4 o'clock soup

At that grim after-school hour when it appears that you have nothing for dinner, unite 1-1/2 cups red lentils, chicken stock, and all lonely vegetables wandering lost in your refrigerator. Cook until vegetables socialise. Serve in a flower bowl which Makes You Happy, with a salad nearby.

3 burgers + 1 tofu burger + buns

Ever since the day before Year 1, my daughter has been a vegetarian. I admire her perseverance... I'm a wannabe vegetarian but the lure of the hamburger on the BBQ is too tempting for me. Pictured is a typical compromise. When I grill hamburgers I also cook Soyco tofu which comes in a range of marinades (Japanese, Malaysian peanut satay, Chinese honey soy, Thai).

If we have meat for a meal, she can choose to substitute with this tofu or a tin of beans. And she does -- cheerfully, even if the beans are dumped cold and unceremoniously onto her plate. She inspires us to eat more vegetarian meals.

My mother's carrot cake

My mother travels the world to test carrot cakes. But this recipe is her favourite -- and mine at this time of year.

2 cups sugar
1-1/2 cups oil
4 eggs
2 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 cups grated raw carrot
1/2 cup walnuts
1 cup coconut
1 440 g (13-1/2 ounces) tin crushed pineapple, undrained

Grease pan. My mother uses a 10x14 inch (25x35 cm) pan. If you use the more common 9x13 inch (22.5x32.5 cm) pan, make 6 regular sized muffins as well (the cake will not cook sufficiently in the centre if you use all the batter in a 9x13 inch pan).

Preheat oven to 180 °C (350 °F). Mix sugar, oil and eggs well. Sift dry ingredients. Mix with egg mixture. Add carrots, nuts, coconut and pineapple. Bake for 45 minutes.

Ice with cream cheese 'frosting': 250 g (8 ounces) cream cheese, 1 tablespoon milk, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and 4 cups icing sugar.

Perfect for a birthday cake. Though perhaps not as memorable as my cake 38 years ago.

Crocodiles, clouds and chocolate pudding fruit

Can you guess where I am?

Salmon on the BBQ

This was the first time I tried to BBQ salmon steaks on my (oh dear do I keep mentioning it?) Weber BBQ (oh but I love it).

Let me count more ways I love it... remember all those times you've tried to grill fish and when you flip it over the fish sticks to the grill and you end with a ragged fishy mess? Welcome to my new world. Whack the fish on the super-hot W*e*b*e*r B*B*Q ... reduce burners from high to medium... walk inside to take the roast potatoes out of the oven... walk outside full of apprehension... open the cover and easy-squeesy flip the salmon over. No sticking. Photogenic BBQ stripes. Cook a few more minutes then place triumphantly on dining table.

Podfood brekky

Podfood is my favourite place to go for breakfast. The restaurant is in an old cottage in beautiful gardens, with a nursery next door with original art to browse. The food is divine. This Sunday morning was not disappointing -- though I found it very expensive ($17 a breakfast, plus a 10% surcharge for Sunday). The Persian fetta made me forget the price though. And aren't the tomatoes impossibly perfect. My choice: pan seared field mushrooms on toast with slow roasted tomato and Yarra Valley Persian fetta

Poached free range eggs with slow roasted tomato, crisped bacon and wilted baby spinach on toast

French toast with maple syrup, poached berries and raspberry yoghurt

Lentil and sweet potato samosas

These vegetarian samosas are adapted from an excellent puff pastry cookbook which the folks at Pampas kindly sent me. As with most Indian food, start by frying a finely chopped onion and a garlic clove. Then add 1 tablespoon curry paste, juice of half a lemon, a drained can of lentils and 300 g cooked vegetables -- here boiled cubes of sweet potatoes, though leftover roast potatoes or peas work well too.

At this stage you need an eight-year-old daughter with an enthusiasm for cooking (otherwise you can do the next part yourself). Cut thawed puff pastry squares into fourths, then enclose a decent spoonful of the filling in whatever envelope fold you desire (if you are using the eight-year-old option, the origami folding that ensues may be more creative than the standard triangle favoured by staid middle-aged cooks). Brush with egg and milk wash, and bake for 15 to 20 minutes at 220oC. Delicious to nibble while watching Edward Scissorhands.

Hakubaku noodles

The bottle of wasabi noodle sauce said enjoy with hakubaku noodles... and we did! The noodle sauce is not too spicy ... only a mild horseradish flavour with the consistency of thinned mayonnaise.

This was a quick room-temperature dish to make on a hot summer evening. I boiled the green tea noodles, then added chopped vegies (capsicum, cucumber, spring onions), tofu (marinated Japanese flavour) and about 1/3 of the bottle of noodle sauce. Served with fresh beets topped with chopped spring onions to be fancy.

Pesto & plums

My dear daughter (DD) has been very interested in cooking lately. She especially enjoys improvising a 'salad of the imagination'!

Tonight we made pesto pasta together. For salads, DD chose a simple bowl of chopped fresh vegies and a side of mashed avocado, tomatoes, lemon juice and yogurt.

Dessert was my department. I made a cake using old-fashioned tart plums from our neighbour's tree. The recipe was adapted from Donna Hay's Off the Shelf, one of my favourite cookbooks. Beat 125 g butter, 1 cup sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla until light and creamy. Add 2 eggs and beat well, then stir in 1-1/2 cups self-raising flour. Spoon into an oiled and baking-paper-lined 24 cm round cake tin. Top with halved plums. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes at 160 °C (or 1 hour for a 22 cm cake tin).

Majura Primary School Kitchen Garden

At the end of 2008 I was thrilled to learn that my kids' school won funding to become the demonstration school in the ACT for the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program.

Majura Primary School will build a teaching kitchen and will expand the existing environment courtyard into an even larger kitchen garden. Each fortnight all children in years 3 to 6 will spend 1 hour gardening and 1-1/2 hours cooking and sharing a meal using ingredients from the garden, guided by a kitchen specialist and a garden specialist. The aim of this program is expressed on the foundation's website:

The creation and care of a Kitchen Garden teaches children about the natural world, about its beauty and how to care for it, how best to use the resources we have, and an appreciation for how easy it is to bring joy and wellbeing into one’s life through growing, harvesting, preparing and sharing fresh, seasonal produce.

I'm looking forward to volunteering my time to help kids cook (and eat!) in the kitchen. What a positive and joyful experience to share with children.

If you live in Canberra you can get involved as well -- even if you don't have children at Majura! Check out the website for more information or call the school, 6205 5711.

Happy 80th birthday to Auntie Jo!

On Sunday it was my Auntie Jo's 80th birthday. We had a lunch with the extended family. Jo is a kind and generous woman and it is a pleasure to spoil her on her birthday. She told me that it was the best day of her life -- except for when her children were born, she quickly added.

Cousin Sue and I were in charge of salads. She made a delicious lettuce salad with roast pumpkin and mushrooms, and a Greek salad with a macadamia nut dressing.

I made three salads:

• Red capsicum, eggplant and zucchinis roasted on the Weber BBQ then marinated in a balsamic vinaigrette (5 tablespoons olive oil, 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, garlic) and served atop baby rocket.

• A bean salad in a mustardy lemon vinaigrette (90 mL fresh lemon juice, 180 mL olive oil, a good spoonful of French mustard). To three cans of beans, I added corn, celery, red capsicum and red onions for crunch.

• Pasta tossed with pesto and topped with cherry tomatoes, served at room temperature.

Cousin Margaret brought cold cuts: chicken, ham, lamb. Others made boiled potatoes and sliced sourdough bread. Check out the spread!

DD cooks

Tonight, dear daughter (DD) cooked potato omelette from leftover roast potatoes, broccoli, eggs and basil (with some guidance from me). Cooked on low heat on the stovetop, then finished off under the griller with cheese sprinkled on top in the last moments. She insisted that all the ingredients should be in little bowls before starting to cook, 'just like Jamie Oliver and Nigella'. I think I've found my new food stylist... didn't she arrange those vegies beautifully?

Butterflied leg of lamb

I've always wanted to try the recipe for butterflied leg of lamb from the cookbook which came with my Weber gas BBQ. We had 12 for dinner tonight, so why not experiment?! It turned out well, even with the gas running out halfway through cooking and dear husband (DH) making a quick trip to get another gas bottle.

I bought a leg of lamb from the butcher, who seemed crestfallen when I didn't want to try one of his own marinades. Overcoming his disappointment he chose a leg of lamb, cut out the bone and flattened it so that the meat was a 5 cm thick rectangle, about 40 cm by 20 cm. At home I marinated the meat in 1/2 c red wine, 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, 3 crushed garlic cloves, 1 teaspoon cumin, 1 tablespoon chopped rosemary and the juice of 1/2 lemon.

The meat was then cooked using the 'indirect' method. The BBQ is preheated on high for 10 minutes, and the lamb is seared (skin side up) for 3 minutes. Then the burner under the lamb is turned off, and the side burners are turned down to medium, and then the lamb cooks (without turning) for 35 to 45 minutes with the lid down.

The result is simply delicious, sliced thinly and served with roast potatoes. I also made my current favourite salad: grilled eggplant and capsicum, tossed with a balsamic vinaigrette and topped with bocconcini and basil. To cut the richness I often serve this salad on top of greens -- tonight, baby beet greens.

Smoothie after school

After-school smoothie with thumbs-up from DS (dear son), DD (dear daughter), and DSF (dear son's friend). Yogurt, bananas, frozen raspberries, ice cream and a titch of milk whizzed in the MagiMix.

My new Dutch scraper-outer-thingie (een flessenlikker! no, really!) is handy for scraping out the last precious bits of yogurt... or pesto... or jam. Thank you, Linda!

One year later

One year later, and my resolutions remain on my blog and on my file cabinet... but without any blog entries in between!
New motivation has appeared: my childrens' school has been funded to be the demonstration school for the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program. I return with a renewed zest for food, for blogging, for community.
And let's hope motivation magically appears to start exercising again as well.