inner pickle

things are happening...

1. Friday night dessert night

We don't usually eat dessert in our house but (at Henry's suggestion) we started Friday night dessert night a few weeks ago and it's a highly anticipated new addition to family ritual. Here's tonight's: the recipe is at the end of the post.

2. School

or: Breaking in the new school shoes.

I've done a lot of reading about homeschooling in the last few weeks which I'll definitely talk about in a future post, but Henry is enrolled at our local school and due to start next Thursday. All very exciting. We've done a lot of preparation (particularly for a kid who doesn't transition well or 'do' change very well) and I'll tell you all about our school prep next week. He is super excited though. Me too.

And still on schools, of all the conversations I've had over the past two days, hardly one does not involve some discussion about www.myschool.edu.au

In Australia, the federal government has created what amounts to a 'league table' on school's performances. From a parent point of view it's very interesting seeing how your local school ranks (incidentally ours ranked very highly) but the rural and regional schools I suspect must be hating this system, and there are many issues with comparing apples with bananas (as my sister Suze, a teacher, described it.) 

For New South Wales our main broadsheet The Sydney Morning Herald actually provided school's rankings from 1 to about 800. A tough business. Great if you're in the top 20, not sure how the teachers in the smaller schools in the 700s will be feeling about this. Or the parents of the children at those schools... Very interested in your thoughts on this!

  

 3. Artificial colour in the garden.

I have somehow managed to kill the majority of my herbs in the past fortnight. Not from neglect, but perhaps too much water and/or fertiliser (from the worms). Very disappointing. Resorted to spinning cheerfulness to inspire the geraniums not to die too.

4. Beloved neighbours back home

Gosh we missed our lovely neighbours next door when they went away for two weeks! We do see quite a lot of them, most of all this family member above ('Cow') who has spent this week almost entirely at our place. I think she missed us too.

5. Sleeping!

Thank you you beautiful people for all the emails and suggestions about sleeping issues in our house. We are now (touch wood!) all good. 

6. Proud mum

Henry and Tilly made some chocolate chip cookies this afternoon almost unsupervised, and gave a little visiting playmate jobs to do that they thought he could manage. Henry retained the egg-cracking responsibility and only Tilly is allowed to handle the vanilla. I'm really so proud of my budding cooks. 

So what should we call this? Peach and blueberry pie, I think.

Peach and Blueberry Pie

You need 1 portion of short crust pastry, I always use this super quick and easy pastry recipe.

I then used half a portion of this recipe: PLEASE NOTE, Estelle's Mum's recipe, NOT mine... ie the one with the milk powder and water. If I want cold custard, this is the one I make. It sets really well, unlike mine. I used half the recipe because I made it a few days ago and that's all that was left!!

I pressed the pastry into the dish, spooned the custard on top then sliced fresh plums and peaches on top and sprinkled with blueberries. 

Bake for 20-30 mins (my oven was quite hot because I was cooking roast beef and baked potatoes at the same time.)

Anyway, it was delicious. Perfect with a spoon of good greek yoghurt. Yum. I love Friday night dessert night.

xxx

 

Always room for a brownie...

What do you do with a jar of Nutella in the cupboard after Christmas that you've had there to make chocolate truffles with that you didn't get around to making?

You eat it by the spoonful, of course.

Until better sense gets the better of you and you frantically google "recipes with Nutella" to save you from yourself.

Nutella brownies, recipe from here, they kindly provide the calorie, cholesterol and saturated fat content per bar: I suggest you carefully don't read this. 

An excellent way to use up the Nutella, a lovely treat for my sweet-deprived children, but honestly, if you're into brownies in any way, not a patch on these.

Australia day in pictures

Hanging out at a favourite beach with some favourite friends (and their boat).

 
 I love how Tilly refers to the beach as The Sandpit.

Home late afternoon. For dinner: mixed natural yoghurt with peeled + diced cucumber and fresh mint...

Cooked a deboned marinated leg of lamb in the oven for half an hour, thinly sliced on wrap bread with yoghurt mix.

A lovely, lovely day.

xxx

bushwalk

Tomorrow is Australia Day (or, perhaps, Invasion Day) and what is more Australian than going for a bushwalk? 

We are lucky to have Adam with us for an extended weekend (4 days!) so the four of us (plus our wee carry-on) ventured out into nearby bush.

Gorgeous.

And interesting. I look at this rock wall and think rock wall, shame about the graffiti; Adam looks at it and says "LOOK kids, a climbing wall! See the anchors embedded in the rock? Cool, hey!"

  

Henry busily collected sticks which he called 'camping sticks'. 

 Tilly collected rocks.

(The violent yellow t-shirt meant we couldn't lose her: a new favourite from Ad's Auntie Mit.)

I remember feeling up trees as a kid too...

And the perfect bushwalking morning tea (at the very first picnic area we came to):

Speaking of food, I will post a day 6 and 7 this week for 'kids food'. I'm just not posting them sequentially! (Dinner tonight was roast chicken in fresh bread rolls by the beach with friends!)

And in other news, Tilly has discovered the joy of sleep again and so have we. 

Bet I just jinxed it.

xxx

 
 

Food for kids week: Day 5

Truly, could you do a kids-focussed meal plan (for a meat-eating household) and not include these?

 
Again with the mashed potato but I'm a tad strung out on sleeplessness and sometimes you just have to roll out something you know will be gobbled up, no discussion. 

I'm really lucky to have a lovely butcher up the road who makes preservative-free sausages to order. He makes suggestions for flavouring - anything you can think of - these ones just have a bit of sea salt and parsley and spring onion. Some breadcrumbs and great quality beef and that's it. So yummy. 

One likes hers chopped:

 The other likes his whole:

A bit of a walk around the neighbourhood after dinner and they are both showered, storied and tucked up, sound asleep. I'm optimistic about an undisturbed night. (I am daftly naive though.)

The heat has broken in Sydney and we have a blissful cool southerly through the house. 

Hope the weather is kind wherever you are, and the food gratefully received. It's the little things, really.

xxx

Food for kids week: break in the program

The minute you confidently announce you're running a week of good food-for-kids ideas you should know it'll fall apart.

You may have noticed I haven't posted a 'day 5' yet (ie Friday.) That's because yesterday was day 2 of shocking sleep deprivation (today is day 3) with Miss M.D. demonstrating an inability to settle back to sleep after 3.30am. 

So last night at 5pm I suggested my true backup (other than pasta, resorted to on day 4) which is packing up the kids and combining the adventure of picking Daddy up from work with dinner at IKEA. 

Works a treat. 

Adam had his doubts about me driving at all (good cause to) but we made it safely, we ordered meatballs and schnitzel, and paid a total of about $14 for four meals. Plus it's airconditioned and Sydney is experiencing a heatwave (not unrelated to Tilly's sleeping issues.)

Fantastic.

We're back on track for 'day 5' tonight notwithstanding the fatigue so see you later!

xxx

Food for kids week: Day 4

Oh dear. 

In the spirit of honest disclosure I'm not going to fudge it. 

I did not feed my children a balanced dinner of vegetables and protein tonight. 

In fact they were lucky dinner was cooked at all (and not a sandwich.)

*Cough*. Here is what they got:

Oh yes. Not even good quality pasta. And what happened to my from scratch resolution? Matilda Daisy. That's what happened. At 4am this morning. In fact it may have still been in the threes. Wide awake, unable to settle herself or be settled back to sleep. Up and at 'em. 

(Have I impressed on you how much I am NOT a morning person? So not. Particularly when it is still nighttime.)

So, a strong espresso at 9am. Two of these at 10am:

 Emergency chocolate peanut butter cups. When you live in a country without Reese's. 

Melt milk chocolate and peanut butter together in the microwave. Stir well, spoon into micro mini cupcake papers and refrigerate until firm. Really totally awesome. (Note: don't use quality nut-only peanut butter. Has to be the old commercial Kraft-type stuff with requisite salt and sugar to really make these babies sing.)

So by 6pm tonight with no napping available, this is all I was up for.

There were altercations over the cheese:

And I permitted (diluted) apple juice with curly whirly straws in my weakened state:
 
 

And guess who, at day's end, is still bright as a button?

Sandpit sand all over her neck, paint under her fingernails... couldn't she at least pretend to be as knackered as I feel?

Adam and I are ordering pizza.

xxx 

Food for kids week: Day 3

What would a week of food designed for children be without these, I ask you?

 
Homemade meatballs and mashed potato.

Quicker than you'd think (but then I was the duffer hand-rolling meatballs for 100 children so maybe I'm unreliable.)

I usually serve them with mashed potato (any excuse, really) but equally excellent with brown rice or steamed greens or whatever your smallies will eat.

Meatballs

INGREDIENTS:

1 kg beef mince

1 cup breadcrumbs

1 large onion, grated

2-3 carrots, grated

1 egg, beaten

1 dessertspoon dried herbs

salt and pepper

2 x 400g tins of peeled tomatoes

METHOD:

In a large bowl mix the mince, breadcrumbs, onion, carrot, egg, herbs and seasoning. It's easiest to mix with your hands.

Whizz your tinned tomatoes up to a puree in a food processor. (In fact this recipe is quickest if you grate your onion and carrot in the processor too. I made fresh breadcrumbs from some old bread first, rinsed the machine out and grated the veggies in it, rinsed it out again and whizzed up the tomatoes. 5 mins tops.)

Pour half the tomato puree into a baking pan.

Roll into ping pong sized balls (using wet hands is easiest) and place on top of the puree. Once finished rolling, pour the rest of the puree over the top of the meatballs.

Cook on about 190° for about 45 minutes. (Check they're cooked by cutting one in half and checking for pinkness.)

Do my kids eat them? Usually. Did they eat them tonight? Nup. 

Tilly ate the mashed potato and decided she didn't like the meatballs. 

Henry made a half-hearted attempt but said he didn't like them either.

Gratifying.

Luckily Adam loved them because he's going to be eating them for his lunch for the rest of the week.

Cooking for kids. Who would do it. At least these are quick to make. But damn I'm glad I didn't spend the extra 45 minutes making a homemade tomato sauce instead of using the tinned tomatoes!

xxx

Food for kids week: Day 2

I've never met a kid who won't eat pumpkin soup. Big call, I know, but I have met some seriously dedicated non-veggie eating children who will wolf down a bowl of this.

I worked for a while as a cook for a big pre-school in Brisbane. I was a solo cook, and I fed 100 children each day. (Actually not each day, I had Wednesdays off.)

It was a hoot. It was a hot little kitchen (they all are) and the equipment wasn't fantastic but the director gave me free rein to recreate the entire menu (morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea) and encouraged a really healthy menu. 

I loved it. 

On my first day, the day after my interview, I arrived in the kitchen only to find there were no recipes, no procedures, no "cook this much pasta for this many children". 

Nothin'. 

There were sporadic ingredients (the last cook had been fired on the spot the week before - that's another story) and the director had been doing the cooking as far as possible. They'd had a few days of sandwiches I think. But there were lots of pumpkins in the veggie bin. And potatoes. And I found some stock cubes. They'll do. And onions. 

So for lunch on my first day the kids had pumpkin soup. Proportions wildly guessed at and luckily sufficient. I peeped into the rooms to see the kids mopping it up from their bowls with bread and butter.

Honestly: I have never used a recipe for pumpkin soup. I suspect if you bake the pumpkin you probably get a richer soup, but I never have.

Anyway, here's how I make it. It's quick, and failsafe.

(For a family of 4.)

Cook a chopped brown onion and a couple of minced cloves of garlic in a little olive oil in a heavy based saucepan. 

Add about 4 small to medium sized potatos, peeled and chopped.

Add a bit more (than spuds) of peeled, chopped Jap pumpkin and the same amount of peeled, chopped butternut pumpkin. Of course if you only have one type of pumpkin that's fine, it's yummy, just keep proportions to about 3:1 pumpkin to potato.

Cover veggies entirely with stock - chicken stock works well. Vegetable too. Make sure there is about 2cm stock over top of veg.

Cook for about 30 mins.

Blend with a hand blender.

Cool before serving to smallies!!

(Add salt and pepper for the adults or the room group leaders at the preschool who I still miss, they were terrific gals, and who were relieved to see the end of sandwiches!)

From my time at the preschool, the kids favourite hot lunches were (other than pumpkin soup):

:: Chinese fried rice

:: Chicken and vegetable risotto

:: Pumpkin, spinach and ricotta bake

:: Oodles of Noodles with ham and cheese 

:: Pasta Roma (a simple tomato/egg/cheese pasta bake. I'll blog it sometime.)

:: Tuna mornay with brown rice

:: Zucchini slice

:: Meatballs with mashed potato

:: Vegetable pizza slices 

xxx

 

Food for kids week: Day 1

I'm on my way back to cooking everything (and I mean everything) from scratch. It's not just an economic thing and it's not just a protecting-loved-ones-from additives etc thing, it's a bit of both. 

And because it's fun, and I find it immensely satisfying.

Fresh pasta, tagliatelle. 

It's possibly much much quicker to make than you think. Jamie Oliver's rule: 100g strong flour to 1 egg per person. That's it. Whizz it up in the food processor, roll it out, cut it up, throw it in boiling water for 3 minutes. I didn't even take a photo of the finished fresh tomato sauce with herbs and grated cheddar because we were too busy tucking in. 

Stopping to take a photo took longer than turning flour and eggs into pasta. Really. It's super quick. AND SO MUCH NICER!!!!

OK so it would be super fast unless the kids cotton on that there is some form of edible craft going on in the kitchen that they must be part of. Gosh mine love making pasta. 

This week, apart from going back to scratch on as many of our foods as possible, I'm also doing a week of deliberately kid-friendly food.

I'm cautious about this, the last thing you want is some woman waving photos of her children earnestly nibbling steamed broccoli at you, right?

I'm posting the food my kids consider 'kid-food', an expression unique to Henry, the origin of which still escapes me. He's given me a list. 

Lunch today:

Homemade bread and scrambled eggs. 

Not on Henry's list. A perfect lunch for Tilly, but Henry hates eggs (a real shame) and so had the bread, cherry tomatoes and a banana instead. 

 Dinner: 

"If-it's Risotto"

i.e. If it's in the fridge, chuck it in the risotto.

 I'm a big fan of risotto and the kids love it. 

The trick with this one: no stirring!! Seriously!

It's fine to stand and stir a lovely risotto that you're certain will be met with appreciative hurrahs, but really, I don't believe in labouring over anything that's destined for smallies. Just in case. No point setting yourself up and all that.

So this one: (I make this in a big Le Creuset pot, any casserole or heavy pot will do. Needs a lid.)

Chop 1 onion finely and cook in a splash of olive oil with 3 rashers of bacon (chopped.)

Add 1.5 cups aborio rice and cook for 2-3 minutes. 

Add 1 litre vegetable or chicken stock. 

Throw in your veg (it's the day before my organic fruit and veg box arrives, all I had was frozen peas and a few carrots).

Add salt and pepper and fresh herbs to taste.

Put the lid on and cook for about half an hour on the stove until all stock absorbed and rice cooked. Check and stir every 10 mins or so.)

Easiest risotto ever. 

xxx