the red kitchen

Sugar fingers

Sugar fingers, originally uploaded by kitschenette.

I made shortbread from the River Cottage Family Cookbook for afternoon tea and Max couldn't resist helping himself to some sugary crumbs before the first slice was eaten (note green playdough on his fingers, remnants of the T-Rex necklaces he made earlier in the afternoon).

The shortbread was good, despite having to substitute cornflour for rice flour in the recipe, and very simple, a good one to make with kids as it doesn't require much mixing or other technique, merely rubbing the dry ingredients with the butter and pressing into a cake tin (don't even have to bother greasing or lining the tin).

And, it looked super lovely, sweetly pale and sprinkled with vanilla sugar from my big glass bottle of lumpy, vanilla-soaked sugar.

Bulging bellies

My kids are such gobbly guts. Tonight they stuffed themselves so full at dinner time that later, when they had their bath together, they exclaimed and squealed over their bulging bellies. Even I was surprised.

I do love seeing my kids eat well. I feel a kind of motherly pride in nourishing my progeny. Tonight I roasted some chicken pieces in olive oil and lemon juice until crispy and crackling outside, tender and moist inside, then made a gravy* with the pan juicies. A creamy garlic mash and some plain steamed broccoli and raw carrots (my kids' favourite veges, on the table practically every night, boring but good) and we were ready, set, go! Very good. If only I had a glass of red wine to go with it. However, after Tuesday night, when I imbibed an unprecendented 2 glasses of red wine and suffered a subsequent hangover (pathetic! I'm such a cheap drunk) the entire next day, I am going easy on the booze.

Max and Lolly love a little lake of gravy in their mound of mash. The back of a spoon is used to make a deep hollow in the mash, and a spoonful of gravy is carefully deposited. Woe betide the careless gravy-giver who accidentally releases the flood!

Berry good

For dessert I had promised Max I would make some of his favourite berry sauce to eat with fresh fruit, but we were so stuffed full that I didn't bother. Max loves this sauce with a passion. When he spies a box of frozen berries (berries aren't readily available at the moment, it's the middle of winter, remember? frozen is good) his face lights up like a Christmas tree. Today at lunchtime he spotted the box of frozen raspberries in the fridge. He was so excited he took the box out of the fridge and put it next to him on the table while he ate, gazing lovingly at it the whole while.

I have no problems letting him eat berry sauce til it comes out of his ears, because really, it's hardly even a sauce. Really it's just sieved berries. I don't add sugar or anything else except maybe some fresh orange juice and zest when I making blackberry sauce. In fact, he prefers it sour. The one time I added some icing sugar he turned his nose up at it and said it tasted 'funny'. It's an excellent way to get kids to eat a whole lot of extremely nutritious berries. Last Sunday we had a friend over for dinner and I made raspberry sauce as well as custard to pour over fresh fruit. The sauce boats were licked clean. 1 kg of raspberries eaten in about 10 minutes.

Once you have a jar of berry sauce in your fridge it's amazing how useful it can be. The dessert possibilities are obvious - with icecream, with chocolate cake and ice-cream, with custard or panna cotta or creme brulee, maybe even a swirl in a meringue, trifle, fool etc etc. The fresh acidic sourness and slight sweetness of berries are the perfect foil for creams and custards.

Also consider a swirl in breakfast yoghurt and muesli, in smoothies or muffins, or simply with a ripe juicy mango and a sliced banana. Endless possibilities.

Tomorrow I will make Max a happy boy. We'll make raspberry sauce together and  make some yummy little thing for dessert.  More bulging bellies!

* isn't 'gravy' the most awful word? Conjures up an image of a congealed, thick, lumpy brown mess to me. Luckily our gravy tonight was none of the above. Except brown.

Schlangerbrot

We had a party for Max and Lolly on Sunday, a sausage sizzle in the park*, in the bitter cold and mud which no-one seemed to mind at all (much fun was had by all).

Above is a specimen of the (infamous) schlangerbrot (snakebread), lengths of bread dough wound around a bloody great stick and charred, err, cooked, over a fire. One of those things for which nostalgia seems to play a key part in the attraction (for Bruno, harking back to his days in the pfädi, or scouts). Most often they are rumoured to be blackened on the outside but raw on the inside, but these were surprisingly delicious and well-cooked. Or maybe they tasted so good because it was so damn frrrrr-fr-frr-freezing cold, and they were so divinely hot.

* Found a use for my 2 leftover rolls of frozen chocolate chipper dough. Chippers were a party hit with the semi-frozen, smoke-wreathed guests.

On birthdays, a surfeit of cakes, and tight pants

This week finds me becoming increasingly well-acquainted with my oven, and my trusty Edmonds cupcake recipe.

In the last two days I've two double batches of cupcakes - one lot for Max's birthday celebration at kindy (yes, he continues to celebrate his birthday, a full two weeks after the event), and the other for Lola's birthday (which is today, happy birthday sweet little Lolly!)at the Chinderhuus. Max requested chocolate cupcakes with vanilla icing and red flowers, and Lola got vanilla cupcakes with pink vanilla icing and white flowers (no photos, as I was too busy trying to fend the kiddies off the cupcakes, but trust me, they were delicious, even though I forgot to put the proper quantity of baking powder in one lot).

Cupcakes are a Good Thing when it comes to these kindergarten-type birthday thingies, because they a) look cute; b) do away with the need for plates; and c) do away with the hassle and mess of cutting and distributing. But, when it comes time for the big birthday bash, I think a proper whole cake is still nice.

Last night I also made a quince and almond cake, cos few people have asked me for the recipe and I didn't want to post the recipe without some pics. This weekend we are having a joint birthday party for Max and Lolly, so guess what I'll be up all night making! Another cake!!! Still haven't decided if I will attempt a shape (last year at Mum and Dad's in Oz we had a dinosaur park and a pink pigcat - it was meant to be a pink pussycat but was decidedly pig-like) or just do a big, round confection with sprinkles, candles, lurid piped icing, ringing bells and whistles, and maybe some fireworks for good measure.

Now, I love a good butter cake but taking this weeks' cake bonanza and last weeks' chocolate chipper fest (I made up a quadruple batch) into consideration, I think I have overdone it, and have the tightening pants to prove it. Oh well, there's my winter layer of blubber.

jam-ing; bean-ing; chocolate chipper-ing

still here. sorry the red kitchen has been a little quiet of late. i've been either too exhausted to post or had no time to post.

nonetheless, the kitschenette kitchen has been humming with activity. since bruno has been away i've been baking and jam-ming away almost every night! gotta keep busy so that the silence of the household (once the kiddies are asleep of course) doesn't deafen me.

in the last few days i've made double batches of the great chocolate chippers from a couple of weeks back, this time using chopped up dime bars (these were FANTASTIC, properly chewy and caramelly with half melted chocolate and toffee), banana cake, a double batch of zopf, and two batches of strawberry and vanilla jam. and a big pot of chilli beans (max's favourite meal, with rice and yoghurt) is currently simmering away nicely on the stovetop now. no pics, unfortunately, because bruno has taken the camera to milan with him. bummer.

the strawberry jam is really pretty, a beautiful glowing red. i first tasted strawberry and vanilla jam at a great little cafe in erskineville called bitton (i think it has now moved, gotten bigger and more famous) with my friend adamski. i bought a jar to take home and was delighted to find half a vanilla bean in the middle. if i remember correctly though, the jam itself was a little overcooked, brownish red rather than a bright fresh red. strawberries are in plentiful supply here at the moment, and quite cheap, so i bought a kilo and cooked them all up in sugar, with the juice of a lemon and a vanilla bean thrown in. the result was so wonderfully warm, and fragrant and delicious that i had to give a few jars away to share around the goodness. so i had to make another batch to replenish our sadly depleted jam stock (because we were in oz last summer i missed out on the last half of the jam-making season, when all the plums and blackberries are ripe). so, so good. max has declared it his new favourite jam (mr jam afficianado).

today is cold and gray, AGAIN. time for a pot of beans to warm the cockles of the heart. max will be happy to have his favourite meal, one that i KNOW he likes, after the disastrous lunch i made yesterday. reminder to self: cooked avocado tastes VILE. i know this, but i accidentally over-heated the simple pasta with avocado and tomato after i had tossed the green and red bits through. what is it about avocado that makes it taste so great raw and so disgusting when warmed? be warned!

lazybones

it's been hard to muster up much enthusiasm for cooking this past week. bruno was in basel all week, madly trying to get ready for this, so i was flying solo at home with the grommets 24/7. at the end of each day it was all i could do to flop down, exhausted, in front of the telly. and by friday, i was a wreck. no end in sight, though, for at least the next two weeks (wail!), until the damn exhibition is finished. i quake at the thought of what type of screeching harpy i will be by then....

sometimes i just wish there was some kind of decent take-away around here. i'm having a moment of oz-nostalgia, so indulge me a moment while i fondly recall the many excellent take-aways i enjoyed whilst living there....so cheap! so good! so....everywhere! i have vivid happy memories of the great japanese take-away in dolphin st in coogee, which we used to frequent at last twice a week (vegetarian udon with tofu, sesame glass noodles, miso soup, rice, sushi box...mmmm, all for under $20), as well as hapy chef in chinatown for awesome laksas, agadashi tofu, miso and rice at a sushi place in newtown that i can't remember the name of, even the ubiquitous chain of indian take-away places (there were a couple in newtown along king st, although i can't remember the name of those, either). oh! and fish and chips. how could i forget fish n chips? sitting on the steps at coogee beach scoffing fish n chips from chish n fips with our neighbours, sarah, sim and jasper (just a babe in a sling then), max on his trike and seagulls flying everywhere.

*sigh* ah, yes, those were the days when i didn't have to cook or prepare practically every single meal that is consumed by this family (with odd nights off when bruno cooks or we go to his parents place for dinner, or the occasional lunch or coffee out somewhere). some evenings i absolutely dread the thought of having to make a meal for all of us. me, i'd be happy with an apple and a cup of tea. bruno too. but since i have kiddies, i feel a pressure to provide something a little more nutritionally adequate. just my luck, my kids aren't keen on any of the fast-ish foods that are available to me here - baked beans (what kid doesn't like baked beans!), toast, sandwiches (even if i could cut the bread thinly and evenly enough - the sliced bread you get here is the long-life bomb-shelter version which i wouldn't touch with a barge pole), fresh ravioli etc etc. pasta usually always goes down well, but by the time you boil the water and then cook said pasta, it's hardly fast food. lola has usually had a melt-down on the floor by then.

so in my lethargic, exhausted state, i've lately been making up a gigantic pot of basic tomato sauce - onions, garlic, olive oil, sugo or tinned chopped tomatoes, a splash of balsamic vinegar, a spoon or so of sugar, whatever veges are in the fridge, some fresh or dried basil or oregano depending on what i've got around. sometimes i add some speck, or tuna, or a frozen cube or two of spinach, or capers, or red kidney beans. i've found that this sauce can be the basis for many a lazybones meal. how many meals you can stretch it out for depends entirely on how big yr pot of sauce is, and how willing yr family is to eat a tomato-based meal yet AGAIN.

some suggestions:

- basic sauce + pasta (varying shapes and sizes to fool family into thinking it is a different meal every time!) + parmesan etc. speck makes this a tastier pasta sauce.

- basic sauce + pasta sheets + cheesy white sauce = lasagna

- basic sauce + polenta (soft or grilled - for grilled, cook polenta according to instructions, brush a baking tray or the base of a springform cake tin - what i use - with oila nd smooth on the polenta. brush with olive oil and grill under high heat under golden brown and crispy. good finger food for older babies, too). add some blue or other soft cheese for grown-ups.

- basic sauce + pizza dough + sundry toppings + cheese = pizza! i make up a big double batch of pizza dough every once in a while, use some and freeze the rest. the dough is also excellent to have on hand for some quick breadsticks (roll in either fine semolina, finely grated cheese, or seeds of some sort). my kids love these breadsticks and love to eat them with a small pot of guacamole each for dipping. see below for recipe.

- basic sauce + pizza dough = calzones. roll out dough nto a rough circle, place a small amount of filling in the centre and fold over one side of the dough. seal by pressing the edges together and folding over again. bake until brown and risen nicely.

- basic sauce + red kidney beans + rice + natural yoghurt. both bruno and max love this. 

- basic sauce + stock + adjusted seasonings + good bread = quick vege soup

- basic sauce + browned chicken pieces (simmered for a long time, particularly good with a speck-y sauce) + pasta/rice = chicken stewy thing.

...and so on and so on.

it's kind of depressing for the taste-buds, and indeed there are many nights when i crave some more 'adult' foods, but at the moment i'm in no mood to hear 'is this all we're having for dinner?', or ' i don't like this', or 'can i just have an apple?' after i've slaved away making something 'interesting'.

yes, i want my kids to be exposed to lots of different tastes, textures, flavour sensations etc BUT i don't want to be getting up in the night to hungry kids who've eaten no dinner, or waking up to grumpy grommets who are STARVING and must have food NOW because they only picked at dinner last night. so i'm sticking to my 'safe' store of meals which i know will at least be tolerated, if not eaten.

some day in the future we will break free of the (albeit comforting) bonds of the tomato-based meal...we have to!

a bit beige; kids' stuff

i got sick of looking at all that beige. beige - what was i thinking?! even though i am tired of the old colour scheme, it will have to do for a while until i find some time to finally redecorate. can you cope?

in my last post i had a (satisfying) whinge about how none of the family were eating my cooking. i was starting to take it personally. i mean, we had sticky date pudding with toffee sauce and max turned his nose up at it for ..... a green apple. yes, a green apple. surely he is no child of mine. well, that meant more for us greedy adults (and it fed 3 big pigs double helpings, twice. recipe to follow). but i did start to wonder if there was something wrong with my cooking.

anyway, after some thought i decided to change some of the conditions of meal times, rather than the actual meals, and relax a little about it all. some minor adjustments were made. now, as much as possible, lola eats with us at dinner. previously she had her dinner separately because she was going to bed so early, at 6pm. now, we try to wait until bruno gets home so we can all eat together, unless he is away in basel or working very late. everyone has exactly the same thing on their plates, and lola uses, or tries to use, a fork and spoon and glass like the rest of us. i've made a great effort not to hover over her while she is eating, trying to spoon that extra forkful of peas or rice or chicken into her mouth. now, we help her little bit if she's having trouble, but otherwise she is left to her own devices, and she does pretty well wielding her spoon and fork, with only the occasional tine in the eye or spoon in her cheek. also, i never offer her something if she has her mouth full. she will invaribly spit whatever she has in her mouth out down her shirt in preference of that something (hopefully) better.

max and lola eat together at lunch, and have the same thing - before i had made them separate lunches. now i've realised that lola is really old enough to eat anything, and max only ever wants to eat what lola has anyway. so max has regressed a little to his toddler lunches of pasta and fruit pieces, but i don't think he minds too much.

lola has given up her baby highchair, and now has max's old tripp-trapp.  she refused to sit in her old highchair, so we graduated her to the big kids' chair. she loves it, because she isn't strapped in (we don't bother with the restraint), she is right at the table with us, and she is able to climb up and down by herself. now when she is hungry she climbs up onto her chair and waits at the table for me to find some food for her (that is, after she has done a reconnaissance mission around the kitchen looking for any stray food that may be lying around).

not huge changes, i know, but enough to make a difference. i suppose i also needed to acknowledge that lola is growing up fast and doesn't need to be treated like a baby anymore. anyway, it has all made a nice change to our previously stressy mealtimes.

smartie cakes

y'know, i do cook and eat things other than cakes and sweeties, really i do. it's just that it's that (cake and biscuit) time of year, and baking something is absolutely so much easier than facing desperate hordes of shoppers. and anyway, lately i've been cooking a lot of rather unexciting nursery food, and/or other food which doesn't photograph well (i have a poached chicken in mind that i must tell you about sometime).

besides all that, i just like cakes : )

today i realised in a flash of panic that i hadn't bought a gift for the staff at max's chinderhuus. eeek! i simply CANNOT be so rude as to not give them something. they do a great job and max really loves going there. so tonight i made a batch of smartie cakes (chocolate cupcakes with smarties) for the kiddies and a batch of brownies for the adults. max helped me ice and adorn the cupcakes with smarties, carefully placing one in each centre. he did a very good job, although he did get a little over-enthusiastic licking the spoon. and i saw him sneak a couple of cupcakes - i made the super-tiny little ones (36!!), not normal cupcake size, because kids are only interested in the icing and the lollies anyway, so why waste cake?? - but then, isn't that just the best part of helping mummy bake cakes???

sorry, no photo of the brownies as they all turned out blurry (the photos, not the brownies). just a big blurry mound of brown with white (icing sugar) dust. suffice to say, they were warm, squidgy, and chocolatey.

the vexing question of saturday lunch

saturday morning is always such a frenetic rush in the kitschenette household. there are shopping lists to be written (entailing at least partial planning of the up-coming week's meals), recycling to be sorted (glass - green, brown, white, tins, PET bottles, plastic milk bottles...they all need to go to different places) and dropped off, and afore-mentioned shopping to be done. by the time i get back home it's practically almost lunch-time, and i'm starving, the kids are starving and bruno, well he always seems to be hungry : )

most weeks we just throw together a kitchen sink lunch ie. bread, cheese, avocado, yoghurt etc etc but today was so cold that i really felt like something warm and comforting. i'd bought some ready-made pastry when i was shopping so i had the brilliant idea of making little pies for lunch. so quick, and easy (always my main criteria), and with the added bonus of little kiddies adoring them.

so simple! i used a large mug to cut out pastry rounds, and lined a muffin tray with the rounds. i had some left-over tomatoey chicken casserole, so i used that to fill some of them. i grated an apple and used that to make a quick apple pie, sprinkled with brown sugar. then i used a drinking glass (importantly, smaller than the rounds made by the mug) to cut out rounds for the top. i then wet the edges of the pastry casing and laid on the top, pressing the edges closed with a fork. a brush of egg yolk, and into the bottom of the oven on a baking tray (to crisp the bottoms) at 200°c for 15- 20 mins or so, until golden brown and delicious (you can move the pies up higher in the oven to brown the tops after 10 mins or so).

i made these mostly for the kiddies, but adults seem to find them irresistible, too. so keep an eye out for marauding adults if you leave them prone on the kitchen bench, wafting off their gorgeous smell.

berry good

my kitchen has suddenly gotten much more colourful lately. even lola has been getting into the berry scheme of things, as you can see:

at the moment she is enjoying apple, blackberry and cherry fruit puree, and beetroot and carrot vege smush (with a few peas thrown in for good measure). a warning note to any unsuspecting parents planning on feeding their babe beetroot for the first time (if you didn't already know) - it's the same colour when it comes out the other end. don't be scared!

lola is really enjoying her food. the girl will eat practically anything you give her, chicken strips, slices of cheese, broccoli florets, the hardest crusts of bread, lumpy rice, pasta shapes - as long as it is what we're having. even tho she hasn't the slightest hint of teeth yet, she manages to gnaw and gum her way thru everything. when we go shopping and she is sitting in the trolley she bends down and gnaws at my arm like a dog with a bone (complete with sound effects!). i dread to think what she will be like once she gets some teeth and learns to use them.....