Mozzarella Strips

Finally!  Something that isn't gelatinised, cold and meaty, or tripe.  In my opinion, anything deep fried tastes good.  For example, churros, fries, Mars bars, prawns, springs rolls, zucchini, the list goes on.  This would make good party food since there is nothing particularly offensive about cheese, unlike Brandy Pate. 

I don't know which one I would want to eat more, mozzarella strips or crispy frankfurts, I do love processed meat.   

Apricot Health Candy

As a mother to two little girls I'm obsessed with their poos, ahem, BMs (bowel motions). To all the mums out there, "Aren't You???" Maybe it was my upbringing. I remember every morning I had to report back to HQ (mum). Was it a 10/10, a 5/10 or an 11/10? Fiber was a big deal in our home, and so will be for my two little girls. You pity them? So do I.

For the sake of adding more fiber into our collective diets, I'd like to share this recipe I found in the AWW recipe box. As an added bonus it tastes good too. Hurrah for young and old.

This would also be a nice substitute for supermarket confectionery. The health candy is sweetened by honey which we all know is better than white sugar. I also like the inherent flexibility of this recipe since you could substitute with whatever dried fruit you have on hand.

You could also include nuts and seeds for an added boost of fiber, omega-3 and protein. This certainly will be my go-to toddler and adult snack recipe.

What healthy snacks do you feed your children?

Ingredients
125g dried apricots
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup blanched chopped almonds
1 teaspoon lemon rind
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon orange juice
1/2 cup honey
1 cup skim milk powder
1 tablespoon wheatgerm
1/2 cup chopped dates
1/2 cup coconut, plus extra for rolling in

Method
1. Chop apricots and then combine with water and honey in saucepan. Simmer for 10 minutes, or until tender. Keep the liquid.
2. Add the remaining ingredients to the saucepan and mix well. They are now ready for shaping. The recipe card asked to roll into a log. But we turned them into little balls instead.
3. Roll the balls in the extra coconut as a coating. Ready to eat straight away, or you could store them in the fridge for later.

Tripe in Parsley Sauce

Tripe may have been a cheap way to get your protein 30-40 years ago, though I don't think that is the case nowadays.  Who eats tripe now?  Do you?  If you do then my hat goes off to you, sir/madam! Although I could be wrong since Wikipedia gives an extensive list of dishes that feature tripe, it seems to be a dish that is widely eaten in many countries.  

Personally, I do not like the texture of tripe - soft, spongy, it sets my gag reflex off.  However  it does absorb flavour well, I'll give it that.  Here tripe has been paired with a creamy sauce and plenty of parsley.  Let me know if you do happen to eat this (and like it!) or you had a crack at making it.  You will forever be my hero.

Apricot Sour Cream Pie

Today we trialled an easy straightforward dessert, Apricot Sour Cream Pie. The hardest part about this dish was taking the photos! You see, we live in an apartment which is in the shade for most of the day. In fact, it's so dark that while in the car I have to squint. It is a shock to see that it can be bright outside! So you see working in a darkened room would be a challenge. And mental note to self: "Go outside more".

The photo taking process was laborious. We spent several hours, getting increasingly hot and frustrated, playing around with reflectors (i.e. foil), artificial lighting (i.e. one lonely reading lamp with baking paper wrapped around it), and backgrounds (i.e. white pieces of material). Each shot, we improved on the image but golly gosh it was hard work. Why? Because we are newbs. It really boils down to that.

We took a photo of how all the props were placed.  Position of lamp in relation to picture on wall. Check. State of scrunched up baking paper. Check. Where Mabel stands with said lighting in relation to corner of bed and chair. Check. Wait up...isn't this all going to change depending on the time of day, and amount of light filtering in? Oh Nooooooooooo. I foresee many more hours spent tilting, straightening, checking and shining. I found it fun nevertheless. But that goes without saying, since Mary did do most of the hard work, hehehe. The joys of being the big sister!
 

We couldn't wait to eat the pie!

Apricot Sour Cream Pie (Adapted from Australian Women's Weekly)
Ingredients
For the base
185g plain sweet biscuits e.g. milk arrowroot
150g butter, melted


For the filling
Biggest tin of tinned apricots you can find (ours was 820g), drained of syrup, and chopped roughly
4 tablespoons sugar (3 tablespoons for the apricot and 1 tablespoon for the sour cream)
1 tablespoon plain flour, mixed with 1/4 cup water
1 tub of sour cream (we used a 250g tub)
1 egg
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind (optional)
nutmeg

Method
Base
1. For the base, crush biscuits finely. I placed the biscuits inside a freezer bag, and smashed it with the end of a rolling pin. Beware of holes in bag.
2. Combine crushed biscuits with the melted butter. You know you have enough butter when the mixture does not crumble when you squeeze it together in your hands. Don't worry about the fat content. Take the pie to work, distribute to your neighbours. That's what I do.
3. Press biscuit mixture into a springform pan. Try to press some of the mixture up the sides of the pan.
4. Put into fridge, while preparing the filling, which now follows.

Filling
5. Combine the drained chopped apricots and 3 tablespoons of sugar in a saucepan. Stir until sugar is dissolved.
6. Now it's time to thicken the apricots with the flour and water mixture. Blend flour and water first in a separate bowl. Pour into saucepan slowly and stir vigorously to avoid lumps. Take off the heat and cool.
7.  Meanwhile combine the sour cream, egg, lemon rind and 1 tablespoon sugar in a separate bowl.
8. Now onto assembly. Spread apricot mixture over biscuit crumb crust. Bake in a 180°C oven for 10 minutes.
9. Then, take it out of the oven, spread the sour cream mixture on top of the apricots, sprinkle some nutmeg on top and bake for another 20 minutes, or until the cream has set. Ours was wobbly in the centre when you shook it but had actually thickened enough to cut. That's it. Enjoy.

Broccoli with lemon sauce

I'm not sure about teaming lemon sauce with broccoli. I googled this dubious combination and I do get hits for it though. I see this is another dish that I was missing out on while growing up.