inner pickle

Over here we are...

.. lying low

.. raising tadpoles

 

.. hosting visiting friends and family

 

.. happy to have finished at least some of the Christmas sewing on time!

 

.. and we're talking about Santa's visit and eating leftovers!

We had a lovely Christmas lunch here yesterday for extended family. There were lots of hands on deck to cook, light barbeques and to wash up, there were excited children and there was lots of delicious food!

Ah, all those Christmas cooking magazines. So many fun options. I am also unable to cater a large gathering without trying at least a few things for the first time. Cheap thrills. Eek, will it work?!

One of the dishes I was most happy with was one of our circulating entrees, a chilled avocado soup sip, served in shot glasses, topped with sliced prawns. Far out it was nice. 

I've made soup sips for degustations in the past, such a  lovely way to eat, like tapas. 

This is so simple and cool and fresh. Perfect for summer.

Here it is:

Chilled Avocado Soup Sip with Prawns

Adapted from a recipe in Australian Gourmet Traveller: Simple (ACP Books, 2003)

INGREDIENTS

 2.5 avocados

1 clove of garlic, chopped

2 tbsp lime juice

1 litre chicken stock (cold)

Cooked prawns for garnish

 

METHOD

Process the avocado, the garlic and the lime juice in a food processor until smooth. Add the cold stock and process until combined. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Divide between shot glasses and serve topped with sliced prawns.

Keeps well in the fridge (separately to the prawns) for at least a day (we had it for lunch today too!)

 

So what's going on over your way?!

xxx 

Huh?! Real children eating real broccoli?

 

Well OK, not ACTUALLY broccoli, but broccoli soup!

(Or: what do you cook when all that's left in the fridge is a couple of heads of broccoli that might not be fresh enough to steam?)

 

 

Broccoli Soup. Even kids will eat it.

 

Ingredients:

 

1 onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, sliced

1 tblsp olive oil

4 small to medium potatoes, peeled and cubed

1 medium sweet potato, peeled and cubed

2 heads broccoli, chopped

1.5 litres vegetable stock (or chicken)

salt and pepper and nutmeg

 

Method:

 

Cook onion and garlic in the oil in a big saucepan. Add the potatoes & sweet potato & broccoli and cover with the stock. Bring to boil then simmer for about 20 minutes or until the potato is easily sliced or squashed. Or perhaps I could have said: cooked. Season. Mine (above) served with wee dollop of sour cream and cracked black pepper.

 

You could halve the stock and whizz this up for babies. Yum!

 

xxx

sunshine in a dress

My 2 year old Tilly doesn't wear many dresses. She's a big old tomboy, however you cut it. 

She likes jeans and Henry's old trousers (that don't get in her way when she's climbing walls) and plain long sleeved t-shirts, her favourite being covered in paint. Permanent paint.

But Gran was coming to visit today so I convinced Tilly to put on a dress that Gran bought for her months ago to see if it fitted yet. It did. And, miraculously, the dress was still on at 6pm tonight; and paint, dirt and texta-free. Largely.

The sunshine in Henry's day was in the form of several jigsaws.

If you know Henry, you know he's a bit of a freaky wiz at jigsaws. He can turn them over and do them upside down. 

Anyway, we had a hiatus that worried me - he used to do jigsaws for  over an hour a day then just stopped one day. He has some odd behaviours so we kind of assumed he'd get back into them when he was ready. The babysitter dragged out some of his "easy" ones this week when I was at work and now he's totally back into them. All's right with the world.

Speaking of all right, check out this FAB soup recipe!!

Lets call it Ham Hock and Vegetable Soup

Adapted from a minestrone recipe I found in this month's Real Living magazine, here's what was in it and I KNOW I always say this but this was YUMMY. And the kids ate it, no arguments. Well maybe a small one. But that involved the debate about "dessert" (which we never have) and the lemon and poppyseed cupcakes they spied on the bench. You'll see those tomorrow!

Back to the soup.

Ingredients:

Stock: Put 1 x ham hock (about 500g) into a big saucepan with a couple of roughly chopped carrots, fresh herbs, chopped celery and an onion. Cover with water and boil for about 2 hours. It'll make your house smell amazing. Sieve off the stock and put aside, chop the meat off the hock.

Soup: 

Stock per above - I made about a litre I think

1 onion

2 zucchini

2 carrots

2 sticks celery

3 potatos, peeled and cubed

1 400g tin diced tomatos

1 400g tin cannelloni beans

2 cups pasta

Chopped ham hock

Cook the chopped onion in a little olive oil. Add zucchini, carrots, celery, potatos and cook for a couple of minutes. Pour over the stock, add tomatos and bring to boil. Simmer for about 15 mins. Then add beans, pasta and ham. Simmer for another 10 mins or until the pasta is cooked. 

You could just taste the nutrition rushing into you with this soup. 

Try it on your kids!

xxx