lovingeasyfood

Anything nicer than breakfast in a bowl? On a weekend morning, or if you have time even a weekday! This ‘day after a big night breakfast’ was so nourishing, and easy, and I love food that’s good for you and easy to prepare. You could use whatever you have for breakfast-

• Sauté mushrooms
• Pan fried halloumi
• Bacon
• Pulled ribs or slow cooked meat
• Sauté spinach
• Roast potatoes
• Baked beans
• Savoury or sweet porridge oats
• Scrambled tofu
• Eggs however you like
• Bread of you choice
• Sauté kale
• Chilli, garlic, curry powder

The options are endless. You really don’t need to limit this to breakfast, it could be brunch, lunch or dinner. I made some scrambled eggs with parsley and spring onions, served with sliced avocados, some smoked salmon and toasted dark rye. You could add some crunch with sunflower seeds or pepitas sprinkled on top

There’s no actual recipe attached to this. Just a reminder that good food, that is nourishing and loving to ourselves, is easy

Hope you enjoy this loving, easy food

I was asked the other day if I had a dinner party ‘go to’ recipe. My first stumbling block with the question was do I have dinner parties? We have people over, for drinks, cheese platter, a meal… but do I call it a dinner party? I’m not sure. Maybe that’s what the term meant but now it brings to mind a perfectly set table and beautifully presented food, not my cooking, surely! And then do I have a go to? If I do it’s (broadly) meat and vegetables, unless they are very close friends and you order take away or make a big batch of bolognaise, because there’s no pressure or pretension. As I get older and wiser (at a sometimes seemingly slow pace), I am learning that having people over for a meal shouldn’t cause pressure, people are coming to just enjoy being together and we have people over to celebrate having them in our lives. I do very much like entertaining or having a dinner party or making a shared meal. There’s something wonderful and warming about having people over to share food, something that makes me feel that everything is ok in the world when you have people around your dining table. Maybe it’s just me?

Food served depends on the weather and what can be found at the supermarkets on any given day, given the unpredictability of sourcing some foods when living in the Middle East. On this particular occasion I decided on lamb shanks. One of our guests was not inclined to eating spicy food so on this cold night I thought a hearty meal like lamb shanks has no spices and isn’t a dry roast. The added plus is that I made so many lamb shanks (and those I made were so very big) that the next night we had lamb shank pasta with the leftovers. For anyone who has never used the lamb shank leftovers for a pasta ragu- do yourself a favour, it’s so delicious! In fact you could probably make the lamb shanks just for the purpose of making a lamb ragu, the time it takes for the cooking is long, but the flavour of such simple foods cooked is amazing

Due to the quantity of lamb shanks (I made 7 for 4 adults and 3 children, and I still had leftovers), I cooked them in my roasting dish with a double of layer of foil on top, but you could easily do them in the slow cooker (my slow cooker wouldn’t fit more than 5 smaller ones)

It’s not a pretty dish. There’s no ‘plating’ or garnishing that’s going to make lamb shanks on mash look fabulous, and I’m an at home cook so I’m not going to pretend to tell you it can be pretty. I served the lamb shanks with mash potato and steamed broccoli and green beans

For the leftover lamb shanks I cleared the meat off the bones and strained the cooking juices (discarding the vegetables the lamb was cooked with) and put them in a container in the fridge. To make the lamb and juices into a ragu

• add one tin of chopped tomatoes
• 3 tablespoons of tomato paste
• 2 cups of water, or beef stock, or a cup of wine and a cup of water
• This was then cooked for 45 minutes on a simmer and served with pasta (my preference being fettuccine)

Below I’ve given my recipe for lamb shanks. Like all my other recipes it’s easy to put together and it doesn’t require much checking once you’ve set it up. To make life easier it can make dinner for the next night too! My measurements aren’t specific as I add what I have and base quantities on the size of the vessel I’m using to cook the lamb in

I’m off now to prepare for a dinner gathering this evening, feeling blessed to have people in our lives to share food with

I hope you are loving easy food

SLOW COOKED LAMB SHANKS

Lamb shanks (I made one per adult and then the kids share 2, but these were so big that 2 adults shared one!)

2 carrots, sliced thickly

4 sticks celery, sliced thickly

2 onions, quartered

4 cloves garlic, bruised

4 sprigs rosemary

2 tins chopped tomatoes

1 cup red wine (optional)

2 cups stock (beef, vegetable, or if you’ve used wine you could add water but make sure you adjust your salt accordingly)

Salt (I use a good 1/2 Tbsp)

Large freezer bag with 4Tbsp flour, 2Tbsp oregano

My roasting dish can sit on a stove top, and I heat it up on the stove top with some olive oil in it

Place the lamb shanks, in batches, in the freezer bag and coat them with the flour mixture, make sure excess flour is shaken off

Once the roasting dish is hot, brown the lamb shanks in batches, then set them aside

After all the lamb shanks are browned add your chopped vegetables to the roasting dish, then the rosemary, and then the liquids

Return the lamb shanks to the roasting dish and carefully cover the dish with a double layer of aluminium foil

Place in the oven at 160 degrees Celsius for 4 hours. You will know they are cooked when the meat falls off the bone. If you are using the slow cooker place it on low for 8 hours

Serve with mash and greens

So, what’s for dinner?

One of my favourite lazy, easy and nourishing meals I throw together is a bake. Whatever is in the fridge, whatever looks good in the supermarket, whatever is needing to be used up- all can be put in a bake. If there is illness around us, the bake will have lots of garlic and chicken, if the weather is hot then it’ll have more root vegetables and be served with salad, if the weather is cold make the bake a bit more of a stew by adding a tin of tomatoes and serving it with a mash. A bake like this is also a great thing to make when you have lots of guests as you just need a bigger tray and more ingredients. It’s just so easy! And there’s nothing more loving and nutritious than an easy meal you’ve prepared freshly

Your bake can have

• Chicken thighs and sausages
• Potatoes, pumpkin and sweet potato
• Cherry tomatoes
• Spinach and kale
• Wedges of onion and lots of cloves of garlic
• Olives or capers- or both!
• Zucchini
• Eggplants
• Mushrooms
• Herbs that are in season or herbs you like, fresh or dried
• Tin of tomatoes
• Glass of white or red wine, depending on what you’re feeling like (for the bake and to accompany it- haha)

For the image below I used sausages, baby potatoes, cherry tomatoes, onion, garlic, olives and rosemary. Baby spinach is tossed through the bake once the other ingredients are cooked. I served this with cauliflower mash, but you could use pumpkin, sweet potato or potato mash. It’s so easy to put together that I often let the kids ‘make dinner’

Hope you’re loving easy food

‘WHAT’S FOR DINNER?’ BAKE

1kg chipolata sausages, I used beef sausages. You could use regular sized sausages and cut them in half, or leave them whole- it’s very much up to you

500g baby potatoes, cut them in to pieces so they are all a similar size as this helps cooking time

1 punnet cherry tomatoes, I cut the tomatoes in half

100g Kalamata olives (I used pitted olives as that is what I had in the fridge)

4 cloves of garlic, halved

1 onion, sliced

Olive oil to coat the veggies and sausages (not too much as the sausages will release cooking fat)

3 sprigs rosemary, leaves only (or whatever herbs you have or like to use)

Salt, to taste

3 handfuls baby spinach

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius

Place all the ingredients in a roasting dish and toss together to coat with the rosemary and olive oil. I like to use baking paper to line the roasting dish as I’m lazy and don’t like having to scrub dishes, but that is up to you

Bake in the oven until the potatoes are cooked (should be about 30minutes). If you’ve decided to add chicken, make sure the chicken is cooked through as well. The sausages won’t take too long to cook

Remove from oven and add the baby spinach leaves (which will wilt)

Serve with salad or mash of your choice

School’s back! For all three of my babes, and my heart is full of love and excitement for them, but I’m also a little overwhelmed with my littlest Master R starting PreNursery at the same school as his big sisters. When did this happen that he got big enough to go to PreNursery? I’m trying to console myself with him ‘only’ going to PreNursery, that there is no uniform for him, that it’s ‘only’ three times a week, and it’s ‘only’ 4 hours each time. I like to kid myself. He is my last babe, so I feel that’s ok

With the start of the new term comes lunch boxes! And now I do 3! They all got the same and then Rory just had smaller serves. Like other schools around the place our school doesn’t allow nuts, but that doesn’t stop a healthy lunch being sent out without any packaged snacks. A sandwich, some veggie sticks, cut up fruit, and plain popcorn. Now I am not one for product promotion but I can’t say enough how amazing the Pottery Barn Kids lunchboxes are! There’s no need for excessive plastic wrappings, everything stays nicely compartmentalised and they are easy to clean. Brilliant! I’m waiting for more stock to come in so Rory can have one too as stock was low when we went to buy our back to school needs. A lunch box for kids should be easy to open, easy to keep clean, easy for them to see and access the food from the compartments, and provide you with enough space to put some loving, healthy food options in there

The school lunch box is sometimes fraught with anxiety as sometimes kids don’t eat the food, don’t have time to eat, they want the package snacks other kids have (that I don’t give them) and can become boring. It’s a battle we probably all face at one time or another. But to get through it I remind myself that the lunch box is also the place that we begin to teach kids about healthy eating, the foods that nourish and why we eat the way we do. To mix it up the I sometimes give the kids a thermos with leftovers or I make a pasta salad with lots of chopped veggies, instead of the regular sandwich. As an occasional treat I found an organic, coconut chocolate paste (Chocolate & Coconut Cocobella, by Biona) they can have in their sandwich, sometimes instead of a sandwich they get a wrap, then there are more labour intensive options that look and taste lovely but aren’t a regularity like rice paper rolls and sushi (if you have time to do it regularly for your kids- well done). Although mine like the regular vegemite sandwich or cheese and mayo sandwich they are sometimes open to having tuna, chicken or egg. You could put so much in a well designed lunch box;

• Sandwiches- tuna, cheese, vegemite, chicken and avocado, egg. I personally avoid things like tomoato unless I’ve removed the seeds and blotted the slices with paper towel as they can make sandwiches soggy
• Rice paper rolls
• Sushi
• Salad- beans salad, pasta salad, chopped veggies
• Roasted chicken drumsticks with veggie sticks
• Leftovers from dinner in a thermos
• Crackers with cheese, or vegemite, or hummus

There’s not really a recipe for this post, just ideas to help with a common thing that parents of school aged kids need to deal with. And I guess not just parents of school kids, but everyone who wants to not buy their lunch or give in to temptation of pre-made, pre-packaged meals. Keep it clean, keep it fresh, keep it simple, keep it loving and easy

I hope you are loving easy food

Here’s a vegetarian meal! I took the kids to Australia for a month during northern summer and this was such an easy to cook, nutritious and warming meal that was made in a kitchen which wasn’t my own. You know what it’s like to travel and be out of your comfort zone, cooking with appliances and utensils that aren’t yours? This meal is easy in any kitchen, with whatever pots and pans are available. And Australia in the winter has amazing pumpkin and sweet potato that just needs to be used. In Bahrain we do get Australian sweet potato and it’s something I buy regardless of cost as that beautiful sweetness and vibrant colour is a wonderful reminder of home

This recipe is another one that is as easy or as complex as you’d like to make it. I went to the shops and bought a tin of chickpeas, time of coconut milk, pumpkin, sweet potato, baby spinach and a curry spice blend. It all cooks together in a heavy based fry pan and is served with rice. You could make your own spice blend or use a heavier curry paste. You could also add a greater variety of vegetables depending on what you like and what you have available

Hope you’re loving easy food

PUMPKIN AND CHICKPEA CIRRY

1kg pumpkin (whichever looks deep orange and delicious), chopped in to 2cm cubes

1 orange sweet potato, chopped in to 2cm cubes

400g tin of chickpeas

400g tin of coconut milk

2 Tbsp curry powder (whichever type you like)

3 handfuls baby spinach

1Tbsp of coconut oil

Cooked rice and yoghurt to serve

In a heavy based saucepan or fry pan heat up the coconut oil

Add the spice mix and gently heat

Add the pumpkin, sweet potato and chickpeas. Coat with the spices

Add the coconut milk, and one cup of water

Simmer gently for half an hour, until the vegetables are cooked

Season with salt to your liking

Before serving add the spinach

Serve hot with rice and a scoop of yoghurt

Fried rice. I am going to talk to you about fried rice because it is a recipe we probably all have, or know a good restaurant to order some from. A nutritious, easy and delicious meal that brings comfort and delight. Fried rice can be as complex or as simple as you like. The recipe I will share is not complex, but easy, and has so many things you can addd or subtract based on your feelings, the content of your fridge and the items in your freezer. 

School has just begun here in Bahrain, and at the beginning of the school year is the curriculum evening. This means the kids need feeding, I need to get dressed to go out, and everything needs to be done in the space of half an hour. In my freezer is cooked rice and a bag of mixed chopped (organic) veggies. I had eggs in the fridge and soy sauce. Add some fresh broccoli and garlic and the meal is almost ready! Of course you could add many things to your fried rice, such as;

• Chicken
• Prawns
• Coriander
• Ginger
• Chilli
• Fresh, instead of frozen vegetables
• Corn
• Kale
• Fresh herbs

The list really is endless. That is what is so wonderful about fried rice. If you’re feeeling under the weather add more aromatics, if you haven’t got many veggies then stick to peas, you can make it vegetarian or vegan, you could even make cauliflower rice to make it paleo! It can be whatever you need it to be. Sometimes we look to such complex meals to provide nutrition and sustenance, when all we need is something simple with all the good stuff in it

The amount of frozen cooked rice made enough for dinner for my 3 children and my girls had the leftovers for lunch the next day (they enjoyed it cold) and were happy to have a break from the regular sandwich. It’s also a good meal to keep in the fridge over the weekend for busy times and hungry mouths 

I enjoy cooking for my family, giving them food I know is good for them and having them happily eat it

I hope you are loving easy food

FAST FRIED RICE

2 cups cooked rice (I used white basmati)

2 cups frozen mixed vegetables, rinsed and partially defrosted

1 cup chopped broccoli

2 eggs, beaten

1tsp garlic powder

1tsp ginger powder

3 Tbsp soy sauce

1tsp fish sauce

1Tbsp sesame oil

Beat the eggs in a bowl and add the ginger, garlic, soy sauce and fish sauce. Put to the side

In a large fry pan, wok or pot place the sesame oil and heat until hot

Add the rice and coat in the oil

Then add the vegetables and mix together, heating everything through

Make a hole in the middle of the rice and vegetables and pour in the beaten egg

Let the egg cook slightly, then mix it into the rice

Let it all cook together until everything is hot

Serve when ready

This post won’t have recipes. Sorry. This post is about throwing a party together for two little boys who just turned two within a week of one another, boys who love dinosaurs, trains and blocks. And two little expat boys who have a lot of people who love them

A friend posted about children’s birthday parties and how, as expat kids, they don’t have their extended families or kids they grew up with around to celebrate their birthdays. How on a weekend, a short period of time anywhere you go, it can seem a bother to make time to attend a birthday party of a child you hardly know. But also, how precious it is to make the time to celebrate this child when they are away from their point of origin, take your kids and have a good time. And maybe this is true for expat adults too, away from home and your origins, in a new place, no anchors

So my wonderful friend and I hosted a birthday party together for our little boys. For friends we have known, the most part, less than a year. But who are so part of our lives and in our hearts. Because that seems to be expat life. An understanding that you are out of your comfort zone, making the new place your comfort zone, enjoying the people and the moments as they are happening, and knowing that you are likely to do it all again in a couple of years time with different people

We had a dinosaur theme and used Pinterest and our imaginations. An amazing cake made by Ms E, a carved dinosaur head from a watermelon, fairy bread and biscuits. Then friends catered with tacos for the adults and we cooked sausages for the kids. The drinks flowed and fun was had. The kids played and enjoyed themselves, as did the parents

It was a wonderful time. It was an event produced from love, for two little boys we love. Was it easy? It was as easy as we made it

Take the time to celebrate with your friends, and invite people who may become your friends. The expat journey is a fun, wild ride that is best enjoyed with others

I hope you enjoyed this instalment of loving easy food

Well! What a break between drinks! Actually. There’s been very little break between drinks for me with the long (3 months!) summer break here in the Middle Eastbeing a very sociable time with lots of travel for my fami. Not sure how many miles, but many. To Australia and back, and then France and back, and I have thought about you all on the way. Thanks for still following me and checking up to see if I’ve had any new posts. I’ll try to be a little more organised and post more frequently, this means remembering to take photos of what I make

One of my favourite meals that I can prepare and leave to cook all day until dinner time is a yummy beef curry. This version is a clean creamy beef curry, you can google this receipe on the thermomix page, but I add more spices and instead of doing the entire cook in the thermomix I use my slow cooker. As easy and clean as a thermomix makes a curry, the hours before dinner time are full of homework, after school activities and play dates, so with a bit of organisation I make this in the morning (before or after school drop off) and leave it on low until dinner time. Depending on how much meat you use and the heat settings of your slow cooker you can turn it off an hour before dinner and leave it until it’s time to serve the hungry hoardes. In the winter months leftovers go great in a little thermos for the kid’s school lunch. We have this with some thick yoghurt and rice. You could also serve this with a light coleslaw, some chutney or lime pickle, Indian breads or cauliflower rice. 

This is warming and delicious and nourishing. The spices and the slow cooking make this an easy, loving meal to prepare for your family and friends

Hope you have enjoyed this loving, easy food

YUMMY BEEF CURRY

1kg cubed beef (I don’t know the cut of the cubed beef as they are called different things here)

2 large potatoes, cubed

45g coconut oil

2 brown onions

2cm fresh ginger

4 cloves of peeled garlic

1cm of fresh turmeric (use 1Tbsp powder if you don’t have fresh)

1 red chilli 

3Tbsp curry powder (I use a mild powder low on chilli)

1Tbsp ground cumin

1tsp ground cardamom

1Tbsp apple cider vinegar

400g tin of chopped tomatoes

1Tbsp honey

400g tin of coconut cream

2Tbsp vegetable stock paste

Put garlic, chilli, ginger and turmeric (fresh) in the mixing bowl and chop for 5 seconds on speed 8

Add the onions, chop for 5 seconds on speed 8

If you aren’t using a thermomix then finely chops the garlic, ginger, turmeric, chilli and onions

Add the coconut oil to the thermomix bowl and cook for 3min/100degrees/speed 1. If not using a thermomix sauté in a pot until the onion is soft

Add the curry powder, turmeric (if you are using powder), cardamom and cumin and sauté for 3min/100degrees/speed1, or add to the pot and sauté

Add the honey and  vinegar and mix 5sec/speed 3

Add the tinned tomatoes, stock paste and coconut cream, cook for 3min/100degrees/speed 1

In your slow cooker place the beef cubes and potato cubes and add the curry sauce you have just created in your thermomix

Leave to cook on low for 8 hours

Serve with yoghurt and rice and enjoy

One afternoon we were home and a good lunch was required. The weather has heated up here and soup wasn’t the thing most on our minds, but we needed something that packed a heap of nourishment, was easy to digest and made us feel good. Now, you’ve probably noticed from my precious recipes that I’m not making recipes that require you to run out to the shops and buy a heap of ingredients. This one is no different. Use what you have, and just pack it with vegies. No stock? No problem, just use water. Want a some protein? Throw in a tin of beans. Feel a cold coming on? Add some ginger and double the garlic. It’s about what you have, what you feel like, what is easy and what you feel your body needs. Listen to your body, listen to what you need. I’ve given the ingredients I’ve used in the recipe below, but not quantities, as you can decide what you want to omit, add and how much you want to use of different ingredients. This is your Soul Soup and use what you have and what you feel you need to guide you.

This soup was a hit with all three kids and even the husband! We had this soup at the end of the weekend so I used up the vegies left in my fridge, we are a veggie family so had quite a variety. Some ingredients made me question how this soup would turn out, but surprisingly it was delicious!! This was made in my thermomix but you could just as easily make it in a big pot and blitz it with a blender.

I hope you give this a try

Enjoy some loving, easy food

SOUL SOUP

Pumpkin

Sweet potato (there was only white sweet potato the day I did the shopping, but normally I prefer the Australian orange sweet potato)

Zucchini

Kale (I just used 3 handfuls of chopped curly kale)

Parsnip

Potato

Carrot

Celery

Cauliflower (only a few florets that I had left)

Small amount of ginger

2 garlic cloves

Half a bunch of parsley

Water (I made sure the amount of water was below the line on the thermomix bowl, if it turned out thick I would have added more water after blitzing)

Add all the ingredients, roughly chopped, in to the thermomix bowl. You can add them to a big pot, but cut them smaller. 

Chop the ingredients 7 sec/speed 5 (if using the thermomix)

Add the amount of water as described in the ingredients list. If using a pot to do the cooking then add as much as you need to cover the vegies

Cook for 35 mins/100degrees/speed 2

Once cooked, slowly increase the speed of the thermomix to make a purée consistency. If you’d like it thinner add more water and slowly stir. If you want to add a tin of beans and have them whole add them now and heat through. If you want them puréed in then add them at the beginning with the other ingredients 

Serve hot and feel good 

Since moving overseas I have made friends and found a community. Women who are in the same boat as me, away from their regular tribes, raising their kids in a foreign country and trying to master and manoeuvre day to day activities like grocery shopping and school drop offs and pick ups (which I can say I definitely took for granted back home). We share the dilemma of shortages of Vegemite, exorbitant sunscreen prices and paying double the price for a coffee as we would back home. Then there are celebratory moments we share like finding a good bottle of wine that isn’t the price of a mortgage payment, successfully managing a visit to a government department, finding short cuts that help avoid diabolical traffic and watching our children play and get along as if they are long lost cousins

Two of our tribe (and one of their husbands) all have birthdays within one week so a party was called for. My dear friend Ms Z asked if I could make an overstuffed platter, one of my favourite things these days to prepare and share. Of course I said yes! Is there any better compliment than when someone specially asks for something you make? I don’t think so. And what an opportunity to put creativity and love in to something that will be shared by this new tribe that have loved and accepted my family and me

Platters can have whatever pleases you, they can be as complicated or as simple as you like. Some ideas you could put on a platter are;

• Pâté- I make my own as chicken livers are plentiful and fresh in Bahrain
• Cheeses- hard, soft, raw milk, goat, smoked, flavoured. One of the things I noticed when I first came to Bahrain is the extensive range of cheeses available even in a small supermarket, mostly imported, made from raw milk or pasteurised milk, cow and goat cheeses,  and quite reasonably priced
• Dip- you can make your own (like guacamole) or buy some. Living in the Middle East I buy hommus and it tastes different from every deli, and will taste different day to day as it’s made fresh and to taste of the person making it
• Crackers, biscuits, bread, croutons, pretzels. This addition is practical but also gives you an opportunity to make the platter look attractive with different shapes and textures. Have spare crackers as you will likely need to top up the platter 
• Pickles
• Cured meats
• Sliced fruit, like apple and pear
• Vegetables- carrot, cucumber, capsicum, celery, cherry tomoatoes
• Dried fruit
• Nuts

Your options are endless and no platter you make will probably be the same as another. I had three cheeses on my platter, a Roquefort, Brie and an Emental. The pâté I made myself in the thermomix (in the everyday cookbook, or you can google a recipe). Everything else was what I thought would suit a party and could be picked at for hours

Sharing food is something I find very special. Food has the ability to get people talking and bring them together, exchange memories or commentary, it nourishes us

I hope you are loving easy food

CHICKEN LIVER PÂTÉ 

2 cloves garlic

1/2 brown onion

45g butter 

450g chicken livers (when we clean these they will not be 450gr so buy extra)

10g tomato paste

30mL whiskey (I used whiskey as we have plenty of that. A smoky one would work nicely but brandy or cognac would work as well)

Pinch of salt (taste when it’s finished and add more if necessary)

Leaves of 2 sprigs of parsley

1 bay leaf

2 Tbsp cream

Peppercorns to put on top

40g melted butter for the top

Place garlic and onion in mixing bowl and chop 5sec/speed7. Scrape down the sides and add the butter. Saute for 3min/100C/Speed 1

Add the cleaned chicken livers (remove the sinew and rinse), tomato paste, whiskey, salt, parsley, bay leaf and cream and blend 20sec/speed 8

Scrape down the sides and cook for 10min/100C/speed 2

Divide mixture between ramekins (mine made 4). Place peppercorn on top and pour the melted butter. Place cling wrap on top and place in the fridge for at least 3 hours, mine were left overnight