all the toppings and just use the foccacia basic as a template - it's excellent and you don't need to "rice" the cooked potato. Mashing it with a fork will be fine.

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Chrissie Swan is guest co-host again and she is absolutely FLUENT in Bolognese.

Here are the hacks, by Chrissie:

As I mentioned - with bolognaise every single batch is different.

Here’s my base:

2 onions

8 cloves of garlic

2 carrots, peeled and quartered

3 celery stalks, quartered

1kg coarsely minced chuck steak from the butcher

1 heaped teaspoon of flaked sea salt

3 chicken stock cubes

500g tomato paste

2 x 800g tins of tomatoes

thyme

bay leaves

1 sprig rosemary

200ml milk or cream

...but on the day we recorded this episode

I had added literally everyone’s secret ingredient plus about 400grams of Xmas ham

Added in:

Parmesan rinds

Milk

Anchovies

Loads of parsley

Oxtail

Vegemite 

Rosé

Finely ground up leftover ham can take the place of bacon (or speck).

Be generous!

Cook it in some sort of electric frypan or oven situation that doesn't require your ongoing attention so you can set it and forget it.

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Yumi is delighted to be joined by her old The Circle co-host, Chrissie Swan.

Chrissie is a Logie Award-winning TV presenter and host of The Chrissie Swan show on NOVA, mum of 3, fantastic cook, and all-round legend!

The two catch up and talk through the two internet food fads Chrissie has tried and loved.

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Simon has been booked to be a guest on a cooking show, shooting soon.

So... what to cook?

It can be agony to decide, but Simon's first impulse is to make his famous and delicious FISH FINGER SANDWICH.

The legendary sando is easy AND supremely yummy, so is there a problem?

POSSIBLY! Warning! This episode contains contagious LoLs! Stay til the end!

FISH FINGER SANDWICH - serves 2

Pre-heat the oven to 220C

Spread out 10 fish fingers on a baking tray and cook for 15-20 mins, turning halfway through.

Meanwhile, prepare your cheat's tartare by combining 8-10 chopped cornichons with 130g Greek yoghurt, juice of 1/2 lemon and a pinch of salt.

Lightly toast your humble sliced bread *nothing fancy.

Slather each slice with a generous amount of your tartare.

Top with 4 fish fingers and leave a bonus one to the side.

Add on top - lettuce leaves, cherry tomatoes and quick pickled onions, the recipe for which can be found in Simon and Yumi's cookbook.

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Yumi and Simon ask some age old questions about why some cooks are hectic and they come up with some theories...

A chef who is completely NOT hectic but calm and delightful is Marion Grasby and Yumi has been fun cooking a few recipes from her website, including today's Chicken Lemon and Orzo, that you can whip up in a LEGIT 30 mins.

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There's no convincing Yumi that garlic deserves to be eaten.

HOWEVER, she does have memories of loving garlic bread and that is because it is, in fact, Very Yummy (if you are not a vampire or FODMAP).

Simon's ULTIMATE Garlic Bread:

Pre-heat the oven to 180C.

Get a good-looking baguette and slice it but not all the way to the bottom, leaving the base intact.

100g softened butter and 4-5 garlic cloves grated on the side of a box grater

Wrap the baguette in al foil.

Pop in the oven for 12-15 mins.

Semi-undress the garlic bread from its foil.

Return it to the oven for another 8-9 mins.

Serve IMMEDIATELY. NO LEFTOVERS.

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COME TO YUMI'S 'WELCOME TO FRIENDSHIP' book launch!

Saturday 8 August, 2026. 2pm at Gleebooks in Sydney.

On today's episode, Simon is excited and psyched about a book called 'SMOKE, RICE, WATER' by Kishwar Chowdhury.

From it, he's recommending as a starter dish, the Pumpkin with Nigella Seeds.

METHOD:

Prepare 500g butternut pumpkin by peeling and cutting into cubes

heat 3tbs oil over a medium heat

then add in 1tsp Nigella Seeds until they crackle

add in a diced onion and 2 finely chopped cloves of garlic and cook over that medium heat

Once it's softened and translucent, add in the pumpkin with a teaspoon of ground turmeric and a generous pinch of salt.

Toss and then cover the pan with a lid.

Once it's tender remove the lid, taste and ramp up the heat, adjust the seasoning. Serve with a sprinkling of chopped spring onion. Serve. Delicious as a side, fantastic on rice.

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Why do some recipes fall out of rotation?

And how good is it when they come back, like a beloved friend?

OTTOLENGHI'S PRAWN, ORZO and MARINATED FETTA recipe can be found here.

(Yumi leaves out the garlic and uses a whole 500g bag of frozen prawns, defrosted in a sieve over a bowl overnight in the fridge, and it's perfectly great.)

The whole cookbook SIMPLE by OTTOLENGHI can be found everywhere, including here.

Fill out our listener survey here, gracias.

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