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From pink to P!nk – the sprint to tween-dom

June 9, 2011 · Filed under Craft for non-crafty parents, News · Tagged craft, parenting

Your days are numbered cute dolly.

Miss Fruitarian announced at dinner the other night that she knows the feeling of touching tongues. And she likes it.

And recently she came home from the schoolyard ripe with the knowledge of what ‘sexy’ meant. So now she knows that all the songs on the radio are about KISSING ON THE MOUTH.

It’s all reported back to me with a smack of attitude and a glimmer in the eye that makes me realise that we are heading full force into the tween years, whether I like it or not.

Considering she didn’t sleep through until 3, it seems like a ripped-off, short amount of time between insanity and the loss of innocence. Sure, boundaries are blurred at the moment – she’s still dressed head to toe in pink, but getting all Katy Perry on my ass. The fairy party hostesses are slowly being phased out (last party was hosted by Hannah Montana’s ‘cousin’) and the whole vernacular is so much more hip now that she’s a big year 1 girl (as is the nonchalant dismissal of her mum, but I guess that’s a whole other post).

So it was with some relief that she requested a bit of girlie craft time. She still enjoys the birdie cutout, but is WAY too old now for the fruit garden colouring. I dug out a fairy mobile activity sheet that I started last year and she’s happy.

Good that I thought to finish it now – another 6 months and it would have been too late.

One last pink, fairy thing to make.

Comments (5) »

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, YES

June 5, 2011 · Filed under All recipes, Chicken, News · Tagged chicken, dinner, feeding the family, parenting, pasta, recipe, vegetables

It’s officially winter, so a ‘winter warmer’ must be in order. And since in winter I am generally grouchy and irritable, I need a dish that can please me on many levels. Perhaps you are the same, so I offer you this chicken & tarragon one-pot recipe to try.

Here are some of the reasons it makes me happy…
Chicken and pasta (kids favourites, so will be eaten without any objection at all), one pot (mummy’s favourite), vegie smuggled zucchini, carrot, onion and peas (for an uber-mummy moment), suits everyone (you can even blend it up for baby food), freezes well (for up to 2 months).

It contains wine too. I tell you not as a warning (since it cooks away for 20 minutes before serving, so you’re unlikely to intoxicate your kiddies), but to give you permission to open a bottle on a mid-week night when you wouldn’t normally feel it justified.

chicken and tarragon one pot winter warmer by vegie smuggers

Chicken, tick; pasta, tick; vegies, tick; one pot, tick.

Chicken & tarragon one-pot

1 tbsp olive oil
500g chicken thigh fillets, trimmed, cut into 2-3 even pieces
1 red onion, chopped
1 large carrot, peeled, chopped
1 large zucchini, chopped (peeled first, if your kids hate green)
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 cups chicken stock
1 cup white wine
2x10cm peelings of orange zest (use a vegetable peeler to do this)
1 tbsp chopped tarragon
1 cup rissoni
¾ cup frozen peas

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the chicken and brown for 2–3 minutes on each side to get golden patches. Remove and set aside.

Reheat the pan over medium heat and cook the onion and carrot for 2 minutes then add the zucchini. Cook for another couple of minutes until the vegies are softening then add the garlic for another minute.

Add the stock, wine, orange zest and tarragon. Season with black pepper. Bring to the boil, return the chicken to the pan, reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the pasta and peas and cook until the pasta is tender and the chicken is cooked through (about 8 minutes).

Remove and discard the orange zest before serving. Cut the chicken into pieces to suit your kids.

SERVES 2 ADULTS & 2 KIDS.

Comments (13) »

Balayage and the freezer – (why neglect is a good thing)

May 31, 2011 · Filed under All recipes, News · Tagged feeding the family, freezer, recipe, vegetables

Did you know that there is a new hair trend at the moment called ‘balayage’? No, neither did I. But I found out about it at my most recent hair appointment. I like to pry ‘cool’ information out of my lovely hairdresser who is a whole 15 years younger than me. Being typically mum-busy, I rely on her to keep me up-to-date. You see, now that I AM a mum, I don’t really like LOOKING like a mum. Although the fact that I’m usually found in the school yard wearing a puffer vest is a bit of a giveaway (well it IS cold, and they ARE warm).

Anyhow, balayage, is a fancy French term for mega-long regrowth. WOW. And my hairdresser wanted me to PAY for that?

Armed with my new knowledge of ‘what’s cool’, I’ve managed to produce my very own balayage by avoiding the salon for 3 months and utilising that mummy beauty secret – NEGLECT. If only it worked as well on leg-hairs and fingernails.

So with neglect on my mind, let’s eat from the freezer this week – I’m far too busy growing my regrowth to possibly cook.

Freeze these lentil patties individually, wrapped in cling wrap.

I freeze this, pasta and all, in kid-sized serves

Rissoles with yummy stuff smuggled inside!

These lamb patties will freeze well for 2-3 months

Comments (10) »

Why dads are more fun than mums

May 25, 2011 · Filed under Craft for non-crafty parents, News · Tagged craft, parenting

Last weekend I took Mr Meat & Potatoes to an AWESOME birthday party and left Miss Fruitarian and her dad, car-less and idle.

I got home several hours later and found the two of them happy as larks, outside, being VERY busy.

Not often would I risk writing ‘dad’, ‘little girl’ and ‘macro lens’ in one sentence (to avoid google placing weird ads at the bottom of my post), but I have no choice here, since that is what took place, for two hours.

Silly? Yes. Fun? Definitely.

Apparently the plan was to create some photos for Miss F to convert into a book of her own. Which is a great idea, and one that I can help out on by doing a quick layout, ready to fill in.

And perhaps you’d all like a go too, so I’ve got a PDF to download. You can scale it up or down, print it out, cut out and rearrange the pages to match a story of your own making. Enjoy.

I'm lost for words on how to caption this ...

or this.

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The black(listed) wiggle

May 18, 2011 · Filed under News

The offending CD. Apparently unbreakable.

As I parked the car after school drop off yesterday, I realised that I was happily and heartily singing away to the Hooley Dooleys. Which is fine. It’s nice to have a sing-along with the kids, except of course, THE KIDS WERE NOT IN THE CAR. I had dropped them off. I had listened to 15 minutes of unnecessary Hooley Dooleys.

The fact that they were on at all proves that I was being a VERY generous mummy. We never listen to the kid’s crappy songs if I can help it. As a toddler, Miss Fruitarian was a total stereo Nazi and would scream ‘hooley dooley’ over and over at increasing decibels until I gave in and put the damn thing on. Thus (4 years later) the old, scratched CD is STILL in the car and we listen to it from time to time as a special treat.

The same CD on repeat is a particular kind of torture, which I’m sure you’re all familiar with. It usually coincides with night terrors and toilet training and I’m getting all tense just typing about it.

Finally after 18 months of ‘bot bot bot bot bot bot bottom booggggiiieeeeee’ I cracked it. And spent much itunes time downloading and making my own compilation CDs that were a reasonable compromise of catchy tunes that wouldn’t do my head in.

Now the kids are pretty good, and will listen to nearly anything. So it was worth perservering in those early days, forcing them to expand their listening tastes – in much the same way I force them to tackle new vegies. Take what they like, and push them just a little further each time, out of their comfort zone.

Here’s my list of songs that saved my sanity….

Bohemian like you, The Dandy Warhols (video not for the kids)…
Praise you, Fatboy slim…
Anything by the Beach boys…
Or Sympathy for the devil, Rolling Stones (good sing-along)…
Hard to beat Peter, Bjorn & John’s Young Folks, which has a great kid-friendly fun video.
Song 2, Blur. For a rockin’ out Mr Meat & Potatoes. Who also doesn’t mind a bit of
Seven nation army, by the White Stripes, which is also a pretty mesmorising video.
We even venture into Violent Femme’s territory with Kiss Off (good educational counting bit!) and Gone Daddy Gone.
Most of the Mamas & the Papas repertoire is good for the kiddlies…
And other retro favourite include Elvis and
Kenny Roger’s Gambler (this video link is to a truly odd Muppet Show version)
Miss Fruitarian likes a bit of chick rock, so we love The fear, Lily Allen and
So what, Pink and pretty much anything by Madonna.
Our favourite is Hung Up.

Basically anything catchy, that’s just one level above kid’s tunes that you can tolerate. Even the youngest toddlers will get into these songs after a couple of (forced) listens.

Comments (7) »

How much is a mother worth?

May 12, 2011 · Filed under Craft for non-crafty parents, News

Did you pay much attention to the budget the other night? The government is focusing on WORK. They’re going hard to get all of us layabouts – mothers, the disabled and long term unemployed, back into doing something PRODUCTIVE.

It’s interesting isn’t it? I’ve spent most of this week recovering from the school mega-fete last weekend. I’ve been quite involved this year, and we raised heaps of money for the school that the Education Revolution can’t provide. Post fete, the note has come home requesting volunteers for weekly maths classes. That’s to supplement the teaching staff that the government can’t fund.

So who will do all of these community jobs, once all of the mothers are back being ‘productive?’ Because, unfortunately, in our society everything comes back to a fiscal value, so if we’re not paying tax, we’re not valid.

Here’s a couple of fiscal sums for the government to ponder about what a mother is actually worth…

Weekly laundry (6 bag washes + 5 shirt wash/ironed) = $75
Weekly cleaning = $60
Nanny (29 hours @ $22/hour) = $638
Tutor (3 hours @$35/hour) = $105

So there’s a total of $878, that doesn’t include administrator, nurse, nutritionist, driver, counsellor or chef.

So if I go back to full time work, I’ll have to earn about $1400/week ($72,000k a year), so that I can earn enough to outsource my life. But the government will be happy, they’ll be getting their cut of $500/week.

And they can continue to pour that money into the mental health services for disenfranchised and depressed teenagers, who perhaps would have an easier time of life if they had someone to come home to and talk with in the afternoons.

Now THERE’S a job that is apparently worth nothing.

What will it be??? You'll have to download to see!

So while we are at home, frivolously mothering our children, let’s spend some time on something seriously silly – some pixel colouring-in. Fun for both boys and girls, a cute introduction to numbers and colours. I’m not telling what the final picture is, you can discover that for yourselves, while you’re just laying about.

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Mother’s day… and then the rest of the year…

May 10, 2011 · Filed under All recipes, News

Yummy for mummy's tummy

How did your mother’s day go? Mine was a pretty good one. A card from Mr Meat & Potatoes with a picture of a scribble ice-skating (thankfully captioned by lovely daycare carer) and inside he’d dictated “you’re special because sometimes you take me to the Easter Show”. Miss Fruitarian was more verbose in her well decorated effort, “I love you since you take me ice-skating (common theme) and buy me things”.

Yet again, no mention of the delicious meals I serve up to them night after night. Or the myriad other events that keep their lives running smoothly each and every day for the whole rest of the year.

Luckily my best-friend is much more aware of the effort I pull and spent much of the day on Sunday cooking treats and serving me warm beverages in a variety of my best china. Then he disappeared off to work for a bit and the kids nipped off to the neighbour’s place and I was left blissfully alone for TWO HOURS. Now THAT’S a good mother’s day present!

Finally the guilts got to me and went to retrieve them. I was greeted with my daughter’s back as she raced off and a “not coming home” tantrum from Mr M&P who went on to wet his pants. And I’d just been thinking how nice it was to be having my first nappy-free mother’s day.

The rest of the day passed with the regular conflicts, them bossing me around, me bossing them around and finished off with lots of cuddles. A bit of a snapshot of my life of mothering at the present time. Love, crankiness and the odd pair of wet undies.

Funnily enough, I tend to get a bit more undying love and hoots of ‘you’re the best mum in the whole wide world’ on other days – actually whenever I cook them something like these Apricot & Yoghurt Biscuits…

Yummy for everyone's tummy

Apricot & yoghurt biscuits

1¼ cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
¾ cup rolled oats
¹/³ cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup dried apricots, sliced
2 tbsp hazelnut or
almond meal
²/³ cup vanilla yoghurt
¼ cup canola oil
Demerara sugar, for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 170C. Line two oven trays with baking paper.

Sift the flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a large mixing bowl. Add the oats, sugar, apricots and hazelnut meal and mix well.

In a small bowl, whisk together the yoghurt and the oil.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well. Add a little more yoghurt if the mixture isn’t quite wet enough to absorb all the flour.

Using wet hands, roll 22 balls (ping-pong-ball-sized) and space evenly on the trays (these biscuits don’t spread much). Press with a fork and sprinkle with a little extra sugar (demerara is nice). Bake for 20 minutes until golden.

MAKES 22

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Holiday hell-fryer (the curse of the dismal ‘kids menu’)

April 28, 2011 · Filed under All recipes, Food experiences, News · Tagged Fast food, feeding the family, parenting, recipe, vegetables

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm......

Here’s my post-holiday question to you all – why is it that kid’s restaurant menus are so universally crap?

The picture above beautifully illustrates the joys of it all. Doesn’t it look delicious! See how the fish & chips, calamari & chips and nuggets & chips are all so seductively similar. Just the shapes vary – the nuggets were even cleverly shaped like dinosaurs!

It may be the cheapest and most cheerful option for restaurants, but don’t you reckon that we should be trying just a little bit harder to feed the kids something that’s not golden? Don’t get me wrong, my kids can scoff a nugget as heartily as any child, but if you’re road-tripping about for several days then even the tin lids quickly reach their fried food limit.

I know I can get a side plate and give them a makeshift meal from the adult plates, but what I’d really love is the option of a small portion of something healthy that isn’t full of chemicals and soaked in fat.

I think food outlets Australia-wide should take note of these mince kebabs – they are cheap, inoffensive (no outlandish vegies on show), can be kept long term in the freezer, can be eaten without utensils and still offer kids some nutrition. I’m sure I’m not the only parent out there who thinks it’s not unreasonable for a kid’s menu to provide an option that requires the chef to do something more than tip the contents of a freezer into a deep fryer.

How about something like this?

Mince kebabs

If your kids are likely to use the sticks as weapons, just shape into rissoles or meatballs instead. Vary cooking times to suit.

1/3 cup cous cous
1/3 cup boiling water
1 brown onion, diced
1 bunch English spinach, chopped finely
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 kg beef mince
Salt & pepper
2 eggs, lightly whisked

2 tbsp olive oil, for frying

Preheat oven to 180º. Soak 12 bamboo skewers in cold water for 15 minutes. Line an oven tray with baking paper.

In a bowl or jug, combine the cous cous and water, stir and cover with plastic wrap. Leave for 5 minutes then fluff with a fork.

Combine the rest of the meatball ingredients in a large bowl. Use your hands to combine the mixture, then roll golf-ball sized portions into sausages and slide them firmly onto a skewer. Heat oil in a large frying pan over medium heat and fry in the kebabs on all sides (4-5 minutes total), then transfer to a baking tray and bake for 10-15 minutes until cooked through.

Makes enough for 2 adults and 4 kids. Serve with the tomato relish pictured. Find the recipe in the Vegie Smugglers cookbook.

Comments (9) »

Cakes, jams, woodchopping, cats and carnies

April 19, 2011 · Filed under News · Tagged family, kids, parenting

After years spent working on Australian magazines, I know that Rule One is to avoid offending non-Sydney-based readers by referencing Sydney.

Everyone outside of Sydney, hates Sydney. And with good reason, Sydney-siders are greedy, selfish, real-estate obsessed snobs. It is a city of wankers, a superficial place with little other than the harbour to recommend it. Although I must say that often you’ll find the driver who just cut you off and flicked the bird could easily morph into the delightful person who chats away with you in the Post Office queue. I suppose when forced together like this, perfectly lovely people survive with hackles up and their rude faces on.

Unfortunately I was born here and all of my family are here – which inhibits my natural desire to flee the congested, aggressive, unaffordable streets for some lovely smaller town where I might be able to raise my children with a yard devoid of overhanging balconies and police visiting to check how the neighbourhood dealer is faring.

So whilst I seem stuck here with a massive mortgage and medium density housing, I do like to try and soften the blow by enjoying the benefits of my home town when they occur. And really, they come no better than the Sydney Easter Show, which is bigger than Ben Hur and where the Vegie Smuggling family found ourselves on the weekend.

For those of you interstaters who’ve never been, stick with me, I’ll give you a guided tour…

Start slowly with a ferris wheel ride to see the scene and plan your route.

First stop- of course- the crochet (think I might enter next year...)

...a few doilies...

...and knitted clowns and carnies...

...prizewinning preserves (check out he passionfruit curd...

...lamingtons (plus sponges and insipid marble cakes)...

...our favourite stop - the regional districts fruit displays

...then pacify the kids with a few rides...

...oohhh and aaah over the cake display...

...including truly astonishing and gorgeous wedding cakes...

...and a novelty cake version of 'The last supper'...

...and one of suckling pigs...

...eat hot chips and fairy floss for lunch...

...then watch fast motorbikes doing cool boy stuff...

...and a bloke in a hat with a guitar in a ute singing about rodeos...

...and cats being judged on appearance (how Sydney).

Be freaked out by one of those scary, fluffy chickens...

...and the under 21s woodchop final (blades + feet = nervewracking).

A few more rides (we did more exciting one too)...

And a quick $80 on showbags that will be eaten or broken by tomorrow.

And there you have it. $300 spent wisely to get jostled by crowds, sore feet, a tummy upset and a few broken bits of plastic… aaaahhhh Sydney, how I love you.

We’ll be back next year.

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Crowd pleasers – feeding 4, 14 or 40

April 15, 2011 · Filed under All recipes, Food experiences, News · Tagged brunch, feeding the family, mealtime, parenting, recipe, vegetables, vegetarian

School holidays and my home is abuzz with a variety of children coming and going. After 18 months at school, we are now firmly entrenched in the local community and I’m having kids (with siblings) dropped off for a few hours, then all picked up and taken elsewhere – without tears or clinginess, just excitement and adventure.

It’s a nice contrast to those early baby days, where I was home, alone for 12 hours at a time, barely even knowing neighbours, with a whole long depressing day stretching out ahead of me. Now it’s all action and I love it. A little magic mirror to this time would have made those endless first days of motherhood much easier.

These days my biggest parenting stress is figuring out how many kids I’m going to be feeding each night, which is why I’m sticking to a range of flexible recipes that easily stretch out to serve everyone.

Sneak vegies into heaps of kiddies with ease!

Corn & chickpea fritters

If your kids are chickpea-phobic, blitz them up in a hand-held food processor before adding to the mix.

²/³ cup self-raising flour
1 egg
²/³ cup milk
315g can corn kernels, drained
1 medium carrot, peeled, grated
400g can chickpeas, rinsed, and drained
4 spring onions, finely chopped
Handful of basil and parsley leaves, finely chopped (optional, but recommended)
Black pepper
Canola oil, for frying
Salad and lemon wedges, to serve

Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl. Slowly add the combined egg and milk, whisking as you go to avoid lumps.

Add the rest of the ingredients to the batter and mix until evenly combined.

Heat a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Add the canola oil and ensure it is nice and hot before adding ¼ cup amounts of batter to the pan.

Cook for 3 minutes then flip over and cook on the other side for a further 3-4 minutes until nice and golden. Repeat with remaining batter. Drain on kitchen paper.

Serve warm with salad and lemon wedges.

MAKES 10

By the way, do you MAMABAKE?
If you love to make big batches of food for the freezer, don’t forget to track down your local Mamabake group, where you can team up with local parents and have lovely big social cook-offs. Feed everyone AND join in with your local community. Perfect!

You also might like to try these flexible recipes…