My first Irish Strawberry!

This lovely evergreen tree is one of the ones I most love in our garden. It came with the house! The previous occupants of our little bungalow lived here from when the house was built, and they were keen gardeners. I worry that, since buying the house, we have let the garden get terribly overgrown. We have been a bit busy with our two little seedlings inside the house, but now that the weather has turned cool, I'm looking forward to getting my fingers in the soil and tidying up our patch of earth.

Anyway, this tree. Despite my disavowal of gardening work, this tree does get a pretty regular pruning, of sorts, as I love the waxy evergreen leaves as foliage in my cut flower arrangements. The fruits though are something else. They start life as delicate little bell shaped flowers, not dissimilar to orange blossoms, though neater and not fragrant. They puff out to spiky little yellow orbs and then, over the course of a short few days, bloom into a dark, rusty red. The fruit inside remains a deep yellow.

I'm hoping I'll get enough between now and Emme's birthday to make a jelly for sweets. These old fashioned varieties of fruit really don't get much attention anymore but I would love to hear from anyone who also has access to Irish strawberries. What do you do with them?

Dinner time

Spaghetti and meatballs with berry yoghurt dessert <3

An ode to Antonio

Last night, my sister and I were home alone, and by home alone I mean her, me and four kids between us. But, once the children were asleep, we had one of our favourite dinners: Carluccio's Penne Giardiniera. Of all the very many things I miss about living in London, mid-week dinners at Carluccios is high up on the list. This is an ever-delightful meal, made even tastier by the restaurant's donation of 50p per dish sold to a UK charity. I learned to make the meal shortly before moving back to Australia- thank goodness.

When my ten year old nephew learned of our Carluccios imitation dinner, he jumped up and
down on the spot and requested that we have his favourite carluccios dinner tonight-- pollo alla milanese. It's basically a thick chicken schnitzel with crispy roast new potatoes. It fills me with such pleasure to see little people, and their changeable taste buds, really tucking into a nutritious and simple dinner.

Would you buy this?

For my part, not in a million years. I'm not adverse to junk food, per se, but a spread with zero nutritional value whatsoever- I mean nil- seems unconscionable, especially when marketed at small peeps, as this must be. Ice cream, sure- at least there's cream and egg in with the junk, so there is something wholesome and essential. But this? It gives me shivers up my spine that a disgusting product like this has shelf real estate, let alone the R&D that's gone into producing it, the marketing money, the carbon footprint of manufacturing it, bottling it and then shipping it (made in America). I could weep when I think of harried mums and dads trying to push their children around a supermarket to stock up on the weekly essentials only to be confronted by this junk.

A sun for my son

This morning's brekkie- a copycat bacon and egg mcmuffin except with a difference. I made this with a wholemeal bun, organic FR bacon, a poached FR egg, and a vintage cheddar. Mandarins- the current fruit du jour - rounded out this yummy brekkie.

Colours

I have been experimenting this past week (well, so much as re-wiring our house and installing a new oven would allow!) with natural food colours. A friend is looking to make her son a healthy but purple cake for his upcoming birthday and the challenge is too tempting to avoid becoming part of! The little cupcakes were purple when uncooked but after baking they'd mellowed to a purple-tinged brown. The icing was great, but perhaps too pastel for the cake in question. So, the quest continues. These icings though are made with pure cream and organic spinach for the green, and tinned blackberries for the purple. I experimented with adding in orange juice, vanilla seeds and coconut and these were all great additions for a different flavour.

GF chicken goujons

I made these for my little guys the other night. We had had a busy afternoon and evening in the park and I wanted a quick and easy dinner. This was 15 minutes from beginning to end- I made a crumb for the chicken out of rice puffs (organic whole grain) and and Parmesan cheese. Lightly fried them in butter and coconut oil and served with carrot batons and homemade mayo.