Food – Nightwolf's Den

October 27, 2015

Food, Glorious Food

Here we are. Seven days into my 14 day challenge and I hope you are looking forward to checking out the recipes.

Bonus recipe – Honey soy meatballs. Wasn’t sure how this one would go but everyone loved it. It made enough for 2 adults, a 5yo and a 1yo plus leftovers (& a few sneaky ones snuck while mum was serving tea but shhh)

Day 1 – Honey chicken with rice. If you like Honey chicken from the takeaway you’ll love this one. Takes a bit of time but definitely worth the effort

Day 2 – Creamy bacon & basil bowtie pasta*. This one is a family favourite. Makes heaps.

Day 3 – Honey beef stir fry & noodles. Yummo. Love this one. Really nice with either steamed rice or noodles (we went with noodles)

Day 4 – Beef pies. New recipe for us. Had tried this recipe previously and it was ok, wanted to try something different. Added a couple of teaspoons of YIAH Veggie dip mix. Next time I’d add a little less. I decided to makes some wedges to go with it. You can grab the recipe (& what I’d change next time) here.

Day 5 – Moroccan style chicken roast with this stuffing and roast veggies. Wasn’t sure how this would go the first time I cooked it for one of the ThermoFun cook a longs but I was so pleasantly surprised. This is another family favourite I cook when we want something different from the usual roast chook. Always gives a moist roast, and if you put it in the oven for a bit, you get crispy skin.

Day 6 – Chicken mornay. Leftovers night! This is just a tuna mornay recipe made with leftover roast chicken. Seriously yum if you add a bit of grated cheese (& a little YIAH Herb & Garlic dip mix) Really nice the next day on toast with a little grated cheese on top.

Day 7 – Devil Sausages and mashed potato. Love this recipe. Love we end up with leftovers for lunch or another night. Bonus is we have enough leftover mash for tomorrow night’s meal.

*ThermomFun member recipe. If you have a thermo cooker I can highly recommend joining the ThermoFun site. A new recipe every week delivered to your inbox and access to a whole heap of helpful documents!

August 21, 2015

In the Den Kitchen – Chocolate Cake

You can now find previous In the Den Kitchen posts here or on Pinterest. Clicking Recipes in the menu above will also take you to my In the Den Kitchen Pinterest board. I’m slowly reworking some older posts so they will show up there too.
Links to any Your Inspiration at Home (YIAH) products will take you to my YIAH page. You can shop in Australia, New Zealand, USA & Canada from my page. If you are interested in learning about YIAH jump over to my Facebook page.

Last week I mentioned I made chocolate cake. This is a recipe I’ve made for years and came from an Australian kids cookbook called Clarry’s Kitchen Capers (I think, it was in a blue plastic folder, designed for kids.) The recipe was called Mother’s Day Chocolate Cake. Anywho here is my Thermomix conversion

[yumprint-recipe id=’22’]To make it without a thermomix, chuck all the cake ingredients into a bowl, mix then pour into your cake tin 😉

August 14, 2015

In the Den Kitchen – First birthday edition

Miss A turned one (!!) last weekend so this week I thought I’d share some of the food I made for her party. We themed it around the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar so food choices were pretty easy (You can read more about the party over at From the Wolf’s Den)

Starting with the egg on the leaf I made Devilled Eggs using YIAH Bay of Bengal Curry dip mix

Then apples, pears, strawberries, grapes (instead of plums), oranges and watermelon on a fruit platter

And the Saturday foods….

chocolate cake and cupcakes (orange and banana) – I’ll be sharing the chocolate cake recipe next week. You can find the orange cake recipe here, I iced them using some YIAH Choc Orange chocolate powder and my banana cake recipe here

Ice cream cones. There’s a bit of a story here… we started off thinking we’d use ice cream lollies, then I found a recipe that was choc filled cones with a marshmallow on top but we couldn’t find mini ice cream cones, so, I trawled Pinterest and saw marshmallow cones. Perfect. Found a recipe for sherbet and a recipe for marshmallow. The sherbet tastes like Wizz Fizz and the marshmallow was soft and fluffy. I did learn a lesson from this adventure – make it on the day you want to serve it otherwise things go soft and the 100s and 1000s loose their colour.

Swiss cheese and salami, a glass full of lolly pops, mini savs for the sausage and mini cherry pies (which were made in paper gelato cups with a square of puff pastry filled with tinned cherry pie filling).

The green leaf was represented by a green salad. Cocoons were made by cutting puff pastry in half then cutting those haves into 2 triangles. Spoon a blob of nutella on the long end then roll up towards the point (like a croissant). Bake for 30 mins in a 180C oven. Butterflies were a last minute decision – fairy bread cut into butterfly shapes.

So there you have it. Food fit for a Very Hungry Caterpillar.

July 24, 2015

The Very Hungry Caterpillar ate some cake

and mummy went a little mad trying to work out which cake she would make

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Yet again, Pinterest will be the death of me 😉 so many cake options.

Do I do something fancy like these?

The very hungry caterpillar cake and cookies http://butterheartssugar.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/very-hungry-caterpillar-cake-and-cookies.html Elaine's Sweet Life: The Very Hungry Caterpillar Cake with Butterfly. Made with fondant and hand painted.

or something simpler like these?

Very Hungry Caterpillar Cake, fondant fruit around base A Very Hungry Caterpillar Birthday Party - Rainbow Cake by Made With Pink, via Flickr Google Image Result for http://betweenthepagesblog.typepad.com/.a/6a0120a5924ef0970b017ee74a0ae7970d-pi The Very Hungry Caterpillar Cake by Relznik, patacake-parties via Flickr

or something really simple like a cupcake caterpillar?

Very Hungry Caterpillar cake! #birthday #party #cake Gives tips on how to swirl the frosting colors to resemble the colors in the book.

What we’ve chosen will be a secret til the day of the party 😉

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July 14, 2015

A very hungry caterpillar went looking for some food

and found sooooo many ideas on Pinterest it wasn’t funny. Seriously, how many ways can you do food that is themed to the caterpillar?
I’m keeping it simple, mainly cause Miss K has soccer the morning of the party and I need to make it as easy as possible!
How much more simple than taking my cues from the story!!
In the light of the moon, a little egg lay on a leaf – devilled eggs on a bed of lettuce leaves

it's me, andrea.: A "Very Hungry Caterpillar" birthday party.

For Monday (one apple), Tuesday (2 pears), Wednesday (3 plums – thinking we might do grapes), Thursday (4 strawberries) and Friday (5 oranges) – a fruit platter
Saturday…

chocolate cake – brownies
ice cream cone – maybe small ice cream cones filled with something not ice cream or ice cream lollies
pickle – not sure about this one
Swiss cheese – and biscuits
salami – maybe some twiggy sticks
lollypop – mini lollipops?
cherry pie
sausage – mini savs
cupcakes
watermelon (on the fruit platter)

Sunday The Caterpillar ate through a nice green leaf – a salad
The cocoon – these nutella ‘cocoons’

"cocoons" for caterpillar bday- Nutella and cinnamon inside for Caleb's 1st birthday. "A Very Hungry Caterpillar" party.

A beautiful butterfly – butterfly sugar biscuits
I’d like to do something like these

butterfly cookie favors. how can these be so perfect?

but it will most likely be something like these
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And somewhere in there I’ll do sandwiches. That look like this.

Oh and the cake, but that I’m saving for next time.

You can check out my ideas on my Very Hungry Caterpillar birthday Pinterest board

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July 9, 2015

Healthy food choice for the little people

This post is brought to you in collaboration with Heinz Australia.

There can be so much confusion over when to introduce solids and what are suitable types of solid food for babies. What ARE healthy baby solid foods?

All babies will be different, but when Miss A turned 6 months we decided that it was time to slowly introduce her into the amazing world of solid foods. Well truth be told, she decided she wanted to eat solid foods, grabbing food off my plate or out of our hands. We started on purees of vegetables. Sweet potato was an instant hit, other vegies, not so much. Fruit was another success. One thing that we found great was the Heinz pouches designed for 6 months +. Easy to use and full of yummy fruits, vegies and meats – Miss A loved them. Great to keep in the cupboard and grab and go (especially when paired with the Heinz soft twist top spoon tips). Downside of the pouches – no awesome little jars to keep things in – seriously baby food jars are awesome storage for crafty bits or nails/screws/bolts etc. Bonus tip there for you all 😉

So why do we personally pick Heinz over other brands the majority of the time? For us it’s not just about price, it’s about knowing what goes into the product. Something that is nutritious and something that is good for my infant. For example, did you know Heinz source their apples, pears and peaches from Goulburn Valley, and pumpkins from country Victoria? Ingredients are delivered to the Heinz baby food facility in Echuca, where they are lovingly prepared.

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Creating a diet for our kids that has low to no nasty numbers is also a big thing for me. We have a few different allergies in our families and I’ve seen how numbers can effect behaviours. Heinz infant meals are steamed cooked and after cooking, all of the Heinz infant jars, cans, and pouches are heat sealed, locking in all the delicious flavours and preventing the need for preservatives! No nasty numbers or preservatives. Heinz infant meals have no artificial colours, no artificial flavours, and no preservatives.

I totally love that Heinz infant meals grow with your baby too, providing meal options and snacks from babies from 4 months (if you decide to start introducing solids from this age) through to 12 months +. Miss K (who is 5) still loves snacking on the Heinz Little Kidsfruit bars and sharing the Heinz Nutrios with her sister. AND who can go past the good old Teething Rusks, they were a teething staple when I was young and we’ve used them for both our girls.

TheGoodStuff

June 23, 2015

In the Den Kitchen – Mars Bar Slice

So what do you do when you want something a little (hell who am I kidding – a LOT) sweet. Maybe something like Mars Bar Slice (YUMMO!) BUT, oh no, no Mars Bars in the house 🙁 and the shops are closed/you can’t be bothered going out 🙁 🙁 Well don’t despair! You can make Mars Bar Surprise Slice!!

This wonderful recipe I found one night while reading a great little book by the name of The $21 challenge. My whole family loves it and when my daughter asked me to make it for school the next day, just as she was going to bed I thought I’d see how well it converted to Thermo. So here it is – Thermo Mars Bar Surprise Slice (if you want the original non Thermomix recipe go here – page 6)

[yumprint-recipe id=’21’]

June 19, 2015

From the Den Kitchen–Marbled Chocolate Cheesecake Slice

This is a family favourite slice. I have fond memories of my Godmother or my Mum cooking it when we went away for family holidays.

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May 24, 2015

In the Den Kitchen–Chinese Chicken & Corn soup

This recipe is a family favourite. I often remember having Chinese Chicken & Corn soup especially of a weekend. The recipe comes from the Women’s Weekly Chinese Cooking Class cookbook (I LOVE this recipe book – I cook so many recipes from it) but the recipe below is my modification to it.

It’s a winter warmer and so easy to use leftovers from a roast chicken or buy a roast chook from Coles or Woolies.

[yumprint-recipe id=’19’]

May 12, 2015

In the Den Kitchen – Food Glorious Food

An early edition this week. This recipe went out to the subscribers to my YIAH newsletter earlier this month but I thought I’d share it here too.

You may have seen these stunning creations floating around the net in the last few weeks and let me tell you they are so super easy to make.

YIAH Apple Roses

All you need is

a sheet of puff pastry
an apple
some apricot jam
YIAH Baked Apple Pie spice

Preheat oven to 180°C
Get a microwave safe bowl and put some water and a squeeze of lemon juice in it.
Cut the apples in half, remove the core and cut the apples in paper thin slices. Leave the peel on to give your roses colour. the colour of your apple skin will determine the colour of your rose. Place the sliced apples in the bowl with lemon and water.
Soften your apple slices by microwaving for about 3 minutes.
Roll out your puff pastry to make it a bit thinner. Cut into 6 strips.
In another microwave safe bowl, put 3 tablespoons of apricot jam and 2 tablespoons water. Microwave for about a minute. Spread on your pastry.
Drain the apples.
Place your apple slices along one edge of the dough, with the skins hanging over the top. Sprinkle with a little Apple Pie Spice.
Fold up the bottom part of the dough and roll your rose.
Place in a silicone muffin cup.
Repeat with remaining pastry and apple slices.
Bake for about 40 minutes to allow pastry to cook. If the apple gets too brown, place on a lower shelf.
To serve: dust with icing sugar (or some YIAH Rose sugar)

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