Make your own sushi

This dinner was very popular with my sushi-train-lovin' kids. And really -- other than chopping vegetables -- it's not too much work if you've got the key ingredients, especially with a rice cooker. (Of course I'm not doing all the fancy fanning of rice in a wooden bowl but never mind.) I cooked 2 cups sushi rice + 3 cups water in the rice cooker. Meanwhile, I heated 4 Tablespoons rice vinegar with 3 Tablespoons sugar in the microwave (I warned you this wasn't traditional) then mixed that in with the rice in a flat bowl, and covered this with a teatowel until dinner time.

Along with the rice I served salmon (from a can); quartered nori (seaweed); chopped cucumber, red capsicum, avocado and pickled daikon radish; wasabi, soy sauce and pickled ginger. It was delicious!! We all had our unique style. I prefered "scattered" sushi: a big gemisch of everything on top of rice (I don't like to eat too much seaweed because of my sensitivity to iodine). DH and daughter made rolls. Son (don't tell anyone) preferred to eat everything, including rice, with his fingers. Oh well.

Monday breakfast

We had a baked dinner yesterday (leg of lamb with roasted potatoes and sweet potatoes, cauliflower with cheese sauce, and Brussel sprouts). For breakfast I fried the potatoes and sweet potatoes first along with some eggs; garnished with toast and sliced baby Roma tomatoes. Mmmm-mmm.

Pre-disco dinner

Believe it or not kids at primary school in Canberra have disco dances! It's not a boy-girl thing... the police use it as a community event where they meet the kids at each school and prove that even policemen can do the chicken dance. For kindergarten to year 3, the disco is from 5 to 6:30 pm. Amazingly, my son spent the entire time with his mates dancing at the front of the stage!!! I fed the kids before we went: macaroni and cheese, peas and carrot sticks.

Tuna and broccoli pasta

Wednesday night dinner was spiral pasta with tuna, capers, broccoli, garlic and spring onions, with Parmesan cheese on top. Same salad as last night, but no dessert. Anna didn't like this pasta because everything was all mixed up -- she would have eaten all the separate parts though, ah the logic is flawed is it not?! She ate mostly salad, cheese and pasta which didn't have bits clinging to it.

Soup from the freezer

Tuesday dinner was beef, barley and vegetable soup (frozen from a couple weeks ago) and a salad (lettuce, mint, sprouts and cherry tomatoes). Baked pears with cinnamon yogurt for dessert (somehow we are always in too much of a rush to eat dessert to actually take a photo!)

I have to pretend this is not in the fridge

This is very addictive. I have been looking for a recipe for a sweet, seedy, nutty, granola/muesli bar and found this one on recipezaar.com (recipe #115073). There is too much butter in it for my husband's taste, and I agree to a certain extent, mostly from a theoretical viewpoint mind you. haha. It ends up tasting much like caramel popcorn.

Dry ingredients:

1 cup rolled oats
1 cup coconut
1/2 cup LSA mix (ground linseeds, sunflower seeds and almonds)
1/2 cup sesame seeds
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
1 cup raisins

Wet ingredients:
125 g (1/2 cup) butter
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup brown sugar

Line a 16 x 28 cm (7" x 11") pan with baking paper.

Combine dry ingredients in a big bowl.

Cook butter, honey and sugar over medium heat, stirring for 3-4 min until sugar dissolves. Reduce to low and simmer without stirring for 7 minutes.

Add to dry ingredients and mix well. Press firmly into pan. Set for a few hours in fridge.

Roast chicken and potatoes

I'm becoming Nigella Lawson. I only cook chickens the way she does now (with a lemon and rosemary inside, and upside-down so the juices -- read fat -- keep the breast meat moist) and tonight I even put two in at a time as she does... one for our putative picnic tomorrow (it's quite cold and rainy for a picnic!) and one for dinner.

Oh dear do I have to have parallel construction in this post and start this paragraph with "I'm becoming my mother?!" Ahh, ignore that thought like all daughters must. Anyway, I overcame my gravy fears with my mother at the stove 2 years ago. She said, it doesn't matter, just heat up the drippings with some liquid (the water potatoes were cooked in or stock), and add some flour shaken with water in a jar and it will work. And it works... not only when she is standing next to me!!! So tonight I am proud of two things: my gravy which still works despite an occasional flicker of concern at the aforementioned stove, and come on, you have to admit, those are perfectly golden-roasted potatoes.

Pancakes for breakfast

A highly sought after commodity in our household: weekend pancakes. I top these 100% whole-wheat flour jobbies with yogurt and fruit... here, canned pears. But everyone else in the family are sugar fans; elaborate alternating layers of jam and maple syrup is the current fashion.

Roast pork a la Wayne County Fair

Two meals here. The first day, I cooked a pork loin roast all day in the slow cooker in a sauce of balsamic vinegar, honey and Dijon mustard. The meat was delicious but the sauce was slightly odd, perhaps too much vinegar, but still tasty. Served with sweet potatoes and apples fried in butter, oh because they are delicious that way.

Then I realised I had made pork BBQ very similar to that served at the community BBQ at the Wayne County Fair in Nebraska, and I simply had to serve it in a soft white roll... even better then next day! The fair was always at the end of summer, and it was the first time that we would see our school friends -- other than our neighbors and especially good friends -- after a summer of travelling and swimming and bike riding. I remember waiting in the very long line and shyly saying hi to my tanned and taller schoolmates and wondering how the coming school year would go. Of course every single person in Wayne (and their family) came for the BBQ ... pork buried in a pit for days... disintegrated and soft and sweet-BBQ-sauced on a white roll.

Peter's dinner

Peter (DH) often cooks something along these lines, inspired by a Spanish potato omelette. Here in addition to egg and potato he added red cabbage, carrots and green peas, with cheese on top, and steamed broccoli and toast on the side.

Spag bol

Spaghetti bolognaise made with a jar of tomato sauce and minced beef, and supplemented with a carrot, red capsicum and stick of celery (I am obsessed with sneaking extra vegetables into everything-- they are so good for you). Served with a green salad -- a pleasing mixture of rocket (arugula), mint and cucumber -- and Parmesan cheese.

For dessert I made one of my favourites from Nigella Lawson's How to Eat: baked pears. I love this cookbook... it's not so much recipes as written down notes of those things you make at home regularly without a recipe. Indeed, in Nigella's style, I currently just remember the idea of this dish and then experiment with the ingredients I have at hand. Tonight I had 7 Buerre Bosc pears, some leftover too-sweet wine and the juice from the canned apricots. Into a covered casserole dish they went, with some cinnamon and honey, and after an hour at 180C they were luscious. Even more so with some ice cream. The fragrant sauce is divinely spiced. Initially I was going to serve this as dessert for our Saturday dinner party (before DH stepped into the kitchen!) and I had the idea that the King Island cinnamon yogurt would work perfectly with it. Next time!

Fruit bowls

Anna took this photo of our fruit bowls for the week, replenished by a trip to the markets on Friday. I miss bananas! After a hurricane which wiped out 90% of all banana plantations in Queensland, they are currently in such short supply that they are priced at A$15 = US$11 / kg (2 lbs) !!!!

Dinner party

Menu for dinner party on Saturday night:

Roasted red capsicum filled with coriander rice and topped with a lemony, minty yogurt sauce
Green beans with a touch of butter and lemon rind (my personal favourite dish)
Marinated mushrooms (lots of garlic, olive oil, lemon juice and spring onions)
Carrot salad (with dried and fresh coriander, lemon juice and a titch of oil)

Dear husband (DH) outdid himself dessert-wise: a chocolate-raspberry tart in a coconut-macaroon crust, served with vanilla ice cream and cinnamon King Island yogurt.

As you can see from the photos, our guest gave everything the thumbs-up. The one thumbs-down is to represent the Heart Foundation's likely stance on the dessert.

Pumpkin-y lentil soup

OK, maybe I am getting tired of the vast wall of orange pumpkin flesh in my pantry (three dolla! three dolla!). But in this soup, the pumpkin was reasonably disguised by the lentils, red capsicum, curry paste and coconut milk (185 mL). Served with a dollop (?) of brown rice and Brussel sprouts on the side. The kids had canned apricots and wildberry drinkable yogurt for dessert.

Meat and potatoes

Pork chops on the BBQ with a salad and roast potatoes. I make the potatoes a la my in-laws: peeled and microwaved for 8 minutes with a little water to pre-cook; then tossed in olive oil and browned in a 180C oven for 30 minutes.