Vodka and lemon.

Life's really busy this week but in between school performances, special assemblies and my 1 year old continually emptying my kitchen cupboards I managed to make this really interesting risotto. My husband loved it and has been pestering me to post it so he can share the recipe with his friends.

I must say I've come a long way with making risotto. I was quite scared of it when I first started to make it. I would just buy a pre-mixed simmer sauce but there really is no need for that. It's so simple as long as you have good, fresh ingredients.
I often don't have time to make my own stock but I'm hoping to make a large batch to freeze very soon. I use stock at least 5 times a week now so I'm sure we would all benefit from home-made. Just on the subject of stock, as we've recently become vegetarian many gravies and sauces are no longer edible for us so I tried making a gravy this week, basically like a bechamel sauce but with stock and it was awsome. Now the good old Chips 'n' gravy can be back on our sometimes menue.
Here's what I used- 1 Tablespoon butter, 1 Tablespoon flour, 1 cup vegetable stock. Just melt butter, add flour, cook for one minute then slowly add stock while stirring until thick. So simple but wonderful.

So here's the risotto-
( I didn't take a photo so you'll have to use your imagination)

LEMON, THYME AND VODKA RISOTTO
125g butter
6 shallots or spring onions, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
150ml dry white wine
grated zest of 1 large lemon and juice of 1 lemon
500g aborio rice
1.5Liters hot vegetable stock (you can use chicken if you're not veggo)
2 Tablespoons vodka
1 tablespoon thyme, chopped
75g grated parmesan cheese
salt and pepper

I also added 1 cup baby spinach and 1 can chickpeas, rinsed. You don't have to add these but I like to use any opportunity to get extra nutrition.

Melt half the butter in a large heavy based saucepan, add garlic and spring onions, saute for 5 mins.Add wine and half lemon zest, bring to boil, stirring and cook until almost all liquid has evapourated.
Add rice and stir well to coat grains with butter. Add hot stock, one ladel at a time stirring until each addition is absorbed. This can take a while, about 20minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in spinach and chick peas. Stand for 2 mins. Stir in remaining butter, lemon zest, lemon juice, parmesan, vodka and thyme.
Cover and stand for another few minutes.
I generally add a little more parmesan to serve but you don't have to.
Believe it or not my husband doesn't like parmesan.

Must run now. Enjoy!

Happy birthday to me.

Does anyone remember that really bad eighties movie called "Happy birthday to me"? Totally unrelated to my day but I always think of it when I use that phrase. I should do a search for it and see what I find.

Anyway, it was my birthday on the 23rd August and it's taken me several weeks ti find the time to write about it. The day was ok. Not what I had hoped but it often never is. I guess I should just learn not to have high hopes.
The things I really wanted for my birthday this year were not material things but more experiences and time. I asked for time to spend quietly making dolls which I did get but only half the amount I had hoped for. I guess I should be grateful.
I asked for a clean car and yes it was a rainy day but it still hasn't been done. It might happen by Christmas.
Of course, I asked for a day where my children didn't fight and my daughter didn't have a tantrum but as I'm sure lots of you can understand, how this was like asking for the impossible.
My son wanted to make pancakes for breakfast as a present for me and had planned it several weeks ahead. I found him a recipe for ricotta pancakes which is what I wanted and made sure that we had all the ingredients the day before.
He didn't end up making them as they weren't what he wanted. He wanted plain pancakes so he thought he would make both types but hadn't really planned things and didn't have enough time to do both so he did the ones he liked. His dad had a chat with him about this.
The plain pancakes were good but due to the incredibly high GI I can only ever eat one or two. I don't have diebetes now but have had gestational diebetes with my last two pregnancies so it's something I have to watch. It's made the whole family much more aware of food and what it does though so it's been a good thing.
The best thing about this day though was that my husband gave me one of the best presents that he has ever given me. It was from this place www.flowersbyfruit.com . It was a huge bunch of chocolate dipped strawberries sitting in a cute little ceramic vase. Some were dipped in white chocolate, some milk or dark. The arrangement was fantastic and the taste was divine. There were a lot of strawberries and we had trouble getting through them all but it allowed me to end my day with a candle lit bath and a glass of wine which I guess makes up for the rest of the day.
I did have a fabulous birthday cake from www.officecakes.com.au . It was called the "vanilla mud". Very simple but soooooo good. Basically just a soft chocolate mud cake covered with white chocolate ganache.
I'm usually the one to make all the cakes so it was nice to not have to do it this time. I am going to make one like this for father's day. I hope it's just as good.

kids in the kitchen

I've always been quite keen to let my children "help" in the kitchen (we all know they actually make things take longer) but when I was having trouble getting my then 4 year old daughter to eat I wondered if letting her decide what to cook and teaching her to make it would help.
It did help quite a bit and showed me how much all of the children enjoyed cooking

I was also finding that with our busy lives it was difficult to come up with new things to eat each night so I decided to let each member take a turn in chosing a new dinner and dessert to try once a week. It ends up being once every two weeks or so as something always pops up and we don't have the time to prepare it but eventually it gets done.

So, whoever choses the meal also has to make it, with help of course. The kids love it. Not only do we all have to eat what they want but they feel really proud of their work and each time they cook I can see an obvious difference in their skills.
I am proud to say that my 8 year old son cooks scrambled eggs confidently, toast, pancakes and 2 minute noodles. I know grown men who can't even boil an egg so I think he's doing very well.
It was his turn to chose last weekend and we had Creamy tomato pasta with salad and garlic bread, followed by jam drop cookies and hot chocolates.
I was great. The recipe was quite simple so he didn't need much help at all and we were able to do a little work on presentation and setting the table.
We try to make everything from scratch when doing these recipes but we didn't have time to make fresh pasta so we'll focus on that next time.
Her's the pasta sauce recipe-

PASTA WITH TOMATO AND CREAM SAUCE
2 Tblsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
400g can diced tomatoes
150ml thickened cream
2 Tblsp chopped herbs, we used oregano and a little basil.
450g pasta
salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil in saucepan,add garlic, cook for 2 mins.
Stir in tomatoes, bring to boil and simmer uncovered for 20mins, stirring occasionally. The sauce is ready when the oil separates a little on top.
Add cream simmer until slighlt thickened, then add herbs.
Meanwhile, cook pasta then add to sauce and toss together.
Serve piping hot.

As you can see it's really simple but delicious. If the recipe is not too complicated the kids don't feel too overwhelmed. I really recommend giving it a try, letting the kids cook that is.

CHAPTER TWO
So it's a few weeks later now and last weekend we did my 5 year old daughter's recipe. It was challenging to say the least. Not the recipes but cooking with a fiesty 5 year old who wants to control everyone and thinks she already knows everything. After a bit of regretable yelling, a few hugs and some discussion on who is the parent and who is the child we finally had a meal on the table.

So, she chose basically a ricotta pastry filled with ricotta, basil and pine nuts. It was good but I actually found the basil a bit strong and would like to have added a few more vegies but it was her meal. It was served with steamed vegetable and again would have been better with salad but that's not what she chose.
Desert was a chocolate bread and butter pudding. This was quite difficult for me for two reasons. I've developed quite a fear of white bread, it feels and tastes like junk food to me. It also makes my children go crazy. The more seads and the darker the bread the better as far as I'm concerned.
I also have quite a fear of soggy bread. It makes me feel like thowing up. I was willing to be brave and take the challenge though, for my daughter.

So, we sat down to eat the pudding with ice-cream and to my suprise it wasn't that bad, quite like a cake. I had a few mouthfuls but my brain just kept saying "SOGGY BREAD, SOGGY BREAD".

Thankfully the kids didn't really like it either so no-one was offended when I couldn't eat any more.

I think I'll assist her more when it's her turn to chose next time so she really knows what's involved. It is helping her to learn what she likes though. Here's a picture as she wanted to make sure her work was recorded as well. I haven't included the recipes as I didn't think they were worthit.

my first post

I've never written a blog before, I've actually only ever read one or two. I wanted a way of sharing my experiences and discoveries while taking care of my husband and three children, oh, and me.
I'm very interested in food at the moment as we've recently made the decision to become a vegetarian family.
My 8 year old son is having trouble letting go of my home made chicken sausage rolls and chicken nuggets so for the time being I'll still make those for him but only with organic meat.
It's exciting finding new ways to prepare food and new flavours to add.

Being a working mother of three I don't have much time to post but plan to do so as often as possible.
Tonight's dinner menue consists of Roast pumpkin and spinach quiche. This is the recipe from my friend Amanda that converted my husband who hates eggs into a quiche lover. Here's the recipe.

about 600g pumpkin, peeled and cut into small wedges
2 cups blanched baby spinach
4 large eggs
1 cup grated cheddar cheese ( you can use another cheese to make it a bit more interesting. I just use
whatever I have in the fridge)
1 cup cream
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp salt
1 tsp wholegrain mustard
olive oil
1 Tblsp grated parmesan cheese
fresh thyme leaves ( the fresh thyme at my local supermarket was rather like dried thyme so I didn't bother spending the extra money. Dried worked just fine)
Method
preheat oven to 180c
stir pumpkin, salt, olive oil and garlic together then bake.
If using pastry prebake it in quiche dish then layer pumpkin and spinach evenly in dish. I've used home-made pastry in this image and just placed it quite roughly in the dish. I think the unevenness gives the quiche a more organic appearance.
Mix up chedder, cream, mustard, thyme, eggs, then pour over veggies and sprinkle top with parmesan.
Bake for about 40 mins.


Good luck and enjoy.