The Family Table. Part 4. Michelle Crawford from 'Hugo & Elsa'

Welcome to this week's Family Table.


A couple of years ago when I first started writing this blog I thought about what it was that I wanted to share.
It started as a way of me sharing my food knowledge and my passion for preparing real food for our families.

More importantly though I like to think that I give people the confidence to appreciate that the magic that is the Family dining experience is NOT just about the food.
LOVE to me should always be the single most important ingredient that is shared at our family table.  Without LOVE the food and the entire dining experience is just another meal.  But with it our souls as well as our tummies are nourished.
It is with this in mind that on Fridays I will be sharing with you my new series- The Family Table- where super special guests share their family dining experiences with us.  It is a way of appreciating that there are infinite ways of dining together.
My wish is that every single one of my readers makes The Family Table part of their own family life.
While the food is what draws us to the table it should be considered but ONE of many things that are shared and indeed NOT the most important one.

I am so excited about this series and have some of my very favourite family sorts lined up to share with us their Family Table experiences over the coming weeks.

This week I am so delighted to be sharing with you a lady who I am lucky enough to call one of my friends.  She is one of the cleverest food people I know & a human of the super ace variety. 

Michelle Crawford is a very talented home cook who has turned her talents into work.  She is a food stylist and photographer and super awesome mumma of two lovely children Hugo & Elsa.
You may know her gorgeous blog of the same name or you may remember me talking about her here.

Today while you are reading this Michelle & I will happily be catching up on coffee, hugs, laughter &  shared meals while she stays with me for the weekend as we were both honoured to be named Voices of 2013 VIP bloggers and there is a Masterclass that we will both be attending along with lots of other fab Australian blogging talent.


If not make sure to go and have a good look at it here.  It was one of the very first blogs I read regularly and still do.

Over to Michelle ~

1.)Can you please share a little about how your family shares food? 

Although our meals are at shared at the table, our week night meals are in two sittings at the moment, kids at 6 then adults at 8;30pm, because Leo doesn't get home from work until then.  We make up for it by eating at least one meal together on the weekends.  I love to have a big Sunday lunch or we will have an early dinner and eat outside around the campfire fire.  

Often we have wwoofers (willing workers on organic farms) come to stay and share our meals which I love.  We get to share recipes and ideas from around the world.

2.)Do you have hard & fast eating rules?

Nope.   I can't stand battles over food with young children. No winners, just a kid who's turned off a specific food.  I'd rather lead by example, by eating a variety of food.  By the time kids get to around 10 years old, I reckon they'll join you. There's always toast for fussy eaters.

3.)Can you share with us where your cooking influences/inspiration are from?

I'm inspired by what's around me, food that we've grown ourselves or what a local friends or farmer has grown. Being in Tasmania we are very much in tune with the seasons and what we eat is driven by that.   I love that we know where 90% of our food comes from, who grew it, baked it, reared it, who killed it.   

 My cooking influences are wide and varied, and a groaning book case filled with cookbooks is testament to that.   I must say, that I'm lucky enough to work with Matthew Evans a lot and I really love his food, his philosophy and the way he cooks.  

4.) Do you have a favourite cuisine?  

Just one?  Too hard.  I’m very greedy and I've never met a cuisine I didn't like!

5.) Can you recall a super special meal or eating experience that has stayed with you forever?

Food holds so many special memories, and I can recall so many amazing meals shared with friends and family, it would be hard to pick one...Okay, how about a grilled fish sandwich bought fresh off a boat moored on the Bosphorous in Instanbul, squishy white Turkish bread, fresh lemon juice, smoky grilled fish….unforgettable! 

6.)Would you please share the recipe of your favourite family meal with us?

We love eating outside, around the campfire and try to eat outside all year round weather permitting. I love making burgers, because Elsa is vegetarian, it makes life easier so the meat eaters can have beef burgers and I might fry some haloumi for her.  

Burgers Chez Hugo and Elsa 

We go for the Neil Perry recipe for burgers - nothing added to the patty, just excellent quality mince.

• 800 grams of coarsely minced beef 
• 4 bacon rashers 
• 4 slices Gruyère or your favourite cheese
• 4 burger buns, halved and toasted
• Cos lettuce leaves
• 1 vine-ripened tomato, sliced
• For drizzling: extra-virgin olive oil

Knead the mince with your hands until it becomes sticky and the meat binds together. Form into 4 patties. (I might make smaller ones for Hugo)

Heat a barbecue to high heat. Cook the patties, turning once, until medium-rare. We have a great fish grill thing that’s perfect for cooking burgers over the fire.

Meanwhile grill the bacon until crisp.

Top each patty with cheese, then the bacon, and cook on the barbecue until the cheese has softened.

Place each patty on a bun base, top with your favourite condiments, lettuce and tomatoes and sandwich with the bun tops. 

7.)What song would be playing at the dinner table?

No music if we're outside, just the dulcet tones of bird song and chainsaws. However, if we are inside, we’d be listening to Turnstile Junkpile Time is Running Out 

Thankyou so much for sharing your Family Table Michelle. x

Winter Weekends

On Sunday we headed out as a family to one of our absolute fave family destinations.

It has been SOOOOO cold in Melbourne the last week..

Freezing frosty starts followed by clear blue, crisp aired days.

Really lovely actually.

I guess in some ways the natural reaction is to hunker down at home and snuggle on the couch.

But our house, already very small, is compromised even more for space while we build extra.

The renovation is SUPER exciting and it is really coming along but we have no yard and staying inside all weekend at our place with 7 people for days at a time is challenging to say the least.

We ate breakfast got dressed and all headed off playing 20 questions and I spy galore as we drove into town.  The big ones adjusting the games for the littles. Me & Mr Girlfriend talking in the front as if sitting privately in our little cocoon up the front of the bus.  Happy times.

We headed to the Melbourne Museum.

My favourite display this time was the AMAZING Designs of VCE students. It finishes this weekend so if you can I highly recommend a look.

Two hours of fun and a quick Yum Cha lunch on the way home.

Weekend perfection.

Mr Girlfriend and I decided we needed to make Sunday our 'Outing day'. We came home with plenty of time to still do jobs but felt like we had a really full & happy day.

Usually we tend to stay at home and catch up on the relentless and never ending 'jobs' here at home and sometimes feel a bit like we are chasing our tails and then it's back to work before we know it.
It makes the weekend feel a little like a rip off!

So now I need to research the kinds of places that suit our family for our outings.

I was thinking next weekend a little bushwalk would be nice.  Another fave family thing to do that has been WAY too long since the last time.

What did you do on the weekend?

Do you have a regular 'Outing Day'.

Cream of Broccoli Soup with Fried Hot Salami:
Along with the chilly weather comes the desire for super soup season.
I  love soups and would be happy to eat them every single lunch time.
Today I really was craving a Creamy soup.
This soup has a little chilli kick but you can omit if it is not your thing.  And omit the Salami if that is not your thing either!
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

• 500gms Broccoli
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/2 onion chopped roughly
• 1 tbsp butter
• 2 cups stock (chicken or veg)- you may need a little more depending on what consistency you like your soup
• 4 tbspns cream
• S & P
• 1/2 tsp chilli flakes
• 10 slices good quality hot salami or chorizo

METHOD:
In a large sauce pan add butter and melt over medium heat.

Add onion & garlic & chilli flakes and fry till translucent.

Chop the broccoli- including the stem (just trim the woody end).

Add to pot. Stir through and add the stock so it just covers the broccoli.

Season and bring to boil.  Boil till just tender so the broccoli remains luminescent green.  It tastes better this way and retains more if it's nutrients too.

While Broccoli is cooking, slice the salami and cut into matchsticks and dry fry in a non stick pan- I didn't add any oil as it has plenty of it's own that will render as you fry.  Fry for a couple of minutes until it looks as if it is crunchy. Set aside to use as a garnish.

Once Broccoli is soft, remove from heat and blitz using a stick mixer.  

Now add cream and blitz again, check seasoning.

Serve with a few strips of the Fried Salami.

The Family Table: Part 3. Adriane Strampp.

Welcome to this week's Family Table.

A couple of years ago when I first started writing this blog I thought about what it was that I wanted to share.

It started as a way of me sharing my food knowledge and my passion for preparing real food for our families.

More importantly though I like to think that I give people the confidence to appreciate that the magic that is the Family dining experience is NOT just about the food.
While the food is what draws us to the table it should be considered but ONE of many things that are shared and indeed NOT the most important one.

LOVE to me should always be the single most important ingredient that is shared at our family table.  Without LOVE the food and the entire dining experience is just another meal.  But with it our souls as well as our tummies are nourished.

It is with this in mind that on Fridays I will be sharing with you my new series- The Family Table- where super special guests share their family dining experiences with us.  It is a way of appreciating that there are infinite ways of dining together.

My wish is that every single one of my readers makes The Family Table part of their own family life.

I am so excited about this series and have some of my very favourite family sorts lined up to share with us their Family Table experiences over the coming weeks.

This week I am thrilled to share with you a super talented creative lady that I have admired from a far for quite some time & was SOOOOOOO excited when she said YES to being part of this series.

Adriane Strampp is an artist in Melbourne.  You may or may not know of her amazing works. Have a closer look thorough her portfolio here.  

She lives in Fitzroy in a very gorgeous( and now very famous) apartment. I know it as Adriane's place but may know it as Patrick & Nina's apartment in Offspring. 

Adriane paints locally in her Fitzroy studio where she also runs Beginners painting & drawing classes- you can find out more about them & book yourself in to the upcoming July one here! ~ http://fitzroypainting.com/

Adriane has recently created a Facebook page where you can follow a little more of her lovely creative ways. You can find it here.
  

Over to Adriane ~

1.) Can you please share a little about how your family shares food? 

My family is spread all around the world but when we get together cooking and eating is what we do best. My earliest memories are of my American grandmother's pies, there were always at least two to choose from, but blueberry was always my favourite. Having homes in different countries means we tend to cook whatever is local and in season. In Italy we make pasta, and in Thailand fragrant Thai dishes. The family home is in England and that is where we probably have our most formal meals. On Christmas Eve my mum throws an enormous dinner party for family and friends in the conservatory and that is pretty special. Lots of flowers, candles and glass, and an open fire. At home we always eat at the table. I have an Aga and that makes everyone gravitate to the kitchen.

My Australian family is made up of friends, and I love cooking for them. We have regular late Sunday afternoon tapas get-togethers where everyone cooks one dish and we get to catch up (usually at my place!) without a lot of fuss.  My daughter Lucy is a great baker and I love it when she is home. She is also an artist and film-maker, as well as making videos for restaurants and delis, including Melbourne's Alimentari. 

2.) Do you have hard & fast eating rules?

No rules, but I always have a good breakfast as sometimes the day can go downhill from there! I tend to eat pretty healthily, shop at the market most weeks and grow a few things in my vegetable plot. I try to avoid things with too many names on the label that I don’t understand. Having said that, salt & vinegar crisps with a gin & tonic are a weakness!

3.) Can you share with us where your cooking influences/inspiration are from?

My mum, and Elizabeth David. When I was 16 I started reading every cookbook she wrote and that formed the start of my culinary journey. 

4.) Do you have a favourite cuisine?

Not really, I like fresh, simple and seasonal. Anything spicy! Cooking is a creative down-time for me, sometimes it's hard to switch off from the studio and I find cooking relaxing. If I have time I make my own seasonal things like passata, olives, and quince paste, most recently I made a few jars of cumquat marmalade. 

5.) Can you recall a super special meal or eating experience that has stayed with you forever?

A date with an ex-boyfriend. It was years ago and he took me to Da Noi, it was one of those perfect nights where they kept bringing out amazing dishes, each one was more incredible than the last. The chef was on fire. We still talk about it.

6.) Would you please share the recipe of your favourite family meal with us?

That would have to be Kedgeree, great comfort food, especially in winter.

KEDGEREE RECIPE:

Rather than give exact quantities, I have given a guideline to be varied as you wish, depending on how much you wish to make, and how spicy you would like it. Other variations could include the addition of small prawns. For precise recipes try Elizabeth David’s recipe in Spices, Salt and Aromatics in the English Kitchen, or Jamie Oliver.

Ingredients:

Smoked cod (3 pieces for 2 people with left-overs)

1 onion

Eggs (1 per serve)

Lemon

Basmati rice, rinsed

Madras curry powder

Cumin  powder

Coriander powder

1-2 red chillies

1-2  bay leaves

Salt

Pepper

Milk

Olive oil or butter

First chop the onion and chilli and gently sauté with the olive oil or butter in a large deep frying pan. When soft and translucent add a good tablespoonful each of cumin and coriander, two of Madras curry powder and cook until fragrant. Put aside and in the same pan toss in the rice with a small splash of olive oil or knob of butter and stir for a couple of minutes. Add enough water to just cover the rice and cook until water is absorbed and rice is ‘al dente’.

Meanwhile, place the fish in a frying pan and just cover with milk. Add a couple of bay leaves and a grinding of pepper, and gently poach for about 5-10 minutes. Separately boil the eggs until just hard-boiled. Peel and quarter.

Once the rice is ready, gently toss together everything including the poaching milk and transfer to a baking dish. Don’t worry if the mix looks a bit wet, it will be absorbed. Bake for roughly 30 minutes until the top is lightly browned. Serve with lime pickle and/or mango chutney, lemon wedges and lots of freshly chopped coriander.

7.) What song would be playing at the dinner table?

A lot! But this one would be one I'd be cooking to before my guests arrive, the beautiful Nick Drake and Northern Sky. 

Thankyou so much for sharing your Family table Adriane.
x

Being the Mother of a Son (......or five)

Lately we have seen some pretty average behaviour in the media from men around the place.  Behaviour that is inexcusable.

A few blogger types who also happen to be mothers of sons were spurred on by Lexi from Pottymouthmama to celebrate the males in our lives who are human beings of the ace variety.

Not surprisingly as a Mother of FIVE boys I feel it is my place to be a bit of an advocate for boys.

Boys tend to get a pretty bad wrap generally- not just when ooky things happen in the public eye but just generally.  They tend to get labelled with the not-so-positive descriptives.

The first thing people say when they hear that not only do I have five children but that they are all boys is "Oh my gosh!"  Cue jaws on the floor and all......

It's generally not seen as a particularly good thing.  Then come the jokes about how we must of kept on trying for a girl. GUFFAW.

Only I am not laughing.
I don't find it funny.  Especially when people say it in front of my crew.  Do they think my lads don't understand the thinly veiled message they are delivering?

It is hurtful.  To me and to my boys.

My answer to them is..... "Actually NO...we kept on trying to have more boys because boys are ACE.
SO ace in fact that we wanted FIVE of them, and look how lucky we are that our wish came true."

Cue silence as the conversation ends abruptly.

All the males that I have in my life are intelligent, kind, funny, respectful & caring people.

I aim to raise my five lads to be like that too.

So.... what do I think 'Being a Mother of a Son means?

• I think it means teaching my boys the power of words.

I talk a lot with my lads.  No topic is off limits.  We talk openly and honestly about anything and everything.  Real words, real terms. I don't want my kids to feel embarrassed about life & to not be able to talk using real language.  Sometimes I start conversations that are uneasy just to break the ice. I don't want them to be scared to keep asking questions. I don't ever want that to change although I know it is inevitable. Most of all I don't ever want my boys to stop talking.  As a mother of boys I feel that teaching the power of words is one of the greatest gifts I can give.

After Year 7 camp earlier this year my 12yo came home excitedly to tell me he had met a really good  person he thought would become his good friend.  He told me how great he was to talk with. I asked him what they talked about.  He answered 'Feminism and Philosophy and that sort of stuff. You know...the stuff I like to talk about.'  Proud moment.

• I think it means teaching them about LOVE

My kids aged 15 & 13 cheered recently when the NZ parliament voted to allow Gay marriage.
My boys talk of choosing life partners - and use that term-  in the understanding that the choice of a male or a female as a partner is not as important as whether or not the relationship is a loving, committed and respectful one.

• I think it is about teaching them about Life Values

I guess I see it as my job to try to impart the values that I think are important to have.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately.  Thinking about what differences I teach them as boys rather than girls.
I keep settling back to the idea that I don't really think it IS different. I expect them to behave as a good human being.  Not as a good 'boy'.

• I think it is about teaching them there is more than one way

I don't care for stereotypes of any kind really.  I hope I have taught this to my boys. I don't think any good can come of stereotypes.  Difference in our world is a glorious thing. Being able to celebrate it is a gift.
There are no rules about 'how' to be a boy. My boys all have penises, that is what makes them a boy. How they write their story about 'How to be a Boy' is up to them.  So far I can see five equally wonderful and very different stories unfolding before me.

• I think it means teaching them to be kind

Kindness is something I feel very strongly about.  I can see my boys already understand something of this & when I see them acting with kindness it makes me super proud.

My boys help me stay grounded to the things that matter.  They are smart & funny. So very funny. Sheesh we laugh a lot.  They are helpful and thoughtful.  They think and talk deeply about things that matter to them. They are kind & caring.  Helpful & gentle, creative & talented.  They show their love gently and unashamedly. Even the 15yo still tells me he loves me as he goes to bed.

I count myself as super lucky to be surrounded by such wonderful, loving, funny & totally fabulous human beings that are also totally fabulous BOYS.

Boys are ACE.

Here is a list of links to the other bloggers who are taking part in this.
Click on the links to read their posts that will be published over the day ~

PottyMouthMama

Checks and Spots

Mrs Smith

Kootoyoo

Sadie and Lance

One Flew Over

Pigeon Pair

Mogantosh

Hugo and Elsa

Mamabake

Meet Me at Mikes

ROASTED BEETROOT DIP:
DO you LOVE Beetroot?
I totally LOVE it.
I buy bunches and bunches of the stuff. The leaves in salad or flash fried like spinach & then I often roast the entire lot and have them in the fridge ready to use in different ways.
This is my eldest boy's favourite dip.
This recipe uses roasted beets- I roast the whole bunch but only use about 4 for the dip- leaving you leftovers for salads or other goodies!
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

• 1 bunch beetroot
• 4 tablespoons plain Greek yoghurt
• 2 heaped teaspoons roasted Cumin seeds
• S & P
• 1 clove garlic
• Balsamic Vinegar
• EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)

METHOD:
Preheat oven to 200C.

Trim the leaves off the top of the beets leaving about 1cm of the stalk - set the leaves aside to use in salads.

Take a large baking dish and plonk the beets into it.

Glug about 4-5 tablespoons of Balsamic vinegar, a tablespoon of EVOO & add some S&P over the beets.

Cover tightly with alfoil and pop into the oven for an hour or until the beets are soft all the way through .

While the beets are in the oven pop a heavy based pan on teh stove top and dry fry the cumin seeds over a gentle flame till you can smell their heady perfume- about 6 minutes or so.  Remove and set aside.

Remove the beets from the oven and let cool.

Rub the skin off the outside of the beets (wear disposable gloves for this bit if you don't like pink fingers!)

Chop roughly.

Add the chopped beets into a food processor with the yoghurt and garlic clove.

Blitz to the consistency you like- personally I like mine to be a bit chunky still but you may like it super smooth.

Use a spatula to remove- you don't want to leave any goodness behind!- and add the cumin seeds.

Check seasoning and add S & P if necessary.

It will keep for up to four days in the fridge.

I so love the genius of Andrew Bird....

"When our mouths are filled with uninvited tongues of others

And the strays are pining for their unrequited mothers

Milk that sours is promptly spat, light will fill our eyes like cats

Light will fill our eyes like cats, cataracts"

One on One

As you know I have a very large family.

One of the things that swims around and around in amongst the other things I think of as a parent is how I give to each of my children TIME.

It is an unusually hard to find commodity in our house.

And while some things may come arguably more easily in larger families such as patience, there are other things that don't come very easily at all.

In my family it is one on one time with each of my five children.

I try carefully to weave this into our family.

So much so that I keep each of them home one day a term separately to do exactly that.

One of my children has a significant birthday in a couple of weeks.

The second of our brood to enter the teen years.

A fitting occasion for a special celebration.

Recently my closest brother welcomed a very gorgeous new babe into his family. He lives interstate and my children have only 'met' her on Skype so far.

When I asked my 12yo 'What would you like for your birthday?', he answered 'I would like to cuddle my new baby cousin'.

There it was.

The most amazing boy answered with the most amazing answer.

So off we went.

Just him & me on plane to Sydney.

It was one of the most wonderful 24 hours ever.

I am very proud of the extraordinary human being this young man is.

Happy Birthday.

Ten Minute Haloumi & Spinach Gozleme with Black Cumin seeds:
I have posted a recipe for Gozleme on my blog before but I used a different dough. The previous recipe is here.
While we were in Sydney on the weekend we visited the Fox Studio markets to get some cheese & flowers. There was Gozleme- I had to have some! 
And today in Melbourne it is very chilly and I fancied a hot lunch and Gozleme was still on my brain.....
I wanted to experiment with making a quick dough. I also had no fetta but did have a little Haloumi left from last week.
Here is the result. It took TEN MINUTES from whoah to go.
I am now inventing all sorts of Gozleme marriages- hot salami, chargrilled eggplant & haloumi , chargrilled zucchini and mint, semi dried tomatoes, spinach and mushrooms, chargrilled eggplant & ajvar......you get my drift?! Endles possibilities.
Oh my......
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

• 250g plain flour (plus a little extra for dusting bench)
• 200g cup plain greek yoghurt
• pinch salt
• generous handful fresh spinach leaves
• 6 slices Haloumi
• Black Cumin seeds (also known as Nigella seeds)
• olive oil

METHOD:
Place a tablespoon Olive oil into a non-stick pan and place slices of Haloumi into the pan.

While that frys grab a bowl and combine the yoghurt, flour and salt and combine. I used a fork until it was well combined and then placed onto a dusted bench.  Add more flour of necessary to get the dough pliable without being too sticky. It took me about 4 minutes all up to make the dough.

Keep your eye on the Haloumi! Turn and brown other side and remove from pan & set aside.

Roll out dough as thinly as possible (I like the pastry to be very fine- almost papery)  and sprinkle spinach over one half of the dough. Add the browned Haloumi and sprinkle with Black Cumin and a little extra salt.

Fold over the dough and seal edges.

I sprinkled a few more Cumin seeds over the dough and pushed them in with the palm of my hand.

In the same pan you fried the Haloumi in place your Gozleme in and pan fy each side till brown- it will only take 2-3 minutes.

Remove from pan and slice into small slices & serve immediately with lemon wedges for squeezing onto as you serve.

my birthday boy has been playing this song on his guitar lately....'let your honesty shine'......perfect.

The Family Table. Pt 2. Megan Morton.

Welcome to this week's Family Table.

A couple of years ago when I first started writing this blog I thought about what it was that I wanted to share.

It started as a way of me sharing my food knowledge and my passion for preparing real food for our families.

More importantly though I like to think that I give people the confidence to appreciate that the magic that is the Family dining experience is NOT just about the food.
While the food is what draws us to the table it should be considered but ONE of many things that are shared and indeed NOT the most important one.

LOVE to me should always be the single most important ingredient that is shared at our family table.  Without LOVE the food and the entire dining experience is just another meal.  But with it our souls as well as our tummies are nourished.

It is with this in mind that on Fridays I will be sharing with you my new series- The Family Table- where super special guests share their family dining experiences with us.  It is a way of appreciating that there are infinite ways of dining together.

My wish is that every single one of my readers makes The Family Table part of their own family life.

I am so excited about this series and have some of my very favourite family sorts lined up to share with us their Family Table experiences over the coming weeks.

This week's guest is Megan Morton.
Megan makes houses homes.  Her magic touch helps create places filled with personality & stories of the people that live there.
She is a super creative, passionate and generally awesome mumma of three.  She is a published author & super generous sharer of her talents & skills with others through her classes at 'The School'.

She has most recently made a book about Kids spaces called "I LOVE my room". You can purchase a copy here.

images via The Design Files

I am very grateful to Megan for joining my Family Table.

Over to Megan ~

1.) Can you please share a little about how your family shares food? 
We only eat at the table or in the summer we have wonderful picnics in our garden with friends that require very little preparation. I am not a fan of over preparing anything and like to be ready to invite all and sundry over if I feel like it. In Sydney a lot of entertaining has to be so pre-prepared and arranged and scheduled. If you come to my house you won't starve (but you won't ever have your mouth on the floor!) and you will possibly have a table concept guinea pigged on you! I also like to put sparklers in all my desserts - a visual distraction to a bakery store bought  dessert!

The table setting at Megan's daughter's birthday Party

2.) Do you have hard & fast eating rules?

I am against anything rules or otherwise that give children anything but a good-time relationship with food and eating.

3.) Can you share with us where your cooking influences/inspiration are from? 

I really don't cook, not because I don't adore my family and want to feed them delicious things but because I do love them and want to feed them delicious things!!! 

A great meal is just one of the ingredients to a family coming together. The food is the cherry on top and the family at the table is the glue. I have food made but I refuse to have a microwave and am going to try and go without a freezer in my next kitchen! So let's see... 

The feast of Megan and her colleagues (cooked by her friends) to celebrate the  publication of 'I LOVE my room'

4.) Do you have a favourite cuisine?

I love strong flavours so am naturally drawn to European style cooking. We love Mexican and Japanese as a family and recently moved house from an area that totally spoilt us with Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Cantonese. We all are round appreciators! Our eldest son and daughter can make their own hand rolls and sushi. 

5.) Can you recall a super special meal or eating experience that has stayed with you forever?

Yaccout - a restaurant  in morocco - pre children with my husband. Best. Meal. Of. My. Life.  And more recently I sat inside the kitchen of Alice Waters incredible Chez Panisse in San Francisco. No words can describe what I ate and what I saw. 

6.) Would you please share the recipe of your favourite family meal with us?

I get Icecream (made by kids in Icecream maker), bookend them in digestive biscuits and dip one end in chocolate and crushed violet crumble. I told you I can't / don't cook! 

7.) What song would be playing at the dinner table?

At the moment Blurred Lines - the teenagers have dinner controls of the iPod.  I did take my son to the Wilco concert - one of my favourite bands - and he loved it to, so probably some Wilco after Robin.  And I love a bit of Jonny Cash. He covers so many moods he really is a reliable dinner soundtrack. 

Thankyou Megan. x

Things I am enjoying this week....

Things I am enjoying this week:

• having Mr Girlfriend back home after him being away in NY for the last week & Japan the week before.
• that it is a short week thanks to a Public holiday on Monday.
• that Mr Girlfriend and I are going on a date tomorrow night
• that on Saturday I am taking my 12yo to Sydney for the weekend as his 13th birthday present- just him & me. Can not wait.
• that the roof went on our renovation on Friday! eeeeeep! still lots of the fiddly things to go but WOW I can really see how it is shaping up.
•  the way my best friend appeared out of the blue from interstate as a surprise. Just because she is awesome. 
• that the only one of my children who knew had kept it s surprise. Because he is awesome too.

GOURMET GIRLFRIEND'S CARAMEL CASHEW CHICKEN & Asian Slaw:
This dish was an attempt to replicate something one of my fussy eaters had eaten and LOVED at an earlier restaurant outing.
He is quite a fussy eater & I was amazed at him eating this dish. He read the description on the menu, I let him order it & he devoured it - much to my surprise!
He loved my version too- phew!
This was served as a warm coleslaw style salad but would be equally delicious just serving the chicken on rice & with some steamed greens on the side.
I made the leftovers into an amazing Japanese Okonomiyaki pancake for breakfast the next day. I'll share that recipe next week. 
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

• 1kg chicken thigh, sliced pretty finely
• 1 cup roasted whole cashew nuts
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 cups water
• 5 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1/2 cup potato starch (asian grocers sell this)
• 1 heaped tablespoon of my Salt & Pepper spice mix- recipe here
• 3 whole star anise
• 3 whole spring onion
• 3 inch knob ginger- sliced into large chunky slices.
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 extra cup water
• 1/4 wombok cabbage, sliced super fine (as if you are slicing it for coleslaw)
• 1/4 purple cabbage sliced super fine
• 300g bean sprouts, washed well
• 2 carrots shredded (or grated)
• 1 bunch fresh coriander

METHOD:

In a very large bowl add all the cabbage, bean sprouts, carrot & fresh coriander & toss well to combine. Set aside.

Put the potato flour and the spice mix in a large bowl and toss the sliced chicken in this mix until it is well coated.

Place the star anise, spring onion, garlic, ginger, roasted cashews and fish sauce into a bowl ready to use later

In a non stick pan gently heat oil to medium/high heat & fry off the pieces till brown (they will get cooked through in the caramel sauce so don't stress about whether it is entirely cooked).  Remove & set aside.

Now you need to make the caramel- using the 1 cup sugar and 2 cups water.
Follow the instructions from this recipe to learn how to do this best.

Once the Caramel has started to turn add the chicken and the bowl with the star anise etc into it and stir well.  It may turn to toffee as you add ingredients- don't panic!  

Add the extra cup of water and turn down the heat and cook for about 10-15 minutes.

Now using a slotted spoon remove the chicken and cashew to the cabbage mix (remove any of the other added ingredients) , add the desired amount of caramel sauce and stir through well.

Serve onto individual plates or on a large plate at the table for guests to help themselves!

Discovered this dude this week. another thing I am enjoying.......oh boy oh boy.....his VOICE!!!
enjoy this great clip.

The Family Table. Pt 1. BabyMac AKA Beth Macdonald.

A couple of years ago when I first started writing this blog I thought about what it was that I wanted to share.

It started as a way of me sharing my food knowledge and my passion for preparing real food for our families.

More importantly though I like to think that I give people the confidence to appreciate that the magic that is the Family dining experience is NOT just about the food.
While the food is what draws us to the table it should be considered but ONE of many things that are shared and indeed NOT the most important one.

LOVE to me should always be the single most important ingredient that is shared at our family table.  Without LOVE the food and the entire dining experience is just another meal.  But with it our souls as well as our tummies are nourished.

It is with this in mind that on Fridays I will be sharing with you my new series- The Family Table- where super special guests share their family dining experiences with us.  It is a way of appreciating that there are infinite ways of dining together.

My wish is that every single one of my readers makes The Family Table part of their own family life.

I am so excited about this series and have some of my very favourite family sorts lined up to share with us their Family Table experiences over the coming weeks.

My first guest is Beth MacDonald from Baby Mac:
Beth's blog is all about her transition to country life after falling in love with a house that she and hubby Rob immediately knew was home.  They ditched the Inner West life of SydVegas to bring up their family in the Southern Highlands of NSW.  She likes to fold sheets and also carve her roast chicken on her very shiny floors. Despite me not being a fan of housework we are still the very best kind of mates.
Beth & I are mates in real life after meeting through the magic of Blog world.  I totes love her.  She and I love to laugh, drink coffee, swear, love music, love our families and have a ridiculous love of anything of the Pig variety of food type. I am especially grateful to her brother for moving to Melbourne so she comes to visit more often.
You may know her blog too? If not you can find it here.
You may also know of Beth's super deluxe Magazine named after her alter-ego BEVERLEY. If not skip to the app store immediately in your shiny red shoes and click away to have a squizz at it's cleverness. The latest edition includes a super gorgeous movie by Rob about Organic Farming that I LOVE.

Over to Beth ~

1.) Can you please share a little about how your family shares food? 

We are extremely lucky to eat together, as a family, almost every night of the week. The move we made to the country means that Rob and I are both working from home, which means family dinner...every night! I still pinch myself that this is the case. I feel very lucky. We eat around a table...that's my rule. It can be around the kitchen island bench, or dining table, but it HAS to be a table. No TV. Music preferred. And you have to be able to chat about your day - what you did.

2.) Do you have hard & fast eating rules?

You have to TRY stuff. You don't have to like it, but I really push the girls to try stuff. Rob can be annoying sometimes and push things he doesn't like around his plate, but I force him to eat and lead by example! Nothing is more frustrating is going to the trouble to cook something tasty and nutritious and have it pushed away. I have thrown many a tantrum over that! There also has to be something green on the plate...somewhere. A rule I picked up from my Mum.

3.) Can you share with us where your cooking influences/inspiration are from?

My Mum - 100%. She is the perfect home cook and entertainer, and she got her knowledge from her Mum. Mum ran a catering business out of our home kitchen in the 80's, then had her own cafe for a number of years and has worked in and out of the food industry all her life. She has taught me EVERYTHING I know and love about cooking - especially with love, from the heart, for the people that you love.

4.) Do you have a favourite cuisine?

I am a pig and eat and love ALL OF THE THINGS.

5.) Can you recall a super special meal or eating experience that has stayed with you forever?

Meals and food can evoke such memories and feelings don't you think? The smell of onions and garlic frying in a pan remind me of Mum cooking weekly dinners and is instant comfort to my nose. I've been lucky enough to have some seriously spicy and amazing thai food on my honeymoon on a beach with Rob. The cup of tea and toast I ate after giving birth to Daisy were the best things I think I'd EVER had. A seafood chowder and pint of Guinness in Ireland with my sister and Rob's Dad were so delicious....each good memory I have dear to my heart usually involves food. To me, food is love and happiness - all my best memories are attached to something I have eaten...as I said, PIG!

6.) Would you please share the recipe of your favourite family meal with us?

• 1 organic chicken
• 1 lemon
• Handful rosemary, thyme, parsley
• 4 cloves garlic
• Salt, pepper, butter and olive oil

Throw inside the chicken the lemon cut in half, herbs, garlic. Cut thin slices of butter and wedge under the skin of the chicken.  Rub the olive oil over the bird and season with salt & pepper. Whack into a hot oven 200 degrees for 1.5 hours.

Into a roasting pan throw in any veggies that you like - we use potato & sweet potato, red onions etc and chuck in 30 mins into the chicken cooking (needs an hour in total). In the last 10 mins I throw in a bunch of cut kale or cavolo nero to crisp up at the end.

Serve with gravy.

7.) What song would be playing at the dinner table?

This isn't the full song...but here it is anyway. THIS is what we listened to x

Thanks Beth. xx

Help keep our Kids Smiling

Today I am sharing with you a lady friend of awesome who does something that every single one of us should know about.  It is NOT a sponsored post but is just something I LOVE and feel passionately about and want to share with you.

I am super lucky to be friends with an amazing lady- well I am lucky to be friends with MANY amazing ladies actually- but there is one I want to share with you today.

Janey Martino is a super dooper lady of ace who has many talents- but it is her fabulous smiley positive sharing ways, her sense of fun & her true blue heart of gold that I love the best of all.

She is a lady of many hats (and she looks gorgeous in all of them!)- she was one half of the super design duo of series 2 of renovating reality TV show The Block with hubby Matt,  a PR lady & corporate director and also ace mumma of 3 of the loveliest young fellas you ever will meet.  She leads a life that focusses on her family most of all.  I am sure I have missed some of her other (many) achievements but you get the idea.......

I love chatting over coffee with her about all sorts of things- we love to laugh, talk, drink coffee (ok I *may* have been responsible for bringing her over to the dark side of drinking coffee over her normal choice of tea as a hot drink....) and of course we LOVE to share delicious food with our families together!

She is also the lady that kick started the not-for-profit organisation that has helped many hundreds of young people in Australia reduce their stress levels through regular short meditations- Smiling Mind.

I have mentioned Smiling Mind here before but if you don't know about it you can skip over to read more about it here.
Put simply it is a downloadable app that is super easy to use aimed at children aged 7-17 (and for adults too!).

It is being implemented in hundreds of schools across Australia with remarkable results.  My children's Primary School is one of many to implement it into their daily timetable.  How GREAT is that?!

My older kids both use Smiling Mind regularly- my eldest uses it to relieve anxiety and my second child uses it to help him focus his thinking.

Meditation is such a wonderful tool for all of us.

I use this app too.  I use it after I exercise- it is kind of my 'cool down'.

Through June & July Smiling Mind is running a campaign in order to keep their great work going.
Without donations it can't keep up the great work they have started.

I KNOW how much this programme helps children. It really helped my eldest through a very stressful  period in his life, we had tried lots of other stuff but the Smiling Mind app was the thing that helped him the most (thanks a billion Janey!)

You can find Smiling Mind Facebook page here.

Or follow them on twitter here.

I have bought some smiles. I really hope you can too or share my post to get the message out there far & wide!

I will be leaving the SMILE DRIVE banner on the top left of my blog for the duration of the campaign - it has a direct link to the Buy a Smile donation page.


GOURMET GIRLFRIEND'S OSSO BUCO:
Osso Buco is such a modern fave. A traditional Milanese dish usually served with Risotto Milanese- risotto cooked with Saffron to make it golden in colour and rich in perfume with marrow added from the osso buco.
When I was growing up I didn't know any other families that ate it.
It uses the secondary cut- the shin with the bone still in.  Secondary cuts were never very desirabel and so were cheap! Osso Buco and shanks were two of these cuts- once not desirable now EXPENSIVE!
If the bone is taken out it is chopped and sold as Gravy beef.  
What makes it sooooo super dooper delish is all the sinew and the marrow.  The long slow cooking time allows all these things to translate to FLAVOUR.
I used the 5 week aged Osso Buco given to me by Bunbartha Beef - you can have their meat delivered direct form the Farmer to you!
I make my recipe the same as my mother did- based on a recipe from one of my most precious cook books- Ada Boni's Italian Regional Cooking- a cookbook long out of print but I think one of the most valuable of all Italian cookbooks ever written.
Ada Boni's recipe is much more simple than many modern recipes for Osso Buco that add many more ingredients. This is about as simple as cooking gets- the produce really counts!
The Gremolata that is served with final dish is what brings out the magic in this most simple of dishes. It was delicious.
This week I substituted Verjuice for the more traditional White wine as I didn't have any!
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

• 4 osso buco
• seasoned flour for dusting
• 1/2 cup verjuice
• 2 cans diced tomatoes
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped super fine
• 1/2 bunch parsley, chopped fine
• 4-6 anchovy fillets, chopped fine
• grated rind of a lemon.
• S & P.
• Olive oil

METHOD:
Season the flour and coat each Osso Buco piece well.

Heat a large non stick pan to medium/high and sear each Osso Buco till just starting to brown. Turn over and repeat till each cut is browned.

The meat does NOT need to be cooked through. Set aside on a plate.

Once all pieces are seared rub the pan with a tea towel to remove any burnt flour &  add the Verjuice to deglaze the pan.  Add the tomatoes and season.

Place the beef (and juices) back into the pot, cover, turn down the heat to the absolute minimum and cook for at least 2 hours.  Or pop into a slow cooker.

To prepare the Gremolata:

Mix the garlic, anchovy, lemon rind and parsley.

Sprinkle over the bones a few minutes before serving and stir through to distribute the flavour.  I place a small amount of extra gremolata at the table for guests to add extra too!

I dare you not to love this track......