Take a bag of carrots...

Last week at my local fruit shop two bags of carrots cost $1.50. That's a bargain and so of course I bought two. There are only three of us here and we've hardly all been home on the same night at the same time to even eat a decent meal.

So on this lazy Sunday I decided it was time to turn these carrots into something.

Firstly I decided to make this Banana-Carrot Cake which is a lunch box staple here.
http://mysydneykitchen.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/healthy-lunch-box-treat.html

Then I made a nice batch Carrot Soup. I love carrot soup. It's warming and hearty but somehow doesn't feel as heavy as Pumpkin Soup.

It's a very basic recipe and you can adapt it to your needs. I use cream in mine but you could use milk or soy milk or even coconut milk or if you were on a diet water and coconut milk powder. Again I use basic mixed herbs but you could use curry powder and ginger instead for a more exotic flavour.

Carrot Soup

1 onion diced
3 rashers of bacon diced
2 cups chicken stock
1 teaspoon mixed herbs
750g of carrots or about 3/4 bag, sliced.
1/2 cup cream.
oil to cook.

1. Heat oil in saucepan and add onion. Cook until translucent. Add bacon and cook till soft, about 2 minutes.
2. Add herbs and sliced carrots. Toss till carrots coated. Add chicken stock and simmer until carrots cooked, around 20-25 minutes.
3. Use a stick blender and process until smooth. Add 1/2 cup of cream and combine.

Serves 4.

I plan to freeze mine, hence the not so attractive plastic container.

I grated too many carrots so I have some in the fridge to add to some spaghetti sauce in the next day or so but that's the bag gone and for 75c I feel like I got got great bang for my buck.

Old favourites

Some weeks just seem to go off the rails a little bit. We are not by any means a family that follows much of a schedule. The only set events are school hours and any after-school activities my daughter has, everything else is fluid.

We don't get up at a set time. We don't eat at a set time. My husband often doesn't have a schedule o his work hours and even then they change. Today for example he came home at 3pm when I thought he was coming home at 4pm and then the phone rang and he left and won't be home until 10pm or maybe 11pm.

Tomorrow he is working two jobs so again he will leave at 8am and come home at 11pm. It's a Saturday so where you might think we'd be having a BBQ or an outing, and frankly I did think that until mid-week, that's not the case.

Today i had pulled some pre-made burger patties out about five minutes before he got home and they are no back in the freezer from which I grabbed him a container of paella to microwave at work. My daughter and I are now having a basic pasta with a sauce of ham, mushroom, pea cream, tomato and white wine...not exactly how I pictured dinner 3 hours ago.

Valentine's Day went the same way. Instead of coming home a 8pm my lovely husband came home about 10.30pm and only found out at 5pm...(are you spotting a trend).

That kind of leads me to the point...instead of the seafood meal I had planned I threw an old favourite the Impossible Pie in the oven. Not exactly a meal that will win awards but it is high in protein if you're hungry and easy to digest if you are not long for bed.
http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/food/freshtv/781803/savoury-impossible-pie

I omitted the corn kernels and I guess my pie plate must have been a bit small because I had mixture leftover and made five mini frittatas in my muffin tin with the extra. They were great on a roll for breakfasts.

The other old favourite I made this week was Weetbix Slice. I was looking for a quick lunchbox filler and as we seem to have ended up with two boxes or Weetbix and three of Weetbix Bites this was a good one to use up some of the excess.

I added a bit more butter than suggested here.

http://www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipe/Weet-Bix-Slice-L5572.html

Mu husband said it tasted like something you got at a church cake stall as a child. My daughter said it was the best thing ever. It was quick to make and exceedingly economical.

Sometimes in the midst of madness it is nice to fall back on some comforting old favourites.

Nigella inspired coleslaw

Here is a brief history of my relationship with coleslaw.

When KFC opened in Sydney back in the 1970's it was the only place you could buy pre-prepared salads and so my mum would sometimes go get the coleslaw and bean salad. I thought the bean salad was gross but LOVED the coleslaw.

When I went away to university I was less than enamoured by the campus cafeteria food but I lived on campus for three years so I had to eat it. Every single lunch time I ate coleslaw and an apple and usually 1/2 a sandwich but not always if they happened to have something palatable for a change. I'm pretty sure that coleslaw and apple stopped me from getting scurvy and many other things because they were my daily does of fibre in between the coffee and donuts and cheap alcoholic beverages that all students live on.

Unsurprisingly when I left college I couldn't actually even look at coleslaw for the next ten years. I had more than had my fill. By this stage all the supermarkets carried pre-made coleslaw exactly like the stuff I had at college but I never really bought it because my husband and daughter don't like coleslaw.

So to the now about three years ago I was watching an episode of Nigella Lawson on the ABC. I couldn't even tell you which series it was on but she was making coleslaw to take on a picnic. She used buttermilk and nuts and maple syrup in the dressing. It looked yummy.

I didn't have the recipe and I just never ever use enough buttermilk to justify purchasing it because I always end up throwing it out. So I adapted the recipe and here it is below.It's a great low budget recipe as well.

 Even if you don't like coleslaw you should try it because my husband and daughter love this and still claim not to like coleslaw. We like it with pulled pork on buns (very American) and also as a side with oven fried chicken.

If you have a food processor use that to shred the cabbage and grate the carrot. It then makes this 5 minute coleslaw as well

My coleslaw

1/4 cabbage, shredded
4 carrots grated
1/4 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans work best)
1/4 cup whole egg mayonnaise
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1 teaspoon dill
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon white vinegar
squeeze lemon juice
salt and pepper

1. Combine shredded cabbage, grated carrot and chopped nuts in a bowl.
2. Combine all other ingredients in a bowl and whisk until smooth.
3. Combine dressing and vegetables.
4. Leave in fridge to let flavours meld for about 15 minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

The multi-purpose zucchini slice

The Internet, at least the Australian corner of it, is full of recipes for zucchini slice. I have been making this one on and off since I saw it in a copy of Delicious magazine in 2003. That's quite a long time.

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/5546/zucchini+slice

I made on on Thursday night as I had to take finger food to drinks at the school and as I wasn't even staying for the event (long not so interesting story) I really didn't want to spend a whole lot of time or money in the process.

So I took about 1/3 of the slice, cut it into squares and topped it with a little sour cream and chopped parsley. It looked good and tasted great.

This is the ingenious way my lovely husband covered it so the sour cream wouldn't stick to the cling wrap. He put a styrofoam cup in the centre of the plate and made a little tent. A square of slice is hiding under the cup.Very creative.You could use a child's plastic cup instead of course.



There was enough slice left for my husband and daughter to have a snack that night. The next day I put some in her lunchbox and my husband had the rest on a roll like an Italian frittata for lunch. That's not bad going for a recipe that costs about $3 to make.

Here are some variations on the theme:

- substitute smoked salmon for the bacon for a slightly posher version

- leave meat out all together for a vegetarian option

- switch grated zucchini for frozen spinach or leftover cooked broccoli

This is a very simple dish that is high in flavour and protein and easy on the pocket. Try it.

A meat pie for Australia Day

January 26th is Australia Day, obviously if you're Australian you know this, but unlike Bastille Day or 4th of July I doubt anyone else on the planet is aware of the date. It signifies the date the First Fleet led by Captain James Cook sailed into Sydney to set up the penal colony of New South Wales.

Australia's indigenous population refers to the day as Invasion Day.

On this day Australian's go to the beach, throw bbq's and hang out with family. It happens to also
co-incide with the end of the Australian summer holidays/vacation. Basically school goes back straight after Australia Day.

On our Australia Day 2012 my husband has worked this morning and it was pouring with torrential rain. We were invited to a lunch at my mother-in-laws which we do usually attend because she lives across the road from a beautiful beach. Unfortunately for me I really get rather agitated when a lot of people are crammed together in a small space and my mother-in-law lives in an apartment. Needless to say I had to decline the invitation because the twenty something people in that little space would have been too much for me.

So instead today my daughter and I are making an Australian Meat Pie and a pavlova. The meat pie is the traditional Australian fast food. It is to Australians what the hot dog is to Americans. Every suburb has a bakery selling meat pies and sausage rolls and most have more than one.

Here is my version of a family meat pie. It's a really yummy meal and it's easy on the budget. I made this family pie for under $5. I use a regular pie plate.

Australian Meat Pie - serves 4
1 quantity of shortcrust pastry or one pie shell (I'll post my recipe soon)
olive oil
2 small or 1 large onion diced
500g beef mince
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
1 beef stock cube
2 cups hot water
2 tablespoons cornflour
2 tablespoons water (extra)
1 sheet puff pastry
1 egg yolk.

1. Heat oil in pan and add onions, cook stirring until soft. Add mice, cook stirring until browned.
2. Stir in sauces, stock cube and water (I dissolve the stock cube in water first) simmer 15 minutes. Stir in cornflour and extra water. Stir over high heat until it boils and thickens. Cool.
3. Grease a pie plate with butter or olive oil and roll pastry to fit pie plate. Cover pastry with baking paper, fill with dried beans or pie weights and bake in moderate oven 8 minutes. remove beans and cook a further 8 minutes.
4. Fill pie shell with meat mixture. Brush edges or pastry with egg yolk and press puff pastry on top. Cut to fit. You can use any scraps to decorate. Brush pie with more egg yolk. Bake in oven 20-25 minutes until golden.

Enjoy!

Choc, banana, berry mini muffins

In the school holidays (as we say in Australia) or vacation as they say in the US one of the hardest things as a parent is to keep enough healthy snacks available for picnics, play dates and other outings. We eat lots of fruit for snacks but sometimes that's just not quite what everyone is in the mood for.

These are also the items that send the grocery budget sky-rocketing. A packet of chips, a box of flavoured crackers, store bought muffins or cake all add up pretty quickly at the check-out. Then there are all the added fats and flavourings as well.

I'm not going to lie to you, I do buy those things but I also try to bake healthy yummy snacks.

Yesterday I thought we were off on a boating picnic today. I was tired and not really in the mood but the oven was on for last night's sweet potato fries so I got up and made a batch of these yummy mini muffins. I had a banana on the turn and a few strawberries and blueberries that weren't going to last so I tossed them in. By making the muffins chocolate they seem like a treat when honestly it's just a bit of cocoa powder.

I'm a big fan of mini muffins. I find a regular Texas-style muffins too big to eat and half always ends up in the trash. Two mini muffins is about what an average kid needs. This recipe made 36 muffins or 16 serves based on that theory. I have put quite a few in the freezer for other days. I like having mini muffins and cake slices in the freezer. When school goes back I can reach in and grab them and toss them in my daughter's lunch or my husband's (he brown-bags when he can). It makes that morning rush easy. A sandwich, some fruit and a couple of muffins is a yummy and healthy lunch.

Choc,banana, berry mini muffins
 2 1/2 cups self-raising flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup milk
1 egg lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 soft banana, mashed with a fork
1 cup mixed berries, chopped if using strawberries (you could use frozen)

1. Combine flour and sugar in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre.
2. Combine milk, vanilla, egg and oil in a jug. Pour into bowl and stir until just combined.
3. Gently mix in fruit.
4. Spoon into greased mini muffin tins. (You can use muffin papers/liners if you choose)
5. Bake in moderate oven about 10 minutes (will vary according to your oven so check). Turn onto wire rack to cool.

Enjoy!