Fennel and orange salad for kids

It is a boring kind of family meal I know. Why is she blogging about every day pork sausages and salad you wonder? well let me tell you why.

It was Wednesday of last week, I'd done half the shopping but hadn't managed to get to the fruit and veg shop down the road so when it came to whipping up dinner on Wednesday night after swimming lessons all I had in the fridge was some yummy pork sausages, zucchini, onion and an orange.... or so I thought.
Come on! I thought to myself, if I serve zucchini and onions to the boys I'll hear nothing but complaints (it was a hot and humid day so I was not interested in complaints!). We had got back from swimming late so I knew I didn't have long to whip up dinner, in fact Alex hasn't been able to last long enough to eat with us, so all I managed to give him before he fell a sleep was a sausage, carrot sticks, orange slices and bread- really healthy!
While the sausages were cooking I managed to find a tub of cherry tomatoes and hidden beneath the zucchini was a fennel bulb. Without even thinking about Max and his likes and dislikes of fennel (I knew he disliked cooked fennel) I began to make a salad of cherry tomatoes, orange segments and shaved fennel because that was all I had going, bar a few carrot sticks.
It hadn't even hit me that Max might not like fennel until I was tossing the salad and he came up and asked me what the white stuff was?' Umm, it's.....shaved fennel' I said 'it absorbs the orange flavour, you'll love it'.
Sitting down for dinner I think I was holding my breath waiting to see if he ate his dinner without complaint- VICTORY!
Max devoured the salad and even said he liked it, how cool was that. If I had had a fridge full of other veggie stuff he liked I wouldn't of even given the shaved fennel a second thought so I have taught myself something very valuable- don't get stuck in the family vegetable rut of carrots, corn and beans, lash out a little, try something new a few different ways and if it still gets rejected then perhaps then and only then I will come to the conclusion they really don't like the stuff.
So note to self:
 Max likes fennel raw, hates fennel cooked.
Alex hates fennel raw, cooked or even being in the house.....he has a few years to go before I give up on him completely!

Max observes

We were all getting ready to sit down for breakfast the other morning, I got Max to set the table (which consists of him throwing knives and forks in any random order and where his brothers seat is, Max likes to set them up more like weapons!).
Alex was starving hungry due to him being so over tired the night before that he took himself off to bed without any dinner; so with me telling Max off for throwing down the cutlery, Alex dying of starvation and I was moments away from pancakes being cooked- to say it was a little manic would be an understatement.
When we finally sat down at the table there was that split second of silence while everyone was happy knowing they'd be eating within seconds and this was when Max quietly comes out with
"You know what mum, that looks like the perfect photo for your blog"
In stunned amazement (the boys are ALWAYS complaining I take way to many photos before we eat), I ran to get the camera and snapped away. There's 101 recipes for pancakes so I am not going to bore you all with yet another one but I just wanted to share my joy.
Perhaps the boys are finally excepting this as a way of life?

Crab and mango salad

On Saturday night we were having dinner guests. Our first dinner guests since we moved into our new apartment back in December. I hate to think we have been here for over 6 weeks and we haven't entertained......then again who am I kidding, days have been running into weeks without me knowing!

When we first moved to Sydney the lovely Nerida took us under her wing; she fed us beautiful dinners at her home, let the boys play with her sons 'transformers' collection for hours on end, she let us borrow chairs so we didn't have to sit on the floor while we were waiting for our furniture to arrive, etc, etc. We were always wanting to invite Nerida around for dinner but a year passed and it still hadn't happened so when Nic told me we were having dinner guests I was delighted to finally have Nerida come to our house.
As you can imagine, I felt I needed to make something delicious, exciting and worth waiting for!

In my mind I had a feast planned however in reality I had just finished a big week. I had to get up and start work at 4.20am on the Friday morning, followed that afternoon with a phone call from Alex's school saying he had a temperature, thus ended up staying up half the night to keep him settled, went to the cafe at 6am the next morning to open for breakfast......yep, the last thing I felt like doing was cooking a feast, BUT there was no way I was going to have a boring meal.
I was always thinking crab- it's summer, hot, humid and what better way to start an evening sucking on a crab claw while drinking a cool glass of vino bianco. Thanks to Brett's wonderful idea of taking home some pre-prepared, slow cooked lamb shank and pesto parcels we had at the cafe for the main meal all I had left to do was make a crab salad and dessert- no worries!

Finishing work early I drove to the fish mongers, picked up three delicious looking blue swimmer crabs then headed to the fruit and veg store to put the final touches together. I knew I desperately needed to sleep so I was thinking quick and simple on the prep front. I boiled my crabs (a sight the boys were delighted with however didn't want anything to do with when it came to trying the meat!) in a lime leaf, chili and garlic infused stock, popped them in the fridge to cool and headed for the bedroom for a quick power nap.

It still impresses me how a 30 minute power nap can stop you looking and feeling like a zombie! I was refreshed and ready to pick at my crabs- probably the hardest part of the whole dish. Anyway once the meat was all picked through I prepped some diced mango, nice and small so it complemented the crab meat. Nic picked the watercress while I made a chili, caramel and citrus dressing where by you heat up some palm sugar in a saucepan until it starts to bubble and go sticky (on a very low heat). Once liquified you add freshly squeezed orange juice and stir over a low flame until sauce is all smooth. Add a couple splashes of fish sauce, chopped Thai chili (green) and then once cooled add chopped coriander (cilantro). It is a flavour sensation and will keep for about 5 days in the fridge.
Ok so all the prep is done, boys have eaten early (thought they were lucky having noodles and chicken rather than crab) and I was feeling almost a million dollars. It was a great night, the salad was the perfect way to start the meal and the best part was I got to sleep in on Sunday morning.....

Falafel salad

We've all had it happen, you go to the cupboard- nothing there, you wonder over to the fridge, open the door and look in side for what seems half an hour and still nothing decent for dinner. Nic did this little kitchen tour the other night and walked back out, sat on the couch next to me and declared there was nothing in the kitchen for dinner!
Now I knew we were getting pretty low but I was sure I covered every night until the next shop....did I slip up? Deciding to take a look myself I could understand why Nic thought we were to starve this night. All the family staples were gone, no pasta, rice, beans or meat, all that was left was a box of falafel mix I picked up on a whim and thought 'what a good idea'.
For years I have seen the boxed falafel mixes in stores and for years I have never bought it, why? simple.
I use to live right down the road from a cheap as chips falafel kitchen in my 20's and remember eating my way through the shop, stuffing the pita bread within an inch of it's life with falafel and salad (what do you expect a starving apprentice chef to spend her louse pay on?).
Anyway, on a whim I decided to grab a box and keep it in the back of the cupboard until necessary.......I just didn't realise it was going to be needed so soon!

After closely examining the fridge I found a few things for salad so, once the falafel had soaked and I'd whipped up a quick tzatziki, the rest of the dinner came together while I was frying my falafel balls.
I think I have mentioned the kids detest peas, not to mention radish? Have I also explained Alex HATES lettuce?
Well I am not going to tell you that a miracle happened and we all sat around telling mummy how wonderful she is!
No, after a few huge deep sighs on both ends of the table and "Oh, what's this?" or "Yuck, peasssssss, oh mummmmm again?" We all started to eat our dinner.  Max managed to scoff it all down due to his massive appetite lately (peas and half the radish included...one for me!), while Alex stuck his tongue out at everything and after touching the tip of it to every piece of food, simply declared he didn't like it but managed to eat the peas (again one to me!), licked all the tzatziki off the top of the falafel along with the hummus and then asked what was for desert to which I replied- nothing!
I don't know if I'll be having these for dinner again anytime soon but I was really happy with the end result for something that came out of a box and I just added water. I think we all would of felt a lot happier if I'd managed to pull out some fresh pita breads from the oven but alas we were not that lucky- I can tell you that breakfast the next morning was eaten in record time!