This week was a more ‘true to us’ week. It was busy so soup, ravioli and packet fish featured. Not pictured? Mum (me) out to dinner so take away pizza night for the boys, and a night of bolognese from the freezer that was served so late while so much else was going on that taking a photo was impossible.
First up was Monday and after a busy day and barely any time, the hokkien noodles that were from a grocery deliver weeks before and whatever veggies were on their last legs went into a stir fry with garlic, honey and soy sauce.
This made 4 serves.
I used;
(For the stir fry)
- 1 bunch of brocollini, roughly chopped.
- 1 green capsicum, sliced
- 3 carrots, peeled and sliced
- 3 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
- 1 450gm pack of fresh hokkien noodles
(For the sauce)
- A splash of olive oil
- 1/8 of a cup of honey (better described as half of a quarter cup - maybe measuring by tbsp was a better idea…)
- 1/8 of a cup of soy sauce
- 1/4 of a cup of vegetable stock
(+)
- 4 frozen fish fillets (we always buy the lightly battered ones so there’s as much protein as possible).
To make it, I fried the capsicum and garlic in a large wok with a little oil until fragrant, adding the vegetables and stock and cooked, lid on, for a few minutes to soften the veggies, then added the soy and honey.
I cooked the noodles and fish as per packet instructions, added the noodles into the stir fry and popped the fish on top.
Really quite basic and I feel a bit silly writing it out, to be honest!
Alexander rating? More noodles please Mum (A few of the veg were left behind)
Serve to a younger toddler? Honestly when Alexander was younger if we did eat frozen fish fillets like this, I would peel all the batter off. I would have pre-cooked the veg so they were super soft and served them on the side of the noodles. I also would have chosen rice or soba noodles over these.
These corn cakes were a total experiment - I had no idea how they’d turn out and the first one honestly seemed like I was going to have a bunch of failed corn pancakes that didn’t hold their shape. I was wrong! They held well and the boys loved them so, although I am sharing the recipe below, I will refine it further before making it a separate recipe post. The rice with parmesan stirred through was shockingly delicious (I only chose parmesan as I didn’t realise we’d run out of tasty - what a happy accident!). I say shockingly as I thought it would be weird but it will now be in my tool kit for ‘oh I have no carbs for this meal). Packet coleslaw just had olive oil and salt on it.. nothing fancy.
For the guac
Mash an avocado with a squeeze of lime juice and a VERY small amount of micro planed garlic (like, one or two grates… maybe 1/8 of a small clove. It’s raw! Go lightly!) + salt to taste.
Corn Cakes
- 400g cannelini beans, drained and rinsed (I love beans and have been trying to get more into our diet, but the boys aren’t keen on them, so in they went).
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp of smokey paprika
- 1/3 of a cup of wholemeal self raising flour (you could use the gluten free equivalent)
Add all of the above ingredients into a blender, blend to a paste them spoon into a bowl and add;
- 1 can (400g) of corn kernels, drained and rinsed
- 1/3 of a cup of crumbled feta cheese
- a little black pepper
Mix through and then pop large spoons of the batter (I use a big salad spoon) into a non stick pan with a little olive oil. Cook until one side is golden, then flip and cook until cooked through.
This makes 8-10, depending on how large you make the pancakes.
Alexander rating? Loved it! Loved the corn cakes and spread the guacamole and yoghurt on top. Loved the novelty of squeezing the lime on everything. Even tried the coleslaw. LOVED the rice.
Serve to a younger toddler? I would do everything the same - but offer steamed carrot sticks in place of the coleslaw.
We call this ‘ravioli salad’, even though you can see it’s tortellini! It just refers to any time we get a filled pasta and mixed it with a bunch of roasted vegetables. It makes a ‘serves 2’ pack spread across the 3 of us without a problem. It’s pretty self explanatory and totally flexible, so I’ll leave it at that!
This is a version of my Carrot & Potato Soup (which can be found here), though I didn’t use ginger or coriander as I didn’t have any - it was still delicious!
I really like this photo and Alexander and I felt really proud when we saw it on the screen - yes he is still photographing every single dinner with me! But it is a very beautiful example of ‘Fancy Photography, Simple Food’, which is what I’m really all about.
Let me show you what this looked like on our table….
See?
I’m not making anything fancy, I’m just taking a fancy photo!
I hope you enjoyed this post and I’ll be back next week.
Until then, stay warm!
Nat x