Easy midweek family meals

I believe in food cooked from scratch. I believe in good ingredients. Those two things bring me so much joy and so I really do believe in the cliché that food is one of life's greatest pleasures.

That said, I still get stumped on what to cook occasionally. I don't spend enough time planning meals, so I do a lot of 'open the fridge/freezer doors and stare blankly for a few minutes', trying to create meals in my head with what we also have in the garden and cupboard.

Often, the blank stare achieves nothing more than a bolognese.

Sometimes though, much like when you come up with an absolute corker in Scrabble, my eyes light up as I realise I have the makings of something very nice for dinner.

A little while ago, I had some free-range chicken mince in the freezer. I did my blank stare and then discovered bacon in the fridge (I always have bacon in the fridge now that I can buy free-range!). 

I made some patties using the chicken mince, lemon zest, softened shallots, and some parsley and thyme from the garden. 

I wrapped the patties in the 'streaky' bits of bacon (or just streaky bacon, if you're English!) and baked in a hottish oven for 20 mins or so.

Now, before you scroll to the bottom to find the recipe, wait. There isn't one. You see, I don't really like recipes. In fact, I don't actually believe in recipes very much. Not for this type of thing anyway.

I've written hundreds of recipes, and edited dozens of cookery books, and I find recipes just mostly get in the way. 

They get in the way of cooking. And they bore me.

If I say 1 tsp of thyme leaves, I'm implying that 2 tsp will make it all go horribly wrong. Which it won't. 

Obviously, I follow cake recipes and the like because there is an element of science involved. But the more cooking I do, and the older (and the more impatient I get), I want to add what I want. I just want a vague idea of what goes in, and I make up the rest. It's so much more relaxing that way. Rather than traipsing up and down the kitchen checking your recipe and freaking out when you realise you haven't got as much as the recipe dictates, you add a dash of this and a dash of that. 

That's how my mum cooks.

And maybe, MAYBE, that's a load of twaddle. It could just be I've seen so many recipes that I just don't want to type out precise tsp and grams. Either way, you're not going to get a recipe. (But you get very good pictures!)

Chicken and herb patties

And last night, I was stumped again. The fridge and cupboards are crying out to be filled. I flicked through a book, saw the word 'pancake' and fritters came to mind.

A bag of corn in the freezer. A red pepper (capsicum) and avocados need to be eaten, and there's spring onions in the garden.

I will give you a vague recipe here, but it's just a basic batter. Beat together 100g self-raising flour, 2 eggs and around 100ml milk. Season, then add whatever you fancy. In my case, chopped basil and some corn, along with diced red pepper and sliced spring onion, both of which I'd softened in olive oil beforehand. Then just gently cook spoonfuls of the batter in a pan with some oil.

Corn and red pepper fritters

I cut the fritters into fingers for the boys and they had them with some sliced avocado drizzled with a bit of lime.

There. Two really good meals that you can rustle up and have on the table in less than half an hour.

Would love to know if you make this.

Woweee... Luca's 4th birthday

I hadn't gone away. Just that I'm still recovering. No, not booze recovering - I only had a couple of glasses of bubbly. Recovering from organising a birthday party.

Who knew they could be so exhausting? The planning, the making, the cooking, the hosting, the clearing up.

Would I do it all over again? 

Let's see....

Once the pompoms and number wreath were made, it was time to stitch together those strips to make hanging garlands.  

I did watch the DVD that came with the sewing machine, but we were pushed for time, so Graeme put his old sewing lessons into practice. 

They were so easy to do! Amazing results. They're going to be the decoration I always make from now on for any party. Can you imagine the possibilities for Christmas? A New Year's Eve party? 

Here's the tutorial. 

  

Next, the party bags. I desperately wanted to make bags out of Luca's paintings we've been collecting since his last birthday. I was thrilled to find this: a recipe for DIY gift bags!

Punched holes using a shell hole puncher and used orange yarn for handles. (Well, there was so much leftover since the blessed lanterns were a failure!)

Then we got to work on filling them. Cut milk cartons in half, painted them orange, poked holes in the bottom for drainage, and filled them with soil once they were dry.

Cut up orange crepe and tissue paper and wrapped sunflower seeds, and gingerbread biscuits. And for a bit of craft for the kids, we punched out butterflies in orange paper to make a pretty border. Then tied everything up in string and yarn.

They looked adorable - although next time if I'm filling a paper bag with a pound of soil, I might use more than yarn for handles!

We hung pompoms along paths into 'the deep dark wood', which was a great hit with all the kids who ran along looking for the next one to guide them. Hung garlands from trees. Oh, did I mention we also managed to make some bunting with some of the card? Why haven't I owned a sewing machine sooner????

And used this idea to create our very own obstacle course. Strangely enough, Graeme had lots of orange rope that he used to use for scuba diving, so this came in very handy. 

Luca called it a spider's web.

And yes, I even hung those pathetic lanterns, which had completely unravelled that morning, so we managed to make more of the 'web'.

Something to keep the toddlers amused next. A cardboard box wrapped in sticky tape, and a basket full of leaves, flowers, twigs, seed pods and bark. Didn't last as long as I'd hoped as Luca wanted to play with the box!

Pass the parcel. Very interesting trying to explain to a bunch of 2, 3 and 4 yr olds that you only unwrap a layer when the music stops. Why did it seem so much simpler when we were kids?

 

The food. 

A crab cake. A fudgey dark chocolate cake with dark chocolate ganache. Made by me. Decorated by Luca and Graeme. Luca was thrilled with it.

Cheese and fruit sticks. Very popular with Luca and his friends.

Sausage rolls. Very popular with the parents.

Sesame squash on sticks (not as popular as I'd hoped) and pizza snails (almost all gone). I decided to adopt the less theme with everything, including the food. I had planned on zucchini and corn fritters, and some mini sandwiches, but I kept getting told to keep it simple. My own voice told me that a children's party was not the same as entertaining adults; while food is central to the latter, it most certainly isn't for the former.

So would I do it again?

Yes. Definitely. I had a ball. I really did.

I didn't care that my sticking corner wasn't as successful as I'd planned. I didn't care that no one really liked my sticky sesame squash bites, and I didn't care that the rowdy boys all took turns to beat the pompoms down one by one.

It was so much fun. 

And after everyone had left, we cranked up Justine Clark's The Witches' Ball and danced barefoot in the grass.

Sssshh, don't tell the ranger we had bubbly in the wetlands

Happy birthday my gorgeous little boy. 

P.S. If you enjoyed this post, I would love it if you could vote for me in the Top 25 Creative Mom Blogs.

Getting ready for an orange birthday

Luca's almost 4 and about to have his first proper birthday party. I don't know who's more excited: me or him. 

The brief that I set myself for Luca's party...Actually it's pretty much the brief I set for most things: handmade, thrifty, green and personal. Well, OK, as much as possible.

Orange is Luca's favourite colour. Has been forever. Even as a teeny toddler, he'd pull all the orange blocks out of the box and make them into a tall tower. 

So the theme is, of course, orange.

Martha et al make pompoms look easy.

They are. But by the fifth, you've had enough of all those papery layers and you start tearing them. How does anyone have the patience to do enough to fill a whole room??? This is all I've managed to make.

Move on to hanging paper garland. All I've done so far is cut the strips. You need a sewing machine to stitch them together. I still haven't taken mine out of its box. I have four days to learn how to use one. Hmmmm.

Next on my list is a number wreath. Made out of cardboard. Easy enough. The plan was to make lots of orange snails to stick onto it. But then I realised that I forgot to add simple to my brief. I'm no Martha. So I used all the bits leftover from the pompoms...

And made this.

And now for the bit I was most looking forward to. Orange yarn lanterns. To hang in his bedroom afterwards.

It's enough to make you give up making anything ever again. I've gone through two bottles of glue and a whole packet of cornflour. The garage floor is covered in sticky knotted yarn and big white blobs. The balloons that I spent ages tying to the ceiling and lovingly rubbing with vaseline popped or deflated within hours, and the two lanterns that I did manage to do. Look. Like. This. 


No, I'm not doing this again. Handmade, yes. Enjoyable? Not so much.

It's not quite going to plan (damn you, Martha Stewart), but hey, Luca's not going to care. He's already excited with the few orange pompoms and the orange 4 that we're going to tie around a tree. Cake, friends and games will make it for him. Not the image I had in my head of trees decorated with dozens of lanterns and stitched garlands. 


Do you know, I think I will hang those pitiful two lanterns. I'll enjoy the laugh, and so will everyone else.


I'll do another post soon with all the food!

Luca's party invite that we emailed to his friends

Playing along with snap it {colour}. 

Stormy nights and bright days

Luca and I were reading Duck in the Truck last night. At the end of it, he asked 'can I go and play in the mud?'. I promised that next time we had some rain, we'd go out looking for some mud.

Later in the night, the heavens opened. A big thunderstorm.

But you wouldn't know it this morning. We woke up to stillness, lots of pale blue and chirpy birds.

So I knew what we were doing. No point Luca getting out of his breakfast-stained t-shirt. He was going to get very dirty.

Luca wanted Kian to join him, but I couldn't face two muddy children. 'But why not? He's walking now, Mummy!'. Yes, he's walking. But he's not up to jumping just yet. He would have ended up with his face planted in the squelchy mud. 

A stormy night and a bright day. A great combination. And I'm very grateful for their timing.

On the subject of walking, I anticipated it being less exciting the second time around. But Graeme and I reacted just the same. Plus this time, there was an extra pair of hands clapping and cheering on. 

Here's one of my favourite shots of Kian a few days after he started walking. I was trying to get a picture of him walking towards me. But this was so much better. One of my best Point + Shoot.

Falling in love with Less

Image from here

At the beginning of the year, I remember reading about new year's resolutions and people who avoid making them. I was drawn to the idea of defining the year ahead with one word. A word to help you shape the year in your head. A word to live by and help you achieve what it is that makes you happy.

I didn't have to think about it. It popped into my head. Like someone had asked me my name.

Less.

I've been thinking it about it ever since. Notions of Less have been floating around in my head for the past two months, so I think it's time I put them down to make sense of it all.

It's no secret that we've been made to fall in love with More. More is better. More is, well, more... if you listen to all the messages out there.

Think about it. More money, more gadgets, more toys, more clothes, more presents, more food, more friends, more dinner parties, more days out, more organised activities, more friends at those parties, more Facebook likes, more Facebook friends, more blog followers...

Don't you sometimes feel like shutting the world out, covering your ears, squeezing your eyes shut and shouting enough!!

I did. It feels overwhelming. I sometimes forget and get sucked in. But then I realised that life doesn't get easier when you have more. It gets more complicated. It gets busy and it gets exhausting.

So Less is my little friend for the year. I've adopted Less, and if we all get on, then I'm hoping Less will stick around permanently after that.

It's not like Graeme and I have ever chased more of anything. We've always been drawn to keeping things simple, but like I say, sometimes you get carried away with the tide.

So far, Less and I, we're getting on famously. It's calming me. 

Less rushing around trying to fill our days. Fewer social outings. Less travelling. (We had to cancel a trip into Sydney in January to see Hairy Maclary at the Opera House, and as it turned out I was glad we didn't go in the end. You can really end up doing too much. Scheduling this and that in your diary and planning playdates, appointments and activities somehow makes it feel more worthwhile. More satisfying. Why is it empty diaries make you feel less important, less worthy? Think about it. Why is it so cool to be 'busy'?)

Some people don't mind dashing here, there and everywhere. Visiting places, taking in the sights, car journeys, dragging the kids to more 'experiences'. I've done it, and it doesn't suit me, or my family. So we're doing Less. I take the boys to a great music class in the week, because they love it, and they go swimming at the weekend. That's it. I'm not getting talked into anything else.

Toys. One of the worst traps. Like any mum out there, you want your child to have the best start in life. And you get sucked into 'the more toys the better'. But I've discovered, through Luca mainly, that simplicity and fewer toys are much more fun. The last two Christmases have taught me that too many presents is overwhelming, for my children at least, and it teaches them nothing. We were just as guilty. From now on, we'll be focusing on one special Christmas present and some books. And similarly for birthdays. How much nicer is it to get one very special present from each person? Special doesn't mean expensive. Just thoughtful and good quality. For Luca's birthday at the end of the month, we've specified no presents on the invitations. That way, all the focus is on having fun with his friends, playing games, creating memories. Not receiving stuff. Stuff that he probably won't play with.

As for toys at home, I now put away over half the boys' toys in a cupboard, and rotate every so often. I was amazed at the results the first time I did this. It created more space and more calm in their rooms. Less stuff to clutter their heads. They found more things to play with, and when I swapped things around, it was like Christmas again! Renewed interest in an old toy. 

There's still far too much in their rooms, though. And it's one job I must tackle. 

It's only February but I do feel like I've made quite a bit of progress with Less already. 

We go out less and we spend more time indoors (when Kian allows us!). Pottering. At home. Must be my favourite three words.

And when we meet friends at the beach, or go to their house to play, it's special, because we haven't worn ourselves out doing stuff beforehand. 

That's what Less does. Less makes everything more special.

I know it's all sounding a bit deep for a Friday evening, but let me tell you, I feel so much better now that's off my chest. 

I'm off to pour myself a glass of wine. Still not sure about Less when it comes to good food and wine, though...

A wee bit of craft on Valentine's

Graeme and I don't really do anything for Valentine's, but when I saw this tutorial from Mini Eco, I couldn't resist. Especially as I now have my very own cutting mat and craft knife!

It took me exactly 15 minutes, and that's including printing the templates and making the envelope. I just used coloured paper, but card would probably feel nicer.

Isn't it cool?! I hid the envelope amongst some napkins in Graeme's lunch this morning. Though he did think it was a tad strange seeing as I've never included a napkin in his lunch before!

If you haven't already been over to Mini Eco, go have a look. It's one of my favourite sites. (I think most of my Pinterest craft pins are from here!). We've already made Kate's bongo/shaker, and here are my next projects.  

Bird feeder with cute little perch

Very excited about this one for Luca's 4th birthday

Do you make a big deal about Valentine's? Are you tempted to whip up a pixelated pop-up card before someone comes home??

Childhood music

Might seem like a bit of a departure for me to be writing about a pop singer, but Whitney's music was a big part of my childhood.

Mum would always have the radio on, and if it wasn't the radio, it would be one of the cassettes playing sent over from my uncle in England. Elton John, Phil Collins, UB40 and Whitney Houston were always singing in our home.

I only have to hear I Wanna Dance with Somebody or Where Do Broken Hearts Go and I'm ten again. Mum's in the kitchen dressed in a yellow galabeya (kaftan) and the three of us are playing 'house' or 'shops'. A hot breeze is blowing through the thick velvet blue curtains in the lounge.

Happy times playing with my sister and brother. Sitting on the balcony eating yoghurt and fruit with my mum after sunset.

It's amazing how a song can immerse us completely in a moment.

I write this and I'm still not sure why I'm feeling a little sad. Is it because the music is a reminder that life passes by so quickly? That we all grow up so fast?

I felt the same with Michael Jackson in 2009. Billie Jean always takes me back to sitting in the back of the car in Kuwait. I see Hardee's (fast-food chain in the Middle East) and I see the Kuwait Towers.

Or is it because the music's a reminder we were all together then, and we're not now? Maybe that's it.

Anyway, mum flies over in just over two weeks' time, and staying for a whole month. So, no reason to feel sad. Just very excited. And then we can bop together to How Will I Know.

I know Luca will join in.


Was Whitney singing when you were a child? What other music takes you back?