inner pickle

apricot lunchbox snacks

My friend Lucie put me onto this book, for which I am very very grateful. 

Julie Maree Wood is full of truly excellent ideas about boosting the nutrition in the food of a small person who won't eat much of anything. 

These apricot balls, which she calls Iron Booster Balls, went down pretty well here. They look and taste like a treat! What's not to love.

Unless you buy organic apricots you'll be using apricots with preservative 220 (sulfur dioxide) which can be dangerous for asthmatics and has been shown to cause hyperactivity and behavioral problems. Like many additives and preservatives, really. 

I'll be honest: I don't always buy the preservative-free apricots, even though I know this. We have so few additives and preservatives around here that if I saw any effect of a handful of apricots a couple of times a week, I'd abandon them. Sometimes the rotten look of blackish organic apricots is a little too much for me. 

Apricot Balls (Iron Booster Balls)

Recipe by Julie Maree Wood, Feeding Fussy Kids

INGREDIENTS

½ cup dried apricots

½ cup dried peaches

2 tbsp boiling water

¼ cup almond meal

½ cup desiccated coconut

1 tbsp orange juice

2 tbsp wheatgerm

¼ cup skim milk powder

½ cup extra coconut

METHOD
Put the apricots and the peach into a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Add boiling water and leave to soak for ten minutes. Add almond meal, coconut, wheatgerm, milk powder and orange juice. Blend until a firm dough forms. Add extra water if needed. Roll into balls and roll in coconut. Store in the fridge. 

xxx
 

what do you do to feel normal?

If the world is slightly outta whack, even in the best way possible, what do you do to feel grounded? Have a bath? Glass of wine? 

My house, while mostly entirely lovable, does not have a bathtub.

And my pregnancy disinclination for wine is still hanging around. 

So I bake.

We have lots of lovely visitors at present, and I cannot resist a bit of kitchen experimenting!

And so we have:

OATMEAL CHOC CHIP COOKIES

Ingredients:

125g butter, melted

½ cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 cup rolled oats

1½ cup self-raising wholemeal flour

1 tblsp wheatgerm

½ cup desiccated coconut

¼ cup orange juice

½ cup chocolate chips

Method:

Melt the butter and add the sugar. Add the egg. Stir through the oats, flour, wheatgerm and coconut. Add the OJ and then the choc chips. 

Bake on cookie trays for approx 12 mins on 180°C. Makes 24 (I think. I didn't actually count them.)

Titbit for the day (I apologise, dreadful, I know) - it takes approximately twice as long to type a post one handed if you blog while breast feeding.

(I did apologise!)

xxx

quick kids lunchbox muffins

Henry, like his Dad, adores sultana cake. 

Every week he gets to pick something for his morning tea snackbox at school and this week his pick was sultana cake (again.)

As the Best Recipes one I've been using has a LOT of butter and sugar and eggs in it, I whisked up these muffins instead this week, using wholemeal flour for fibre and cutting the fats and sugar. 

Going down a treat, I have to say.

Lunchbox Sultana Muffins

Ingredients

125g butter, softened

½ cup raw sugar

2 free range eggs

2 cups wholemeal self-raising flour

1 cup milk

1 cup sultanas

Method

Cream your butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs. Beat in one cup of flour then half a cup of milk. Then the other cup of flour and then the rest of the milk. Stir through the sultanas. Makes 18 morning-tea sized muffins (or 12 large). Bake at 180°C for approx 20 mins or until firm and golden. 

Notes: You could easily make these dairy-free if needed: there's an argument that 'good oils' (sunflower oil, nut oils) are better for children (and us) than butter anyway. However, I'm not convinced that the amount of butter (125g across 18 muffins for instance) is harmful enough to substitute oil which I do not love baking with. You could always replace the cup of milk with a cup of apple or orange juice. With two eggs and self-raising flour these little golden gems will always rise. (And vanish for afternoon as well as morning tea.)

xxx

 

nut butters

You know I'm a big fan of the homemade peanut butter. BIG fan. 

I had some leftover nuts this week and we've run out of the above ("we've" being Tilly and I: the boys are vehemently averse to peanut butter of any incarnation.)

So I dumped a variety of nuts into my food processor and made this:

Yes the label may look a little Stepford.

No I'm not apologising. 

The state I'm in I could easily have used it as a facial scrub unless I whacked a label on it. 

(Besides, I have blank labels left over from making coffee labels for Dad's coffee beans.)

Sadly I cannot give you the volumes of different nuts thrown in (please refer to statement about 'state' above. Insomnia. Curse it.)

But damn it's yummy!

If you make it and it works, maybe send me the nut volumes?!

P.S. Apparently there's an "ABC" butter which is excellent - almonds, brasil nuts and cashews. Might try this next time. If I can remember where I put my food processor. Or my brain. 

xxx

a Friday in pictures

While she napped ~

~ I sat at my new desk (thanks, babe) ~

 ~ and calculated the cost per cupcake of a small catering job I'm doing tomorrow for a friend's business (my favourite kind of work). I didn't look at the mess behind me. I ignored the chaos of those shelves. I'm just grateful for this space which includes somewhere for my sewing machine (the space used to look like this) ~

That gorgeous quilt Tilly is napping under is one of a few absolutely gorgeous quilts our friend Jodi has made for us. And this week she gave me a quilting lesson! Here's a tiny one I made to practice matching the corners up etc (obviously haven't finished the binding) ~

~ am now raring to go! ~

~ while I was matching up fat quarters and diving into my fabric stash to see if anything coordinated, a batch of my favourite favourite no-knead bread was rising on the bench; happiness under a teatowel ~

 ~ and while it was in the oven I dove into one of the many boxes of hand-me-down (actually mostly hand-me-back!) clothes for the baby... some I remember from Henry, some were Tilly's, some new sweet additions too ~

~ these tiny shoes Tilly wore when we flew from Brisbane to Sydney when she was 9 days old... I can't tell you how excited I am to be about to put them on another wee pair of feet. So excited. 

  And when she woke up, Tilly and I had our favourite afternoon snack: homemade bread with homemade peanut butter. I don't care how crunchy granola hippy tragic that makes me sounds. It's delicious.

I hope you have a truly delicious weekend. 

xxx

 

beans, beans, good for your heart

I'll slow down on the you-have-to-try-this-food-from-scratch! business soon I promise.

I don't have that many new ideas.

I'm just a hungry pregnant lady at present. That's my excuse. 

So: baked beans!

What kid doesn't love baked beans? Well actually I didn't. I don't think I even tried them till I was about 19 and at university and when baked beans and two minute noodles seemed to be adequate nutrition. In total. Maybe with vegemite toast as a back up. Been there, anyone?

Anyway, I now love them. The smallies love them. So I make them. Here's my recipe:

Homemade Baked Beans

INGREDIENTS

375g (approx) of dried beans. Navy beans best (also sold as Great Northern Beans here in Australia), cannelini beans good too - this is what I used this time (photo) as I hadn't been to my awesome Italian grocer who stocks big bags of dry navy beans. 

2 finely diced onions

6 tomatoes, pureed in blender

2 tsp Dijon mustard

3 tsp tomato paste

1 tbsp brown sugar

METHOD

Soak your beans overnight then rinse and cook for about 30 minutes on the stove, covered with fresh water.

Saute onion in a little oil in a heavy based saucepan then add your tomatoes, mustard, tomato paste and brown sugar. Cook for a minute then add in the beans and put a lid on it and cook it (on low) for about another 40 minutes. 

Loving the beans. 

Hope you're having a good week? 

xxx

making stuff from scratch

What I've been making:

1. Home made peanut butter

 2. Home made basil pesto

3. Home made tomato sauce 

I can hear some snorting (yes I can hear you). As in, seriously lady, why would you bother. 

Tell ya why - because it takes two minutes in a food processor, it's cheap, and you know exactly what is in it. 

I'm a keen cook. I've always made most things from scratch. It's my kind of fun. (Dork.) 

But I also have two kids who react to artificial colours and flavours and our house is seriously way more peaceful when they have a really clean diet. (I reckon one of the worst offenders that affected my kids behaviour was plain old rice crackers. Even the plain ones have an unidentified antioxidant in the salt. Bad. Rice crackers are on my list to try to make sometime soon.)

And really, once you've made your own peanut butter I'd challenge you to ever go back to Kraft. Homemade is just so. much. yummier. 

Sadly can't try it out on anyone other than Tilly as the boys of the household hate and detest the stuff. 

Henry will move chairs at the breakfast table to get away from peanut butter on toast - mine or his sister's. 

But if you like peanut butter, give this a whirl! I bought roasted and salted peanuts which kind of defeats the purpose of being all from-scratch-etc and obviously you can roast and salt your own. But this was just too quick for words. 

1. Recipe for homemade crunchy peanut butter

Ingredients

4 cups peanuts (roasted and salted)

3 tablespoons peanut oil

Method

Throw 3 cups of the peanuts into the food processor and whizz for a good couple of minutes. It'll take that long for the nuts to break down and become oily. Once mostly smooth, throw in the peanut oil and whizz again for a minute. Then add the last cup of nuts and whizz up until desired chunkiness. 

I don't want to overstate it but this is the best peanut butter you'll ever eat. 

2. Recipe for home made basil pesto

I used this one because who doesn't love Jamie's "handful" of this and that instructions. Encourages you to cook by taste! I used 3 cloves of garlic which in retrospect was a tad garlicy and a 70g packet of pine nuts, maybe more than a handful. Totally delicious though. 

I served it over homemade gnocchi with fresh parmesan. Hmmmm.

3. Recipe for homemade tomato sauce

Ingredients

4 truss tomatoes, sliced

handful of dried herbs

salt and pepper

Splash of olive oil

Method

Slice the tomatoes onto an oven tray and sprinkle with herbs and olive oil:

 Bake in a moderate oven for about half an hour then whizz till smooth in a food processor.

I stirred it through orrichiette pasta for the kids. Yummmm. 

What's something else I can try? Bueller? Ever look at something and think: I should make that?

Hope I haven't brought on a peanut allergy in anyone...

xxx

making your own hummus

You'd never believe it, after sitting around looking over my left-hand-side new-things-to-do list for how long now? I'm finally plowing through it. 

Today: awesome hummus!!

I've made hummus before, probably most of you have, it's pretty straightforward. I was once responsible for making the condiments at a café in Glebe about fifteen years ago when I worked there as a cook through uni. A couple of very skilled and fabulous chefs (who taught me just about everything I know) showed me how to make hummus, pesto and harissa. 

Except I haven't made any of those three condiments for years now. And GOSH I love hummus and pesto in particular.

So I put in on my list to get back into it. 

I've also been buying the drop-dead AMAZING hummus from Erciyes in Surry Hills and thought it might be fun to try and make one nearly as good. Honestly not sure I can quite claim that but this one is pretty damn yummy as far as hummus goes. 

If you haven't made it before you have to try it! If you don't have a food processor it's a bit trickier - you could use a blender and do it in a much smaller batch. Or you could crush the chickpeas in a mortar and pestle but really I'm not sure I'd bother. Unless you have quite a lot of anxiety to work out then I'd recommend using the mortar and pestle for everything. Awesome therapy.

Hummus recipe inspired by Virginia Seymour/John Svinos' recipe from Rose Blues Café circa 1992.

 

INGREDIENTS

2 x 400g tinned chickpeas. (Use dried or fresh if you like - I'm just interested in speed.)

5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

150ml olive oil

2.5 tblsp tahini

2 tsp ground cumin

juice of 2 lemons (yields about 90 mls)

125 mls water

METHOD

Put all ingredients except water into the food processor and whizz till smooth. Slowly add the water, testing consistency until you have the right smoothness you like. (I use about 125ml water because I love hummus smooth and creamy - use less if you like it chunkier and thicker.)

We had it spread on homemade lavash crackers (i.e. old wholemeal lavash bread cut and dried into crackerbread in the oven) with our favourite pumpkin soup (with a sneaky cup of quinoa added for nutrition tonight, they never noticed.)

Two other lovely things:

My completely excellent friend Lucie, who conveniently belongs to Tilly's best friend Emily, took Tilds for a couple of hours today while Henry was at school, and I escaped up to King Street Newtown, such an awesome walk. Managed to come back with a new pair of shoes, hurray!

 

Also: have just put a few 'emergency chocolate peanut butter cups' in the fridge to set. Remember these?

 

For no particular celebratory reason except it's Friday night and why not?

Hope you all have a totally lovely weekend. (And GO Mark Webber in the F1 in Melbourne!!)

xxx

the humble sausage roll

  

 

Another quite unattractive food, really. 

But oh so yummy. Homemade sausage rolls. With tomato sauce. An Australian kids birthday party is incomplete without them. 

My divine godson Sebastian turned 6 a few weeks ago. 6!! Goodness me. He had a spectacular Star Wars themed party complete with R2D2 cupcakes (shoulda photographed them) and a Darth Vader pinata. 

Here's Henry in costume:

The kangaroo doesn't really go, but never mind. Yes, the outfit is a little last minute. It was the week pre-surgery and I was a tad pre-occupied.

So, Beef Sausage Rolls. If you've never made them you won't believe how easy they are particularly if you cheat (like me) and use store-bought puff pastry.

BEEF SAUSAGE ROLLS

adapted from original recipe here

Ingredients

500g beef mince

1 large onion, finely diced

1 large carrot, peeled and grated

2 eggs lightly beaten

big handful parsley, finely chopped

teaspoon dried mixed herbs

salt and pepper

4 sheets frozen puff pastry, partially thawed

1 tablespoon milk 

sesame seeds to sprinkle

Method

Preheat over to 220deg and line baking tray with paper.

Combine mince, onion, carrot, egg, parsley, dried herbs, salt and pepper in large bowl and mix well. 

Cut pastry sheets in half.

Shape a solid sausage of mince mix along one long edge of pastry. Roll up pastry to enclose mince, brush with milk and sprinkle with sesame seeds.  Cut roll into 4. Put onto baking tray.

Bake for 20-25 mins or until puffy, golden and deliciously oozing. Makes 32 if my maths are right and memory serves (I made about double this for the party!)

Serve with tomato sauce and Princess Leia ear-muff hairdo.

xxx

Healthy, dairy-free muffins

I have a beloved godson, actually I have three + one beloved goddaughter, but I digress... one beloved small friend who can't have any dairy or he grows a second head. Or his ears fall off. Or something. DISCLAIMER: I am not making fun of people with food intolerances. Some of my favourite people / progeny have food intolerances. 

Anyway, he turns into a cucumber if he eats off a plate that had yoghurt on it yesterday. So I created these muffins for him. Took them to his house on his fourth birthday. And of course he thought they sucked. But everyone else ate them so what the heck. Here's the recipe:

Ashley's dairy-free muffins

Ingredients:

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup apple juice (I used organic)

2 dessertspoons brown sugar

2 eggs

2 cups plain wholemeal flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarb soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1 x 450g tin crushed pineapple, drained

1 cup shredded coconut

Method:

Beat the oil, the apple juice, the sugar and the eggs together in a jug.

 

In a bowl mix flour, baking powder, bicarb and spices together. Add the pineapple and the coconut and stir then stir in the liquid mix. 

Spoon batter into muffin trays and bake for about 20 mins or until golden brown and springy to touch.

Makes 12 muffins or 24 mini muffins.

Hope you like them more than Ash did. 

xxx