Have you ever had a major change in your life where you just didn’t know what to expect? I’m sure many of you have and for me, growing up in an Air Force family my life changed on a very frequent basis. Dad usually got his transfer orders every couple of years and we never knew where we would end up.

It was scary and exciting and I always looked forward to the change and the excitement of these new experiences. I was a shy girl and to a point it was hard for me, changing schools and meeting new people. That was the scary bit. The moving, travel and seeing new and exciting parts of America and eventually the world was what got me really excited.

So you can imagine what I was like when we got our marching orders to Australia. Where is this place they call Australia? I was thirteen at the time and didn’t know much about this far off land but I was raring to go!

Now, most normal people would be travelling on a domestic airline but we had to fly the Air Force way. You’ve seen those massive grey dinosaurs of the sky. Very few windows, no proper seats and lots of cargo (including us!). The inside of this massive plane was very sparse and the seats were more like old fashioned deck chairs. So with that said you can imagine how long this flight seemed. And to top it off our meals were cardboard boxes with sandwiches and Twinkies (if you’re from the US you will know what I am talking about). This is taking airline food to a new level.

But it was still a very exciting time and we were all very happy about. We didn’t know what this little town of Woomera in Australia would be like or even where it was. And weren’t we in for a big surprise (now that’s another story to tell!).

Our first Aussie stop was Sydney. And what a great introduction that would have been had we been able to get out and see something. We landed at the airport and had a bit of time to spare so decided to see if we could get some real food. And what did we find? The all-important and very Australian sausage roll.

The sausage roll. What could it be? Coming from America we thought sausage = hotdog and roll = hotdog bun. Couldn’t go wrong with that! A bit of mustard, onion and relish to top it off and I know I would have been a very happy young lady.

Surprise, surprise. What we got was a pastry casing filled with some sort of minced meat. And if I do say so myself, it was the most awful thing I had tasted to that point (next on the awful Aussie food list would be Vegemite!).

I don’t really remember what happened after that or what we ended up eating but I still to this day don’t like sausage rolls. Having said that I do make a pretty mean sausage roll and I would now like to share that recipe with you.

I do hope you enjoy this recipe more than I enjoyed the original thing way back in 1973. And do stay tuned as I will have more stories on food and travel and my days in places like Woomera which my family loved.

But for now, go and make some sausage rolls and share them with all your friends and family.