The other day I decided to make my own muesli bars. I was looking for something new to put in the kid’s school lunchboxes. And I don’t like the muesli bars they sell in the shops (they are packed with sugar and preservatives).

Anyway, I found a recipe (courtesy from the Australian Woman’s Weekly) and I was inspired.

I didn’t have everything I needed, so of course I improvised! You see, I found all this cool stuff in my kitchen pantry… and I think I got a bit carried away with the pecans, sunflower seeds, coconut, and organic puffed brown rice.

In the end I think I put too much stuff in. There wasn’t enough honey and butter mix to stick it all together! Not to mention, I reduced the sugar.

This is what it looked like once it came out of the oven. When I tried to cut it, it all just crumbled apart and they weren’t exactly BARS. So instead I stirred it all up and we ate it like toasted muesli for breakfast the next morning.

On the upside - the warm smell of roasted nuts, oats, honey and butter… *gah* it was so incredible and unbelievably mouth-watering, that I thought I would faint. Will try again next time.

Muesli Bar Recipe

125g butter
½ cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon honey
2 cups of rolled oats
¼ cups sesame seeds, toasted
¼ cup sunflower seeds, chopped
¼ cup desiccated coconut, toasted
¼ cup pecans or walnuts, chopped
¼ cup sultanas
2 tablespoons of unprocessed bran

Grease a pan (20com x 30cm)
Combine butter, sugar and honey in pan on low heat, until sugar dissolves.
Stir in remaining ingredients.
Press mixture into pan. Bake in 180C oven for 20 minutes, or when lightly browned.
While warm, cut into bars. Cool completely in pan.
Store in air tight containers.

The Purple Boot Brigade is a fundraising campaign dedicated to supporting education and awareness programs for breast cancer, across Australia.

The moment I heard about people wearing PURPLE BOOTS to help beat breast cancer, I was hooked! What a great idea! Of course, I wanted to know more about the campaign, and to hear the story of how it all began.

So last week, I had the honour of meeting up with Ros Worthington. We arranged to meet at the fashion outlet of a good friend of Ros’ – celebrated and uber-successful WA fashion label, Morrison.

Ros is an amazing woman. I read her bio, and I already knew she had established the Make A Wish Foundation of Western Australia and The Breast Cancer Foundation of Western Australia.

As I talked to her, I discovered she had worked at such a grass roots level – travelling around the state, visiting remote and rural communities, helping health workers and local women, educating and spreading the word about early breast cancer detection.

Ros also told me her life story, and I was amazed at the sheer number of enormous difficulties that she has overcome. And that she has responded to it all by giving so much back to her community, locally and nationally.

Steel Blue is a company who manufacture work and casual wear boots, and to promote awarness of breast cancer, they collaborated with the Breast Cancer Foundation of Western Australia to make a bright purple range of boots. Like I said, a brilliant idea!

Imagine a workman walking onto a building site wearing bright purple steel-capped safety boots. Of course, everyone who sees the boots will suddenly know about the campaign, and will tell their family and friends about it.

$30 from the sale of every pair of boots goes directly towards the development of an on-going national campaign aimed at making younger women aware of the need to detect brest cancer as early as possible – because earlier detections have much better survival rates.

I personally don’t have much need for steel-capped safety boots, but I love them as a fashion statement! I was told stories of women travelling around the world with them, turning up at fashion events in them, and even getting married in them! Just to make that statement - BE BREAST AWARE! So I thought I’d have a bit of fun with them too.

My son Sean was happily clumping around the house in my pair. Even at 3.5 years old, he was asking, “Why are these boots PURPLE?”

Part of the national education campaign is the “Test Your Breast IQ” quiz. You simply visit the website, click through a multiple choice quiz, and it tells you the correct answer each time you get it wrong.

I did not know, for example, that men can get breast cancer. The idea of the campaign is to break down mis-information and fear about breast cancer that reduce the chances of beating it. But of course, breast cancer is not such a happy topic, and to encourage people to have some fun taking this educational quiz, there are some pretty cool prizes up for grabs.

Each week, somone who takes the quiz can win a pair of the fabulous purple boots, but at the end of March, someone will win the major prize: an $8000 in value luxury holiday to Thailand for two people, with $1000 spending money thrown in!

You do have to be an Australian resident to be eligible for the main prize, but hey – anyone can take the quiz, learn more, and spread the word! Or you can just go and buy a pair of these Purple Boots that start conversations, by visiting the distributors list on the Purple Boot Brigade website.

I’m also very glad to say that Nuffnang Australia are supporting the Purple Boots campaign! You will notice an animating ad for the Purple Boots campaign located at the top of the right hand side column of this webpage. Nuffnang is running the ad for the month of March, at no cost, as the first of their contributions to spreading the word about important causes, across every participating blog in their network.

I know that Nuffnang have more exposure for good causes planned. So if you have a blog, and you would like to help charities like The Purple Boots Brigade do their important work, you can easily run these type of ads by joining up to the Nuffnang network.

But if this is not your cup of tea – wearing purple boots, breast cancer education, winning a trip to Thailand, or Nuffnang’s charity appeal – please take a minute to spread the word to someone who might be interested!

Last week, I mentioned that I have started a weekly cooking session with my 5.5yo son.

How it works - At the beginning of the week, he tells me what he wants to cook for dinner. I buy the ingredients, and on a designated day, we make it together (or I help him make it). Quite simple.

It’s been going really well. He actually likes hanging out with me in the kitchen.

This week he wanted to make: Mushroom Soup. I have no idea where he got the idea that mushroom soup might be tasty. But I decided to just go with it.

Homemade Mushroom Soup

400g of button mushrooms, cleaned and chopped
60g of butter
1 medium onion, chopped finely
1 small garlic clove, chopped finely
1.5L of homemade chicken stock
150ml cream
salt and pepper to taste

1) Gently cook onion and garlic in butter, until brown. About 10 minutes.
2) Add mushrooms, stir for 10-15 minutes.
3) Add chicken stock. Bring to boil and simmer for 15 minutes.
4) Stir in the cream.
5) Use a hand blender (or food processor) to blend the soup into a smooth consistency.
6) Done! Eat hot with crusty bread.

Even though my son was supposed to cook, I actually did a bit more work with this recipe. I chopped the onions, because they made his eyes hurt. And I used the hand blender to blend up the soup, because it was really hot and splashy!

We made fresh wholemeal spelt + seed loaf to eat with the soup.

Overall, it was a simple meal, it was very easy to make and my goodness, it was SO DELICIOUS! We had none left at the end!

After my husband initiated a heap of outdoor, boy-projects for the kids, I really felt that I was missing out on connecting with my sons.

I read somewhere that by the age of 9, children should be able to prepare a meal for the whole family. Now I LIKE THAT IDEA. I like the idea of raising young men who can cook a 3 course meal by the age of 17.

So. I have set up a once-a-week session where I help my 5.5 year old son make dinner for the family. A meal of his choice.

Tonight he chose homemade hamburgers.

Beef Hamburger Patties

500g lean mince beef
1 medium brown onion, chopped
1 tablespoon of parsley
1 egg
1 tablespoon of plain flour
1 tablespoon of Worchester Sauce
salt and pepper

1. Use a food processor to chop onion, parsley and 1/3 portion of beef.
2. Throw processed mixture into a bowl, add rest of beef, egg, flour, sauce, good seasoning of salt and pepper.
3. Mush it up and mix well with your hands and fingers!
4. Divide mixture into 6 balls.
5. Cut out large squares of baking paper and press beef balls into patties, about 1.5 cm thick.
6. Wrap it up in cling wrap and put in fridge for 30 minutes.

7. Fry on a lightly oiled pan for a few minutes, until cooked.
8. Assemble hamburger!

Hamburger Makings

Round hamburger buns
Lettuce (from my garden!)
Tomatoes
Sliced onions
Avocado
Grated tasty cheese

My son did really well throughout the whole preparation and cooking process. He plucked and washed the lettuce. Cut up the avocado. Grated the cheese. Buttered the buns. He even fried the patties quite well.

I treated the whole session like I was just helping him out. So I didn’t have that tense STRESSFUL build up of patience and frustration inside me. It was more like I was trusting his ability and allowing him to grow up. I showed him how to do something, showed him how it might go wrong, give him a few safety tips, and just LET HIM DO IT.

As he was frying the patties. I was laughing to myself, thinking – You’d better get used to this buddy, when you’re 15, you’ll be flipping burgers to earn your pocket money.

They turned out really well! They were yummy and healthy!

Every Sunday morning I try to make something a little special for breakfast. My boys love these mini pancakes (or pikelets), especially with fruit.

1 cup (150g) self-raising flour
2 tablespoons of castor sugar (optional)
1 egg, beaten lightly
¾ cup (180ml) of milk
butter for cooking

1. Mix flour and sugar
2. Mix in egg and milk, to make a smooth batter.
3. Add a bit of butter to lightly coat a hot pan. Pour dessert-spoons of pancake mixture onto the pan.
4. Wait for bubbles to appear on the surface of the pancake, flip!
5. Serve hot with fruit, yoghurt and honey!

My boys don’t like their pancakes to be stacked up, so I serve them like biscuits. Easier for little fingers.

When I bake, I usually try to use organic ingredients, less sugar, and healthier alternatives. But today I decided to throw it all out the window.

I was very keen to try out a muffin recipe that was a bit sweeter, richer and basically, something delicious I could serve at a tea party and make people sigh with delight.

This recipe is based on Ainsley Harriott’s Raspberry and White Chocolate Recipe. I used organic white self-raising flour instead of his suggested baking powder and plain flour.

Ingredients
300g self-raising flour
150g golden caster sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
225ml milk
50g butter, melted
100g fresh raspberries
75g chopped white chocolate

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 200C. Cut greaseproof paper into 15cmx15cm squares and push, creasing the paper to fit, into a muffin tin.

2. Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl and stir in the sugar. Crack the egg into a separate bowl and whisk in the vanilla extract, milk and melted butter.

3. Stir the liquid into the dry ingredients with the raspberries and chocolate. Take care not to over-mix, no more than 10-15 strokes.

4. Spoon the mixture into the cases and bake for 30 minutes or so until well risen and just firm.

I put half the mixture in the self-made muffin cases and the other half in regular muffin cases. I couldn’t decide which cases made the muffins look better, but I can confidently say that everyone at my tea party wanted a copy of the recipe!

The idea of having a lettuce box was inspired by my mother. Last year, she planted 6 baby lettuce plants in a sunny patch of dirt in her backyard. She watered them every day, and every week she had a huge bundle of fresh lettuce leaves – it went on for months!

I was very envious! And inspired! Especially because her “patch of dirt” was not very impressive at all, yet she still managed to grow the lettuce. I decided to do the same.

Unfortunately I have a major snail problem in my garden, and wasn’t happy to put the lettuce straight into the ground. So I bought a plastic tub, drilled a few holes at the bottom, filled the bottom with leaves, topped it up with a mixture of organic worm manure and mushroom compost.

I put in 4 baby lettuce seedlings.

I hand water them every day, and yep, once a week, I have a small basket full of fresh, organic lettuce leaves. And the snails don’t seem to make it into the box.

I’m absolutely delighted, and embarrassed, by how easy it is.

My harvest after 4 days!

Sometimes in the evenings, I might be looking for a quick side salad, so I run outside and snip off a few leaves. They are so tender, fresh and crispy! Nothing like you’ll find in a supermarket.

I can’t wait for my cherry tomatoes to ripen!

In Australia, there’s a wonderful and vibrant community of Lebanese migrants, and I absolutely adore their food.

One of my weaknesses are chicken kebabs. Especially with garlic sauce. Mmmmm.

So today I thought I’d try to make some myself. At the shops you can pay up to $9 for a chicken kebab. I think mine cost about $2.50 each.

Recipe for Homemade Chicken Kebabs

Meat
500g of chicken breast or thighs
3 tablespoons of barbecue sauce
(I actually didn’t have any barbecue sauce, so I just mixed up some soy, hoisin and Worchester sauce.)

1) Marinate chicken for 30 mins in fridge
2) Grill chicken until crispy. Leave to cool, then slice up.

Vegetable Fillings
Lettuce
Tomatoes
Onions
I also had avocado and snow pea sprouts.

Garlic Sauce
2 cloves of garlic
5 tablespoons of natural yoghurt

I had no idea how to make garlic sauce, so I just improvised with garlic and yoghurt. It was delicious! It was definitely the most crucial and indispensable part of the kebab! So don’t leave it out!

Pita Bread
Wholemeal or white pita bread

Lightly oil a pan, fry for a few minutes to turn brown. Roll it up when it’s all nice and warm.

Again I’ve been cutting and pasting various muffin recipes to make a muffin that fulfills my current craving. These came out perfect! Eat them hot with fresh strawberries and cream.

Chocolate, Walnut and Berry Muffin Recipe

2 cups self-raising flour
1/3 cup of castor sugar
1/3 cup of cocoa powder
1/3 of chopped walnuts
1/2 cup of frozen mixed berries
60g melted butter
1 egg lightly beaten
1 cup of milk

Makes about 8-10 muffins.

1. Sift flour, sugar, cocoa into a large bowl.
2. Mix in butter, egg, milk, walnuts, and berries. Combine well.
3. Spoon mixture into greased muffin pans.
4. Bake in 180C oven for 20 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

Note: I think 1/3 cup of castor sugar is enough for little kids. The muffins taste mildly sweet with a nice tang from the berries, which is fine if you’re topping the muffins with chocolate icing or sweet yoghurt.

But if you prefer your muffins to be a bit sweeter on their own, I suggest you use 1/2 cup of sugar. Enjoy!

I’ve been in a very hands-on mood lately. I want to get my hands dirty and make things. So I’ve been baking. Or rather, I’ve been experimenting with baking and making up my own muffin recipes.

Lemon Berry Muffin Recipe

2 cups self-raising flour
1/3 cup of castor sugar
2 teaspoons of grated lemon rind
1/2 cup of frozen mixed berries
60g melted butter
1 egg lightly beaten
1 cup of milk

Makes about 8-10 muffins.

1. Sift flour into a large bowl.
2. Mix in lemon rind, sugar then egg, butter and milk.
3. Then stir in berries.
4. Spoon mixture into greased muffin pans.
5. Bake in 180C oven for 25 minutes until golden.
6. Drizzle with lemon icing glaze on muffins while hot.

Lemon icing glaze
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
icing sugar

Mix juice and enough icing sugar to make a watery icing for glazing. About 1 teaspoon of glaze for each muffin.

This is another of my favourite, healthy and very lazy meals.

Use any sort of vegetables. Egg plant, tomatoes, capsicum, red onions, pumpkin, sweet potato, baby carrots, beetroot, turnips. Add fresh herbs from the garden.

Drizzle lots of olive oil, salt, pepper.

Into a 180C oven for 1.5 hours.

Serving ideas: Toss with pasta. Serve with rice. Or pita bread. Or a bunch of fresh green salad.

This is my mother’s super-crunchy, super-fluffy waffle recipe.

It’s a little bothersome having to separate the eggs and all, but it makes all the difference between rubbery waffles and AWESOME WAFFLES.

Waffle Recipe
Makes 16

1 egg separated
¼ cup castor sugar (or try none at all)
1 cup of milk
½ cup of water
1 ½ cups of self raising flour
pinch of salt
60g butter or margarine (melted)

1. Beat egg white (with half of the sugar), till stiff. Keep aside.
2. Beat egg yolk (with remaining half of sugar) until creamy.
3. Then beat in milk and water. Then add sifted dry ingredients.
4. Mix in melted butter.
5. Fold in egg white.
6. Place batter into your waffle maker (amount will depend on your waffle maker).
7. Eat hot! With butter. Bananas. Yogurt. Honey. Fresh berries. Strawberry jam. Whipped cream.

(Note: 16 waffles are not enough for 4 hungry adults! So double everything to make 32 waffles!)

Heaps of people have asked me what kind of waffle maker I have. My waffle maker is really old, and you can’t get that model anymore.

But if you’re going to go out and buy one, make sure you buy a deep pan one. Similar to these models at Amazon: Black and Decker, Presto, Proctor (sorry, I don’t know if they are as awesome as their reviews saw they are).

I was walking past a butcher’s window the other day, when a pile of “Beef Soup Bones” caught my eye.

I stood there with my mouth watering, dreaming about a hot, thick beefy soup, salty and creamy with soft vegetables and the smell of stewed herbs. Mmmmm.

I know this sounds silly, but, I searched the web for a simple beef soup recipe that was similar to the imaginary soup in my head. And I couldn’t find one! So I made this one up, and it worked! It was absolutely divine!

Simple Beef and Vegetable Soup

1kg of beef soup bones
1 large brown onion, chopped
I stalk of celery, chopped
2 carrots
1 small turnip, chopped
1 medium potato, chopped
fresh rosemary
2 bay leaves
½ teaspoon of peppercorns
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon soy sauce
Salt to taste

1) Throw everything into a large pot.

2) Cover the pot contents with boiling water. Boil on high heat for 5 minutes, then simmer on low heat for 3 - 3.5 hours. Taste, add more seasoning, or top up with more hot water, if required.

3) I like to remove the meat from the bone. Serve hot with crusty bread!

My husband is trying to eat less cheese and dairy. So with homemade vegetarian pizzas for dinner, I decided to make him a cheese-less version.

Pita bread with tomato paste, chopped tomatoes, capsicums, green beans, olives, mushrooms.

I cracked an egg in the centre and sprinkled some dukkah (an Egyptian blend of spices and crushed nuts), salt, and cracked pepper all over. Into a 180C oven for 20 minutes.

The smell of the roasted dukkah was INCREDIBLE. My goodness, I could hardly contain myself.

And then I noticed that I had accidentally crumbled feta onto it… CHEESE! OOPS. Silly me. So I decided to eat it myself.

(I made him another one! I’m not that mean!)

Every time my mother cooks her beef rendang, both my husband and myself tremble with childlike excitement.

We love beef rendang. I will always swear that one day I will learn how to make it from scratch, to embrace my mother’s recipe and to pass it on to future generations.

The only problem is that my mother doesn’t have the recipe written down. It’s all in her head. And her measurements and instructions are all in Chinese Aunty Language:

“it should be the size of two small fingers.”
“sprinkle a bit, but not too much”
“fry it until it smells nice”

It’s like that for all my mother’s recipes and unfortunately I still haven’t learnt a single one of them!!

So it took my husband’s initiative to get me started. He decided to learn how to cook rendang by himself – bypassing both my procrastination and all the Sacred Chinese Mother Rules. He found an excellent Goat Rendang recipe from ABC TV’s “The Cook and The Chef”. Probably a far cry from an authentic Malay recipe, but DAMN it was so good. My husband did so well. I completely recommend it!

I gave it a try the other day, and of course I changed a few things. For example I excluded the sugar, I used less coconut at the end, and I used chuck beef instead of goat.

As I pounded the lemon grass, garlic and ginger, then fried everything up… goodness me, the smells that filled my kitchen was ABSOLUTELY DIVINE. I FELT LIKE A KITCHEN GODDESS.

Thankfully I managed to take a nice picture of it. Rendang smells incredible, but it doesn’t photograph very well!

Here’s my version of it:

(more…)

A few weeks ago I started playing netball for the first time in 8 years. I discovered – although, it wasn’t much of a surprise – that I was pretty unfit.

The only regular exercise I have done in the last 5 years, was taking a daily walk in the park. And the occasional swim and jog.

I guess, since I don’t have any major health or weight issues, and because I have a healthy diet and lifestyle, I’ve never had much motivation to do any regular exercise. Which is a pretty pathetic excuse if you ask me.

Last week it hit me. What am I waiting for? Is there a better time to start?

So here I am. I’ve been running!

I ran 4 times last week! I feel great!!!!

Truth be told, I don’t really know what I’m doing. I know how to do warm ups, I start walking, I ease myself into a steady jog, pick up the pace a bit, when I start to puff, I push myself a teensy bit more, then ease back, and keep doing it until I’ve had enough.

I don’t know how far I’ve jogged. Or for how long. I’m not thinking about my strides or footing or anything technical. I don’t even know if I’m getting better, or pushing myself too hard.

I found a cool little site powered by Google Maps, that lets you plot your running path and calculate the distance and calories burned (pictured). That’s been really helpful so far!

Anyone got any quick running tips?

In my efforts to make the kids eat more calcium, I’ve been trying out all kinds of yogurty desserts. We make my own natural yogurt with a yogurt maker. We eat about 2kgs a week!

Anyway, this is the absolute hands-down favourite of the lot. I call it a dessert, but really I make this for the kids after school, as a bit of a treat.

Yogurt, Fruit and Cookie Dessert Recipe

Crumble 2 or 3 cookies into a glass cup. I use ANY kind I have in my cupboard – shortbread, wheat or oat cookies.

Dollop 4 tablespoons of natural yogurt.

Top with any kind of fruit compote or canned berries with syrup. I like canned blueberries.

There’s something very magical about slightly mushy cookies with fruity yogurt.

My oldest boy is turning 5 this weekend. At his request, he wants a Spiderman themed party, with all his friends, balloons, streamers, games and a Spiderman cake.

I said yes to everything, except the cake.

I’m quite ANTI-FOOD-COLOURING when it comes to children’s birthday cakes.

I’m happy to let my kids eat a small slice of other people’s coloured cakes. But there’s no way I’m going to tip 3 bottles of RED E129 to make a bright red Spiderman cake for my son!

How am I going to make a SPIDERMAN CAKE WITH NO FOOD COLOURING???

A friend of mine passed me a list of Natural Food Colouring Alternatives and how to make them. They sound great!!

Apparently the colours don’t turn out as vibrant as the chemical stuff. Which means I’m still stuck, because I don’t think my son wants a PINK Spiderman mask.

……………………………………………………………………

Yellow – mix powdered turmeric with a little hot water to form a paste. Suitable to colour frosting and icing.

Pink – The liquid of canned beetroot will give a pale pink to frosting and icing.

Red – cook fresh or frozen raspberries over a gentle heat, stirring often, until very thick. Sieve mixture to remove pulp. Allow to cool. The colour will be reddish pink. Suitable to colour frosting.

Not suitable for kneading into ready-made soft icing. You may use a pastry brush to paint raspberry colouring onto finished icing.

Violet – cook fresh or frozen blueberries over a gentle heat, stirring often, until very thick. Sieve mixture to remove pulp. Allow to cool. Suitable to colour frosting.

Not suitable for kneading into ready-made soft icing. You may use a pastry brush to paint blueberry colouring onto finished icing.

Green – Usea combination of freshly juiced spinach (remove stalks before juicing) and tumeric paste (see above). Suitable to colour frosting and icing.

Brown – Use a Parisian essence which is made from natural caramel, or use sifted cocoa or carob powder. Carob powder and cocoa are suitable to colour frosting, but not for colouring ready-made soft icing.

Notes
These colours will be much less intense than commercial food colourings.

Do not add large amounts of these liquids to the frosting or it will curdle. Excessive liquid added to soft icing will make it sticky.

(Apologies. This information was photocopied from a book, and I don’t know what the book is called.)