Posts tagged recipe

Old fruit, new tarts

December 2, 2013 · Filed under All recipes, Sweets & treats · Tagged , , ,

In recent weeks the kids have become obsessed with watching me put on make up.

Every morning when I’m getting ready for work, I seem to end up with a companion. Someone will happen to need to brush their teeth at just the moment I start to slather on cosmetics. They pretend they’re concentrating on their own task, but standing beside me I can see their eyes tracking me in the mirror.

As I grab a new tube or pencil, toothpaste starts frothing everywhere and they’ll spout, “what’s that for?” Or “What do you call that?”

I explain concealer. “This makes mummy look less tired.”
I explain eyeliner. “This makes mummy’s eyes look nicer.”

Even as the words roll out I’m aware of how weird they sound. And how strange the whole idea of make up is. How trivial.

The kids just look at me quizzically. Bewildered that a mummy would even have ‘looks’ or should care about them. I’m just their mum, after all. I look pretty much the same to them every day.

The toothbrushing facade gets totally forgotten as they just stand and gape. After my entire routine is done (it takes about 2 minutes), I’ll say, “do I look better now?”

They shrug in that we-don’t-get-it way. If my companion is Mr M&P, he’ll eventually pipe up, ‘Yep’. Ever the charmer, he knows that it’s always worth complimenting effort, even if he doesn’t quite understand it.

Like make up, pastry with tart up anything.

Like make up, pastry will tart up nearly anything.

Old fruit tart

Use up excess stone fruit with these tarts.

2 sheets puff pastry
3-4 nectarines, peaches, apricots (or a combination)
1 tbsp maple syrup or honey
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp almond meal
1 tbsp caster sugar
1 egg, lightly whisked, for sticking & glazing

Ice cream (to serve)

Preheat the oven to 180C. Line an oven tray with baking paper.

Separate the frozen pastry sheets off the block. Score one into quarters and snap it apart. Leave to thaw while you chop the nectarines (chunks or pretty slices are all fine). Toss them with the maple syrup and lemon juice.

Brush the pastry quarters with egg, sprinkle the almond meal and sugar over the centre (leave a 1cm border).

Slice 1cm strips from your spare sheet and layer them around the edges of your squares. Brush with more egg.

Divide the fruit between the squares, reserving the liquid. Scatter a little more caster sugar or raw sugar over the entire tart and bake for 20 minutes until golden.

Serve with icecream and the reserved juices drizzled over the top.

MAKES 4

Comments (5) »

How to make friends with salad

November 12, 2013 · Filed under All recipes, Food experiences, Vegetarian, Vegie smuggling techniques · Tagged , , , ,

Hopefully, over the winter you’ve accumulated a repertoire of accepted (and even enjoyed) meals that contain enough vegies and nutrition to keep you achieving your status as an awesome-parent. But the casseroles and bakes that you’ve come to rely on may hold less appeal as the weather warms up.

It’s time to lighten the menu, and traditionally it’s the time when the BBQ gets trundled out and parents are faced with the screwed up faces of little kids who are not friends with salad.

There’s often not much smuggling potential in salads. They are, after all, full of raw and highly-recognisable ingredients. To get the kids interested in them, they need to be particularly tasty. While a good dressing helps a green salad to be more agreeable, there are a couple of more creative salad recipes that are a good starting point when you’re trying to instil a BBQ & salad culture.

Start simple and convey the whole concept of cold side dishes with a couple of particularly tasty examples that they can’t resist. Our favourite noodle salad works well, luring them in with flavour and crunch. Another sure-fire hit will be this Japanese-style potato salad that uses a mayonnaise-based sauce to entice them.

Dou itashimashite.

Dou itashimashite.

Japanese potato salad

Sauce:
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tsp caster sugar
1 tsp Dijon mustard

4 medium mashing potatoes, peeled, quartered
1 carrot, peeled, grated
4 spring onions, finely sliced
250g corn kernels, drained
1 cucumber, sliced into rounds

Combine the sauce ingredients well and set aside.

Pop the potatoes into a large pot of cold water and bring to the boil (adding them cold stops the edges from disintegrating). Reduce the heat to a strong simmer and leave for 15 minutes until soft enough that you can easily push a skewer through. Drain and add to a large bowl. Use a fork to roughly mash, but leave heaps of texture with lots of large chunks.

Stir the carrot and spring onions through the hot potatoes (this cooks them slightly). Season with plenty of salt & pepper. Pour over the sauce and mix thoroughly.

Leave to cool then combine in the corn and cucumber. Refrigerate until you’re ready to serve.

Serves 2 adults & 3-4 kids as a side dish (leftovers make great lunches).

_______________________________

digital-editions

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Mashed potato IN YOUR FACE… errrrr, actually….

November 4, 2013 · Filed under All recipes, The best way to smuggle..., Vegetarian, Vegie smuggling techniques · Tagged , , ,

…the mashed potato is in your pizza dough.

It’s a little trick taught to me by my friend Trish who grew up in her parent’s Italian restaurant. And it’s a great trick. If you use just the mashed insides of baked potatoes, you’ll add in the starch and help your bases to crisp up. If you add in regular leftover mash, the dough becomes light and lovely. Either way, it’s a great idea for potato smuggling (as is gnocchi – click for that recipe here).

An easy dough – fun to make & great to eat.

An easy dough – fun to make & great to eat.



Pizza Dough

3 cups bakers flour (plus 1/2-3/4 cup more as you knead the mash in)
7g sachet dried yeast
1 tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup warm water
1 cup mashed potato (Use leftovers or bake or microwave 2 small jacket potatoes, then mash the insides)

Add all the dry ingredients to a large mixing bowl. Pour over the oil and water. Mix together to form a rough dough.

Turn it onto a floured bench. Knead for a minute then add in half the potato. You’ll need to sprinkle over the extra flour as you go – the potato makes it pretty gloopy (but quite fun). Continue adding mash and the extra flour. Knead for about 5-7 minutes. Eventually you will have added enough extra flour in to get the mix back to being a smooth dough. (You won’t believe me at first, when the mix is slimy and weird, but trust me and carry on).

Pop it into an oiled bowl, cover with a tea towel and leave somewhere warm to prove for 30-40 minutes until doubled in size. Then punch out the air, divide into 3 pizzas and top with whatever toppings suit your family.

Cook for about 15-20 minutes at 220C.

MAKES 3×12 INCH BASES (these bases are quite filling – 3 feeds my family of four)

If you don’t know how to ‘throw’ a pizza base – I followed the technique in this video. It worked well and provided a frisson of risk and plenty of kitchen laughs.

Don’t forget to top it with my six-vegie pizza sauce.

This recipe makes plenty - freeze some of this too.

Six-vegie sauce to morph pizza into a super-smuggler.

Comments (16) »

What’s your favourite thing to do?

October 29, 2013 · Filed under All recipes, Sweets & treats · Tagged , , , ,

Using my new sugar bowl is on the list too - makes me smile, every time.

Using my new sugar bowl is on the list too – makes me smile, every time.

“Mum, what’s your favourite thing to do?” asked Miss F the other day.

I was a bit taken aback. Like most 9-year-old girls, usually her chat is based firmly on herself, her own awesomeness, her awesome friends or cute baby animals. But looking at her, I realised that she was genuinely keen to know something about me. Luckily I had a good (and true) answer ready.

“My favourite thing to do is cuddle my children.”

“And your next favourite thing?”
“I like to read books, in bed.”

She smiled and nodded having recently learned the joy of that one.

“And your next favourite thing?”
“Reading a book in bed, while my children are snuggled up around me, also reading books.”

She was thoroughly happy with my answers and me.

“And your next favourite thing?”
Bit of a pause as I quickly calculated whether food or sleep is my next greatest passion.
“I love eating.”

More nodding. Then we ran through sleeping, eating cake and eating cake in bed after just waking up from a nap. In an Oscars-speech-style-faux pas, I realised I’d forgotten daddy, so I casually dropped him in there too, in about 15th position.

Finally we had a long list of thing we both love to do and life was feeling very blessed indeed.

Delicious, with a bit of power-nutrition packed in.

Delicious, with a bit of power-nutrition packed in.

Date & pecan bliss balls

Thanks to the ever-lovely Sonia from Natural NewAge Mum for getting me onto bliss balls. The kids ADORE them.

1 cup dates
1 cup pecans (or walnuts are also great)
1/3 cup coconut oil, melted (zap it in the microwave)
¼ cup good-quality cocoa powder
½ cup desiccated (or shredded) coconut (plus ½ cup extra for the coating)
1 tbsp chia seeds (black or white)

Soak the dates in hot water for 10 minutes to soften. Drain and add to a food processor bowl along with the pecans, oil, cocoa, chia seeds and ¼ cup coconut.

Blitz until smooth, and then use your hands to roll bite-sized balls. Roll in the remaining coconut. Refrigerate for 2 hours until firm.

MAKES 22ISH

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What are your favourite things?

Comments (14) »

How to guarantee vegie-smuggling success (and a giveaway)

October 21, 2013 · Filed under Food experiences, Ham/pork, Red meat, The best way to smuggle... · Tagged , , , , , ,

Some people like to smuggle vegies by cooking them, mashing them and re-adding them to dishes where they get cooked again and served to unwitting children. Have you heard of this method?

Unless your child is severely vegie-resistant and you’re looking for a starting point that guarantees success, I would avoid doing this. Why?…
1. By the end of this process, most of the vegie’s nutritional benefits are gone.
2. It’s too much work for time-poor parents to manage.
3. The kids don’t learn how delicious healthy eating can be.

I prefer a ‘chop chop’ method. Start with gorgeous fresh, raw produce and grate it or chop it into such small pieces that kids can’t easily identify or pick it out of their dinner.

People have complained to me, ‘but you’re not hiding the vegies – I can see them!’ to which I’ll reply, “yes, because you want your kids to realise that vegies are there, but to still eat them anyway’. If the little bits are all cooked together into a delicious and tasty whole meal, the kids will eat it (of course there are exceptions!) Mostly though, if they can’t identify exactly what vegie is what and if they’re enjoying the meal then their motivation to protest will be low.

The aim is to eventually get kids eating the way you do, so you might start off grating everything, but after a while you can move on to chopping and dicing things finely. Then the pieces can get bigger and bigger until you’re just cooking like normal. This process can take a couple of years and possibly you’ll have to backtrack if you push them too far (if you see them crying, with a huge chunk of zucchini on their fork, you’ll know that you need to go back to grating for a while).

So I recommend everyone take the time to buy a good kitchen knife and learn to use it (there’s a stack of videos online showing you how). You don’t need to be a whizz, just competent and safe. Buy yourself a good grater, too.

And also rely on gadgets to do the work for you. I use my mini-stick blender all the time. I use it to make breadcrumbs, chop vegies, whizz up homous and even make banana ice cream.

You can WIN this baby.

You can WIN this baby.

Luckily for one reader, today I’ve got an Avancer food processor to give away. In the larger machine you can make coleslaw, combine meatball mixtures, blend soups – all bound to give you vegie-smuggling success.

This meatball mix will be a doddle in it…

Hidden veg meatballs in an ALL VEG soup. Genius. And delicious.

Hidden veg meatballs in an ALL VEG soup. Genius. And delicious.



Italian meatballs

Make a double batch of these meatballs and freeze. They work great in all kinds of tomato soups and pasta sauces (like this one).

500g pork/veal mince
1 slice stale bread (any type)
2 tsp Italian herbs
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 carrot, peeled, roughly chopped
1/2 red capsicum, roughly chopped
1 egg, lightly whisked

Preheat the oven to 200C. Line your largest baking tray with foil and spray well with olive oil spray.

Use your food processor to make breadcrumbs with the bread. Also add in the garlic and herbs and blitz to get heavenly, fragrant breadcrumbs.

Quickly blitz the carrot, then the capsicum. Pop in the mince; toss the egg on top and pulse to bring the mix together. Pop on some kitchen gloves and roll meatballs and place on the tray. If you have the time and patience, keep them nice and bite-sized (plus they cook faster).

Spray the meatballs with more oil spray and bake for 15 minutes. Remove the tray, carefully turn them over and return to the oven for 10 minutes more until golden outside and fully cooked through.

Makes enough for 2 adults and 2-3 kids, depending on what you add them into.

_____________________________________

WANT TO WIN THE FOOD PROCESSOR? You need to be a Vegie Smugglers subscriber, based in Australia. And since Avancer have given me the prize, you might want to check out all the Avancer products here. Simply enter by commenting below about which vegies you find the hardest to get your kids to eat. Entries close Thursday Oct 24, 8pm AEDT. ****THANKS FOR YOUR ENTRIES! AVANCER HAVE PICKED THE WINNER – CONGRATULATIONS ALISON WHITE, HOPE YOU ENJOY THE FOOD PROCESSOR!

Comments (197) »

The best gluten & egg free cookies

October 14, 2013 · Filed under All recipes, Sweets & treats · Tagged , , , ,

Look, it’s not that I’m horribly up-myself, but I do think that these might just be the best gluten & egg-free biscuits around.

My daughter’s BFF is your classic, allergic-to-everything child, and a fussy eater to boot. Over the past couple of years I’ve tried a bunch of recipes on her, all of which have resulted in a screwed up face and that awkward moment of a well-brought-up child who doesn’t quite know how to tell her friend’s mum that she’s unable to swallow the baked good that was made especially for her.

Anyway, I’ve been working on this recipe for a while and I was finally confident enough to present them to Miss F’s BFF. After her first tentative nibble, I was beyond thrilled when she declared that these were actually DELICIOUS (possibly the look of surprise on her face could have been a bit insulting). And then she ate three, with gusto. Seeing her stuff her little skinny face I was so happy that I jumped about a bit, which also resulted in an awkward look from said child as she watched her BFF’s middle-aged mum being weird.

Admittedly, these biscuits/cookies are not even a little bit healthy. They’re all butter, sugar & chocolate, but sometimes it’s nice to be able to whip up something for the ‘special diet’ child that is so great that everyone else is fighting her for them.

Finally, a big, fattening, gluten-free win.

Finally, a big, fattening, gluten-free win.

Gluten & egg-free choc chip cookies

1¼ cups gluten-free plain flour
½ cup corn flour
¾ cup caster sugar
¾ cup desiccated coconut
125g butter
1 tbsp golden syrup
1 tbsp water
1½ tsp bicarb soda
¾ choc melts, roughly chopped (a combination of white and dark is delicious)

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

In the large mixing bowl, combine the flours, sugar and coconut.

Place a small saucepan over low/medium heat and melt the butter and golden syrup, stirring often. Combine the water and bicarb together well then pour it into the butter mix and stir so that the mixture starts to foam. Pour it into the dry ingredients and stir to thoroughly combine.

Mix through the choc melts. Squeeze together golf ball size quantities. Place on the trays, flatten slightly and bake for 8-10 minutes until golden. (Allow room for spreading).

Makes 30ish

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Working 9 to 5 (and still feeding the family)

October 10, 2013 · Filed under All recipes · Tagged , , , ,

Astute watchers of VS will have noticed that I’ve been a bit absent. Never one to veer into idleness, I’ve gone and filled up my spare middle-of-the-day hours with a part time job that landed in my lap quite fortuitously. Too scared to resist fate, I’ve gone with it, figuring I can still tend Vegie Smugglers well in the hours left over.

Interestingly, after ‘living the dream’ of working from home for a year, I find I’m happy to be back out in the workforce. Seems I quite like having a reason to chuck on some lippie and I quite like contact with real people. But immediately I’m thrown back into those fraught post-work dinnertimes where the kids are cranky, I’m tired and the fridge is ominously empty.

But it doesn’t have to be a disaster. It is possible to work all day and still feed the kids a healthy dinner. Here’s how…

PLAN

Yes, I know. Boring. But as the old cliché goes, fail to plan, plan to fail. Spending an hour on your weekend or day off doing a menu plan and large grocery shop will ensure you have everything you need for food success, all week. If you hate doing it, buy my e-book. I even give you shopping lists and meals for 6 weeks. Or use one of my free plans as a guide. Click here or click here.

EBB & FLOW

When you make your plan, you’ll hopefully see the spots in your week where cooking is possible. Grab these opportunities and make larger than you need quantities. Especially things you can freeze, or rejig for the next night. Make a meatloaf that will feed you tonight, and still tastes good sliced on toasties tomorrow. Or cook enough pasta for a leftover pasta frittata.

FREEZER LOVIN’

No matter what your work status, your freezer is your friend. Use it. Love it. Stack it. Bless it on those nights when you get home to find absolute chaos erupting.

Try filling it with these (click the pic to go to the recipe)…

Adam's bolognaise

Bolognaise actually tastes better after a sit in the freezer. Genius!

End the war with a stockpile of mash in the freezer.

Freeze in portions then reheat and mix with tinned tuna & extra cheese.

vegie smugglers chicken pasta and vegetable soup

Pasta, chicken and bacon amongst the vegies…and it defrosts just fine.

This recipe makes plenty - freeze some of this too.

Freeze in small containers and you can always make a quick healthy pizza.

My kids love these so much, they don't care about what's inside.

My kids ate these weekly for almost two years.

DINNER SOS

And on the nights when it’s all gone totally pear shaped? English muffin pizzas, eggs pots, microwave rice with packet tofu & frozen vegies, scrambled egg wraps with smoked salmon & avocado, toasties with tuna, cheese & corn, or good old 2-minute noodles (ditch the flavour sachets) with frozen vegies. Or grab sushi on your way home (avoid fried ingredients or mayo).

No matter what the dinner outcome, the main thing is to relax and remember that the most important part of every evening routine is the cuddle and kiss with your gorgeous little terrors at bedtime. All is forgiven in that moment of stillness.

Got other good ideas for instant dinners? Make sure you share them below…

Comments (16) »

What kind of a woman are you? And what kind of woman will your daughter be?

October 2, 2013 · Filed under All recipes, News, Vegetarian · Tagged , ,

Can you guess what my favourite TV show is at the moment? Possibly you might think that it’s Jamie, what with all of his new budget recipes. And I am a massive fan of his so it might surprise you when I say that I’ve not caught even one episode of his new series.

Well then, is it Adam Liaw trawling around Japan and presenting some of the best-ever looking sashimi on TV? Nope, not Adam (although I am religiously watching him on Thursday nights).

Actually it’s not a food show at all. No, it’s a show that can teach me MUCH MORE ABOUT LIFE. And that show is, of course, The Bachelor Australia.

I can’t get enough of it.

Being a simple girl, free of hair extensions and matching mani/pedis, I’m finding that I have SO MUCH TO LEARN. Like how to apply so much makeup that I look homogenously like every other girl. How to make high heels look ‘right’ when I’m visiting sand dunes. How to wear hotpants with confidence. How to appear charming at not-at-all-awkward cocktail parties where there’s just me and 20 other girls who all hate my guts. And how to attract the attentions of a not-at-all-boring fella, who I imagine is being paid a lot of money in order to nod with compassion and state, straight-to-camera, “this is all obviously really intense for the girls, all wanting to get my attention.”

In the same week, I watched Anne Summers chat with Julia Gillard. As a staunch supporter of women’s rights, I lapped it up. Evidently Julia didn’t do such a great job as PM, but I thought it was just a little bit awesome that after such a tumultuous time, she finally got to be in a room full of adoring women who wanted to say THANK YOU, for being the first female prime minister. And THANK YOU for enduring the personal slander that poured over you in the guise of legitimate political criticism. THANK YOU Jules, for paving the way.

I suppose we’ve hit true female liberation – this is a time when girls can grow up and choose where they belong on this vast range of femininity. But part of me can’t help but worry that the women choosing to perpetuate the stereotypes and inhabit the decorative part of the scale aren’t just making life a little bit harder for those who are trying to prove that a woman is worth more than just her looks.

And while I try to remain open-minded, I have to admit that I already know at which end of the woman-scale that I hope my daughter chooses to place herself. What about you?

From Vegie Smugglers 1. Have you bought a copy yet?

From Vegie Smugglers 1. Have you bought a copy yet?

Liberated ‘chick’pea & corn fritters

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, drained, mashed a little
4 spring onions,
finely chopped
Handful of basil and parsley leaves, finely chopped
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

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Holiday treat – rocky road

September 24, 2013 · Filed under Food experiences, Sweets & treats · Tagged , , , , , ,

Last week I promised chocolate. Being a woman of my word, here’s a fab little chocolate treat just in time for the school holidays.

Cooking with the kids can be a fun educational way to spend a couple of hours together. If your kids aren’t naturally inclined towards the kitchen (like mine), then the best way to get them involved is to cook treats. Unlike the marble cake or chocolate slice from previous holiday posts, this recipe has the advantage that it’s a no-oven winner, which means that you’ll have the recipe wrapped up before anyone can stutter “I’m bored” or “what time can I play PS3?”.

And unlike those showy-offy sponges or uber-posh macarons, rocky road’s charm is in it’s randomness. Each piece is special, just a little bit ugly and best of all you can’t really get it wrong, which all appeals to a down-to-earth lass like myself.

Bumpy and imperfect, just like life.

Bumpy and imperfect, just like life.

Rocky Road

4 full cups of chunks –choose any or all of…
Marshmallows, cranberries, goji berries, sultanas, currants, dried strawberries or pears, shredded coconut, nuts (peanuts, pecans, pistachios, macadamias) turkish delight, chia seeds, sunflower seeds, pepitas
200g block dark chocolate, broken into pieces
1 tbsp golden syrup
25g butter
¾ cup dark chocolate melts (or more dark chocolate, roughly chopped)

Line a 18x28cm slice tray with baking paper.

Mix your choice of chunks in a large bowl. Place the 200g chocolate, syrup and butter into a small saucepan over gentle heat and stir to melt. Remove from heat, tip in the extra chocolate (I like melts, since they quickly stick into the mix, but they’ll stay chunky enough that you’ll get good chocolate chunks through the finished mix). Pour into the dry ingredients. Combine well, tip into the tray and refrigerate.

MAKES 24 SQUARES

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You’re not a cheapskate, you’re just ‘penny wise’.

September 12, 2013 · Filed under All recipes, Ham/pork · Tagged , , , , ,

Ah euphemism – how I love you. I’ve always loved the way you can put a spin on nearly anything to make it sound nicer. Like rather than admitting that I’m stuck in routines now that I’m edging closer to middle-age, I much prefer the idea that I’ve got certain ‘traditions’ that I like to follow. Like having a cup of tea and a biscuit at 8.30 most nights. That’s not boring at all, is it; it’s just a lovely tradition, right?

With my love of talking things up, perhaps I should embark on a future in politics. After last weekend’s Senate debacle I’m contemplating starting up the Vegie Smugglers party. I only need one policy. I think it’ll be fresh vegies for all and a weekly-easy-to-cook recipe. Once I’ve got my politician hat on, the euphemisms can continue – in these times of economic uncertainty, we’d all never be broke, just fiscally challenged.

So to help bring us back into surplus I’m not offering you a budget or cheap dinner this week. Nope, I’m stealing the label from the cover of one of the ritzier interior decorating magazines and calling this a ‘penny wise’ recipe.

Using sausages as an ingredient is ‘fiscally responsible’ and if you use Peppercorn sausages then you’ll be at the deadset posh end of the pennywise scale.

Enjoy.

vegie-smugglers-peppercorn-budget-pasta

Sausage pasta

350g spiral pasta (just cook the whole 500g bag, use about 2/3 in this recipe and then you’ve got handy leftovers for lunchboxes or maybe make these frittatas later in the week)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 large brown onion, finely diced
375g Peppercorn Food Company Italian sausages, sliced
1 small eggplant, peeled, finely diced
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 large carrot, peeled, grated
3 cloves garlic
2 tsp Italian herbs
800g can chopped tomatoes
1 cup baby spinach
Olives (optional)
Parmesan (optional)

Cook pasta according to packet directions, set aside.

Heat half the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the sausages and cook for 5 minutes, stirring often. Add in the onion for several minutes, stirring often until golden. Pour in the rest of the oil then pop in the eggplant and continue cooking the mixture, stirring often. After another 3-4 minutes, the eggplant should have softened, and the sausages should be thoroughly cooked. Pour over the vinegar and stir through.

Tip in the carrot, garlic and herbs. After a minute pour in the tomatoes. Swish out the tin with 1/4 cup water and add that to the mix, too. Bring to a simmer, reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Mix in the spinach for another minute until wilted. Add the cooked pasta in and heat through.

Serves topped with olives and Parmesan. Adults might also like a splash of Tabasco sauce, anchovies and a good whack of pepper.

Serves 2 adults and 4 kids

*Peppercorn Food Company supplied these sausages, and I’m happy to recommend them. Go and like up their Facebook page.

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