Eating for peanuts

Leading up to our big move, Reg and I are on a budget. But let's be honest, we're pretty big tight arses so most weeks we keep  the purse strings tied up.

What keeps our costs down is planning our meals in advance. A big part of our little home is centred around food. Alfie loves to help in the kitchen but like most three year olds, he thinks that most things we cook up for him are 'poo' or 'wee' or most recently (and he was sent to his room for saying it), 'shit'.

We eat mainly vegetarian food in our house - not just because it is more affordable, but because I actually don't really like handling meat. Every now and then though, I heat up the slow cooker with a cut of some beast and eight hours later I forget that I've handled meat and become distracted with the waft of a good curry or casserole in the house.

So I thought I would share what the Webb household is cooking up this week. Most of this stuff is in our pantry, fridge or freezer. I can't stand shopping at the major supermarkets, so much bloody packaging and the milk aisle makes me tear up - last time I went to Coles the whole milk section was ONLY Coles' branded milk. C'mon guys.

Monday:   Lentil Shepherd's Pie (the kid thinks the lentils are meat- I  swear!)
Tuesday:   Pea, mint and lemon linguini (you can chuck all the ingredients in your food whizz stick)
Wednesday:  Veggie fritatta. We have so many eggs in our fridge at the moment and I'm done with egg sangas.
Thursday: Schnitz and chips. If we have time we will crumb our own, otherwise our local butcher does a mean schnitz.
Friday: Egg filo pies. We will take the leftovers with us to the BMX track on Saturday.
Saturday:  The slow cooker will go on with either a casserole or corned beef. It might get frozen for a mid week meal next week.
Sunday: We eat all of our left overs or cook up something with whatever is remaining in the fridge. Free balling.

I'd love to know what your quick and easy mid-week meals are. We are starved for time at the moment, so cooking tea calls for 30 minutes or an episode of Octonauts.

Happy cooking!
Ali

Social Truths

It started with homemade pesto. 

My son Alfie and I had collected, well I collected while he yanked, the delicate spicy smelling leaves off the plant in our front garden. I smashed the greenery together with some pinenuts, some parmesan, some olive oil and whizzed it around in the food processor. Then I gracefully heaped a few spoonfuls in with some cooked pasta and put a warm bowl down on the table next to a Lightning McQueen cup.

My kid ate it all and asked for seconds. I posted a heavily filtered pic of the pasta dish on Instagram and shared it on my blog. I’m a champion.

But actually I’m not. I failed to mention that my son had ONLY been eating pesto pasta or ‘green pasta’ as he likes to call it, for almost two weeks. Straight. He refuses to eat anything else except apples. Whatever. But I didn’t mention that.

This is the absolute joy of social media isn’t it? It hides all of our secrets. And we all know that we have those little secrets, no matter what your social media pages say.

I’m ready to come clean. Remove myself of the guilt.  Shake it all off Taylor Swift style. Reveal it all in the hope that someone else comes clean or throws shit at my car.

Ok. Here goes.

•          My three year old can ride a bike with pedals like a champion but still wears a nappy and has a dummy.
•          I bribed my son with a jelly snake last Saturday night to get him to get in the car in his pyjamas so I could go to the shop to buy chocolate. My hubby was working and it was the only way. I was desperate.
•          I lie to my husband saying that I have diarrhea and secretly play Tetris on my phone in the toilet.
•          I hide snacks in my house.
•          Sometimes I rummage through the Lost and Found box at daycare to see if there is anything good that has been left behind.
•          I choose new Lego based on my own capabilities and enjoyment, not on my son’s.
•          I’m still wearing maternity leggings. And there’s a hole in the crutch. And I need to throw them out. Tomorrow.
•          There’s fish fingers in my freezer and sometimes I wedge a few in a white bread roll with mayo and eat pretending I’m hungover so I can whisper to myself that it is a ‘one off’ and that I will never do it again.
•          I had a skiddie on my pants from my kid and didn’t realise it until 11am when I was at work. I cleaned it up with a wet paper towel in the work bathroom.
•          My kid farts and I think it’s funny, so I laugh. I know this is not what I’m meant to do, but I can’t help it. It’s funny.
•          I like to dress like a toddler.
•          I let my son watch Jurassic Park and it was the worst decision of my life (I forgot how scary that movie is). I didn’t tell anyone in case they judged me for being a bad uncaring mum, which I was for letting my 3 year old kid watch that film.
•          My son was yelled at by another mum in the park for kicking sand. I was too busy hanging with my mum pack to notice, but turned when I heard her yelling and calling him a brat. I called my son away quickly and stopped him from kicking sand but secretly wanted to pick a fight with this lady, which would not have helped the situation whatsoever (I would, however, have had my mum pack back me up).
•          I was once so tired I put the film Cars on for my son while I dozed on the couch, ever since this day I’ve had a creepy fascination with Owen Wilson and his purring voice.
•          My son is three and cries for his dummy.
•          I cried during the film 27 Dresses a few nights ago. It had been a tough day that seemed to never end. It started with the bmx track at 7.30am and ended with a nudie run through the house where my kid slipped and scored a giant egg on his head. I don’t know what made me cry more during the film – my parenting skills, James Marsden’s inaccessible self or simply the out of reach love scene, so far removed from my house complete with a dog walking around with a pair of jocks caught in his collar, that just made me bawl into my lukewarm beer. But fuck it felt good.
•          My kid drinks more milk than a potty calf. I’m sure it’s an addiction.
•          Sometimes I pretend to cry when my kid is too rough so I can get a cuddle.
•          Sometimes I pretend as though I’m three and it’s so much fun.  Sometimes Alfie and I call each other ‘best friends’. Then I realise I’ve got to be a responsible parent and I stop building the ramp that was to be used as a bike jump.

That’s just the surface. I’d love to hear your secrets. Or maybe you just want to check out my pesto recipes. 

Whatever you do, keep it real.

Peace.

Ali

This story first appeared in BubbaWest magazine. Since I wrote this over a month or two ago, I have to totally come clean and say that MY SON NOW WEARS UNDIES AND DOES WEE AND POO IN A TOILET NOT BEHIND A CURTAIN.

Thank you. 

Green and Cheese Pie with extra cheese

How good is cooking with your kid? Alfie loves to move his chair up to the bench and watch everything get chopped, cracked and smashed into a bowl.

On a Sunday, I like to use up all my veg from the week and throw it into a soup. But today the weather was so sparkly we decided to chop up all the remaining greens and make a green and cheese pie. The best.

Being a son-of-a-chef, Alfie loves to hang out at the bench and 'help'  cook. We ate chopped up apples and pears while we mixed up the pie ingredients.

And best of all, The Kid ate it.

Here are the deets, give it a crack!

GREEN AND CHEESE PIE 
By Ali and Alfie Webb

• Chopped spinach/kale/silverbeet or whatever green leafed veg you have in the fridge (I used this trilogy)
• A decent sized amount of Parmesan cheese
• One tub of ricotta
• Salt and pepper to flavour-flave
• Puff pastry

We made a selection of triangles, rolls and mini parcels.

Wrap, shape and mould and pop in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees Celsius.

I popped half in the freezer for another day/week. The rest we had for dinner with sides of pickled beetroot, homemade sauce and cut up fruit.

Enjoy this sunny week ahead!

Tea at the Webb's

All parents are busy. Why? Because they have kids. And sometimes, that time between 5 and 7 pm is the hardest, most busiest time, especially if you’ve had a shocking day at work or if you are in a disorganized state.  How the hell are you meant to come up with something wholesome, exciting, pretty, delicious and downright edible for your kid every night?

I’m married to a chef. A really good one. One that has worked in the finest dining establishments in Melbourne, who has slogged away at a stove (and loved every minute of it) for over half his life. When people find this little fact out, they get all ‘Oh. My. God. Do you like, eat THE BEST food every night?’ ‘Do you have THE BEST well stocked pantry?’ ‘Does he make your lunch?’ ‘You are so lucky!’

What people seem to forget is that when a chef works, it’s during those busy times… you know, between 5-7pm when people eat and are feeding their kids. I’m lucky enough that when we had Alfie, my hubby decided to change jobs and work closer to where we lived and closer to his son. My hubby is most likely now your chef, that is, if you eat at the Cornershop in Yarraville.

So what does a chef feed his two year old son? 

I bet you are expecting stylized recipes that look like they’re straight from a fancy cookbook, or even specially curated menus that would make Heston Blumenthal sweat. Nope, we are just a normal family, surviving each 5-7pm period each day with the most basic of ingredients.

Our son can sense a vegetable from a mile away. He knows the word ‘yuck’ and definitely knows the word ‘no’. He also knows how to make a fake vomit noise, throw and climb and hide food under his thigh. And he certainly knows how to ‘share’ food with the Cheef Dog.

To us, a good meal for our boy is all in the name. Favourites include Monkey Muffins, Tiny Tacos, Meallion (makes a million meals), Froggy Fritters and Por Favor Patties.

So here’s some inspiration for tea from one normal family (with a chef) to yours. Bon appetite!

Monkey Muffins

1 cup self raising flour

¼ cup caster sugar

50grams melted butter

¼ cup milk

2-3 very ripe bananas

2 eggs

Good handful of prunes, dates or whatever dried fruit takes your fancy.

Mix all ingredients into a batter and pour into a muffin tea. Into the oven set at 180 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until you can put a skewer into a muffin and it comes out clean.

Meallion

500 grams good quality mince

½ cup grated carrot

½ cup grated zucchini

½ cup sliced mushrooms

1 small brown onion, finely chopped

Any other vegie you can find

Rocco’s Deli homemade pasata (from the fridge at the back)

Chicken stock to cover the ingredients by approx. 1cm

Salt and pepper

Thyme / Rosemary / oregano / marjoram or a mix of whatever herbs you have at hand

Brown the onions and meat, add vegies, stir a lot, add stock and pasata. Cook on a low heat, stirring regularly for 45 minutes. Add extra stock as required.

You can turn Meallion into a million meals. Add some kidney beans and put the mixture into flat bread to create Tiny Tacos (great with avocado and sour cream). Pop a spud in the oven and add the Meallion on top. You can also turn it into a quick cottage pie by adding smashed potato (or smashed cauliflower) on top.

Froggy Fritters

4 grated zucchinis

1 cup of grated cheese

5 eggs

4 rashers chopped bacon

½ cup self raising flour

½ cup peas (can be frozen)

Salt and pepper

Mix all the ingredients into a bowl. If the mixture is too dry, add another egg. Pour into a lamington tray and place in the oven set at 160 degrees for 30-40  minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.

Once cooled, cut the green zucchini slice into appealing shapes. Presto! Froggy Fritters.

Por Favor Patties

1 can of sustainable tuna

2 potatoes (boiled and smashed)

1 small sweet potato (boiled and smashed)

½ cup peas

2 cobs of fresh corn or 1 can of corn

Lemon zest

1 cup of breadcrumbs (or enough to combine the mixture)

Allow the potatoes to bind all the ingredients together. Mould the mixture into balls the same size as a golf ball. Add olive oil to a hot pan and lightly pan fry the patties until they have a golden brown colour on the outside. Take out of the pan and place on paper towel to absorb any oil.

Serve with smashed avocado, scrambled eggs or even a little bit of Kewpie mayo. Por favor, please.

A key part of our crazy 5-7pm busy period is having options and a good, well stocked fridge and pantry. We have the fabulous Reno from Vari’s Organics deliver a fruit and vegetable box to us each week. At $35 a box, it’s great value and feeds our family well. For those nights where it’s all a bit too hard (i.e. when my hubby is working), I like to give my son some homemade produce, made by someone else with love: Rocco. Rocco’s Deli on Roberts Street in Yarraville has a great selection of homemade pasta sauces, bolognaise, lasagnes (veg and meat based), soups (their bean soup is amazing) and it ranges between $2-$8. It’s really handy to have these items in our fridge for those emergency nights.

I’m always happy to share our meals and recipes, but I would love to hear about what your kids have for dinner.

Hey, dough face!

It looks a bit like a dog's breakfast, but it tastes like vegetable

As you've guessed, I'm on a food wastage free bandwagon. I've been trying to get our weekly food bill down to around $50 and it's bloody tough. The best I have done is $68 and I was hardcore hanging for a steak by the end of the week. But I'm determined as hell to work this out. Why should we have to spend $5200 + a year on food.

Alfie is a morning sleeper - he has a snooze around 9.30am on a Friday for about three hours - he is so knackered from three hardcore days at daycare. This gives me heaps of time to make some excellent food.

Today I've smashed out a good ol' minestrone using the remaining items of last week's veggie box:
Carrots, sweet potato, potato, zucchini, mushies, kidney beans, end-of-packet pasta, stock and the special ingredient is Rocco's passata sauce purchased from my local Italian deli in West Footscray. Nothing tastes better than a nonna's homemade passata!

Whack it all in a pot and bam, there's lunch for the kid and I. The plan is to pick up some yum pumpkin bread from Sourdough Kitchen in Seddon to dip into the veggie mass. I'm going to have to coat the top of Alfie's dish in Parmesan cheese to disguise all the green veg.

For tea, I've made a quick-as-hell pizza dough, from a recipe on Taste. It's a fucking freezing day so I'm hoping it rises in time - it's got only seven hours to do so.

The dough has already started to rise!

It's a little tradition for Alfie and I to head to Rocco's Deli every Friday and stock up with pastas, pestos and other goodies for the week. I'm going to add prosciutto or parma ham to the pizza and maybe a little bit of pineapple... we all deserve a bit of Tropicana in our lives during winter.

It's going to be a lot of funny making these sweet pizzas with my little man this evening.

How good is it when meals for the day are sorted by 11am?A rarity in our house, but what the Helen-of-Troy, it makes me feel freakin' excellent.

Happy Friday punks.

xx

Heather Dell High

When I was ridiculously pregnant and enormous, I had daily cravings for Neenish Tarts. The pink and brown pattern would wake me in the middle of the night and I would stare at the ceiling, counting the hours until Heather Dell Cakes opened.

There’s something so charming about Heather Dell. It represents your nanna, through its sweet smell, its window display, its tin canisters on the shelves, the curried egg sandwiches, the biscuits and treats, the photos on the fridge, right down to the local fruit and veg supplier calendar with its perforated months highlighting birthdays, anniversaries and special events.

Rocco's Role

I’m greeted by a friendly ‘ciao’ when I enter Rocco’s Delicatessen. The store smells good, like a home cooked meal. Rocco smiles at me and there’s a definite twinkle in his eye. Everything about this place is familiar, like I have stepped back to a moment in my childhood.

Rocco and his wife Adriana opened their store in February 1977, 38 years ago. The store is full of reminders of the past, from the vintage signs behind the counter reminding you to purchase a TAB cola or how you can be a mod while smoking a Virginian Slim, to the family photos behind the register and the sound the door makes when you open it.

A Conversation With... Mark Briggs

I have lived in Yarraville for four years and during that time I have seen the village catapult to being a place where you could get away with wearing filthy tracksuit pants, to an uber-hip inner city suburb where smackie-dacks just don’t pass.

Why? Perhaps it’s all the yummy parentals cruising around the hood with their pimped up prams, or the Sun Theatre with its amazingly awesome choc tops, or even the retail therapy ranging from second hand stores to unique fashion? No. You know what’s brought the change from old school to cool? It’s Mark Briggs.

If you don’t know Mark by now, let’s get you up to speed. Yarraville’s latest acquisition is the former Head Chef of Vue de Monde, was named The Age’s Young Chef of the Year in 2013 and has trained with the best, working in renowned kitchens such as Fifteen London, La Tante Claire in London, and The Old Manor House in Romsley, UK. Now you can find him on your doorstep, at Dig A Pony.

I’m married to a chef and whenever I explain what my husband does for a living, people jump up and down clapping and squealing about how lucky I am. What a lot of people don’t understand is that chefs don’t really spend that much time at home cooking for their family, as they are normally cooking for you. So in a sense, you are a part of that extended family.

When I asked Mark about cooking at home he said he likes to put on a roast, but, with his signature smirk, “my wife complains that I make too much of a mess”.

Being a chef is not just about dishing up good food, and with Mark’s incredible experience to date, creativity and inspiration can start with a simple staff meal.

“I’m always thinking about food and idea’s come up all the time, whether I’m at the market, watching TV or cooking a staff meal”.

“My favourite staff meals to cook are childhood favourites or a traditional local dish. It’s really exciting when one of the chefs buys a load of ingredients that I’ve never heard of and cooks up something from their own childhood memories.

“I have also experienced a lot of awful staff meals. I mean, the staff meal is a place where chefs can test out flavours and ingredients.  Some don’t always go to plan. One I will never forget was a sausage and bread stew. The chef who made it still gets a hard time about it six years later!”

(Don’t worry, I asked Mark – that chef doesn’t work at Dig a Pony!)

So what do the people of the inner west like to eat? Apparently we are a trendy bunch, who love our food.

“The healthy options are always popular along with the unusual, like tripe and liver. It’s great to cook for locals who have a good knowledge of food and appreciate fine ingredients.  We are always trying to bring something a little different to Yarraville: new tastes, flavours and dishes – and so far it seems to be working!”

“I love spending my days off at local haunts Cobb Lane and the Cornershop in Yarraville where I can always find excellent dishes. For dinner, I can’t go past a steak at The Station Hotel in Footscray. We are so lucky to be surrounded by so many great options for dining!”

When Mark explained that his favourite people to cook for are his friends and family, I couldn’t help but ask the question as to who the most famous person was that he has ever rustled up a meal for.

“It would have to be Ferran Adria from elBulli in Spain. But if you are talking famous people known to everyone it would probably be David Beckham or Rod Stewart”.

Phew! From Maggie May to Yarraville, it seems like Dig A Pony might be the place to be this summer or autumn or winter or spring – the menu changes with the seasons. So get in quick and try something new.

Dig A Pony is open Tue-Sun from 5pm. Closed Mondays.

58 Ballarat Street, Yarraville
www.digapony.com.au

(Photos copyright Paul Large: flickr.com/people/pmlarge)

This article first appeared in The Westsider, November 2014 edition. (http://thewestsider.com.au/a-conversation-with-mark-briggs/)

Pressure

I recently stopped myself during another hardcore clap-slash-high-kick-hip-shaking-sing-songy-wiggly-giggly dance move in front of the high chair.

What on earth was I doing?

I was dealing with pressure.

We are not talking about the pressure that comes with working in a busy press office that I deal with four days a week. We are not even talking about the pressure involved in creating an awesome PowerPoint presentation for important people using Microsoft two-thousand-and-still-no-idea. We are certainly not talking about the pressure involved with making VERY important decisions VERY quickly using other people’s budgets and money. And we are definitely not talking about the ‘just give me five seconds to do a wee’ pressure.

Hankering for sausage

I woke up this morning with a hankering for sausage.

My buddy Miss P and I had a plan to take our babes on a pram trek to the amazing (and hidden) Rocco's in West Footscray. However, a quick look at the weather chart showed that the morning would be a glorious 22 degrees but the afternoon promised a good saturation. So a car trip it was.

Reg and I discovered Rocco's when we first moved to Yarraville following a heads up from a foodie pal. From the outside, the joint looks just like a regular old school milk bar with the potential for a sensational 1980s-esque lolly counter. However, upon entering you are instantly taken to a sweet-as Italian deli filled with glorious treats all to the familiar sound of the classic milk bar door chimes.

Old and Newport

Today I took the boys down to the Newport Folk Festival on the train. I love Newport for three reasons: the Vinnies, the bakery and the library. But today I found a couple more excuses to visit this cute suburb.

Folk Festival in the park

Each time I visit Newport I visit Sammy's bakehouse. This middle eastern bakery makes the best range of sweet bagels that I have ever tasted. My favourite is the custard bagel which at only $3.50 is totally worth the embarrassment of it leaving a mess around your mouth.

Amazing custard bagel

I have mentioned the Newport Vinnies several times in this blog because it is seriously one of the best op shops in the area. The store is colour coordinated and has a very high turnaround.  If you like retro goods or just a treasure hunt, you could spend hours in this place (and I did today).

An overalled thief in the night

I'm a thief.

I have started cruising the streets of Yarraville with the pram and my boys with a pair of scissors. No sidewalk succulent is safe from my snippity-snips. I figure that now that I dress like Bonita from Playschool I look less intrusive and more inquisitive, so I feel I can get away with this...

Succulent-ish

She put the lime in the coconut

Oh, hi. How are you? Sorry, we were laying low for a while. We survived three months. We are officially parents.