I love balls

I  really dig a good ball, especially one that's not only good for you but takes minutes to make.

This LOVELY publication by Lunch Lady arrived in the post a few weeks ago and within days I had read it from cover to cover tucked up in bed, providing me with good foodie dreams.

Firstly, we should support locally produced publications like this so I urge you to head to your local newsagency and spend the dosh for this well earned treat. If your newsagency doesn't have a copy, chuck a tanty and tell them they HAVE to stock it, otherwise head to Lunch Lady online and pop one in your cart.

Secondly, I suck with having all the relevant ingredients in my cupboard when I feel the inspiration the cook. So I made a slight change to one of Lunch Lady's big ball recipes and adjusted the ingredients to suit my pantry line up. Here's what happened:

Lunch Lady balls: big ball style

1 cup almond crumble (or bump and grind your own raw almonds if you have them)
Big ball handful of walnut crumble (you can choose any nuts for your balls)
2 big ball handfuls of sultanas (I soaked mine in warm water to plump up the babies)
1/3 cup cocoa
1 cup desiccated coconut (I LOVE the word desiccated)
handful of extra desiccated coconut for rolling the big balls in

Whack all the ingredients in a blender/food processor until it grinds into a big ball. Remove and shape into your favourite sized balls, roll 'em in coconut and bam, Lunch Lady balls: big ball style.

Our household digs a big ball. These babies are fridge friendly and awesome for the 3.30pm at work/distracted by Facebook snack.

Get these balls into 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

Great Expectations

I recently went on a little holiday to Queensland with my family. It was hilarious, like watching the Griswald family get ready for Christmas. Why is it that you can never fully pull your shit together when you have a toddler in tow?

We left Melbourne on Christmas Eve at 8pm. My hubby Reggie had a huge hangover from his work Christmas party the night before and he had had to work the whole day, leaving me to pack (probably a good thing in hindsight). During the day, Alfie had a massive stack, scoring a huge egg on his forehead. To calm down the tears, I decided to get him to help me pack.

Crap snack

My son is a collector. Unfortunately we aren’t talking antiques or Chapel Street Bazaar or even something you could sell on IWBSS. My son loves collecting crap.

When we go out my pockets are quickly filled as I am handed miscellaneous goods such as rocks, sticks, lolly wrappers, and most recently a condom packet. Disgusting. But so sweet that he cares for the environment and wants to clean up Australia. Good on ya Alfie.

We are regulars at a local park and love kicking back in the sandpit and doing the playground activity lap (even though I am extremely challenged by it). We take props such as a bucket and spade, a truck or even a little car to push around and make brrrm sounds with. It’s bliss, especially if there’s a group of young men playing basketball on the courts. Fresh air and park life = brilliant.

There’s one problem though. Every time we go to this one particular park, Alfie goes straight for the waist strap on the baby swing – you know the one, the safety chain thing covered in clear plastic that you clip around your kid’s tummy. He goes straight for the strap and sucks on it. Hard. It’s really foul and each time he does it a little vomit forms in the back of my throat.

I mean, it’s not like he isn’t well fed and that I don’t have a fabulous array of snacks in my backpack soaked in water from the leaking sippy cup. It’s not like there isn’t a variety of sticks and leaves and other ‘natural’ items available he can put in his mouth. I offer all of the above and pick him up and take him away from the strap and he LOSES it. Face down on the grass slamming his fists and feet into the ground. How dare I. He gets back up and runs for the strap. Gross. I repeat the actions above. Then I give up and let him suck at it.

After about five minutes he gets bored. I’m sitting on the edge of the sandpit waiting for him, trying to hold back my vomit from the strap sucking. Finally he comes around and hangs out with me in the ‘pit passing me bits of sticks and leaves.

We dig a hole. He has a snack. He tries to put the snack in my mouth, yum. Whatever. We dig some more of the hole. I’m distracted by my phone beeping and I check out a text. He pushes some more of his muesli bar in my mouth. I eat it. Whatever. He goes back to his hole and I start responding to the text message. He pushes something into my mouth. I bite into it thinking it’s the muesli bar but it’s not. It’s a crusty sun-bleached dog shit.

I spit. I squeal and dry wretch. I’m scraping the inside of my mouth and pulling out everything except my tongue. My hand is covered in sand and the texture is making everything worse. The cool mums wearing puffer vests around the edge of the sandpit are staring at me over their soy lattes. Then it happens. I’ve dry wretched so much that I start convulsing. I can’t stop thinking about the poo. I’m horrified. I spew in my kid’s sand bucket.

I get my shit together, realign and refocus. I’m a mum. I sort myself out. I’ve got to. People, including my son, are watching.

I look at my little boy sitting in the massive hole we’ve dug together. He’s laughing at his car as he pushes it through the sand. Perhaps he didn’t notice my behaviour.  I pick him up to put him in the SuperTrike and I notice there’s something in his mouth. It’s another piece of the white crusty turd and he’s chewing on it. I try to fish it out. It’s so gross.

We wheel home with our pooey mouths and spewy bucket, through Yarraville village passing all the parents who look so together. I decide to grab a coffee and when I pull out money from my parka pocket, the miscellaneous condom packet falls out.

Seriously unfair.

This post first appeared on Bubba West.