Despite my best intentions, I've already fallen off the meal planning wagon for 2016. I tried to be organised. I tried to write shopping lists and stick to them. But all it takes is one busy weekend and I'm right back to where I started, flying by the seat of my pants in the kitchen. I don't mind ...
Busy day dinner: bang bang chicken
Another night, another busy day dinner. This time it's a dish that I've been cooking well since before the children came along and I learnt about the true meaning of "busy". Introducing bang bang chicken - it's a great name, don't you think? Why bang bang? The recipe originates in the Sichuan ...
Busy day dinner: Minced beef stir-fry with basil
My six-year-old loves to eat. In fact, I sometimes see her mouthing the words "What's for dinner, mum?" as she exits the school gate at 3pm. Like her mother, she thinks about food all the time and is very opinionated about what she does and doesn't like. I love that she enjoys many exotic and ...
Busy day dinner: zucchini, ricotta & lemon pasta
Do your kids pick the green bits out of every meal you make? Herbs, gone. Spinach is spotted no matter how fine I chop it. Florets of broccoli? One of mine almost hyperventilates if I put it on her plate, lest it cross-contaminate other components of her meal. It really gets to me at times. And ...
Busy day dinner: chicken Waldorf salad
I love summer. Give me a choice between hot and cold weather and I'll take hot any day. But there reaches a point in Brisbane, usually in March (or sometimes if we're unlucky, April) where we experience a burst of such unseasonably hot weather that I hit the wall. It's autumn! Didn't someone get the ...
Busy day dinner: Mexican bean salad
I had a Mexican flatmate when I lived in Florence many moons ago. We bonded over our shared love of Nutella and bad reality television in Italian (especially Grande Fratello, aka Big Brother). We both loved to eat, and had a merry time cruising the bars of Florence in the late afternoon. If you ...
Busy day dinner: spaghetti Amatriciana
When I was growing up, my mum used to cook this pasta all the time. Except we didn't know that it was based on an Italian classic, spaghetti Amatriciana. We just called it "Tomato and bacon pasta". Which is exactly what it is. This version is certainly not traditional, but I like to think it would ...
Busy day dinner: family-friendly nicoise salad
I really didn't feel like cooking today. The weather has been hot and sticky, a typical February day in Brisbane. Standing in front of a hot stove didn't hold much appeal. The kids were up at 5am, the toddler didn't have a nap and hubby's away for work. I'd been running around all day trying to ...
Thermomix Thursday: Lemon & Asparagus Risotto
The humble risotto seems to have a love-hate relationship with the Thermomix. I know a lot of people whose risottos have not turned out and have given up on ever making the dish again. I get it - my first ever Thermomix risotto was a soupy hot mess. My advice? Perservere. But it does take a bit of ...
