Vegie Smugglers

Pink things and magical cures for man-flu

August 16, 2012 · Filed under All recipes · Tagged family, feeding the family, recipe, vegetables

Within millimetres of the winter finish line, sickness has reared its ugly head again at VSHQ.

Mr M&P and I are defiantly chipper, but Miss F has succumbed (I tell her it’s the result of refusing to wear shoes or a jumper on all those cold days) and the workaholic Mr VS has spent the last two days in bed with a fever.

In typical Aries style, he doesn’t just sweat and feel bad like normal folk but likes to combine fevers with hallucinations. Yesterday he swore that I was releasing hundreds of doves in the house to save him. Which is funny since I wasn’t even there, I was off freelancing all day. But bless, good to know I’m in his thoughts even in his darkest moments.

Discussing my situation at school this morning, a kindy mum and I talked through the merits of various medications before deciding that the best course of treatment would be for her to lend me a pink wig to wear on his next waking. I could bustle about like normal and just make the world that bit more confusing for him.

Not that I’m not supportive when my menfolk are feeling poorly, but you know, they do go on. Trying to get in on the action, Mr M&P decided to have a crack at getting the day off school too. His story was that he had a really sore hand, which would make writing his ‘recount’ too difficult. He didn’t get far with that one.

In tribute to a grown women owning a pink wig, lets take a moment to revisit my favourite pink recipes which should appeal to girls of all ages.

Pink meatloaf for fairy-loving pre-vegetarians.

Brighten up a dull lunchbox with this pink hit

Beetroot tzatziki with canned beetroot.

Off to tend my patients…

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Finding winter time joy (in sugar)

August 11, 2012 · Filed under All recipes, Food experiences, News, Sweets & treats · Tagged brunch, fruit, lunchbox, recipe

A couple of weeks ago I slipped on my wooden stairs and slammed down on my arse. It was a graceful, elegant move designed to demonstrate to the children exactly why we don’t run on the stairs in our socks. After a couple of visits to a lovely (medically trained) young man with strong hands I’m now feeling alot better and am knowledgeable about C8, T3 and S4. After giving myself a fair whack, I have several ongoing symptoms, one of which is chronic GRUMPINESS, no doubt helped along by continued cold weather and the fact we’ve not had a decent holiday since this trip, which I sadly see is nearly two years ago.

How are you other Southern Hemisphere folks all travelling? Over it? What measures do you put in place to survive winter? I like to think that I combine a noble combination of exercise, interesting projects and a Zen attitude about the ebb and flow of nature to get me through, but actually I just tend to eat more sugar, wear ridiculous amounts of clothing and whinge. A lot. I whinge about the cold. About how unfit I am. About how much my children whinge. About the consistent stream of people telling me I need to read Sarah Wilson’s “I quit sugar” in order to pick myself up a little. Don’t they understand that sugar is my winter lifeline?

In defiance, here’s a cakey-bread loaf that I highly recommend for a little shot of food pleasure. As with most of my sweet stuff, there’s a silver lining of nutrition to ease your conscience and make that second piece seem more acceptable. It’s delicious straight from the oven, or do the classic banana bread thing, of toasting slices and spreading your sugar with lard.

See! Smiling already.

Ricotta, nut & currant bread

250g tub ricotta cheese
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1¼ cups self-raising flour
½ tsp baking powder
Rind of 1 orange
1¼ cups nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts & almonds are good), roughly chopped
¾ cup currants

Preheat the oven to 180c. Grease and line a 14x20cm loaf tin.

In a large bowl, mix together the cheese and sugar.

Sift over the flour and baking powder. Pop the zest, nuts and currants on top and fold it all in together.

Bake in the oven for an hour or an hour and 10, until the top bounces slightly and a skewer comes out clean. While warm brush the top with warmed honey.

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Dinner for you two, dinner for me too

August 6, 2012 · Filed under All recipes, Food experiences, Vegetarian, Vegie smuggling techniques · Tagged feeding the family, parenting, pasta, recipe, vegetables

One dinner, two ways.

Pretty much any parent I chat to starts the food conversation with “my kids are pretty good eaters”. I nod in admiration of their parenting prowess. But I wait (not smugly, I promise). Invariably a BUT is inserted next.

“But devil child won’t eat meat and Lucinda only eats greens if you let her hold a pink jelly bean and I sing ‘rock-a-bye-your-bear’. But apart from that, they eat everything”.

Battle weary parents tend to confuse ‘good’ with ‘normal’. Jumping through hoops every mealtime becomes just what you do and you forget that actually you might be able to tweak things and get away with doing much less. Like cooking one meal a night. Which would leave you more wine time and lower stress levels.

Which is something I aim for with my recipes. I’m too lazy (actually no, just too busy) to cook multiple meals, so I like to cook one basic dinner for everyone. Being a realist though, I understand that the same presentation won’t suit all members of the family, which is why in my books I often have tips for ways to convert a pretty basic dinner into something more gourmet for the adults.

This tomato & lentil pasta sauce recipe is the perfect example.

Mr VS & I like it with olives, tonnes of herbs, pepper and parmesan. It’s a healthy and yummy grown up meal. My kids will skip the accompaniments and have the sauce mixed through their current pasta of preference (spirals at the moment) with grated cheddar cheese on top.

If you have toddlers, take the time to spoon mouthfuls into large pasta shells and scatter cheese on top. Just serve them a few and watch greedy little hands shoving the mouthfuls straight in. No spoon middle-man to overcomplicate matters. Even if your fussy eater only eats a few, you’ve probably got some scraps of veg and a couple of lentils in, which should tide them over until next week.

I know it’s only Tuesday, but cheers. Here’s to you for being awesome.

Tomato & lentil pasta sauce

1 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 tsp brown sugar
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp dried Italian herbs
1 large fresh tomato, diced
1 carrot, peeled, grated
1/2 red capsicum, finely diced
800g can diced tomatoes
3 tbsp tomato paste (or 1x2tbsp concentrate sachet)
400g can lentils, rinsed, drained
Pepper

Optional extras: Fresh parsley or basil, olives, parmesan, crumbled feta.

Place a saucepan over medium heat. Add the oil and fry the onion for several minutes until softening. Add the garlic for a minute then scatter over the brown sugar. Keep stirring until well combined before splashing in the vinegar.

Mix in the dried herbs, fresh tomato, carrot and capsicum. Stir through really well before adding the tinned tomatoes, paste and lentils.

Cover, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Season to taste. Serve however suits your family.

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Oh the places you’ll go…

August 2, 2012 · Filed under News · Tagged parenting

Life. Tricky.

I love to watch “oh the places you’ll go” read by the crazy folks at the burning man festival. It’s so refreshing to watch grown ups being silly and having fun. One day I’ll take the kids there – but not yet – we’ve got a few more ‘where did i come from’ and ‘is that a lady or a man’ talks to get through first. When they’re teens, this festival would be a nice pinnacle of weird parenting – a fabulous entree into a world that doesn’t always make sense and isn’t always straightforward.

This week I’m worn down in the ‘blahs’, taking a food break and revisiting some of my parenting moments. Really it’s just my community service announcement about what not to do that will make you all feel like fantastic parents in comparison…

BAD MUMMY One time, when he was still a toddler, I showed Mr Meat&Potatoes porn (accidently of course).

BAD MUMMY Do you yell at your kids? I’ve always been upfront about my inability to control my temper with my kids.

BAD MUMMY Then there was the time I flicked the bird (in front of the kids of course) and suffered remorse.

AAAHHHHH GOOD MUMMY But at the end of the day, love will win out, Hollywood-style and we can all remember that it’s the little moments of perfection that enrich our lives.

Back next week with food.

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Stronger, faster, higher, sillier

July 30, 2012 · Filed under All recipes, Fish, News · Tagged family, mealtime, parenting, recipe, salmon, vegetables

Are you catching much of the Olympics? We’re watching it constantly and I’m not sure if the kids have developed a new-found love of sport or are more excited about unrestricted access to the telly.

I enjoy the whole spectacle of it. I don’t really follow sport much at any other time, but I do like to use the games as a benchmark of where I am in life. I remember during Beijing in 2008, looking at my baby and my preschooler and thinking “WOW, by London, you guys will be BIG”, and here we are already. And big (and backchatting) they are.

Amazing how you can sit and watch nearly any sport or activity in the world if it’s being performed by the world’s best. The skill and dedication is awe-inspiring. But really, I wish the coverage would just leave it at that and not spoil it by interviewing the athletes. Not that they’re not fascinating, but you know… sometimes I don’t think we need overthink it too much. Like asking a swimmer about their race strategy. I’m guessing that they’re going to go as fast as they can for as long as they can, until the race is over and hopefully they’ve gone faster than everybody else. Usually there’s some excruciating chat full of clichés about going ‘harder, faster, performing on the night ‘or acknowledging the other competitors who also had intricate race plans that included going fast, all the way until the race was over.

For the next couple of weeks you might want to plan some make ahead dinners, so that you can drop everything to dash to the TV in time to catch that really crucial handball final, or to see the replay of the white water rafting capsize (which you can knowledgably comment on). Maybe try out this salmon mornay recipe. You can make it up at any stage during the day, refrigerate it then pop it in the oven whenever you’re ready.

Truly – salmon mornay. With a bit of paprika – delicious.

Salmon mornay

1 carrot, peeled, grated or diced finely (whatever suits your family)
1 zucchini, grated
1 ½ cups cauliflower (diced as finely as you need for your kids to not notice it)
125g can corn kernels, drained
415g can red salmon (red is much nicer than pink in this dish)
¾ cup frozen peas
Chopped chives (optional)
Pepper
Juice of half a lemon
40g butter
2 ½ tbsp plain flour
½ tsp sweet paprika
1 cup milk, warmed (I just chuck mine in the microwave on medium/high for a minute or so)
1 ½ cups grated cheddar cheese
½ cup dried breadcrumbs

Preheat the oven to 180C. Dig out 4 oven proof bowls or gratin dishes (one large dish will also work but doesn’t look as pretty).

If your carrot is in chunks, pop it in a bowl, add a splash of water, cover and microwave until 90% tender. Drain and add to a large mixing bowl. Repeat with the cauliflower.

Add in the rest of the vegies and the salmon – breaking up into chunks and squishing the bones (keep them in though, for the calcium hit). Season with pepper, squeeze over the juice and mix well.

Place the butter in a medium non-stick saucepan over medium heat. When starting to bubble add in the flour and paprika and stir well with a wooden spoon. Cook this mix until the smell changes from acrid to biscuity and delicious (1-2 minutes). Gradually drizzle in the warm milk, stirring briskly and constantly. At first the mixture will thicken up then it will smooth out into a sauce that coats the back of a spoon.

Remove from the heat and stir in 3/4 cup of the cheese until melted. Pour this sauce over the vegies and combine really well. Divide out into your oven dishes.

Combine the remaining cheese with the breadcrumbs, sprinkle over the top of each and bake for 20-25 minutes until bubbling and golden.

Serve with salad and crusty bread.

SERVES 2 ADULTS & 2 KIDS

NOTE – allow plenty of cooling time before letting the kids tuck in.

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Can’t help myself… bad habits

July 26, 2012 · Filed under News, Vegetarian · Tagged breakfast, feeding the family, parenting, recipe

My life saved by a stamp, contact and some blu-tack

Inevitably, with modern life being the tricky thing that it is, parts of our lives fall into ruts and nasty little habits emerge. They evolve slowly and sometimes it can take a while before we notice that they’re there.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to have a little ‘perspective’ fairy hovering in the background, ready to tap me on the shoulder and give me a bit of rude truth from time to time. She could let me know how many nights I’ve missed readers this week, point out that there’s a pile of unopened mail under the kitchen table and possibly even let me know if my current love of leggings is unsuitable for a lady of my age.

Tough gig though, being a perspective fairy. No one likes to realise they’ve been doing a bad job of anything. She’d need to be a fast flier to avoid the swats and insect knock down spray.

So it takes a little courage to take a step back from time to time and reassess how life is going – and look for the little (or big) signs that are telling you when it’s time to have a think and take steps to make adjustments and repairs wherever needed in order to obtain better outcomes.

For me recently, I’ve needed a big overhaul of my discipline system to accommodate my growing kids. Old parenting techniques weren’t working and most days I was just being the house shrew. “Gee your throat must be sore after all that yelling” said Mr Meat & Potatoes (AKA the perspective fairy).

So I’ve pulled my socks up and we’ve got a new star chart in place. Elegantly executed by the ever industrious Miss F (who individually contacted 40 star stamped pieces of paper), we’ve got a new system where stars are pretty easy to earn and can be transferred into either 5 minutes of iPad time or 25c. Took a bit of effort to get it going but it has totally turned the dynamics around from me yelling and them ignoring, to them looking for ways to be good.

On the food front I noticed that my own breakfast routine had come unstuck. I used to be a muesli girl, but I’d tired of my favourite brands and started buying other cereals that are on the healthy scale, but are still outrageously sweet.

My second perspective fairy was Rosemary Stanton (she specialises in Rude Truth, doesn’t she?!). I’m reading her “Choice Guide to Food” (which is really practical and great) and she pointed out that even those of us who read the product labels are possibly being duped. Instead of admitting to a cereal being 50% sugar, many manufacturers use two or three sources of sugar, so that each percentage is lower and they can appear further down the ingredient list. She offered such an easy fix that I feel stupid for being lazy and buying the boxed stuff. MAKE YOUR OWN. It’s cheaper. Yummier. Healthier.

This morning I tucked into my homemade muesli and it was so yum, that the extra 10 minutes it took to make the huge batch seemed entirely worthwhile.

Toast some bits (like nuts, oats & coconut) to increase the flavour and it’s delicious.

Toasted muesli

Use whatever grain, seeds, nuts and dried fruits you like.

Rolled oats
Flaked almonds
Pecans, roughly chopped
Shredded coconut
Pumpkin seeds
Oat bran
All bran
Currants

Spread the oats on a tray and bake at 180C – stir once or twice until golden.

Repeat with the almonds, pecans and coconut (stay near – they burn quickly). Toss together in a container with the other ingredients and you’re done.

PS. Did you know that most cereal serving sizes are ½ cup? Might be worth measuring your cereal out into a bowl to see just how much that is – I’ve been having waaaaaay more.

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How to get fussy kids to try new foods

July 21, 2012 · Filed under Food experiences, News, Vegie smuggling techniques · Tagged feeding the family, ideas, mealtime, parenting, recipe

Kendo Kai enjoys ‘go’ foods.

A while back I posted ‘Please help Vegie Smugglers, my child only eats…’ which included the line “not trying is NEVER an option – our deal is TWO big bites”. Ever since I’ve had a string of emails…’but how do you get your kids to TRY new things?’

Like all parenting advice, different tactics work for different kids and this post just covers how I approach it. Who knows, maybe there will be an idea or two that you can apply at your place.

Firstly, work out if you child’s fussing at mealtimes is behavioural or medical. It’s normal for kids (starting about 18 months) to exercise a bit of self-determination and provide you with some pretty frustrating feeding moments. BUT, other kids may have genuine medical problems that you will need to seek professional help to overcome.

Most kids on the autism spectrum are fussy feeders. They need special consideration. If your diagnosis is recent or you’ve just been so overwhelmed dealing with everything else and have only just started to tackle food issues, then visit here for some excellent information that may help you.

If you child gags or vomits at mealtimes, they might have motor skills delays or a hypersensitive gag reflex. There’s information about that here.

Other kids may have digestion problems that cause discomfort and indigestion – pretty hard for a 2 year old to convey. Again, you’ll need medical advice to help you with these issues.

But if none of these apply to you and your child is still being a dinnertime MONSTER, you might want to follow some of these strategies…

1. Relax

Smile. Don’t get worked up. Keep everything positive. Freaking out about this entire subject only increases mealtime tension and won’t get you anywhere. Try to focus on feeding the entire family well, rather than fixating on what one child is/isn’t eating. Don’t let a frustrating toddler hold you to ransom. But at the same time…

2. Make a list of the foods your child does eat

You may be pleasantly surprised to realise that they do actually eat more than you thought. If the number of items is less than 20 then definitely have a chat to your GP about it next time you’re there.

3. Change your (& their) expectations & behaviour

There’s a good PDF download here about setting and meeting expectations and changing behaviour. Just change ‘employee’ to ‘child’ as you read and you’ll have a few interesting things to think about. Basically, you’ve got to put a behavior system in place around mealtimes. Let your child know what is expected of them. Reward them (with positive reinforcement) when they meet these expectations.

In my house, it is expected that my kids will come to dinner happily, with an open mind. They will be appreciative of the person who’s cooked their dinner and thank them by taking two big bites.

Why two? The first bite of something new is often unwelcome. Keep in mind that humans are programmed to be suspicious of new foods. It’s how we’ve survived for centuries without being poisoned to extinction. So the first bite is the ‘shock’ bite and it’s the second bite that allows them to relax and actually taste.

Over time my kids have come to trust that I’ve tried to cook something that they are quite likely to enjoy. Often, this basic deal is all it will take. A couple of bites into a tasty dinner and they might be happy to continue on. Great!

BUT. Sometimes they won’t like dinner. If they’ve genuinely tried it and don’t like it then they can have something else and I won’t fuss. I don’t cook twice but just let them have buttered bread, cheese, yoghurt, banana – something simple but filling.

If I’m trialing a new dish that I know is a fair way out of their comfort zones, then I make sure I’ve got fresh bread on hand as a backup. I find my success rate is about 50/50. But I would urge you to try the occasional ‘leap’ – I’ve been pleasantly shocked to see my kids happily tucking into (and enjoying) some pretty challenging dinners.

In the early days of this system, my kids would sometimes refuse to eat their two bites. Which meant they ate nothing. That’s their choice. I would let them go hungry rather than resort to unhealthy food. Hold firm – they won’t starve themselves to death. Even the fussiest first world children are extremely well nourished. You may just find that they are much more compliant tomorrow once genuine hunger has set in.

At this point it may be worth noting that I don’t reward my kids for eating. Research has shown that rewarding kids for eating food is ineffective in the long term. And never EVER force them to eat or force them to overeat. Children often need far less food than we think.

Now, getting back to that list of ingredients that they do eat….

4. Give yourself the best chance of success

Make dinners based around ingredients they do like. They like meat? Give them a hamburger with smuggled chickpeas, smothered with beetroot dip. They like cheese? Try cheesy pots with grated or blitzed vegies. Make dinners that they ought to enjoy. Build up the trust that you’re going to present them with yummy stuff. Find a few standard meals and then keep pushing them gradually further and further out of their comfort zones. It’s really important to keep up variety so that new becomes normal and they stop fussing every time they don’t recognize something. And keep in mind that you need your kids to be hungry at dinner. Try cutting out snacks in the afternoon and make dinnertime earlier.

5. Teach them why they eat

I love the concept of ‘go’ foods and ‘slow’ foods rather than ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods. My kids understand that certain foods provide the nourishment we need to live happy, energetic lives. They understand that dinner is a great opportunity to enjoy a stack of ‘go’ foods to fuel them up for tomorrow.

The other side of this is that I also don’t make ‘slow’ foods taboo. Enjoy treats without guilt. All food is ok, just educate kids about how often they should eat different things. You’d be surprised by some of the crap we eat in our house. It’s not a big deal. We enjoy pizza, especially since we don’t have it very often. We do sometimes note though, how sluggish we feel after this ‘slow’ food.

Share with them a love of good food and of the social side of sharing a meal with people you love.

6. Life & food education

Once you’re past the panic stage and your child is accepting more foods, keep the variety coming and start into a new phase of food education, including shopping together (teach them how to choose good produce and get them to do it) cooking together (start with fun recipes like these pancakes), eating together (even if it’s just Sunday brunch and one or two nights a week) and gardening (show them where food comes from). Give them a couple of choices for dinner and get them to practice decision-making.

Model good behavior and healthy choices. Exercise together. Don’t diet or fuss about your weight in front of your child. Keep mealtimes happy (it’s a great chance for communication).

And remember, be consistent. Like all aspects of parenting, the second you waiver, your child will pounce. They’re canny like that.

Phew! What a long post! Thanks for sticking with me – I hope there are some ideas here to help you.

Some of my standard dinners for really fussy toddlers….

Chicken & lentil sausage rolls
Cheesy Pots
Lamb meatballs
Salmon pikelets
Tuna bites
Ravioli with orange sauce
Bolognaise
Okonomyaki

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Remembering to press pause

July 16, 2012 · Filed under All recipes, Fish · Tagged family, lunchbox, pasta, recipe, vegetables

A while back I woke up with a headache, slightly hungover and it was January 1.

Then I blinked, cried as Mr M&P started school and then sneezed and it was April. After a shower and another hangover it was June and two report cards later the year is half way done and I’ve still not hung up my 2012 calendar.

It’s frightening to watch life accelerating away.

Yesterday, we pulled the reigns on the year and packed up the family for a day of adventure. Off early, we were breakfasting by the water by 9.30 and then on a ferry over to Scotland Island for a bush walk. We were back home by 2, energized and happy to have spent some fun time outdoors, together, creating a memory.

There was a waterway, bacon, eggs, coffee and a happy family.

Without meaning to we’ve been too busy and just let the year slip by. Yesterday was a good reminder about how important it is to force life to stop from time to time, to find some quality family moments. It’s true, the kids grow up too fast and it won’t be long until they don’t want to be with us at all, let alone walking along, holding our hands, being so incredibly gorgeous.

So back we go to term 3. Back to routine (sigh) and lunchboxes (sigh sigh). This lunchbox pasta salad recipe is from my Complete Lunchbox Planner – it has a little dose of vitamin C to help you through the rest of winter and it’s also a nice way to break out of the sandwich rut.

Something different for the lunchbox

Citrus pasta salad

375g pasta spirals
½ punnet cherry tomatoes, quartered
200g mild feta, diced
1 carrot, peeled, grated
2-3 tbsp pinenuts, toasted
½ tsp zest of each a lemon & orange
400g tuna in springwater, drained

Dressing
6 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp orange juice
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp sugar
¼ tsp minced garlic

Cook the pasta according to packet directions.

Place all the dressing ingredients in a jar and shake to combine. Toss cooked pasta with other ingredients and the dressing.

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How do you raise ‘kick-ass’ girls?

July 12, 2012 · Filed under News · Tagged parenting

My feminist nightmare.

I’ve always been a proud ‘feminist’. My husband is too. Our initial partnership was extremely 50/50. We earned the same. I could make Asian broths. He made a mean green peppercorn sauce. We both cleaned the bathroom.

But then we had kids. And everything changed.

Soon afterwards, I found myself at home, enslaved to household chores and watching my career drift off to Nowheresville while my husband steadily climbed the corporate ladder.

My part-time job was unfulfilling. Somehow if I worked 5 days a week I could be awesome, but 3 days a week, I was only suited to junior jobs and zero responsibility. There seems to be some sexist notion that unless you can commit to the full 40-hour-per-week game, you are effectively OUT of the game, and forced to spend much of your career on the sidelines, watching.

After a few years of juggling everything, I got overwhelmed and overburdened. I chucked a wobbly and quit work. So there I was. At home. Full time. Doing ALL the chores. Financially dependent on my spouse.

It’s a common tale I think.

Since then, I’ve been working on Vegie Smugglers. It’s done well and I’m proud. And while the label ‘mumpreneur’ irks me a bit, I’m happy to be aligned with a generation of women who are utilising technology in an attempt to combine nurturing their family with pursuing their own personal potential.

But recently for homework, Miss F had to interview someone about their job. I offered to help but she looked at me, genuinely confused. “But you don’t work!” she cried!

No? Just two cookbooks, two e-books, 200 blog posts, 7500 facebookers, plus the entire management of the household and our family for the past 3 years. I don’t need to tell you guys how hard I work.

Soon after, I was offered two days a week of traditional work, outside the home and I took it. The extra money is handy and more importantly, I’m showing Miss F a role model of a ‘working’ woman. Her attitude to me has noticeably changed. She’s not taking me for granted. She seems ‘prouder’ that her mum is now like the other mums (ie, more unavailable and consistently stressed).

The feminist debate that’s had me thinking about all this is the recent call by Anne-Marie Slaughter for the world to shift and for women to no longer be forced into the male structure in order to find success. Because it’s true. How on earth can women have it all with just 24 hours in a day?

And with Slaughter’s opinion that balancing career and family is impossible, just what are we supposed to be telling our daughters? What examples are we supposed to be setting? What kind of women do we want our daughters to be?

Miss F turns 8 soon and I want to know how to guide her to be a ‘kick ass’, strong, woman. I thought that I’d been raising her to be a good feminist. But actually, all she’s seen is a woman at home in the traditional role that feminism has fought to free us from.

I want a kick ass daughter. But what does that even mean? And how do I do it?

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Speaking in tongues (how to nag in several languages)

July 9, 2012 · Filed under All recipes, Red meat · Tagged cooking techniques, family, parenting, recipe, vegetables

A top Aussie winter. Noice.

A good winter day in Australia isn’t too bad, is it? Even I concede that a sunny day of 18 degrees isn’t worth a rumble of dissatisfaction. And there’s been a stretch of them lately. Just beautiful cool clear days that magically lift me off the couch, away from carbs and float me off into the neighbourhood walking about and realising just how unfit I am.

It appears I’m not alone. The other day there were people out EVERYWHERE. Walking. With dogs. With friends. Laughing even. The joy of vitamin D! And of course people were flocking to their gardens – raking, weeding, smiling and just ‘being’ with nature.

The spell was broken though, by the cranky sounds of a mum screeching at her children. Let’s just say I’m familiar with the tone. As I got closer I realised that the words were in French and I couldn’t understand any of it. It was unmistakable though – the (well dressed) kids were giving the (well dressed) mum the shits.

Perhaps it was the general blissful tone of the day, but it did occur to me how much better pestering and nagging the kids sounded in another language. Lifting the everyday nasty into a realm of sophistication.

So with that in mind I’ve compiled a little phrase book with all sorts of useful sentences that you can whip out when your own English phrases are getting a bit well worn.

(French) Ne vous asseyez pas sur votre sœur.
(English) Don’t sit on your sister.

(Italian) Tirare su i pantaloni.
(English) Pull your pants up.

(Dutch) Leg de slak
(English) Put down the snail.

(Afrikaans) Raak nie.
(English) Don’t touch it!

(Russian) То, что вода или Ви?
(English) Is that water or wee?

With the discipline done, feed the kids this dish for dinner. It’s a ‘casserole’, which is much fancier than a ‘stew’, and technically it is different. A stew is cooked on the stovetop, a casserole in the oven. My kids like the flavor of this one, but not the texture of the butter beans, so when I serve theirs, I hack away with scissors until it’s all a jumble, then tidily plop a few dumplings on top. They eat it. Suckers.

Yum in any language.

Best ever dumpling-topped, beef casserole

Olive oil
600g chuck steak, cubed
Plain flour
1 onion, diced
1 leek, tough green bits removed, diced
2 carrots, peeled, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 large parsnip, peeled, diced
3 cups beef stock
1 cup red wine (the better the wine, the better the casserole!)
1 tbsp Worcester sauce
1 cup peas
1 can butter beans, rinsed, drained

Dumplings
1 cup self-raising flour
60g butter, chopped into little cubes
2 tbsp parsley (I like the flavour of curly parsley in this)
½ cup grated cheddar cheese
1 egg
3-4 tbsp milk to bind

Use a large stove to oven dish (with a lid) for this recipe.

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Heat the dish over medium/high heat. Toss the meat in flour & shake off excess. Add the oil and brown on all sides. Remove and set aside.

Lower to heat to medium, add more oil if necessary and saute the onion , leek, carrot and celery. Stir frequently for several minutes until the vegies start to soften. Add the parsnip for a minute or two more, then return the meat, add in the stock, wine and Worcester sauce.

Give it a good stir, removing any stuck bits to the bottom. Cover with a lid and transfer to the oven for 1 hour.

While that’s cooking, make the dumplings: In a large mixing bowl, rub the butter into the flour (no need to sift). Mix in the parsley, cheese and egg. Add enough milk to bind it all into a sticky dough. Wear gloves or use spoons to roll or shape the mixture into about 18 bite-sized balls and set aside.

After an hour, remove the pot from the oven and remove the lid. Stir in the peas and beans. Season to taste. Pop the dumplings over the top and return, uncovered to the oven for another 30 minutes or until the dumplings are golden and cooked through.

Serves 2 adults and 2 kids.

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