My husband, M, made a comment this morning that since I’ve started photographing dinner most nights that I have ‘upped my dinner game’. I, maybe a little arrogantly, always thought I made pretty good meals but I do have to admit that knowing I’ll be popping them on here for you to see I am putting a little more thought into them (or at least into how I photograph them).
The real challenge will no doubt come in a few weeks time when I’ve worked through all my usual-dinner suspects and I find myself trying not to repeat too many meals for you and continuously come up with fresh ideas. I know that will be pretty much impossible, but it will be fun trying.
We started the week feeling pretty run down with two colds in the house, so a big pot of Minestrone was in order (you can find the recipe here but I will admit it changes every time).
As delicious as it was on Monday night, and as delicious as it continued to be for lunches into the week, unfortunately the two colds turned to three and we’ve been sniffly all week!
I keep saying I’m grateful they’re just colds but just quietly, I am looking forward to seeing them leave.
Alexander rating? I scoop Alexander’s out before adding the pasta and blend it, then add the pasta in his to cook separately in a small pot and serve with lashings of grated cheese. He’s not a fan of chickpeas, ‘I’m not into them yet Mum’, but likes a bowl of soupy pasta.
Serve to a younger toddler? I’d do exactly the same thing!
What do we want when we have a cold? Comfort food!
After loading up with vegetables at the start of the week and only popping to the shops for some fresh bread, I saw an opportunity to buy some burger rolls and defrost the burgers in the fridge (meat patties for the boys - I had these ones from Woolworths which they both like. I had the Veggie Delight ones also from Woolies which are handy as I can keep them in the freezer). I made some home made potato wedges (just cut up, skin on, and roasted at 200c with salt, flipping at around the 20 minute mark) and served them with Greek yoghurt and sweet chilli sauce. On the burger? American mustard, tomato sauce, pickles (our favourite ones for burgers and sandwiches), cheese, lettuce and onions for M and I. (‘I’m not really into onions, Mum’ . ‘I’m not really into….’ has been a favourite explanation this week!).
Alexander rating? He loves burgers! Not so much chilli sauce though, but he enjoyed his tomato sauce on greek yoghurt (?? I know. Whatever makes him happy!).
Serve to a younger toddler? I’d separate the burger elements - cut up the patties into small pieces, have chunks of toasted burger bun, not include mustard and when he was very young I didn’t give him tomato sauce. He always loved pickles, though.
Continuing on the theme of comfort food next up were pies. I’m realising as I write this I’m not very good on the recipe creation this week but I hope you’re still getting some inspiraiton. These were, as written, mushroom and eggplant pies that, while tasty after I sauced the mushrooms and eggplant in plenty of butter and added tomato paste, chilli, onion, garlic and cheese before making the pie, weren’t quite tasty enough for me to shout the recipe on the roof tops. Something to work on though.
I assume you all know recipe development isn’t just throwing things together once and just praying it works and if it doesn’t, sending that into the world anyway! It takes time and photographing dinner every night is bound to show you some not-quite-right, and some fails.
Alexander doesn’t like mushrooms and M prefers meat, so I defrosted some chicken and leek pie filling I’d make and frozen for an occasion like this. I’ll share the filling recipe next time I make it.
PS. Buy a pie maker! We use ours so much. Such a great little machine.
Alexander rating? He also adores pies, so he loved it. He doesn’t like salad so he had some chopped up tomatoes and yellow capsicum as a salad, which he loved.
Serve to a younger toddler? When Alexander was younger I would have given him a chunk of flakey pastry to chew on and served the pie filling separately, chopping up any large chunks of meat.
This is such a comfort food for me and, to be honest I rarely make it as Alexander never used to like it - this has changed! His already wide taste has been expanding even more lately and it is glorious. It’s basically roasted slices of sweet potato topped with typical nacho ingredients - but I’ve actually written down this recipe so if you’re interested…
I used
- One large sweet potato, peeled, sliced into rounds and roasted until tender and very lightly golden.
For the black bean sauce
- 2 tbsp of olive oil
- 1 red onion, diced
- 1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 can of cherry tomatoes
- 1 tsp of oregano
- 1 tsp of smokey paprika
Fry the onion in the oil until translucent, then add the paprika and stir for 30 seconds, before adding the beans, tomatoes and oregano. Cook for 20-30 minutes on a low heat, adding water if it begins to dry out. Add salt to taste.
For the guac, mash together
- 2 small avocados
- Juice of 1/4 of a lime (or about a teaspoon will do, or whatever you think tastes good, honestly)
- A TINY bit of grated garlic (I usually do two swipes on the microplane and that’s it).
- Salt, to taste.
The rest
- 1/2-1 cup of grated tasty cheese
- Greek yoghurt, to serve
- We served this with plain jasmine rice (went well with the mix) and corn.
To make
Once the sweet potatoes are roasted, arrange on a tray with the black bean mix on top and a generous sprinkle of tasty cheese. Pop under the grill until the cheese is bubbly then serve topped with Greek yoghurt and guacamole.
Alexander rating? He’s not into the beans, honestly, but he ate a few with the sauce and overall loved this dinner.
Serve to a younger toddler? When he was younger, I’d mash up the beans and it would make an amazing dinner - I’d often mash the whole lot and mix it through the rice, too. Which he loved.
And there we have it, week three of dinner inspiration!
I’ll admit it is INCREDIBLY hectic trying to take a photo with an almost-4-year-old that wants to help quickly enough to make sure we still have a hot dinner, but I’ve been absolutely loving it and I hope you’re enjoying it too.
If you want a full round of up these recipes please sign up to my newsletter, which I’ll be relaunching soon, and will include all the the dinner ideas from the month.
Until then stay warm!
Nat x