inner pickle

eating for energy

I have a tired boy.

And it's actually not Henry.

(Although by the end of last term he was officially cactus, and I kept him home from school one day in the second last week. Fatigue does apparently come as part of Velo Cardio Facial Syndrome, we're figuring out ways to help minimize it.)

No, my tired older fella. The one who works hard and packs it all into every day.

The one who, even if he's totally exhausted, still plays the "kids run maniacally at the front door when Dad gets home and he'll throw you up in the air" game. 

Who, even if pooped, always stacks the dishwasher. Marvellous man. 

And of course, I leap to the conclusion the tiredness could be iron deficiency. Heme iron, the red meat kind, because the man has a vegetarian cook in the house and although a steak might just do it, he'd have to cook it himself. 

Rough, hey?

So I've been obsessively feeding the family superfoods high in non-heme iron! And protein!

Spinach, cracked wheat and pinenut pie. 

Vegie sources of iron don't absorb as easily into the body, you can help this by eating foods rich in vitamin C, like a tomato and citrus salad! With your spinach pie!

A big batch of homemade hummus. 

Chickpeas are ace. (And also full of zinc, folate and protein.)

Have I lost you yet?

Mmmmm, check this out:

Yes, that's what Adam said too.

And guess what? I made TONS of it. 

Organic soybeans, barley and lentils. Carrots, celery and tomatoes. Slow cooked for forever.

You can do so many things with this zingy protein and iron-filled wonder!

I made shepherd's pie:

Twice!

And I made little pasties. Should've photographed them, they were cute. Next time. 

Also, burritos! With extra tomato! And cheese!

Snacks: cheese and homemade crackers, boiled eggs, dates and raisins, oven-toasted almonds. Iron booster balls. Bananas.

Wholewheat, oat and cranberry cookies:

And lots of iron-rich homemade wholegrain bread:

Ideally spread with peanut butter, unless you're Adam and you believe peanut butter is from the devil. 

Did it help?

Maybe a bit. My cold seems to have almost gone! (And Adam has it. Oops.)

I think, perhaps, I'll slow down on the ernest superfoods business and start researching holidays.

Two week oughta do it. 

xx

 

 

weekendiness

Saturday brunch: homemade grainy toast with grilled haloumi, eggplant and field mushrooms with coriander.

So delicious.

See, you don't need bacon! (Can someone tell Henry?)

Have a wonderful weekend, gorgeous people. 

xxx

Vegetarian "Sausage" Rolls

Really.

So good. And no need for any animal to die for you to totally get the sense of a sausage roll! (Am I about to discover sausage rolls are really an Australian-ism?)

Anyway, I made these up initially for Henry's birthday party. They were OK - I made them creamier with sour cream and cheese in them - but I wasn't happy with the texture so tried again. And these are delicious. Really happy with them. Have to blog them so I don't lose/forget the recipe!

I served them with sweet chili sauce at the party, but for dinner will serve with steamed vegies. Or a spinach and haloumi salad would go perfectly too.

VEGETARIAN 'SAUSAGE' ROLLS

Ingredients:

3 sheets of puff pastry (I have yet to make my own. Coming soon. I used the frozen version.)

1½ cup wholemeal breadcrumbs

½ cup rolled oats

1 large zucchini, finely grated

2 carrots, finely grated

1 tablespoon tomato paste

2 eggs

1 cup chickpeas (cooked)

1 tablespoon tahini

salt and pepper

Method:

This recipe is easiest if you have a food processor, but you can easily do it without. If you have a processor, whizz your bread into breadcrumbs, and throw in your oats and process till fine. (Otherwise make up your breadcrumbs and bash up your oats in a mortar/pestle.)

Add your zucchini and carrot into the processor and whizz (or add to breadcrumbs and oats in a big bowl and mix well.)

Add the chick peas to the mix and process well until smoothish.

Add the eggs and tahini and process again.

(Or just stir up well in the bowl!)

Add seasoning to taste.

Lay out a sheet of puff pastry and cut in half (into 2 rectangles). Spoon some mix down one long side. Paint edges with milk (to help stick) and roll up into long sausage. Cut into 4 (so each sheet makes 8) and paint the top with milk. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

I think I used a total of 3 sheets, making approx 24 rolls. I think. I'll make it again and update this if I've got that wrong.

Bake in a moderate oven (180°C) for about 20 mins or until golden.

Hide them from the kids unless you want them all eaten (note to self.) Also hide from Adam. In fact, make an extra batch because they freeze beautifully (uncooked) and you can take them out and cook from frozen for a snack.

Because it's all about satisfying snacks.

(I am a mad breastfeeding woman. You there, back away from the bakery item.)

Or any excuse, really.

xxx

Roast tomato and rocket quiche recipe

Do you eat your leftover quiche warm or cold? I like it warm. Adam likes it cold. This one I'm pretty happy with so thought you might like it too!

INGREDIENTS

2 cups plain flour

125g butter, chopped

3 eggs yolks

3 tblsp water

4 large tomatos

4 (more) eggs

2 tblsp ricotta

1½ cups rocket

½ a leek

handful of fresh basil

pinch salt

½ cup milk

1 cup grated cheddar cheese

For the pastry:

Process the flour, butter and a pinch of salt until fine crumbs form. Add yolks and water and process until it comes together. Knead till smooth then wrap in cling wrap and pop into fridge for 10 mins.

Then roll out on a floured surface and line a quiche flan tin (ideally with a removable base).  Trim edges and put back into fridge for half an hour (if you have the time. It'll be OK if you don't & put the filling in straight away. Just better if refrigerated.)

For the filling:

Cut your tomatoes in half, sprinkle with salt and drizzle with olive oil and roast for 15 mins in a moderate oven. Take out and let them cool a bit.

In a bowl mix with a fork the four eggs with the ricotta, rocket, leek (finely chopped), basil, salt and milk.

Place the tomatoes in the bottom of the pastry. Pour over the rest of the mix. Sprinkle cheese over the top and bake for approx 30 mins on 190 degrees or until golden and cooked.

Very good the following day (warm or cold, whatever you like.)

Have a lovely weekend!

xxx

Vegetarian Pad Thai recipe

I was out for lunch with my workmates this week - my farewell lunch, thanks fellas! - and one of the guys was saying that he just couldn't imagine facing dinner every night with no meat. 

Actually, I know what he means. Previously when vegetarian friends have come for dinner I've racked my brains for meals that are not simply meat-less. And when I initially thought about a meat-free month, I really struggled with coming up with a whole month of diverse vegetarian food.

Now though, I can honestly say meat doesn't even cross my mind. Once you change the way you eat (and think) there are of course endless options for excellent dinners. And lunches. Etc. I guess it's like me thinking of feeding a vegan for a week: how on earth would I completely omit all dairy and eggs? Although I'm sure that once you've eaten vegan for a month it probably comes as second nature. 

Anyone for delicious from-scratch Pad Thai?

Vegetarian Pad Thai

INGREDIENTS:

250g noodles

1 tblsp tamarind paste

½ cup warm water

1-2 tsp chilli sauce

¼ cup lemon juice

2 tblsp brown sugar

1½ tbsp natural peanut butter (I used this one)

½ tsp ground ginger

2 pinches salt

1 cup peas, cooked

1 cup chopped firm tofu

1 shallot, chopped

1 cup bean sprouts, washed

fresh coriander to garnish

METHOD:

Dissolve the tamarind paste in the warm water in a small saucepan then add all other ingredients. Simmer on low for 10 mins. This one is really all about taste - if you think it's too tart add some more sugar, or reduce sugar if too sweet for you. The peanut butter rounds it out and you can up the chilli perhaps if the kids aren't eating it. Once sauce has simmered well, throw in the tofu and shallot. 

Cook your noodles and drain. Pour the sauce over the noodles and place in your bowls. Top with the cooked peas and finish with the bean sprouts. Garnish with coriander. 

Did the kids eat it? Well, no. They both ate a whole bowlful of plain noodles and a little bowl of cooked peas. Whatever. Adam and I loved it. 

xxx
 

feeding small children (or Part 2 of 2: Flawed)

It's hard, right?

And anyone with children under six who says

* oh my children eat absolutely everything 

* dinnertime is always such a relaxing time of day

* I satisfy my creativeness in the kitchen and my children play quietly somewhere else while I'm cooking

is a cyborg. 

Really, they are. If you know one of these people I suggest checking all electrical currents nearby. 

I know some households have share-cooking arrangement but I can only talk about the households I know where it's the women doing the thinking, shopping and cooking. (In the interest of full disclosure I should admit I have a share-cooking arrangement in my house. I shop and cook and Adam cleans. We've done it like this since way before kids which is lucky because I am the single most incompetent cleaner or dishwasher you've ever met. I hate cleaning, he hates cooking. Perfect.)

Anyway. Back to the dinner table at six o'clock at night with two tired children that just want something for dinner that they recognise. Except their mother is currently unable to face shopping for or cooking and certainly not eating any kind of meat at all. Not even tuna. So there's been a bunch of new dinners on the dinner table as I trawl through our vegetarian options and try to make sure everyone's getting enough iron and protein. 

A few nights ago I made a delicious Nigella Lawson recipe, Pumpkin and Goats cheese lasagna, recipe here. Really yummy. Henry, usually relatively compliant with anything to do with pasta and/or pumpkin, flat out refused to try it. I cajoled Tilly into at least tasting it and she spat it out. Which of course you're not allowed to do here, but I don't think she's ever done it. I wasn't actually mad, I was just dejected. Then there was the spinach and goat's cheese frittata. Also very tasty. No go. Not at all. I was out that night having dinner with girlfriends and I'd made the frittata and left it for Ad to take out of the oven. He retreated to tinned soup from the back of the pantry which they also refused on the grounds it wasn't "good soup" and they had vegemite toast. They were lucky it was Daddy, not sure I would have fronted up the third option. 

What are your tactics?

If they don't eat it, do they go to bed hungry?

I've never wanted food to become a battle. I don't make a big fiasco out of it and am relying on the fact that one day they'll understand I'm offering pretty tasty healthy food that is probably worth trying. 

I also keep forgetting that when Henry was the age Tilly is now, he pretty much ate tinned spaghetti for about six months and not much else. That was all I could get him to eat. It was a phase, he grew out of it. 

Tonight? I made broccoli, sweet potato and barley soup and Henry had two bowls and Tilly ate all hers, no argument. Weird children. 

It's just that when it's you in the kitchen, and you serve up something you know is nutritious, and there are arguments and tears and lying down on the chairs and deliberately dropping of things under the table, it's just depressing. 

So if it's ever happened to you, please know you're not alone. I'm raising my glass of water to you saying cheers, lady. 

And as soon as I finish breast feeding this baby not even born yet, I'll be raising my glass of shiraz to you which always made dinnertime refusal a bit easier to take. 

Cheers to that. 

xxx

Meat-free May

I wasn't actually planning on writing a post about Meat-Free May because when it first appeared as a to-do idea on my "new things" list (over there in the left hand column under the books) I had quite a lot of feedback about how totally daft it was to do when pregnant. 

While I appreciated the genuine motivation behind this discouragement, it did make me a tad more inclined to jump right in. It also made me wonder just how much meat people around me were eating and made me think about the system. How all that meat is grown. Fed. Slaughtered. Packaged.  

(Also, as we only ate meat a couple of times a week anyway I didn't feel it was much of a stretch for the rest of the family to cope with, and the deal was that the kids and Adam of course weren't banned from meat, I just wasn't going to cook it.)

I did this for a few reasons. First: the whole idea of eating meat has turned my stomach this whole pregnancy. I know Adam is kinda hoping my aversion is entirely pregnancy-related (and therefore back to bacon and eggs and a lovely roast dinner in about seven weeks time.) He's also been around long enough to know that I have floated in and out of vegetarianism since I was fifteen years old and that I've had a problem with pork ever since I read Charlotte's Web when I was little. I've also never been able to come at veal. So he's not holding his breath.

Second: I suspect, although I am no expert, that rearing animals for (red) meat is not particularly environmentally efficient. 

Third: Did buying organic free-range chicken mean we were eating happy chooks? I wasn't convinced. Other 'organic' meat was also all about what the animals were fed, not about how they lived (or died for that matter.)

Fourth: My late grandfather took me aside when I was about twenty (and at that point vegetarian) and instructed me to start eating meat again as the world was a difficult enough place to get along in without making myself more difficult with the terribly unsociable trait of vegetarianism stitched to me too. I can still remember my feeling of shock and disappointment and thinking I'm glad he doesn't know anything else about the rest of my life. I didn't really want him to disapprove of me but I also considered becoming a vegan on the spot. All food decisions are social. All of them. Even just a month's worth.

Last night's dinner:

 Poached asparagus, potatoes, eggplant, capsicum, coriander, marinated tofu, goat's cheese, sesame seeds, olive oil. Gosh it was yummy. In fact, the leftovers were even better for lunch today. 

I think sometimes we get in the habit of particular food. I know I did when thinking about food for the kids. Pretty protein/meat based. 

What I have now is a big list of vegetarian meal ideas and I go and look at it when I'm about to do the grocery shopping to inspire me to think a bit broader. 

I'll post it, if you'd find it useful? 

The growing list of May dinners is about to become a page on the top navigation bar and I'll just keep 'What's for dinner tonight' on the right so it doesn't get too unwieldy.

I hope that some of the stuff we're eating inspires you to drop out meat a couple of nights too if you haven't already. 

I also cannot recommend Johnathan Safran Foer's book Eating Animals highly enough. He's a fantastic writer and very even-handed with this. I think it's brilliant. 

I know there will be be eye rolling and disagreement with this post, but that's what comments are for! Tell me what you think. (Then let me make you my vegetarian moussaka and tell me you still missed the meat! Never!)

xxx