parenting | Vegie Smugglers

Posts tagged parenting

How to have them begging for zucchini (in their lunchbox)

October 12, 2011 · Filed under All recipes, News, Vegetarian, Vegie smuggling techniques · Tagged cooking techniques, feeding the family, lunchbox, parenting, recipe

Now I don’t like to brag, and I generally am a very self-effacing person, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that this recipe is possibly the most genius recipe I have ever formulated! It is just SO good. When my kids see me making these, they start JUMPING AROUND.

It meets all of my usual vegie-smuggling criteria – easy to make, full of all sorts of good ingredients, stores well and is tasty enough for kids and adults alike. You can eat them hot or cold – so whip up some for a side dish for tonight’s dinner and then pop the rest into tomorrow’s lunchboxes.

Did I mention that this recipe is from the complete Vegie Smugglers lunchbox planner? I like to give one recipe away for free (last term was the easy beetroot dip/sandwich spread). I know I’m banging on about the planner, but without a few sales here and there, the Vegie Smugglers blog ends up being a time-consuming and rewarding passion that I have to squeeze in between my other money-making commitments. But nearly every mum I talk to has some intriguing online venture going on, so you all know what I’m saying.

Anyway, enough blatant spamming. Here’s the recipe to enjoy.

Delicious. Yum. Easy. Yum. Lunchboxes. Yum.

Cheese Puffs

½ cup milk (soy is fine)
1 egg
½ tsp smoked paprika
1 zucchini, grated (peeled first if your kids hate green)
2 spring onions, finely chopped
2 cups grated cheese (cheddar is best)
1 cup self-raising flour

Preheat the oven to 190C. Line a baking tray.

In a large bowl, whisk together the milk and egg. Add the paprika, zucchini, spring onions and cheese.

Sift over the flour. Mix well (it becomes a thick paste). Dollop out portions. Bake for 20-25 minutes until deep golden brown and cooked through.

Store in the fridge in an airtight container for several days.

MAKES 16

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An easy bake for tomorrow’s lunchbox

October 9, 2011 · Filed under All recipes, News, Sweets & treats · Tagged lunchbox, parenting, recipe, treats

Back to school tomorrow. Usually by this stage of the holidays I am totally exasperated with the children, but these holidays have been smooth sailing. Managed to get the right mix of busy and quiet and I suspect I might actually miss them this week!

Miss F is feeling hesitant about returning to her new school tomorrow (she only moved 3 weeks before the holidays) so I’ve whipped up a treat ready to pop into her lunchbox – a bit of a cheer up for the middle of the day.

It’s nice to have something yummy ready to start the term. The new Term 4 planner starts with an Apricot muesli bar. You can buy your copy here. Or just whip up these oat and berry muffins. Keep the berries in the freezer until you’re ready to mix them in – avoids them totally tinting the mixture. Although, as you can see, mine did end up with a nice swirly berry imprint.

Ready for tomorrow (if there are any left)

Berry & oat muffins

1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1 cup traditional oats
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
75g butter, melted
1 egg
1 cup milk (or buttermilk if you have some)
1 1/4 cup frozen mixed berries

Preheat the oven to 180C. Prepare your muffin trays (I use silicone, so just give them a super light spray of canola oil).

Sift the flour into a mixing bowl. Stir through the oats and sugar. Mix in the butter.

Whisk the egg and combine with the milk, then pour through the dry ingredients. Stir through the berries.

Divide evenly between your muffin holes and bake for 30 minutes or so, until springy.

MAKES 12

THIS RECIPE IS STILL IN DEVELOPMENT, LET ME KNOW ANY FEEDBACK – AFTER CHATS ON FACEBOOK, MAYBE TRY BAKING THESE FOR 35 MINUTES AS THE FROZEN BERRIES ADD ALOT OF MOISTURE – Wendy

Comments (29) »

Do you yell at your children?

October 4, 2011 · Filed under News · Tagged parenting

Cherished. Adored. And yelled at from time to time.

I’m got a confession to make… I yell at my children.

I’ve been putting off telling you all, since I know what the backlash will be. Some of you will write calm but vicious emails. Many of you will ‘unlike’ me on Facebook. But still, I feel the need to confess.

You see I’m concerned that society is getting awfully confused about anger and that we’re sending our kids such strange messages about how to handle it. So while we aim for aggression free homes, our kids are playing increasingly violent games and then heading out onto the streets as ‘youth’ (I love that word), getting drunk and beating the shit out of each other.

Let’s get this straight – under NO circumstance do I condone violence. I applaud public policy that tackles domestic violence. Everyone deserves the right to live in a non-abusive home.

And perhaps there lies the problem. We’re so focused on removing serious aggression from society that we’re now unable to freely discuss anger and parenting. It’s become totally taboo. If I admit that I can’t totally control my impulses and I do yell at my kids, I am a bad parent.

So do you yell at your kids?

I seriously ‘lose it’ about once a month. It’s never for no reason. It’s after the kids have been requested and warned. Then warned again. And then yet again they are still not doing as I asked. And what I’m asking is reasonable. And they’re still not doing it despite my best and calmest efforts. And I lose it.

I don’t use swear words. I don’t call them demeaning names or degrade them. I don’t hit them. But I yell and let them know that they have pushed me beyond my limits.

Sound familiar?

I was raised in a really happy and loving home with a glorious mother who had some fairly volatile moments. I remember them. They terrified me. But I learnt to behave myself and learnt to respect that all humans, no matter how much you love them and they love you, have limits. You can only push so far. She’d warn us if she was having a ‘bad day’ and we would tred carefully. I find myself doing this with my own kids – “you know what kids – some days, you can get away with getting paint on the carpet. But not today. Don’t try it today.”

I’m wondering what’s so bad about teaching kids the skill of ‘reading’ people. Of understanding that the world isn’t sanitized. You can’t always predict people. You need emotional perception in order to develop skills to successfully negotiate school, work, public transport, life.

I’m not sure how much a totally calm home environment helps. Because we all feel anger. And whether we like it or not, anger gets expressed in a variety of ways. Surely it’s good to understand it. Know what it feels like. Know when it’s safe to express it and when it’s not. Know how to love and respect people. Know when you can and can’t push them.

What do you think?

Comments (32) »

Letters MNOPQR

September 22, 2011 · Filed under Craft for non-crafty parents · Tagged craft, educational, parenting

More letters for your pre-schoolers to enjoy.

I’ve been a bit slack on this old alphabet thing, haven’it I? So at the risk of your kids only being able to write words that contain letters between A-L, here’s the worksheets for the next set of letters.

Promise I’ll try to get around to finishing the rest soon.

Comments (1) »

Suddenly ‘Better homes and gardens’ seems relevant

September 13, 2011 · Filed under All recipes, Chicken, News · Tagged chicken, feeding the family, parenting, recipe, vegetables

Once upon a time, Friday nights were all about cool bars and cocktails.

Remember when Friday nights were spent getting drunk at after work drinks? Tequila shots, inappropriate pashing and queues to use stinky blocked toilets? Aaaahhhh, the good old days.

These days I generally find myself spending Friday nights at home and Facebooking about wine. Gosh what an alco I must seem like (truly, I’m not, it’s just that by the end of the week, I am often very THIRSTY). Happily for a few months I can fill my nights with a Masterchef Masterclass and watch George and Gary make pretty piles of edible flowers, but with that gone, and Collectors a bit tainted after the whole kiddie-porn allegations, I find myself watching Better Homes and Gardens.

I can, of course, watch food being cooked until the cows come home, but all the other happy, cheery segments about making boat shaped bunk beds and fixing gout in canaries have glided over my head which is slightly addled after two glasses of wine. Last Friday night, however, there was a segment that had me all at attention… lawncare, that most riveting of subjects. But you see, for the first time, I have a lawn, and I was suddenly obsessively paying attention to the finer details of aeration and top dressing. You’ll be pleased to know that on Sunday morning I spent a good 10 minutes raking vigilantly until I got bored and wandered off for a cup of tea.

And who said the suburbs were dull?

Anyway, back to cooking and Karen Martini whipped up some chicken skewers that only required 47 ingredients and took 24 hours to prepare. They looked delicious. Although I think I’ll stick to my yakitori skewers, which (of course) include vegies. Serve them over a nice rice salad (you can find the recipe for that in the new Vegie Smugglers 2 cookbook – which is now on sale here) and voila!

Anyway, must dash, off to make a sensational chandelier out of corks and long-forgotten kitchen utensils. Thanks Friday night TV.

Food on sticks is always a winner.

Yakitori skewers

500g chicken thigh fillets, trimmed
3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp mirin
1 tsp brown sugar
½ tsp minced ginger
1 small red onion, halved, quartered
1 red capsicum, seeded, cut into 2–3cm squares
1 zucchini, halved lengthwise, cut into 1–2cm half-moons

Soak 10 bamboo skewers in cold water for at least 10 minutes. Cut the chicken into small, even pieces. Place in a bowl with the soy sauce, mirin, sugar and ginger. Mix well.

Add the onion, capsicum and zucchini to the chicken and mix (hands work best). Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour (if you have time).

Thread the chicken and vegies alternately onto the skewers. Break the onion up a little so that it will cook through.

Heat a large frying pan (or barbecue hot plate) over low–medium heat. Cook the skewers for 15–20 minutes, turning regularly to cook on all sides. The low heat allows the chicken to cook through without burning.

Comments (5) »

We have lift off! (1-10 or 10-1 if you prefer)

August 31, 2011 · Filed under Craft for non-crafty parents · Tagged craft, educational, parenting

A Midnight Oils album cover? Maybe not, but numbers 1-10 nonetheless

Just a quick pre-school worksheet this week – a break from the alphabet – a bit of early learning counting. The kids can practice their scissor work by cutting out the squares, then try to recognise the numbers and pop them into order (there are counting dots to help them) before getting to some good glue action with fabulously gooey pasting required on the second page.

Download the counting PDF worksheet here.

_______________________

Like this project? You can find it, along with 39 other boredom busters in the ‘Craft for non-crafty Parents’ e-book. There’s a stack of silly fun stuff, projects that encourage healthy eating and a bunch of worksheets covering preschool education and school readiness. You can buy it at the shop now!

128 pages, 40 projects, 85 pages of printables…

Why I love letters GHIJKL

August 25, 2011 · Filed under Craft for non-crafty parents · Tagged craft, educational, parenting

educational worksheets for pre schoolers - letters g-l

I have been playing WAY too many games of 'words with friends'

Gee, how I just love kind labradors.

Gosh, haven’t I just kicked Lucas?

Generally, half ignored jackasses keep lampooning.

——–

Last week I disappointed many by only posting the alphabet worksheets for letters A-F. My only excuse is that I got bored drawing the pictures after that. But, egged on by guilt I finally pulled my finger out today and drew… well, just another 6 letters.

So here are the alphabet pages G-L. Which I hope you and your kids enjoy.

Comments (2) »

We’re almost there… Vegie Smugglers 2 unveiled!

August 11, 2011 · Filed under News, Vegie smuggling techniques · Tagged feeding the family, fundraising, parenting

The lovely Miss R is pretty pleased with seeing herself on the cover!

Unlike the uber-fast, instant-gratification, blogging world, creating a book can be a frustratingly slow process. There’s the photography (done in my kitchen), the writing and design (done at the dinner table), two rounds of editing (by the gorgeous Mel) and then the printing (I actually pay someone else to do that!) and then I wait for the final product.

And so it has been that the second installment of the Vegie Smugglers cookbook has been simmering away for the past year and a half. It starts of with lots of trial recipes. Lots of thumbs down from the kids and stoic silences from my best friend as they are subjected to various experimental recipes. Gradually dinners improve and by round 3 they are ooohhhing and aaaahhhing over them and I’m feeling quite pleased. I’ve usually photographed them along the way and the pages get laid out one by one and the excitement grows.

Remember these traffic light swirls? They've made it into the new book...

...and so have these prawn fritters...

...and so has the beetroot meatloaf (along with a stack of others too!)

For this book I enlisted a team of recipe testers to help me out. Their feedback was fantastic. It means that this book has had fresh eyes helping to question and clarify the recipes. I’m confident that anyone who enjoyed cooking from book 1 will be thrilled with book 2.

So stay tuned…. I should have it on sale by the middle of September.

Comments (7) »

Bookworm (and the need for school readers by Stephenie Meyer)

August 3, 2011 · Filed under Craft for non-crafty parents · Tagged craft, family, parenting

My kids snuggled up in my bed reading.... awwwwww

Miss Fruitarian has turned into a voracious reader. While she knew her letters in kindy, reading just pottered along at an average pace. But then towards the end of last year something just snapped into place. Since then it’s been an astonishing trajectory – helped along by the fact that she’s a nosy little thing and there’s nothing better than knowing what the road signs say, what mummy is writing in her emails and how to compile lists, lists and a few more lists laying out details for an upcoming 7th birthday party.

I’d like to take full credit, but can’t. It’s mostly her doing.

I’ve been a bit sporadic with library visits but have done well with daily bedtime stories and I have done my best to sneak off into my bed with a book on as many Sunday afternoons as possible (just trying to set a good example).

Scared by the wrath of Miss F’s teaching staff, I have however, been vigilant with the daily school readers. And BOY, aren’t THEY FUN… Yawn… I truly believe that if they were more interesting than “Jenny’s wobbly tooth” and “Plastics”, we would have much more active parent involvement. At the end of a busy day, the last thing we want to do is sit and hear a stilted rendition of “A present for dad”, complete with pictures of high-panted families from the early 80s.

If only the state governments would all pitch together and commission a series of readers by Stephenie Meyer or Jackie Collins. Wouldn’t that be great? Tales of Lucky Santangelo as a schoolgirl, scheming with baby werewolves who fight 5 year old vampires.

Anyway, I digress. Did you know that the number of books you have in your home is a huge factor in your child’s literacy levels? Really interesting article here.

So while my enthusiasm for reading painfully dull school readers may be low, I totally outdo the books-in-the-home quota. Moving house has made me realize just how many of the heavy, dusty things I own. Hundreds. Sure, they may be mainly how to draw manga ‘bishouju’ and 50 ways with salmon, but the research doesn’t seem too fussed on subject matter. I guess it’s a general indication of the importance placed on learning.

The research states, “A child whose family has 25 books will, on average, complete two more years of school than a child whose family is sadly book-less.” Interesting to ponder.

And encourage them along with this bit of craft. There’s three designs of bookmarks to have fun with.

A bookmark craftsheet – click to download

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Help! I’ve been invaded by papertoy monsters!

July 20, 2011 · Filed under Craft for non-crafty parents, News · Tagged craft, parenting

Filling all the surfaces with alarming speed.

Ever since I bought a copy of Papertoy Monsters a couple of months ago (I got mine at Kmart), there’s been a magical (and slightly creepy) spell cast over the house. It goes like this… at first there’s an eerie silence, only broken by the rhythmic screaching and cracking of the sticky tape dispenser. Then there’s whispered murmurs as my children confer conspiratorially. Then more silence and sticking. Then happy giggles. Next thing I know I come out of the laundry and find another creature called ‘grimp’ or ‘lyle’ or ‘yucky chuck’ gazing up at me. Each comes with a back-story. For example grimp is the result of a sea monkey kit breaking under a mound of dirty toys and clothes…”the sea monkey larva merged with a group of maggots living on an old Subway sandwich at the bottom of Butch’s trash heap…” Great stuff that is keeping the newly literate Miss Fruitarian and her delighted younger protégée busy for hours.

Here's a simple papertoy robot to help you get in on the act...

I thought I’d get in on the act too, and whilst my papertoy robot lacks the ooze of some of the book’s versions, he’s a nice simple starting point for us craft-challenged parents. And if you want to cast an educational slant, the dual cube construction is an interesting introduction into the concept of 3D for the younger kids.