Freezer food for early days with a newborn baby

Here is an unpublished post I discovered from back when I was preparing for baby to arrive...

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ready to freeze

In response to Marcy's comment, here is a list of the meals I've been stashing away in the freezer for those first few weeks of newborn haze.  They're pretty much all meals I've blogged before.

Bacon & Egg Pie - This can be reheated in the oven from frozen or simply thawed on the counter and served cold/room temperature.  An easy breakfast (although I *do* prefer them fresh).

Spanokopita - Bake this from frozen at approx 180C for about 45 minutes.

Chili with cornbread.  I made a super-sized batch of chilli and simply spooned chilli into small, foil lined casserole dishes (I probably should have bought some foil ones at the supermarket), and smoothed cornbread batter evenly over the top.  Then I folded down the foil and froze.  Once completely frozen I tipped them out of the casserole dishes and wrapped in more foil and returned to the freezer.  I'll unwrap, return to casserole dish and bake from frozen, loosely covered with foil at 180C until I can see that the chilli is heated through then I'll remove the foil and raise the temperature to 200C until the cornbread is nicely baked.  Actually I wont.  That will be Mr Duncan's job.

Risotto - I'm making double sized portions then freezing as described above. Same re-heating method too.

Soup, soup, soup made with home made chicken stock.  Just tip frozen block into a saucepan and thaw/re-heat over a low flame.

Falafels and pita bread.  I made about 60.  Simply microwave three or four falafels each from frozen and pop the frozen pita into the toaster.  Stuff with salad and a dollop of yoghurt.

Sausage/Bean casseroles along these lines

Quiche.  Easy to make from whatever veg or leftovers are in the fridge.  Freezes well and just as nice to eat hot or cold.  Best thing is can be eaten one handed while juggling a newborn.

Pate (and this one).  Freeze in small portions and just thaw overnight in the fridge.  Full of iron and protein and makes a quick breakfast smeared on toast. Also a one handed kind of meal.

Adventures in homemade yoghurt

Over the last several weeks I've been experimenting with making yoghurt in a desire to satisfy my dairy cravings in a healthy-ish manner.

I was inspired by the extremely straightforward recipe for doing so in the Nourishing Traditions recipe book which basically tells you to

• Heat a litre of milk to 180f
• Let it cool to 110f
• Gently stir in about half a cup of existing yoghurt to use as a starter
• Cover and let it sit somewhere warm overnight
• Refrigerate and enjoy

After a quick trip to the housewares shop to buy a thermometer, I gave it a go using pasteurised but non-homogenised whole milk, and greek yoghurt that we had in the fridge.  

I was a bit unsure about where to leave it that would be warm enough.  I remember my mother keeping yoghurt in the hot water cupboard, but we don't have one.  

After heating the milk in a saucepan and stirring in the culture, I ended up transferring it into a lidded casserole dish which I left in the oven to get warm while I pre-heated the oven to about 100C.  I then turned the oven off but left the casserole dish in overnight for the yoghurt to stay warm.

It worked okay and I thought the result was pretty good for my first try, although I seemed to make a lot of dishes. 

Homemade yoghurt is somewhat runnier than commercial yoghurt and Mr Duncan likes his yoghurt thick and creamy so I drained it in a cheesecloth-lined sieve, reserving the whey for use in other things.

Straining the yoghurt to get the whey

So far so good.

So then I tried making a second batch of yoghurt using some of my first batch as the starter.

This time I heated (and cooled) the milk in the casserole dish and put the lot in the preheated oven but the resulting "yoghurt" was too thin and drained right through the sieve/cheesecloth!

Disaster.

I ended up churning it in the ice-cream maker with the mushed up fruit and juice of half a tin of peaches and a bit of cream, which was worthwhile.

Peach yoghurt ice-cream

I had no idea if the failure to thicken was to do with the relative thinness of the starter or if the yoghurt simply wasn't warm for long enough for the cultures to grow so I turned to Google for help.

My new way of making yoghurt follows this tutorial.

I like that the yoghurt is made in the jars it will be stored in and that there are fewer dishes.

Heating the milk

I leave the yoghurt to culture in a homemade haybox overnight.  The longer it sits, the more tangy it tastes and the more lactose is consumed by the bacteria, but if you leave it too long run the risk of the bacteria running out of lactose and dying off.  

Which still makes for tangy tasting yoghurt, but without the benefit of live cultures.

My 'haybox'

My first batch made using the new method turned out nice and thick, so thick I didn't think it would drain well through the sieve and I upturned the jar over my bamboo steamer.

A straining mistake

A good plan in theory but in practice all of the whey floated to the top of the yoghurt I was trying to drain.  Then, when I tried angling the jar a little to allow some air for the whey to drain through, the weight of the lid overbalanced the whole shebang and I had yoghurt everywhere!

I've now bought a much finer strainer as recommended at Salad In a Jar which I'll use to strain tonight's batch.

To be honest, the quality and price of yoghurt where we live in Australia doesn't really merit the effort to make my own.  It costs about $6.00 for 1 kg of good quality probiotic yoghurt (we like the Jalna and Bornhoffen brands) and nearly $6.00 for the two litres of milk I need to make that much greek-style yoghurt.  It doesn't taste any better although I do like knowing that its made with fresh, local, whole milk.

So why continue to make my own?

I have developed a taste for Fruit Kvass which I will write about in my next post...

Mediterranean Dinner Party

I invited friends to dinner on Thursday night.  

Our first dinner guests - actually our first guests - since moving in six weeks ago.

Unbeknownst to me, my invitation coincided with the local power company's plan to replace all the electricity meters in the neighbourhood.  

Of course it did.

'It will take two hours, tops' said the nice power company man as he came by to say the power would be turned off in ten minutes.  

That was at 11am.  

By 2pm they had discovered the power in our rental property was not earthed and they 'could not in good conscience' return power to the property while it was a death trap unsafe.  

Fair enough.  

They wrote us an official defect report and said we needed to get an electrician out to repair it asap.

We called the property manager to authorise/arrange an electrician only to find that our property manager no longer works for the company and they haven't allocated anyone new to her properties. 

Nice one.  

We eventually got an electrician who couldn't find any earthing wires to the water pipes to be repaired and speculated that they were removed when the property was re-plumbed, sometime in the past, and most of the metal water pipes were replaced with plastic ones.  The issue became locating an appropriate pipe to run a new earthing wire to.  

So the electrician had to call someone out to drill holes and climb around the roof so they could run the new earthing wire across the length of the house.  That was complete by 4.30pm.  

But the power company employees finished work at 4.00pm so we needed to get an after hours team to inspect the repair, rescind the defect notice and turn the power back on.

The power was finally returned just after 6.30pm.  Our guests were due at 7.00pm.

Our friends are vegetarian and I had planned a Mediterranean menu - mostly Greek versions of dishes inspired by this cool book I took out from the library - A La Grecque: Our Greek Table.  I don't usually do much baking, but had intended to bake a fresh spinach and feta pie and bake some bread to go with dips and salads.

By the time our guests arrived, the amended menu was

• Mediterranean dips - hummous, tzatsiki, melazanasalat (see below)
• Toasted pita bread - Mr Duncan ran out for some from the supermarket, to substitute for the homemade turkish flat bread I had planned to make from my library book.  I'll have to take a photo of that recipe for future experiments.
• Spanakopita (reheated from the freezer)
• Sweet potato, feta and basil salad - The gas was still on but the ignition spark on the stove is electricity dependent.  Once I found some matches to light it, I was able to boil the sweet potato instead of roasting.
• Fattoush salad

So it all worked out in the end but I was in such a flap I totally forgot to take any photos.

Tzatsiki

This is a simple mix of chopped cucumber, mint and garlic stirred into yoghurt that I've made for years, but I followed the library book recipe method and made it the Greek way by

1. straining the yoghurt to make it thicker (don't forget to save the whey and use it for other things) 
2. removing the seeds from the cucumber before slicing and draining the chopped cucumber, sprinkled with a little salt in a colander for a few minutes before mixing into the yoghurt.
3. mixing a little extra virgin olive oil into the finished product

These changes made for a much thicker, luxurious texture which really complimented the pie (and also went well with some grilled lamb chops the next day).

Melizanosalata

This was Mr Duncan's favourite dip when we were in Greece.  

It is made with grilled eggplant.  I threw it and the hummous together in the 30 minutes between the power coming back on and our guests arriving.

Ingredients

• Eggplant
• Salt
• Olive oil
• Garlic
• Lemon
• Parsley

Method

1.  Slice the eggplant.  

2.  Place slices on a baking sheet, sprinkle with salt and drizzle with olive oil.  

3.  Grill under a high heat for approx 5 minutes either side until soft and slightly charred.

4.  Mash eggplant in a bowl with remaining ingredients.  

5.  Blend until desired consistency reached.  

If you like you can fold in some crumbled feta cheese.

Home is the smell of cooking coming from the kitchen

 Cashew Chicken stir fry

Our furniture finally arrived two weeks ago.  

I heard the truck backing up the driveway and was surprised to see they had an enormous truck carting a entire container on the back!  

In London, they had just loaded our stuff into a medium-sized lorry.  

We didn't even have half a container's worth, it was a bit tricky figuring out somewhere for it to park while they unloaded it, but we managed to squeeze it between the tree and the letterbox.

The delivery team were great and worked really well together.  One guy unloaded the truck, calling out each box number and description for me to check off the inventory.  

Another guy took each box to the room I specified, and the third team member unpacked the contents of the boxes in the rooms (somewhat haphazardly) and returned the empty boxes to the container.

By the end of the weekend our furniture had been assembled and arranged and most of our things had found a home.  

But it has taken until today to get really settled - what with TVs not working and needing to change power plugs and clean everything.  

I still have a drawer of plastic storage containers in the kitchen that needs washing and organising but that can wait until a rainy day.

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I'm really enjoying having a properly equipped kitchen again and have been cooking up a storm, though haven't really tried cooking anything particularly new or adventurous.  I'm sticking to my healthy food for pregnancy principles and doubling up on recipes to stash food in the freezer for when I am too tired to cook. 

Unpacking our books, I came across Nourishing Traditions which I bought just before we left the UK.   I plan to start making some fermented foods and using my own pastry from the recipes in the book.

I keep forgetting to take pictures...  here are a few I remembered to take before we ate.

Spanakopita

In honour of having baking dishes again, I bought some phyllo pastry and made double lots of spanakopita which I served with homemade falafel and humous and beet/carrot salad.

The recipe is basic - sweat onion and spinach over a low heat until well wilted. Squeeze out moisture, mix in feta and spread over pastry layer.  Pour over a couple of beaten eggs.  Top with more pastry.  Bake at a medium heat.

Meze plate with spanakopita, humous and falafel

Bacon and Egg Pie

With the leftover phyllo pastry I made this Kiwi classic. 

Use middle or back bacon, rather than the rashers you get in North America.

Evenly spread finely chopped onion over the base pastry layer and sprinkle with chopped bacon.  I put mine under the grill for a few minutes before chopping as it was quite fatty, but raw bacon or even some ham works just as well.  

Crack five or six eggs on top.  Some people like to ensure the yolks remain whole but I use a fork to prick mine so they run a bit.  

Top with pastry.  Bake for about 35 mins in medium oven.

Its just as delicious served cold and can be eaten with the hands, so is an easy dish to take to a picnic.

Bacon and Egg pies, fresh from the oven

served with spinach and orange salad

I made a batch of granola but used blackstrap molasses as the sweetener, in place of honey, which made it a lovely rich brown colour.  

We eat this for breakfast several times a week with fresh fruit and plain yoghurt.

Home made granola

My friend gave me a couple of kaffir lime leaves from her tree, so I was excited to use them somehow.  

I've never made my own yellow curry paste before but this Thai Yellow Curry recipe was much easier than I expected and turned out to be so tasty.  

I added chickpeas and cashews but went easy on the chilli.  Cold leftover curry piled onto rice crackers made a great lunch the next day.

Yellow pumpkin and sweet potato curry

I'm loving the fresh produce available in Melbourne.  

The other day I found a bag of ripe tomatoes and a bag of ripe avocados for only $3.00.  They needed using immediately, but that was okay, I had just soaked some mixed beans - so a Mexican evening it was!

Veggie beans, guacamole and salsa

Bok Choy Coconut Noodle Soup

A bowl of yellow creamy comfort

For three weeks running we received bok choy in the veggie box. 

This in itself is not a problem.  

We like bok choy, it is tasty and good for you.

The problem was my limited kitchen apparatus.  I usually stir fry bok choy or at least use a fry pan to wilt it when using it in Gado Gado salad or something. But until our stuff arrived from the UK I had no idea what to do with it all, but I had to do something as we were out of everything else until the delivery the next day.

Google is my friend.

The recipe I used came from Hooked On Heat - a blog on "Indian inspired flavours".  I intend to return to it once Pickle is here, and I can resume eating spicy food without incurring painful heartburn.  

I made this very mild using only a small teaspoon of curry paste in place of the Sambal Oelek in the original recipe.  The paste was an Indian variety - with tomato and cumin instead of the ginger/galangal and citrus flavours of South East Asia - so I added a bit of fresh ginger - it turned out great.  It was also really quick to make.  

I think I spent more time googling what to do with my bok choy than putting the meal together.

Fertility Focus:

Bok Choy (also known as Pak Choy and Chinese Cabbage) is nutrient dense and a full of vitamins A, C, K and folate.  It is also a good source of calcium as its oxalic acid is low and the body is able to absorb the calcium more easily
Coconut milk is a source of healthy saturated fat which aids in vitamin absorption and balancing hormones
Ginger promotes blood circulation and proper digestion in which the body absorbs the nutrients in foods

Ingredients

• Onion
• Garlic
• Ginger
• 1 teaspoon red curry paste
• Tin coconut milk
• Water
• Bok Choy
• Egg noodles (I use one nest for two servings)

Method

1.  Soak egg noodle nest in a covered bowl of boiling water until soft.
2.  Meanwhile slice the onion thinly and finely chop the garlic and ginger.  

3.  Heat curry paste and a splash of water over a medium heat and stir in onion, garlic and ginger until coated.  

4.  Add coconut milk and enough water to make up to approx 2 cups. 

5.  Wash and roughly chop the Bok Choy.  

6.  Add stems to coconut milk (reserving leaves) and bring to boil.  

7.  Allow to simmer for a few minutes to infuse the coconut milk with all the flavours.  

8.  Turn off the heat, add the roughly chopped bok choy and cover.
9.  Drain the egg noodles and place in the bottom of soup bowls.  

10.  Use a spoon to fish out the veggies and divide evenly between the bowls.  

11.  Top with the coconut soup liquid.

Enjoy!

Roast Summer Squash and Chickpea Salad

Roast Summer Squash and Chickpea Salad

This week in the veg box we got a little bag of pattypan squash (also known as scallop squash).  I've never seen or heard of them before.

They look like little yellow flying saucers from 50's advertising.  

I did a bit of googling to find out what to do with them and was uninspired until I found this recipe by Chocolate & Zucchini which I adapted liberally to suit what I had on hand.

Fertility focus:

Summer squash is rich in antioxidants and vitamins A, Bs (including folate) and C and the skin is full of fibre.
Chickpeas are a good plant source of protein and fibre.
Rocket (Arugula) is actually a cruciferous vegetable packed with fertility-boosting vitamins and minerals which, research shows, improves liver function. It is also considered an aphrodisiac in some cultures.

Ingredients

• Pattypan squash
• Courgette
• Chickpeas
• Rocket

Dressing

• Olive Oil
• Lemon
• Capers

Method

1.  Wash and cut the pattypan squash into quarters, then halve each quarter.  

2.  Cut the courgette into similar sized chunks.  

3.  Toss with a little olive oil and roast in the oven at about 200 C for about 20 minutes or until the squash is soft and caramelising at the edges.  

4.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
5.  Squeeze the juice of half a lemon and mix with a drizzle of olive oil.  I don't like to use too much as the squash is already covered in olive oil from the roasting. 6.  6.  Scrape out the lemon flesh from the rind and add to the lemon and oil with a couple of teaspoons of finely chopped capers.
7.  Rinse the chickpeas and rocket leaves and toss with cooled squash and dressing.

Topped with Sardines

I served this with sardines, which contrasted nicely with the salty-tart dressing, spicy leaves and sweet roasted squash.

Sardine Fishcakes

I'm not very good at preparing small portions, so we very frequently have leftovers. 

This is good when it is soup or stew or something that can easily freeze and be revisited some time in the near future.

Unfortunately my potato salad is not a freezer friendly dish, so we had a portion or two left sitting in the fridge wanting to be eaten, but nothing really to eat with it.

The potato salad itself was made from the last vestiges of our vegetables before my first Melburnian organic vege box was delivered this afternoon.

What to have for lunch when there is next to no food in the house...

Sardines?  

We had a tin and I'm trying to eat more sardines for the protein and healthy fats.  I suggested sardines and potato salad to Mr Duncan, but he wasn't keen.

Then I started thinking about what else I might be able to do with sardines and came across these ideas on The Kitchn.  Several of them mentioned mustard, eggs or onion.

Wait, there is mustard AND eggs AND onion in my potato salad!

Looking a bit worse for wear after a night in the fridge

So I pulled it out of the fridge, mashed it all up with a fork, flaked a tin of sardines into the mix, shaped with my hands and shallow fried in a pan.

Not pretty, but delicious

They're very different from my usual fishcakes, but make a tasty lunch - especially with a few drops of chilli sauce.

I love it when a meal can do double duty.

L.
x

Pumpkin, Chicken and Basil Stir Fry

I have been missing my veggie garden and fresh herbs and Mr Duncan surprised me by bringing home a big bunch of basil the other night.  

How romantic!

The problem was we didn't have any of the mediterranean type ingredients that I traditionally use with basil.   

In fact all I had in the fridge was that chicken I forgot to use and a quarter of a pumpkin which I had earmarked for soup.

A quick google found a chicken and pumpkin stir fry recipe I could modify to my needs.

I added garlic and ginger to the onion and substituted soy sauce for the fish sauce.

With no lid for my pan I needed more moisture than just the soy sauce to steam the pumpkin so used about half a cup of water - adding a little at a time to maximum steam. 

Naturally this took longer than indicated in the recipe.  

I also used cooked chicken instead of fresh so raised the heat at the end and stirred it through to brown and heat through just before tossing through the basil and serving.

Fertility Focus

Pumpkin is high in carotenes which are converted to vitamin A by the body and a good source of B vitamins and iron.
Basil is great for pregnancy according to Fit Pregnancy:

Basil is a pregnancy superfood. This fresh herb is a good source of protein, vitamin E, riboflavin, and niacin; plus, it’s a very good source of dietary fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin K, vitamin B6, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, copper and manganese. 

Basil is also packed with iron, vital for keeping your energy levels up; calcium, essential for strong bones and teeth; and folate, vital for many processes, including fetal cell growth and division. (One serving of basil has 20 micrograms of this B vitamin.) Whenever possible, choose fresh basil, because it contains more of these nutrients than dried basil.     

Bok Choy and Stir Fried Noodles

While it is great to have access to a kitchen again, the kitchen here is pretty limited in its equipment - it has one pot with a lid, one pot without a lid, a frying pan and a casserole dish.  Sigh.

I'm reluctant to fully stock the kitchen with staples and spices as we'll have to move it all again in another six weeks, so I've been trying to keep my meals simple and not go crazy on the ingredient buying.

This was supposed to be a Chicken and Bok Choy Stir Fry to use up about a cup of white meat we had left over from a roast chicken, but I completely forgot to put the chicken in.  

Oops!

Never mind, it turned out to be just as tasty.

Fertility Focus

Bok Choy (Chinese Cabbage) is nutrient dense and a good source of vitamins A, C, K and folate.  It is also a good source of calcium as its oxalic acid is low and the body is able to absorb the calcium more easily.

Ingredients

• coconut oil
• onion
• garlic
• ginger
• chilli pepper
• egg noodle nest (1/2 per person), soaked for 5 minutes in warm water
• soy sauce
• bok choy (1 per person)

Method

1.  Place the egg noodle nest in a bowl and cover with boiling water and a lid (or a plate) to keep the heat in.
2.  Chop the onion into wedges

3.  Melt some coconut oil in a wok (or frying pan if that's all you have, like me) at medium high heat.  

4.  Add onion to pan with finely chopped garlic, ginger and chilli.  

5.  Stir fry until onion is soft.  

6.  While the onion is frying, wash and slice through the bok choy lengthways so each leaf is at least halved.  

7.  Add softened egg noodles and a little of the egg noodle water to the pan along with the bok choy.  

8.  Splash in some soy sauce. 

9.  Saute until the bok choy is wilted and the noodles have separated.  

10.  Serve hot.

If I'd remembered the chicken, I would have added it before the onions were completely soft and tried to brown it a little before adding the noodles, water and bok choy.

Anti-nausea snacks - curbing morning sickness

Almond stuffed dates

With Pipkin I had no appetite, but I had no nausea to keep at bay either.  

All I wanted to eat was dairy (yoghurt or custard or ice cream) and plain crackers or breadsticks.  Obviously I provided myself more nutrition than that, but only because I was following my brain instead of just my cravings.

This time I am really hungry a lot of the time and try to eat something small every 2.5 to 3 hrs between meals.  If I don't eat I start belching repeatedly and feeling super nauseous.  My favourite snacks balance some sugar/carbohydrate with protein.

Dates stuffed with Almonds

Yep, just like it says on the tin. 

I just shove an almond or two inside a pitted dried date and carry a small container of them around with me for when I feel that bleurgh feeling coming on and I'm not able to sort out something more substantial to eat.  Two or three are usually enough to stave off the sick feeling. 

This sweet but fulfilling snack was introduced to me by the Somalian woman I was seated next to in the NHS healthy pregnancy class when I was pregnant with Pipkin.

Dates are rich in minerals including calcium, magnesium and potassium as well as being high in fibre which helps with the constipation.  Eat them sparingly as they are full of fructose and high GI, though I read that the protein in the almonds help slow down the absorption rate.
Almonds are rich in protein, fibre, vitamin E and folic acid and help to regulate blood sugar levels.

Apple and cheese

Half an apple cut into chunks eaten with generous slices of cheese.

Cheese contains calcium and B vitamins and counts towards my daily protein and dairy requirements.
Apple has vitamins A, Bs and C and contains soluble fibre which seems to help manage morning sickness.  Consumption of apple during pregnancy is supposed to reduce the risk of asthma.

Oatcakes and spread 

Oats are full of soluble fibre and low GI.  

I top a couple of oatcakes with generous servings of a protein rich spread such as hummous or peanut butter or tahini (which is iron rich). 

Again, two or three is enough to ward off the symptoms.  I haven't been able to find any oatcakes in Brisbane but hopefully they have them in Melbourne.

Otherwise I'm going to have to find a recipe and make my own.

Hummous Recipe

This is not even close to a traditional recipe but it is cheap, super speedy and super yummy.  It also contains a lot less oil and salt than the commercially made ones. 

When I prepare dried chickpeas, I do a big batch and freeze portions for when I need them.  They're quickly thawed by being rinsed in warm water.

The 'recipe' is very flexible. If I'm out of chickpeas I might make the exact same recipe but with black beans and call it black bean dip.  There were some pimento stuffed olives that needed using up in the fridge here where I'm staying, so I threw them in this last batch instead of the cumin.  

Delicious.

Chickpeas are low GI, a good source of protein and soluble fibre and rich in iron.

Ingredients

• teaspoon cumin seeds
• cup pre-cooked chickpeas
• clove of garlic
• some chilli
• splash olive oil or dessert spoonful of tahini
• lemon juice to taste
• water for consistency

Method

1.  In a dry pan, toast the cumin seeds over a medium heat.  

2.  Put cumin seeds, garlic cloves, chickpeas and a small splash of olive oil in a high sided bowl or jug. 

3.  Blend with a hand blender adding lemon juice/water to taste until the consistency you want.

4.  Eat with carrot sticks, cucumber rounds or whatever plain crackers or breadsticks will satisfy your cravings.

Chicken Liver Pate with Apricots

Very proud of my home-made chicken liver pate

As a relatively new meat-eater, offal and liver have never really been on my list.

I've tried pate a few times but found it either extremely fatty or quite bitter tasting. 

I can't even imagine trying liver and onions!  

So in order to add some liver to my diet per the dietary guidelines I'm following in this pregnancy I thought I'd better try making my own liver pate.

I know when you're pregnant you're advised not to eat pate due to risk of listeria.  I reasoned if I made my own, I could keep the equipment and work surfaces boiling water clean and ensure all the ingredients were thoroughly cooked.  

So I did.

I went down to our butcher and bought some organic chicken livers with no problems.  I thought I'd have to order them in advance.  Man, I'm going to miss our butcher when we go to Australia in a couple of weeks.

It took me quite a long time to find a recipe I liked the look of.  

Most of them required loads of butter or cream, but I wanted to avoid that fatty taste.  Lots of them also included some form of alcohol to balance out the bitter rich flavour of the liver.  While I definitely wanted that balance, even the smell of alcohol is enough to make me want to puke at the moment so I needed an alternative.

I finally decided on the Chicken Liver and Apricot Pate recipe from Kavey Eats. It was absolutely delicious!

I made a half recipe, with double the onion and when I discovered my thyme plant completely dead in the garden, substituted dried mixed herbs for the thyme.  I also soaked the dried apricots in hot water before using.  This was more for the benefit of my hand blender than anything else.  I had enough to completely fill two cling-film lined ramekins, one of which went into the freezer after cooling.

The servings were quite big and the pate just a little too sweet for my palate so next time I'll find smaller containers and reduce the number of apricots.  

There will definitely be a next time.  

I just have to find a decent butcher in Australia...

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For other meals I've mainly been using up store-cupboard staples and repeating my favourite recipes.

Blackbean, Butternut and Corn Chili Sin Carne

Red Lentil and Sweet Potato Soup

Sweet Potato, Basil, Feta and Avocado Salad

Homemade Granola - Does it help prevent morning sickness?

Homemade granola

I spent most of my life skipping breakfast.  

I'm not a very morning person and I find it hard going just dragging myself out of bed, into the shower and out the door in time for work.  

When I eat immediately after waking I feel weighed down like there is a lump of stone in my stomach.  

During the past several years of trying to conceive, as I learned about the importance of maintaining stable blood sugar levels, I have made more of an effort to eat within an hour of waking.  

Mr Duncan, aware of my disinclination to get up eat early, sometimes made me a breakfast parfait to take to work and eat at my desk.  He'd just throw some chopped fresh fruit topped with a dollop of yoghurt and a handful of granola in a travel-friendly container.  

Yum!

Since reading this article by Karen Hurd on the cause of, and solution to preventing, morning sickness (which has since been removed, but here is another one based on her advice) I've been eating even more beans than I usually eat.  Which is saying something.  Because they are a staple in my usual diet.

And I think its working.  

I've been getting bored with beans though, so thought I'd try branching out to other sources of soluble fibre. Now that I'm working again, it seemed to me a daily breakfast parfait is the perfect solution.  Just fill it with fruit and oats full of soluble fibre.  The yoghurt adds to my dairy count for the day.

We used up the last bag of granola a month ago and now we're only a couple of weeks away from moving I wasn't about to buy a new one.  Granola is expensive and I find even the low sugar shop bought options to be very sweet.  

Mr Duncan has mostly replaced his toast-based breakfast habit with porridge as part of his blood pressure lowering efforts so we have lots of organic steel cut oats in the house which need using before we move.  We also have odds and ends of nuts, seeds and dried fruit...

First I thought I would make muesli and serve it with fruit and yoghurt. This brought back vague recollections of my mother making homemade muesli.  

Then I remembered how much I always disliked it.  

The oats became all soggy, tasted like raw flour somehow and I felt like I was eating paste. It was improved a little by cooking like porridge on the stove for a warm winter breakfast but always left me feeling weighed down and stodgy. 

Maybe this is the source of my distaste for breakfast?  

So granola it had to be.  I based it on a granola recipe by Elizabeth Rider, but replaced some of the honey and coconut oil with fruit juice and omitted the salt and vanilla extract altogether.  

It was so much easier, and tastier, than I expected.  

I wish I'd started making it years ago!

Ingredients

• Whole rolled oats
• Nuts and seeds
• Dried fruit
• Fruit juice
• Honey
• Coconut oil

Method

1.  Set oven to 150 degrees celsius.

2.  Mix a spoonful of honey and a teaspoon of coconut oil in quarter of a cup of organic apple juice until dissolved.  I actually only had an empty jar of coconut oil with scrapings left so I poured the juice and honey into the jar, screwed on the lid, ran the jar under some hot water and gave it all a good shake.

3.  In a large bowl, mix a couple of cups of rolled oats with several handfuls of roughly chopped nuts, seeds and dried fruit.  

4.  Pour the liquids over the oats mixture and use your hands to ensure the oats are evenly coated.

5.  Spread the mixture evenly in a single layer over a clean baking tray

6.  Bake for 15-20 minutes until oats are dry and toasted.

Silverbeet (Chard) Pie

In the interests of upping my intake of dark leafy greens I re-visited a dish I used to make all the time in New Zealand.  

Basically it is greens and a cheese sauce with a potato top.  It is total comfort food for me - like a vegetarian shepherds pie - my Mum used to make when I was a child.

Silverbeet is a type of chard from New Zealand. Everyone I knew grew it in their garden, it was nearly as indestructible as mint. 

Cheap and nutritious.  

I actually made this dish with kale and spinach instead of chard today and it turned out as good as I remembered it.

Fertility focus

Dark leafy greens like Kale and Spinach, are full of antioxidants, vitamin A, vitamin K and are good plant sources of calcium.

Ingredients

• Butter
• Onion
• Flour
• Milk
• Cheese
• Silverbeet/Chard/Kale/Spinach mix or other dark leafy greens

Method

1.  Set oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

2.  Scrub and chop potatoes into even sized chunks.  

3.  Boil potatoes until cooked and mash with just enough milk to make up a dryish mash.  I like to put the drained pot over the still warm element and steam extra water off the potatoes before adding the milk.

4.  Wash and chop the greens and pile into your pie dish.  You want enough to completely fill the dish while the greens are raw.

5.  Finely chop the onion

6.  Saute onion in a knob of melted butter over a medium heat.  

7.  When the onion is soft, add a small spoonful of flour to soak up the butter and cook, stirring, for a couple of minutes.  Basically you're making a roux and want to cook off the taste of raw flour.   

8.  Once you've done this add a little milk and mix in.  Keep adding milk until you have a creamy sauce without lumps.  Remove from the heat and stir in about half a cup of grated cheese.  

9.  Pour the hot cheese sauce over the greens and mix.  The greens will wilt a bit.  10.  Squash the slightly wilted greens down into the pie dish and top with the mashed potato.  

11.  Sprinkle over a little more grated cheese and bake in oven for about 30 minutes or until the cheese is melted and browned and the sauce is bubbling up the sides.

Mum always used to sprinkle the top with nutritional yeast which makes for a cheesier tasting, crunchier top.  

Oily fish, dairy, eggs and greens - Weston Price or Brewers?

Spanakopita without the pastry

Given my normal eating style is very close to the Weston Price dietary guidelines anyway, last time I was pregnant I looked into the Weston Price Diet for Pregnant and Nursing Mothers and it made sense to me.

Because of my age I'm at higher risk for pregnancy complications such as gestational diabetes, placenta praevia, pre-eclampsia and premature birth.  The other diet I looked at was the Brewer diet which claims sufficient maternal nutrition plays a major factor in preventing such complications.

While trying to conceive I limited my intake of dairy and revisiting the eating guidelines for these diets now I'm pregnant has prompted me to include more oily fish, eggs and dairy in my diet.

And you can never have too many greens can you?

Nicoise Salad with Tinned Salmon and Avocado

This Indonesian Gado Gado salad is based on the same ingredients as the Nicoise - eggs, potato, green beans and greens but with a spicy peanut sauce instead of the fish.

Gado Gado

Smoked Mackerel and Spinach Pate

Harissa Sardines with Cucumber Couscous and Spinach

Courgette and Feta Frittata

L.

xx

Courgette and Duck Green Coconut Curry with Noodles, (plus green curry paste recipe)

While we were trying to conceive Poppy, I was working for a company based in Paris.  My team were based in Poland and the South Coast of England so most of my work was done over the phone from my home office.  Every couple of weeks I had to go to head office for a couple of days for 'management meetings'.  

Snore.

A couple of days a month working in Paris sounds rather glamorous, but really, work travel is work travel and tends to involve too much work and too much travel.

It interrupts your sleep patterns.  I had to get up at 5am to catch the Eurostar train which would get me into the office at midday and I didn't get home until after 8pm on the day I returned.

It interrupts your eating patterns.  Eating out for every meal becomes old very quickly - especially when you're trying to eat as nutrient rich foods as you can. 

There just are no good choices available in ready made foods and you don't know the quality of what will be in the meal you order in restaurants. Although I will say this much - ordering restaurant food in Paris was much less of a concern in this regard than ordering restaurant food in the other city I once regularly had to do work travel to - Dallas.  At least the French value fresh ingredients prepared fairly simply.

In any case, I'd occasionally pop out to the supermarket in the lunch hour and pick up a bottle or two of cheap French wine to bring back to London in my hand-luggage at a fraction of the price it would cost here.  

We took said wine to a dinner party and the host asked if I could pick up some confit duck for him sometime as it was half the price in Euros as you can find it for Pounds in London.  The next time I could fit it in I did, and squeezed another tin in my bag for posterity.

As part of eating the cupboard bare before our move, I finally opened that tin last week and Mr Duncan made us a lovely traditional confit duck leg meal with greens and potato.

We have two legs left and this is what I did with one of them.

Fertility Focus:

Coconut milk is a source of healthy saturated fat which aids in vitamin absorption and balancing hormones.
Courgette contains iron and vitamins A, Bs (including folate) and C and the skin is full of fibre.
Spinach is rich in iron, folate and vitamin K

Ingredients

• Fat from the confit duck
• Onion
• Green curry paste (see below)
• Coconut milk
• Courgette
• Shredded duck leg
• Egg noodles
• Spinach

Method

1.  Boil noodles until cooked.  

2.  Rinse, drain and set aside.  

3.  Heat duck fat in wok until melted and chop onion into wedges.  

4.  Stir fry onion until slightly soft

5.  Mix in green curry paste.  

6.  Cook for a further couple of minutes. 

7.  Add coconut milk and mix until paste dissolves.  

8.  Bring to a low simmer and allow to reduce/thicken for about 5 minutes.
9.  Add chopped courgette, duck and noodles.  

10.  Heat through for three minutes. 

11.  Remove from heat.  

12.  Stir through chopped spinach until wilted.  

Serve.

Green Curry Paste

This is a recipe from Smokin' Pot, a Thai/Cambodian restaurant and cookery school in Battambang where Mr Duncan and I once took a class in Khmer-style cooking.

• 1/4 tsp dried coriander seeds
• 1/4 tsp dried cumin seeds
• 1/4 tsp black peppercorn
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp finely chopped ginger
• 1/2 tsp kaffir lime peel, finely chopped (I used grated peel from a regular lime)
• 1 tbsp finely chopped shallots (I used onion)
• 1/2 tsp shrimp paste (or substitute 2x anchovies with 2 tbsp water)
• 1 1/2 tsp crushed lemongrass
• 1 tbsp finely chopped coriander root
• 1/2 tbsp crushed garlic
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1/3 cup basil leaves
• About 10 small green chillies

1.  Toast cumin and coriander seeds over a low heat until brown.

2.  Place toasted seeds in mortar and grind to a powder with pestle.  

3.  Add remaining ingredients and pound to a paste.

This makes enough for about four meals for two.  

I store the extra in the fridge covered with olive oil until I need it.

Imam Bayildi - Turkish Aubergine (eggplant) and Tomato dip

Scoop it up and pile it onto Turkish bread

This was my favourite dish when I was waitressing at a restaurant in Istanbul.

I did not intend to waitress while I was living in Istanbul.  It just kind of came to me.  

I used to go to a particular restaurant around the corner from my room, in the evenings, to study my Turkish language texts and relax with a glass of wine.  It wasn't long before the owner asked if I had any CDs as they were bored with their selection.  So then I used to study and be in charge of the CD player behind the bar for the few hours a night I was at the restaurant.

One night after I'd been going there for about a month, the restaurant was super-busy and understaffed.  The sole waiter was covering both floors of the restaurant and the bar and I could see he was running out of clean glasses for drinks and the dishwasher was full.  

So I went behind the bar, emptied out the clean glassware and put it away, re-filled the dishwasher and turned it on again.  I cleared some tables and ran orders downstairs to the kitchen for about an hour, while the waiter focussed on taking and delivering orders, then I went back to my books.

The next day the owner offered me a job for $10.00 USD a night.

The restaurant was just around the corner from the Four Seasons hotel and got a lot of well heeled American tourists as clientele.  He needed an experienced worker who also spoke good English as there were often mixups with the communication with Turkish-only speaking staff.  I agreed to work for a few weeks until he found a local person with the English skills he was looking for.  

I ended up working there for about three months.

My own prowess in Turkish didn't stretch to the names for spices when the chefs explained to me how to make Imam Bayildi (lots of pointing and miming was involved) so I'm not sure if the recipe is exactly the same as theirs.  Goodness knows every Turkish recipe has a thousand different ways of making it!  But I'm always pretty happy with how this version turns out.

Fertility Focus:

Aubergine is full of antioxidants and also provides folate and vitamin K.
Dates are rich in minerals including calcium, magnesium and potassium as well as containing vitamin B6 which can help increase progesterone levels in your luteal phase.
Tomatoes are full of the antioxidant lycopene which boosts sperm health and also contain folate, B6, vitamin A and vitamin E.
Turmeric is good for stabilising blood sugar levels which helps with managing weight and hormone balance.

Ingredients

• Aubergine
• Coconut oil
• Onion
• Chilli powder
• Turmeric
• Cumin
• Tomatoes
• Sultanas

Method

1.  Dice 2 large aubergines.  

2.  Heat 2 spoonfuls of coconut oil in a large pan and fry the aubergine for about ten minutes over a medium high heat so it browns a little and gets soft.  

3.  When it is quite soft but not slushy, tip into a colander to drain.
4.  Dice the onion and add to the pan.  

5.  Saute until soft.

6.  Add half a teaspoon each of the spices and cook for a further minute.  

7.  Return the aubergine to the pan with two large diced tomatoes and a handful of sultanas.  I didn't have any sultanas so used a few chopped up dates instead which added the required touch of sweetness and nicely disappeared into the mix.
8.  Stir in a Jamie Oliver sized splash of olive oil and simmer uncovered, on a low heat for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.
9.  Serve warm or cold.  

We enjoyed this with toasted pita bread and a yoghurt and cucumber raita (known as cajic in Turkish).

Farmhouse vegetable soup with croutons

Last weekend the weather was crappy and we had nothing but a bunch of odds and ends left from our veggie box so I thought a good old fashioned farmhouse soup was in order.

I remember this as a Sunday evening staple in winter while I was growing up. 

It is filling, tasty and extremely versatile.  I had no appreciation of it as a child, but its also a pretty inexpensive way to feed a horde of hungry children.

I find it oddly comforting.

As part of eating nutrient rich foods to support my fertility, I've added bone broth to my diet, mostly in the form of chicken broth which I make after a roast chicken dinner.  I normally end up with about three litres and freeze it in 500 ml portions for use in other meals.  I don't really follow a recipe for that but here are some instructions at Natural Fertility and Wellness.

We've had lamb chops a few times this year and it seemed a waste to throw out the bones, but I never had enough to make a proper batch of stock with them. I've slowly been amassing lamb bones in the freezer two by two.

Normally I make my soups with chicken stock from the freezer but I'm all out out and there didn't seem to be much point in buying more lamb bones to make a proper batch of stock and therefore increase the stuff I need to use up from the freezer before we move.   So I kind of made the stock at the same time as I made the soup by starting with the frozen lamb bones (I had about eight chops).

You can pretty much add anything to this soup veggie-wise.

Ingredients

• Lamb bones and water or pre-made bone broth
• Garlic
• Onion
• Leek
• Carrot
• Bay leaf
• Peppercorns
• Potato
• Rice
• Barley
• Quinoa

Method

1.  Place the lamb bones in a large pot with a close fitting lid and cook the bones on a low heat, stirring occasionally so they get evenly coloured.  You could also roast in a hot oven for 20 or so minutes.

2.  Chop the veg into bite sized chunks. 

3.  When the fat is melted and the bones are browned add a splash of water to deglaze the pan and pick up all the browned bits of lamb/fat stuck to the bottom of the pot.
4.  Add the chopped veg and stir around until they get a bit soft and a bit coloured as well.  

5.  Tip in enough water to cover everything completely along with the bay leaf and peppercorns and simmer, covered, on a low heat for an hour.  

6.  Fish the bones out of the pot and set aside.  

7.  Into the pot, throw a handful each of rice, barley and quinoa (or pasta or lentils or whatever else you have on hand) to absorb some of the water and thicken things up.  

8.  When the meat bones are cool, pick off any remaining meat and add to the soup. 

It is ready when the grains/pulses you've added are cooked.  You may need to add more water as you go.

To make the croutons simply butter some bread on both sides, chop into little squares and fry in a frying pan over a medium heat.

Serve in bowls topped with croutons and garnished with grated cheese and parsley.

Chickpea and Spinach stuffed Gem Squash

Perfect for one

We got Gem Squash in our veg box this week. Its all very well being able to skip the potatoes or lettuce when I want to, but sometimes I end up with a replacement I have no idea about.

This was one of those times.

Now I like orange winter squash and they're very nutritious, but after a disaster soup situation with some spaghetti squash, I've been a bit more careful to find out what I'm dealing with when it comes to new veg.

So cute!

I love the size and shape of Gem Squash, they're the perfect serving for one, but most of the recipes I found on google suggested stuffing them with mince or some variation thereof which didn't appeal.  The South African way is to roast them with butter but that seemed too plain for anything but an accompaniment and I wanted to make a one dish meal (just for a change lol).

While I'm desperately trying not to symptom spot its impossible not to notice that I'm experiencing all the same annoying symptoms as last month, plus nausea, and legumes are supposed to help whether its PMS or morning sickness so chickpeas are also on the menu.  

I don't know exactly when I'm due this month as I didn't take the BBT Thermometer to Jersey and I haven't figured out my cycle properly since my last loss, but it must be by the end of the week.

We have loads of spices to throw out use up before we move to Australia so I thought I'd try to create a North African inspired recipe.

Gem squash is a lot harder to cut than I expected and I struggled somewhat to cut the tops off evenly.  You might need your super-strength for this.

 Fertility Focus

Winter Squash is rich in Vitamin A and zinc and selenium which is important for reproductive health
Turmeric is good for stabilising blood sugar levels which helps with managing weight and hormone balance
Chickpeas are a plant source of protein
Spinach is rich in iron, folic acid and vitamin K

Ingredients

Pre-prepped for a change

• Gem Squash
• Butter
• Cumin seeds
• Coconut oil
• Ground coriander, cinnamon, turmeric
• Ginger
• Garlic
• Onion
• Chickpeas
• Tomato
• Spinach

Method

1.  Set oven to 160 degrees Celsius.  

2.  Wash and dry the Gem Squash.  

3.  Cut the tops off and scoop out and discard the seeds. 

4.  Rub with butter, replace the tops and roast in the oven for approx 25 minutes.
5.  While the squash is cooking, toast some cumin seeds in a dry pan.  

6.  Once they're toasted add a teaspoon of coconut oil and the ground spices.  

7.  Cook for a few minutes then add half a finely chopped small onion, garlic and ginger.  

8.  Saute until soft.  

9.  Add a cup of pre-cooked (or canned and rinsed) chickpeas and stir until completely covered with spices and onion mix.  

10.  When the squash is nearly ready add chopped tomato and spinach.  

11.  Mix around so the spinach wilts.
12.  Remove the squash from the oven and scoop the cooked flesh out of the shell and lid. They are extremely hot to hold so use oven gloves or something to stop your hands from burning.  The flesh comes out all stringy. Pull it apart.

13.  Mix the squash into the pan with the chickpeas.

14.  Stuff the empty shell with the chickpea mix and return to the oven for another 10 minutes.

I served this with quinoa and some harissa paste I found lurking in the back of the spice cupboard.

Ready to stuff the shells