Pumpkin & Spelt Cob (yeast free)

I love baking bread, but lately I've been experimenting with soda loaves. It's not that I think yeast is bad, per se, but too much of anything's not great, and a different type of bread is just another string to le bow, no? 

I'm also playing around with hidden veggies at the moment - ways I can increase my kids' intake without them declaring "But I don't *like* salad, mum!", which is what my three year old declares when anything green even touches his plate!

Ingredients: 

About 1.5 cups mashed pumpkin or sweet potato

3 cups spelt flour, sifted

2/3 cup full fat milk

1 tablespoon bicarb soda. 

Pre heat oven to 190'c and line a tray with baking paper. 

Combine bicarb and milk and set aside for ten minutes, stirring gently occasionally. It will thicken quite impressively. Meanwhile, cook your pumpkin and mash - no need to add anything else. 

Combine the milk milk, spelt and pumpkin in a bowl until you have a loose dough. Don't worry that it's not the consistency of a regular dough. As long as it is firm enough to hold a rough shape, you're good to go. Tip the bowl out and form a round cob shape on a tray lined with baking paper. 

Bake for around 50 minutes then leave to cool another 20 minutes or so. 

I served it cut through the middle and topped with sliced pear, sauteed mushrooms and goats feta. 

Salmon & Peach Salad

This dinner goes into the 'food on the table in under ten minutes' file. We literally walked in the front door from scootering the sidewalk and by the time my small fries had got their shoes off and washed their hands, I was just about ready to plate up. 

Ingredients: 

1 salmon fillet (ideally wild caught, but if not, antibiotic free)

2 hard boiled eggs (I always have a supply to hand but if not you can do this while you cook the salmon)

1 organic potato, peeled and sliced into thin rounds (like crisps)

1/3 cup frozen organic peas

1 peach, deseeded and finely sliced

Olive oil for frying and dressing

Defrost the salmon in the microwave for one minute. While this is happening, get your eggs boiling if you don't already have them prepared. Transfer the salmon fillet to a small skillet and fry with a little olive oil over a moderate heat. 

Place the thinly sliced taters in a microwave safe dish and cover with water. Microwave for circa 4 - 5 minutes (depending on the strength of your microbeams) until al dente. Meanwhile, prepare the peach and flip the salmon so that it's browned on both sides and cooked evenly. 

Transfer the cooked potato to the salmon skillet and gently move around to flake the salmon and coat the potato in a little oil. Add the peas. 

Leave to fry on a low heat for a minute longer while you peel the (by now) hard boiled eggs and slice finely (I used one of those nifty egg slicers that doubles up as a little-person-guitar. You know what I mean). 

You're done. Assemble the salad and top with a little extra organic EVOO to serve. 

My kids LOVE this, and you can obviously vary the ingredients to include your own child's favourites - strawberries, or chickpeas in lieu of salmon. Just try to get a balance of veg, fruit and protein. 

Vegetarian Sausage Rolls (GF, could easily be vegan)

Yesterday was one of 'those' days in my house. A day where it felt like little master three had a serious conversation with miss one and between them, they decided to pull out all the stops to make me want to rip my hair out. No naps, toilet training accidents, tantrums for no reason, and 36'c and extreme UV outside, leaving us more or less house bound with a very frazzled set of personalities by the end of the day. SO, for dinner, I needed something that would hold them quiet and still for at least fifteen minutes (essential decompression time for this mum!). Enter the sausage roll. And a glass of wine.

I make my pastry using a recipe that was my husband's grandma's, and it's a cinch. If I'm doing big batches, I use the food processor, but for a small amount like this, I just go by hand. I even melt the butter completely and (so long as I then have time to rest it in the fridge) it works perfectly. To make it vegan, you can switch out butter for a nut butter or, preferably, a virgin organic coconut oil. 

Ingredients

For the pastry:

110g butter (about 80g coconut oil or, if it's melted, maybe 1/3 cup). 

225g spelt flour

A few tablespoons of water

For the filling: 

1 kipfler potato

1/2 small sweet potato

1 carrot

1/3 cup peas 

About 50g goats feta (exclude for vegans)

Melt the butter so that it's liquid but not molten, then remove from heat. Incorporate the flour until you have the consistency of breadcrumbs. Add the water tablespoon by tablespoon until you get a pastry dough consistency and knead until it's well combined (don't overdo it or it can get tough). Gladwrap it and put it in the fridge. 

Peel and chop the vegetables, with the exception of the peas (save them for later). Put in a saucepan covered with boiled water and continue to cook for around ten minutes or until al dente. Strain and mash, then add the goats feta and peas and continue to mix. At this point, you can add in any additional seasonings - more chopped cheese, fennel seeds, spring onion, basil, etc. 

Remove the pastry and roll flat (about 2 - 3mm). Scoop the vegie mix down the center and form sausage rolls. 

Bake at 180'c for 25 minutes. I served these with a homemade tomato sauce but they don't really need anything (you have probably guessed that yesterday was not a day for arguing if I didn't have to). 

Enjoy!