The day we learnt we knew nothing at all.

This morning we woke to celebrate our eldest child's 15th birthday.

FIFTEEN.

How on earth even have we been parents for soooooooo long?!!!

After nearly 2 full days in labour I gave birth to my first baby in London all those years ago.

It was a monumental moment.

One that changed our lives forever.

In exactly the way we wanted.

Remember how many people tell you during your first pregnancy that "Having children changes your life forever", said in a tone that implies that it changes it in a negative way.

"Goodbye sleep......".

"You'll never be able to do those things again....."

It's true indeed that our lives DID change that day.

That day we gained humility like we never had before.

We gained the knowledge that actually we knew nothing at all & never would ever again.

Yet at the exact moment we had everything that could ever matter (except the four other children we were yet to have......)

Our little baby borne that day has grown into a fine young man.

We are still fumbling our way through, now heading into the young adult years....what even?!!!!

We are ever so proud of him.

He is so ace to have around- funny, clever, sensitive, loving, compassionate and just so darn ace to spend time with.

Happy Birthday Jasper.

PORK & CHORIZO SAUSAGE ROLLS:
This recipe is my twist on the regular homemade sausage roll.
My kids (and everyone else) love them.
I use real mince, not the indistinguishable product that is sold at the supermarket as sausage mince.  Trust me you REALLY don't want to know what is in that!!!
This is super easy and SOOOOO yummy!
So easy my four year old actually made these.
My little kids always love making the messy recipes that involve mince meat- it feels like playdough to them. A great way to get them in the kitchen.
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

• 500g Pork mince
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled
• 3 slices stale sourdough, crusts removed and cut into large chunks
• 2 chorizo sausage, skin peeled off and cut into chunks
• rind of half a lemon
• a good handful of Italian parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon Smoked Spanish Paprika (regular sweet will work if you don't have the Spanish variety)
• 1 large red chilli, seeds removed
• 2 tablespoons good tomato sauce (I use our homemade one- use tomato relish rather than bought sauce if you can, it will give a better flavour)
• 4 sheets puff pastry, sliced in half
• egg wash

METHOD:

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Add the bread, chorizo, garlic, parsley, lemon rind, & chilli to a food processor and blitz till the ingredients are a crumb.

 Remove and add to a large mixing bowl.

Now add the pork mince to the food processor and blitz (pulse mode) till almost a paste but still with a little texture.

Add to the other ingredients and add the tomato sauce.  Mix with your hands till all ingredients are mixed well.

Add the mince mix to the middle of the halved sheet of puff and roll over the ends.

Slice to desired size and place on baking paper.

Brush with egg wash and bake for 20 minutes or until browned.

Serve with tomato sauce.

I LOVE this track- I hope my kids are judged by who they are and not where they came from......

The Family Table. Part 7. Jane & Matt Martino

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 sharing with you some very good friends of mine, Jane & Matt Martino.

If you have been an avid 'The Block series watcher you may remember them from Series 2.  Last year amongst ,any other hats she wears, Jane co-founded the not-for-profit organisation Smiling Mind with James Tutton.
Matt is the very clever and creative architect/artist/designer behind Martino Group.

You may have seen their homes on The Design Files.

This week they sees the official launch of their new venture together- SHOUT. 

Shout is an app that aims to raise funds for charities & organisations. The idea is that people can make small donations for everyday items such as coffee, movie tickets, or a nutritious breakfast to a person in need easily from your phone.

You can download the app here.

You can follow them on Twitter here.

And you can follow them on Facebook here.

I know Jane & Matt as parents of 3 gorgeous boys.  Jane & Matt are smiley, community minded, generous, happy, positive and positively inspiring people who share a love of eating and of family- which is totally evident in their post this week.

I am thrilled to have them sharing their Family Table with us.

Over to Matt ~

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

Food is a great big part of our lives. Jane and I LOVE food and we have three healthy, growing beautiful boys (Tom 8, Henry 6, and Sonny 5) and we celebrate with meals. We socialise over meals and we get together over food. Whether it is the daily debrief or the birthday dinner, food brings us together. We always eat at the table or up at the kitchen bench - where the boys and Jane and I sit and eyeball the boys and we all go through our 'three great things'. The TV, unlike my upbringing, is NEVER on  during meal time (except movie night and this is an event of food and entertainment in itself). I have always designed my kitchens as a functioning meeting space. While I create the food, people stand or sit around. Guests are always welcome to hover and pick at the food. I believe food brings people together, this has been the way in both our families and now it is the same in ours.

As a family we always eat together. Working for ourselves we can make that happen most nights and it is important to debrief on the day, reconnect as a family and enjoy food. 

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

Eating is a good thing. Whether for hunger, energy or social reasons, eating should always be a happy pleasure. We try to get the kids to at least try things.  This 'bravery' is a great lesson for life as well as the table.They also have to appreciate healthy alternatives and understand that healthy choices are good for them and they are in control of these choices, it's important. That said, a treat is also a good thing and we would never want to get 'stressed about food'. We eat well, and when this lapses, we always try and balance it in other ways. And we always try to remind ourselves that some people would kill for what we are complaining about eating. 

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

Family. Family. Family.  I grew up in an Italian family where my Scottish mother was taught to cook authentic, Italian peasant food by her mother-in-law. She went on to open and run successful restaurants. My dad also cooked. He prepared the meals most nights and mum would do the special ones. My grandparents on dad's side were incredible, untrained cooks. Homemade pizza, fresh pasta, even a simple chop was delicious. Now I cook like that. I never measure, rarely use recipes, but get inspired by others. It about the feel and being creative with food.

4.) Do you have a favourite cuisine?

Because I can't decide between French, Italian, Greek, I am going to say, European. (maybe not traditional British). The way Europeans treat flavour, ingredients and the act of dining is so cool. I love how food is enjoyed, not just eaten. I love how they dine, they share plates, they love the act of eating. They get the thing about food and like nothing else, it engages all your senses, smell, taste, sight, hear and feel & it engages your emotions as well.

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

Sunday Pasta at my Nana's is one of my strongest, not just food memories but childhood ones. We would go over on Sunday where she would have had the sauce cooking from 6am and the smell would meet us in the drive way and the rich Italian flavours, the homemade pasta and real ,freshly grated parmesan cheese. The smell and anticipation would make you starve like nothing else. It was so tasty, so delicious. We had our set chairs at the table, same ritual of sitting down, who was served first, the eating, the second course, the dessert and even as a 7 year old the short black. We never tired of this ritual and we never tired of the food, never asked for something different.

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

Love to. This is my Nana's pasta sauce I mentioned before. It is so simple, so pure with few ingredients, but is always a rich, flavoured winner. It takes some time, but like any slow cooking, you can almost set and forget.

NANA MARTINO's PASTA SAUCE:

• Get a boiling chicken (they are hard to find but the tough rich meat cooks for ages). 
• Brown off the pieces in plenty of oil ( the oil holds the flavour and coats the plate once served). 
• Add passata and 1 can of tomatoes, a tea spoon of salt (keep adding to taste) and simmer for a few hours. Keep the heat low and the sauce covered. 
• That's it. The longer you cook, the stronger the flavour. It's such a simple, surprisingly tasty dish. 
• Any pasta will do, fresh, dry, any shape. Cook the pasta then drain and stir through the sauce, sprinkle with parmesan and thats it.
• Serve with crusty bread to mop up the oily/tomato residue.
• Then you serve the slow cooked chicken pieces to share. 

All of my brothers and sisters still cook this and love it (and so do all our children!!).

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

I love a playlist. I always doctor up a playlist for a dinner party. It's always my aim for people to request a copy of the playlist just as they would the evening's recipe!

But to be specific, lov'n Ryan Adams Ashes and Fire album especially Dirty Rain.

I am so grateful to Jane & Matt for sharing their Family Table with us.

x

Just YOU.

I LOVE the Huffington post.  It always has articles that make you think.  I like that.  I like to think about stuff.

I read this article last weekend and it really had me hooked.

Have a read of it here & then skip on back here if you would like to hear what I think about it.

I LOVE it and here is why........

• we have begun to overthink EVERYTHING we do.  This in my opinion is a recipe for stress, self doubt & disaster.  Not just for us as parents but for our children too.
• by overthinking our parenting methods we lessen the quality time we give our children.  We stop having GENUINE interactions with our kids and stop every time we go to speak with them for fear of saying the wrong thing.
• Isn't it a good thing that our kids DO see us get it wrong? - by doing that we make it ok for them to have trouble with stuff, we give them permission to find it tricky to get through situations, to make mistakes but still keep plugging away to try better next time.  Life isn't easy & I am not an advocate for making it so hard it is unpleasant but I am by no means an advocate for the 'everyone is a winner every time' method either.  Learning resilience is one of life's best but hardest lessons. Our kids deserve to understand this.
• Laughing at ourselves is one of the best things we can do- no-one wins by being serious all the time. Laughing with my kids at my own (many) mistakes & shortcomings is one of my favourite things to do. We laugh a LOT in our house. What does that tell you.......
• I think we worry so much about everything we are missing the important conversations we desperately need to be able to have with our children.  The ones that are not about achievements or success but about nothing at all- yet about everything at the very same time.  Just talking for talkings sake. 
• DO we really need to be finding yet ANOTHER thing to compare ourselves against other parents or children with? Of what benefit is this to anyone?

Imagine being able to just KNOW that in fact you were doing your best.

GIVING your child the best YOU.

And that was indeed enough.

MORE than enough.

No charts.

No numbers.

No alphabet.

No after school activity or tutoring.

Just YOU.

A very calm YOU.

CTFD.

xx

GOURMET GIRLFRIEND'S SILKEN FISH SOUP:
This is one of those Chinese dishes that leaves your body feeling like it has breathed a DEEP sigh of relief.  A kind of 'Thankyou for nourishing me' type feeling.
Mr Girlfriend and the kids LOVED this and all asked for seconds.
It uses a chicken stock as a base- not unusual in Chinese cuisine.  The quality of the stock you use will of course determine the flavour of your soup.  I cannot recommend making your own stock more.  I think it is absolutely necessary in dishes like this.
It is NOT hard so please give it a try. 
HOW TO MAKE CHICKEN STOCK:

• 2 chicken frames
• 2 teaspoons peppercorns
• 1 unpeeled onion
• 2 carrots (washed but unpeeled)
• 5 cloves garlic
• 2 teaspoons salt
• water

METHOD:
Pop all ingredients into a large pot.

Put enough water into pot to JUST cover the frames.

Bring to a boil and skim off brown froth.

Reduce heat to a simmer and leave with lid off for about an hour.

That's IT!
WHAT YOU WILL NEED for the SILKEN FISH SOUP:

• 250g firm fish fillets (if you are unsure ask your Fishmonger for advice), cut into large chunks
• 2 egg whites (save the yolks for making mayonnaise)
• 1 teaspoon ShaoXing Rice wine (available at your Asian grocer)
• 2 teaspoons corn flour
• 1 litre of good quality chicken stock
• 6 slices ginger
• 4 bok choy plants sliced in half through the stem
• 1 tablespoon Light Soy sauce
• 1/2 bunch fresh coriander, chopped roughly

In a large pot add the chicken stock and slices of ginger and bring to a boil.

Reduce to a simmer & cook for 10 minutes to let ginger infuse through stock.

Now add the bok choy & cook for 2 minutes, then remove and set aside.

Meanwhile in a large bowl add the eggwhites, cornflour and ShaoXing rice wine & mix to a paste.

Add fish to the paste and coat all pieces well.

Add the coated fish one by one to the stock, bring back to a simmer for a minute.

Add the bok choy back to the pot and add the Light Soy and the roughly chopped fresh Coriander.

Check seasoning & serve.

We are playing this a lot at our place at the moment.  I took my big two to see them live a few months ago. SOOOO great. If you get the chance to see them live I highly recommend it. My 12yo is teaching himself the mandolin part for this track. Soooo cool.

The Family Table. Part 6. Kim Palmer Berry from Allconsuming

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 sharing with you a fellow blogger who is a good friend of mine.
She is also mother to eleventy billion boys... well four but together we have eleventy billion right?!
She is a keen and talented cook.

Kim blogs over at All Consuming  where she shares snippets of her life juggling motherhood of four boys, being the mother of a special needs child, food & cooking and now starting up a food business with her husband (Chef) providing real food to people who are too busy or not inclined to cook their own but want to eat the good stuff!

I love Kim for her super big and very openly worn-on-sleeve heart.  She is one of the cleverest, smartest girls I know.  She just gets it. It is her heart & soul that is what I love.  She lives life - the ups & the downs of it - with authenticity & courage. My favourite style.

You can find out more about her great new Food business here (You can read a little more info about All Consuming Food at the very bottom of this post)

You can follow Kim on twitter here.

Or on facebook here.

Over to Kim.

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

Our entire life revolves around food. Chef is – you guessed it, a Chef and I’ve been a passionate cook since childhood. I started cooking family favourites and then, in Year 8 of high school, a friend’s mum introduced me to the magazine Gourmet Traveller. It was a game changer. While most 14 year old girls were reading Cosmo and Cleo there was me with GT and Vogue Entertaining. I was throwing 3 course dinner parties by the end of high school – I now wonder how on earth my Mum coped with the shopping lists and fanaticism.

So for our family food is the gravitational pull that keeps us all together. We are in an infuriating place at the moment where, due to a complete lack of space, our dining room table is now the homework table for the boys and desk for Chef (and occasionally sewing table for me). It makes my neck itch that we are not sitting together around a table each night. It’s all dinner on laps in front of the TV. Most unsatisfactory.

But get this, a friend of mine has a round table from her childhood – a table built specifically to fit her large family. She doesn’t want it anymore and well, has made the outrageously generous offer of giving it to us. I’m beside myself in anticipation and turning a corner of the house into a banquet seat with extra chairs and this table loaded with history. Of course I have no idea where the fridge will go or the crap that currently occupies that space OR the money to get a banquet/booth seat built but I don’t care, it will happen and the one rule I want to enforce – everyone eating together every night – will be enforceable.

Sunday nights are pretty special (for me at least) as Chef is home and we’re all together as a family. Rugby training on Monday nights means the only other night Chef is home we are all eating in shifts.

Chef’s family have a wonderful tradition/habit of getting together over food. I love love LOVE those gatherings. The kids disappear and we all catch up, eat too much and laugh long and loud. I feel truly blessed to be a part of their flock. We move between my in-laws, sister-in-laws and here, with each having its specific offerings as well as some that follow each gathering no matter what!

2. Do you have hard & fast eating rules?

Such a loaded question! I try to only use ethically farmed meat – my dearest friend’s family are primary producers so the information from them about “organic” meat production made me realise that was not necessarily as noble or the solution either. But then she laughs and laughs at me saying I only want to eat meat that has lived a good life and been killed humanely. Apparently farmers don’t take to giving human emotional responses to their stock. When it comes to fruit and veg I’ve started buying most of our needs from a local farmers market. I love the gnarly old apple farmer as much as his gnarly totally delicious apples. I’m not devout to organic produce instead focussing on buying produce from the person who grew it.

In terms of eating I am on a whole new playing field at the moment with a recent diagnosis of Hashimoto’s Disease. It’s an auto-immune disease so I’m approaching it from the angle that the Hashimoto’s is the end point and what on earth is going on in my system to do that. After years of scoffing at the “gluten is the enemy” camp I am living gluten free. Well, almost. It kills me how noticeably better I feel not eating it. Devastating really, I’m still in mourning. I mean, CRUSTY BREAD! with butter as thick as cheese! *sniff*

When it comes to the boys I have become so lax when it comes to food rules. I used to battle with Felix (cost centre #2) over eating everything on his plate blah blah blah and when Jasper (cost centre #3) came along and was the poster child for a beige diet I refused to return to the battlefield. Instead my “rule” was that he didn’t have to eat it, he just had to try it. His diet is still pretty woeful but he’s growing and functioning as a human being so I’m settling for that. Grover (cost centre #4) has recently become incredibly fussy. AT FIVE. (see also: HONEY BADGER) Tonight, for example, the boys were having my sensational (if I might say so myself) spaghetti Bolognese. Grover? About five slices of plastic cheese. Some nights he’ll eat three bananas. I don’t know if it’s because there’s so many of them or because I am very picky when it comes to choosing my battles these days but there you have it. 

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

For me food has to come from the heart. I love cooking and put my heart into it (although there are times I do lose my cooking mojo) and I think you can tell. My food is genuine, rustic, no frills and certainly not fancy. I haven’t had people – as in friends – over for a dinner party for years. It’s been a case of not having the income to do it, being so busy (and so very tired) and also flying solo most nights of the week. Being married to a Chef means our lives are very much like ships in the night. I don’t really want friends over on a Friday or Saturday for a lovely dinner if I’m also juggling four kids and Chef isn’t home to enjoy it as well. We also only have one living/dining area so it can get very noisy/crowded/stressful.

My big influences when I was younger were Gourmet Traveller and Vogue Entertaining. Terry Durack and Jill Dupleix were also instrumental in developing my love of food and cooking. I grew up with them as the power couple in The Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Living section. I’ve been a Jamie Oliver fan from the very beginning – the man is all about flavour and keeping it simple which is pretty much my cooking mantra. I also adore Nigella. Another husband and wife team – Melbourne-based Michele Curtis and Allan Campion – are also my ‘go to’ when it comes to fail-safe fabulous recipes. Their book In The Kitchen is probably one of my most referenced kitchen tomes. My absolute hero and recipient of unending love and adoration is Maggie Beer. I mean, you can just tell she has a heart as big as an ocean and her food/recipes are the business.

4. Do you have a favourite cuisine?

No, not really, but I do go in waves – so I might go on an Indian bender for a few weeks then shift to Thai, then Chinese and so on. More often than not I become fixated on a particular dish and make it continuously until the itch is well and truly scratched. See: Sichuan pepper and salt tofu (YOUR FAULT!), Hainanese chicken and rice, spring onion pancakes, rogan josh, chicken noodle soup…

5. Can you recall a super special meal or eating experience that has stayed with you forever?
Chef and I went to Quay for my 40th last year. I doubt that experience will ever be topped. You think all those micro herbs and flowers and fancy presentations would be pretentious but it’s just not. It’s thoughtful. The food is sublime, like eating a work of art. It’s impossible to describe it in a way that would actually do justice to the experience.

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

The current meal on high rotation in this house is Hainese chicken and rice. It is so so simple and yet delivers such flavour it’s like it’s punching you in the face. In a good way. Yes there are a number of components so for some doing this on a weekday would be impossible, but I am all about cooking being as much about the process as it is about the eating. I love recipes which make me slow down, find the rhythm of the dish and end up with something that was as blissful to make as it was delicious to eat. I think that’s why I love making bread and pastry – you have to slow down, get a feel for the dough and listen to it. This is based on the recipe from Adam Liaw’s book Two Asian Kitchens.

HAINAN CHICKEN RICE:

For the chicken
• 1 Chicken
• 5 slices of ginger
• 5 unpeeled cloves of garlic
• The white ends of a bunch of shallots
• 1 tbsp salt
1. Place the ginger and garlic inside the chicken then put it in a saucepan, breast side down, and cover with water.
2. Bring the water to the boil then simmer uncovered for 25 minutes. Then turn the heat off, put the lid on and let it sit for a good 30 minutes. (I tend to totally forget about it and it can sit in there for an hour or so!)
3. Take the chicken out of the water, put on a plate, sprinkle over some drops of sesame oil and soy sauce and then cover tightly with glad wrap. Let it just sit there while you do the rest.
4. DON’T throw away the stock!

For the rice
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 2 slices of ginger
• 675g jasmine rice
1. Heat some oil in a saucepan then sauté the garlic and ginger. Add the rice and stir so it all gets nicely coated in oil.
2. Add 1 ¼ litres of the stock and bring to the boil. Simmer until you see tunnels in the rice then turn the heat right down low, put the lid on and let it cook for another 10 minutes. Let it sit.

For the ginger and shallot sauce
• 8tbsp peanut oil
• 2tbsp grated ginger
• 1 heaped tsp salt
• The green ends of the bunch of shallots, finely sliced
1. Gently heat the oil with the ginger and salt then add the shallots and cook until they collapse.
2. Try not to eat the whole lot yourself, this sauce is seriously addictive.

For the chilli sauce
• 6 red birds-eye chillies
• 2tbsp grated ginger
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1tsp sugar
• Good pinch of salt
• Dash of lemon juice
1. Put everything except the lemon juice in a mortar and pestle and pound until it’s a paste. Add the lemon juice and some of the stock to taste.
2. It is blindingly hot but sweet and salty all at once and almost as addictive as the ginger and shallot sauce. Depending on your chilli tolerance you just need a smidge to lift this dish from good to awesome.

7. What song would be playing at the dinner table?
You introduced me to The Tallest Man on Earth last year and it’s basically been my soundtrack ever since. So either him, maybe Ben Folds, Alabama Shakes, Birds of Tokyo, Macklemore. I’ve just discovered Jack Savoretti who might bump everyone off the list.

 

A little more about All Consuming Food:
Allconsuming food is about bringing the restaurant to you. Every week we will release a menu for the following week with a range of dinner solutions. Put your order in and get a delivery the following week of restaurant quality meals with minimal preparation required. Think long slow braises or maybe a flavour-punching curry, pasta sauces, soups, you name it. The meals also come in a range of sizes so whether you’re a busy urban professional or a manic family juggling work, school, sport and all the rest you can order to suit you. We’ll also have items in The Pantry so if you’ve got a hankering for hand-made beautiful quality jams, chutneys or relishes they’re also on offer. Initially we’re just delivering on Sydney’s Northern Beaches and North Shore but world domination is our goal.       (http://www.allconsumingfood.com/)

Thankyou Kim for sharing your Family Table. I am so grateful. xx

Taking back me

Late last year I decided it was enough.

After 20 something years of wearing a padded suit I was ready.

I was ready to shed the protective layers I had slowly amassed over that time.

Enough of hiding my reality from myself.

Enough of using my padded suit to hide the emotional hurt that it was used to hide.

I decided that I was worth it.

My family was worth it.

I needed to face up to the fact that very soon my padded suit was going to create MORE tragedy than it ever could hide.  I was unhealthy and I needed to face up to it.

What I decided was that shedding my padded suit required me to be completely and utterly vulnerable.

I needed to give myself the gift of vulnerability.

I needed to lay myself completely bare.  

I needed to let myself not only know but ACCEPT that I wasn't infallible, that I didn't cope all the time, that I didn't need to be perfect and that that was ok.

Watching this helped me so much. Find some time to watch it too.

I am crying as I write this as it is still not easy to accept.  I am slowly learning to be more gentle on myself.

It is a hard post to write but an even harder post to live.

I have always detested diets & fads and generally been upset at how women have been pressured into a ridiculous way of 'how we should look' as a way of judging them- of judging their intelligence, their worth, their everything.

It should NEVER EVER be about this.

We should be defined by our hearts, our brains, our behaviour & our souls.

Therein lay the rub for me.

To really truly look after my heart & soul it was going to take shedding the padded suit.

A physical transformation which represented an emotional one.

Taking back me.

So......  here we are a bit over 6 months later and after lots and lots of hard work, more conscious living and making a stance for myself that I am well on my way to achieving my goal of health.

Heart health, soul health & physical health.

I have never eaten unhealthily and don't eat processed foods - but I just ate too much.  Learning to work out the balance has been one of the most important lessons of all.  It is and always has been a simple equation.  The physical output needs to outweigh the input.  I just needed to educate myself more on that equation.  It has been such a great thing to teach myself.  

I don't deny myself foods, this whole exercise is NOT a punishment it is a gift.

I have just learnt more balance.

I chose to ignore my physical health as a way of ignoring the 'inside' health that I just wasn't ready to deal with.  It all felt too hard.  This is not (and never has been)about the way I look, I have never had a problem with my body & I know I am loved for who I am, not how I look.  This is about health.

What I now know is that a person has to be ready to deal with that 'inside' stuff before they can take care of everything else.  

What decides that time I don't really know.....

I am just ever so thankful to be there.

I am not in a hurry.  This is a life decision not a diet.  It took me over 20 years to get here and I have not put a time on my goal.  

Here I am.

I am enough.

SPRING ONION PANCAKES:

These morish Pancakes come from Northern China.

They are made in the same as way as Dumpling wrappers are- flour and boiling water.  This dough is much more malleable and easy to work with than cold water dough.

My kids love them and have been asking for them for brekky quite a few times these holidays.
I normally make them to serve with Hainanese Chicken rice but they are delicious anytime!

My 4yo Sous Chef helped me make these this morning.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

• 250g Flour
• 220ml boiling water
• 3 tablespoons Sesame oil
• 3 spring onions, chopped ( green part included!)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• rice bran oil for frying.

METHOD:

Place flour, salt and oil into a large bowl.

Add boiling water and mix well- use a spoon.

Lay onto floured surface and knead for about 5 minutes.

Take a small portion of dough- about the size of a large walnut and roll into a ball.

Use a rolling pin to roll into a circle so dough is  about half a centimetre thick.

Spread some chopped spring onion over the surface.

Roll into a cigar and the into a snail shape.

Use the rolling pin to once again make a thin pancake. 

Heat some Rice bran oil in a non stick frypan and fry for about 2 minutes each side or until golden brown.

Place on paper towel.

Slice and serve.

One of my lovely (and very clever) readers sent me this song - thankyou! It is her band. Such a beautiful track! LOVE it. Do you?

The Family Table. Part 5. Monty Dimond from Show and Tell Online

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 welcome Katie 'Monty' Dimond to my Family table.

Monty has most recently created the site 'Show and Tell online' with two friends.

The Show and Tell team. (L) Brooke, (C) Monty, (R) Stacey

Like all good ideas it was borne over a delicious meal!

Show and Tell is a website with a mix of all sorts of great content to inspire people to be happy.

Monty is also involved in Radio & TV, as well as juggling being a mum to Bax & partner to Sam.

You can find the Show and Tell website here.

or follow on Twitter here.

or on Facebook here.

I am very grateful to Monty for joining us at the Family Table.

Over to Monty ~

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

My boyfriend Sam and I have an 18 month old son (Bax) who is gorgeous but FULL ON. As soon as he started walking we quickly learnt that we can't eat in peace until he is catching some zzz's. Sam and I love food, lots, so we always enjoy sitting down to dinner at 7.01pm every night. The second our son closes his eyes we eat. 

We have recently moved and when I say recently I mean about a year ago and we still don't have a dining table. I know, its criminal. So we eat our dinner around our coffee table. 

We usually have friends over for a meal most weekend and we all huddle around the coffee table. It is very relaxed. I actually can't wait until we get a proper table to eat at though, it will be much more pleasant to sit in a chair rather than on a cushion.

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

I LOATHE diets, I think they are dangerous, ridiculous and DO NOT WORK. I really want my son and my future kidlets to grow up having a really healthy relationship with food. 

I always want beautiful fresh food available in our fridge and pantry while also not denying them treats. We don't let our son have chocolates or lollies yet, he has plenty of time to eat that stuff, at the moment  I like to see him eat things that help his little body grow.

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

I'm not a great cook and to be honest have only recently started to enjoy it. My boyfriend is vego so I don't cook much meat at all. There are so many beautiful cook books and recipes online that if I feel like cooking, I usually look up one ingredient and get inspired from that. Such as lentils, so many ace lentil recipes out there. 

I like simple, easy but tasty meals. If there is more than around five ingredients I lose interest pretty quickly.

4.) Do you have a favourite cuisine?

I love Mexican but it has to be fresh and clean. There is a fab Mexican restaurant near our place and we are nearly at the point we can call up and order 'the usual'. I also love Japanese food. I'm a little addicted to soft shell crab rolls as the moment.

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

One of my favourite restaurants is Taxi in Melbourne. Every time we go there we have delicious food and great chats. One of my favourite times was when i went with two of my beautiful girlfriends and we had great convo's, giggled lots, and ate like pigs. It was heaven.

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

My boyfriend doesn't cook that often but occasionally on a weekend he will feel like playing Chef. He has made zucchini linguine a couple of times and I must say he has nailed it. So yummy.

Monty's fave Zucchini Linguine- click here to go to the recipe published on Show and Tell online

  7. What song would be playing at the dinner table?
Ooooh, this depends on who is at the dinner table. If it was just Sam and I most probably Damien Rice. We used to listen to his 'O' album all the time when we first got together. If my son was at the table it would definitely be Yo Gabba Gabba.

Thankyou Monty for sharing your Family Table with us. x

We are very nearly there

This week the final windows were delivered & installed.

I ordered the tiles for the bathroom.

I bought the fireplace.

I organised the recycled cork floor for upstairs.

I worked out our laundry cabinets & I bought the door handles for them.

We are very nearly there.........

Singapore Chilli Crab:
Mr Girlfriend and I are huge fans of  crab.  We like it much more than it's very expensive counterpart Lobster.
We had an itch we needed to scratch.
I needed to go to Sth Melbounre to get my laundry handles so we were a hop skip & a jump away from South Melbourne Market.
Singapore Chilli Crab for dinner it was!
I love eating crab- it is super messy & a great communal meal. It takes a while to eat and I think that helps be more mindful in the eating.  I always think that messy eating is a great levelling experience, an  opportunity to make fun of ourselves a little- always a good thing. 
Our big kids ADORED this- adjust the chilli to suit your palate. We like chili a LOT!
It is a relatively easy dish to make once you get around the preparation of the crab. This is actually easy too- you just need to know what to do- Mr Girlfriend did this part. Yay for Sous chefs.
Just slip your thumb under the bottom flap and grap the carapace (top shell) and lift it off. Remove the feathers & any brown meat.
That's it!
This is a stir fry recipe so it really pays off to be absolutely prepared before you start to cook & don't be afraid to have your wok at FULL temp. I use a Le Creuset cast iron wok at home as I feel they are the best at getting a super hot heat on a domestic stove.
Ok- let's go!
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

• 4 crabs (1 per person) we used Blue Swimmers.
• 2 inch knob ginger, sliced into fine julienne
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped finely
• 4 large tablespoons tomato sauce ( I used our home made one)
• 4 large tablespoons chilli sauce (Sriracha is good)
• 1 tablespoon Soy Sauce
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 large red chillies, sliced
• 2 spring onion, sliced
• 1 bunch fresh coriander, chop the rots & stems to cook and save the leafy parts to add once cooked
• 2 tablespoons Rice Bran oil 

METHOD:
Prepare the crab as per Recipe intro.

Use the heel of a large kitchen knife to chop the crab into smaller pieces (as in pic below of Mr Girlfriend playing Sous Chef)

Set crab aside.

Now prepare all the other ingredients ready to stir fry.

Pop the ginger, chopped coriander root and stem,  garlic & chilli in a bowl & the liquids & sugar into another.

Heat your wok to high heat (I set my cast iron wok on the gas flame for about 5 minutes).

Add the oil and then carefully add the crab.

Use a wok tool to move them around- you will see the shell change colour to orange as it cooks.

Add a lid and let cook for about 10 minutes moving around the pieces occasionally to ensure they all cook.

Now add the dish of ginger etc.  Stir through well.

Add the sauces and do the same, pop on the lid for a couple of minutes.

Remove lid and add the spring onion and extra fresh coriander.

Stir through well and serve- I put our Wok directly on the table for people to help themselves. YUM.

Patrick Watson is one of my all time favourites. This clip is just gorgeous, playing in the streets of paris- wearing a Dolly t-shirt no less. *sigh*

I could never let you go.

On Valentine's day this year my 12yo was asked to write a Valentine's day poem in his English class.

Most children wrote to their mums.

This is what my son wrote.

I love how this kid sees the world.

He looks at things his way on his terms.

He thinks deep & feels deep too.

It hasn't been easy forging his way with that.

Some of the things he has had to deal with have been beyond hard but he kicked on through.

Along the way he has chosen great mates and stuck at what really counts- being himself.

He became a teenager on Friday.

This kid makes me immensely proud.

Gourmet Girlfriend's Okonomiyaki (Japanese Savoury Pancake):
I guess after the poem above, this really should be a bacon recipe! 
While this doesn't have bacon, it does use Pork.....- I used the leftovers from the Pulled pork I made using this recipe.
There are probably VERY strict rules about what constitutes authentic Okonimiyaki but I tend to use the term loosely and see it as a fabulous opportunity to experiment and a great way to use leftovers.
'Okonomi' as I understand it means - 'What you want'. Totally my kind of cooking- take ingredients and make them yours!
Mine tend to always have lots of cabbage ( i LOVE the stuff and find any excuse to put it in anything), but apart from that it is different everytime.  You can add whatever you like!
Mr Girlfriend is responsible for introducing me to this wonderfully easy and delicious dish after eating it in Japan- although apparently mine have a lot less batter than the ones he has eaten.  I prefer LOADS of veggies and not so much batter (just enough to hold it together), I guess it comes down to personal preference.
It is a great breakfast dish.
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 bunch fresh coriander (half to put in batter & set aside half for topping)
• handfull pulled pork - (i cooked this for the birthday boy and had leftovers) 
• 1/4 head of cabbage shredded
• spring onion, sliced finely
• 1 carrot julienned
• kewpie mayo
• bulldog sauce (Japanese Tonkatsu sauce- avail at Asian Grocer)
• rice bran oil for frying

METHOD:

Crack egg into large bowl and add flour and water, mix well to make a batter.
Now add the veggies & pulled pork.
I use a fork to combine all the ingredients until coated with batter.
My mix has very little batter but is coated- how much batter comes down to personal preference.

Heat a non stick pan to medium heat & add a teaspoon Rice bran oil.

Now add a good ladle full of the Okonomiyaki batter.

Fry till nicely browned and flip carefully using an egg flip.

Fry other side and remove onto a plate.

Add a good drizzle of Kewpie mayo and Bulldog sauce on top in wavy lines across the top of the pancake and a generous sprinkling of Fresh Coriander.

Serve.