3 Kitchen Items I cannot live without

We all know how much I love to cook so here are my 3 Kitchen Items I cannot live without!

1. A flat cooking utensil. I have found that this is my 'go-to' item when cooking everything from pancakes, to scrambled eggs, to fish and even pasta.  Surprisingly, one of my absolute favorites in this category is this IKEA 365+ Hjalte one. So much so, that I have bought several for friends and family. It's soft handle is ergonomic and it's plastic texture is perfect for any pot or pan, both metal, cast-iron and non-stick. I have left my utensil resting on my hot pans before and it never created those nasty plastic indentations from the heat. The bonus is they cost just $3.99 each and you can throw them in the dishwasher!

IKEA 365+ HJÄLTE

Spatula, stainless steel, black

$3.99

                  Article Number: 

001.494.59

2.  My Mini-Prep.  I own the Cuisinart Mini-Prep but there are so many versions out there. So here's what I love about my Mini-Prep. Whenever a recipe calls for "finely minced" or "finely chopped" onions, garlic, or ginger - or a combination of all three, I can throw it all in my Mini Prep and I have the least stinkiest and least labor-intensive way of prepping these items.  There's nothing worse than doing this by hand!  The Mini-Prep bowl has just two settings: chop and grind. Its capacity is roughly 24 ounces or 3 cups and there are only 3 components to the small appliance: the base motor, the bowl and the removable blade.  Both the bowl and the blade can be cleaned in the dishwasher. Cuisinart also sells their appliance with a spatula and a recipe book. I store my mini prep in a drawer by my cutlery,  it's that small! If you don't own one of these, definitely go buy one for yourself, they retails for about $40.

Cuisinart Mini-Prep Plus Food Processor DLC-2A

Instruction and Recipe Booklet

3. Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

Olive Oil is oil pressed from olives which are fruits from the Olive Tree. I hear the process is actually very simple and if you actually press an olive, you can see the oil come out! Olive Oil is proven to be incredibly good for you. It has a  lower smoking point (due to its high monounsaturated fat content) which also allows you to cook food without extra risks of burning it and safely at a very high heat.

The main problem with Olive Oil is that just because a product is labelled as 'Olive Oil', does not necessarily mean it is of great quality. It's like the difference between a wine that is sold in a box and a wine sold in a bottle. Two different calibers and two totally different products, in terms of quality.  Some of the lesser quality oils labelled as 'Olive Oil' sometimes extract the oil from the olives using chemicals, or even dilute the oil with cheaper ones.

So what do you buy? Always buy Extra Virgin Olive Oil!!! It is extracted using natural methods and is standardized for purity, taste and smell. Extra Virgin Olive Oil always has a distinctive taste and is high in phenolic antioxidants (one of the main reasons why olive oil is so beneficial).  Extra Virgin Olive Oil is also very high in monounsaturated fats (good fats!), contains a modest amount of vitamin E and K and is loaded in antioxidants, some of which have been proven to have powerful health benefits (such as anti-inflammatory properties and protection against cardiovascular disease).  Studies have shown in preliminary evidence that Extra Virgin Olive Oil can help fight Alzheimer's Disease, cancer, heart disease, joint problems and strokes.

I always try to buy Olive Oil that is source from a location reputed for its high quality olive oil, such as regions in Italy, Spain and even locally in California. Always, read the label and see where your Olive Oil comes from, and do buy the more expensive one, it is expensive for a reason! Your food will always taste better when cooked in a higher quality oil.

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Mediterranean Baked Branzino

So last night I went to a fun fun girl's night at my friend's house. There were 7 of us and the theme was Mediterranean, we each brought various yummy delights - hummus, baklava, dolmades, watermelon and feta salad, herbed rack of lamb etc etc. I decided to venture out of my comfort zone and try something I love to eat (whole fish) but had only tried cooking once before about 7 years ago (turned out OK from recollection!). This dish wasn't my dish choice when I was thinking of my pot luck contribution, but boy am I glad I made it, it was so delicious and I would love to share it with you.

So here's the backstory.  I headed to my local fancy schmancy supermarket that sells great product, fresh baked bread and really fantastic meats and seafood. When I arrived there I had originally intended to make a marinated Octopus salad but I was super disappointed to find that the only octopus and squid they sold was frozen. It was 1:30pm and I had to be at my friend's house at 6:30pm.  Being Australian, I have been spoilt with always fresh-never frozen seafood and buying the product frozen in a package made me incredibly nervous! I put it in my cart, started to walk away and all kinds of thoughts crossed my mind What if I can't thaw this out in time? Will I screw up this dish and force everyone to eat rubber? Am I making life harder for myself with this dish? I went with my gut instinct (excuse the pun!) and put the packet back in the freezer case. 

While I waited for service, I thought to myself When I think of the Mediterranean, what dishes do I think of? My first thought was whole fish-lemons-olive oil. Turns out I had two choices that day for whole fish: red snapper or branzino.  Branzino!!! How could I pass this up? Well, if you don't know, Branzino is a European Bass with a delicate white flaky flesh, lots of bones and fairly small but is absolutely synonymous with Mediterranean or Italian food.

The fishmonger was nice enough to remove the gills and guts and I had the option to have the heads removed but opted to keep them and the tails for a prettier presentation (isn't it odd that a dead animal's head on a plate makes the dish look stunning!?! Crazy!)

So here's how I prepared it (super easy and very delicious)

Prep Time: 10 mins

Cooking Time: 32 mins

Oven Temp: 325F

Serves: (1 fish per person as a main meal or 1 fish for 2-3 people as a shared appetizer) Roughly .5-1lb per fish

Ingredients:

1-2 Branzini (about .8lb per fish)

Herbs - flat leaf parsley, dill and fresh oregano

Lemons

Olive Oil

1-2 cloves garlic thinly sliced

1 Shallot thinly sliced

Salt

Pepper

1. Preheat oven to 325F

2. To a baking sheet or oven proof dish, drizzle a  tsp of olive oil and lay the fish presentation side up.

3. Cut three slits to the presentation side of the fish

4. Season the entire fish with salt and pepper. Don't forget the cavity of the fish.

5. Fill the cavity of the fish with lemon slices, the sliced garlic, shallots and whole springs of dill, flat leaf parsley and oregano. Reserve a few garlic slices for the slits and insert the slices in the slits.

6. Season again with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil and top with a few thin slices of lemon. 

7. Squeeze the juice of half a lemon over the fish and bake uncovered for about 32 minutes.

8. Allow the fish to rest for a few minutes but do serve as soon as possible.

9. After resting, transfer the fish carefully to a serving platter.  Garnish with more lemon slices and wedges, a drizzle of olive oil and chopped flat leaf parsley, dill and fresh oregano. Sprinkle sea salt and serve with a light salad of dressed greens with shaved fennel and red onion.

**Note: be careful, this fish (albeit delicious) has lots of little bones.  Be very careful if you are feeding this fish to children, though I probably would not recommend it.

Children are the pickiest eaters!!!

I just love this set of photos going around from mommyshorts.com

Click below to see more of these hilarious photos!!

The joys of Magnatiles!

For parents out there who have not yet experienced the joys of Magnatiles, I urge you to buy a set. While a set of Magnatiles are not cheap, they are without a doubt the best "toy" a preschooler can have and in fact my two daughters have these in their preschool classrooms.

What are Magnatiles?

The first day my then-3 yr old played with the tiles, 2013

A set of Magnatile will set you back between $100-$200 and each contains colourful sturdily built plastic magnetic tiles in various shapes and sizes that can be used to magnetically connect to each other to build amazing structures and shapes.

Our set was obtained from an educational stored called Lakeshore Learning and it has honestly kept my three children (yes even my 19month old) happily occupied for hours.

For my 3 year old, the focus early on seemed to be on the shapes and their spatial relationship to other pieces. She enjoyed connected square pieces with other square pieces and grouping the triangles together etc.

I still remember when my second daughter received a set from a good friend of ours for her second birthday.  My older daughter immediately hijacked the gift and sat in her room playing alone with the tiles, having fun building grand structures - and even more fun breaking them down and watching them collapse to the ground with one quick swoop and plastic-y sounding crash!

In fact, this very process of building and then demolishing tiny masterpieces was what enabled my older children to enjoy the Magnatile with their baby brother! The girls would create fantastic forms (sometimes spending much time and effort on impressive structures)  and then they would beckon their baby brother over to break it.  He would teeter over and relish in the joys of destruction the way only a baby can.  Repetively, my children would be so entertained by this simple and fun "game" they had invented. And so it made me realize that the joys of these tiles are not just in its construction but also in its destruction!

Created by my 4 year old. I love how a simple rectangle develops a pointed end as it rises vertically

There aren't many child-friendly activities that offer children pure entertainment both whilst playing independently as well as with others.  This is the appeal of Magnatiles - that children can enjoy building things out of the tiles alone but they can also receive an great amount of satisfaction building (and breaking) the same structures with others.  I've seen my daughter sit and build alone quietly while her sister completed a jigsaw puzzle and at other times, they work beautifully together to build 'castles', 'Arendelle', or a spaceship!

My 4 year old now creates amazingly complex structures.  Here, a "simple" box shape is enhanced by an angled addition with triangular spikes and an intriguing way of balancing off the edge.

So what do children learn from Magnatiles? Geometry, angles, fundamentals in construction, magnetics, gravity, form, puzzle building!

My four year old daughter has been enjoying the Magnatiles for almost two years and it has been fascinating to observe how even the way she plays with the Magnatiles has evolved. In the beginning as a young 3 year old, it was all about the shapes and colours.  Could she group all the squares together and build one block? Could she made turrets out of all the triangles isosceles?

Then over time, she gained a more sophisticated approach to the use of the tiles. She started making patterns, putting two triangles together to make squares, or using other shapes in general to create new shapes.  She would play with the colours of the tiles and test out angles and non-standard shapes.

More recently as a 4.5 year old, she is playing with challenging forms, pushing the limits of gravity and playing with force and tension to introduce bends and changes in angles to basic shapes. She thinks outside of the box more and more each day and it shows in her creations.  Her pieces are unpredictably interesting and awe-striking.  Occasionally, she has elaborate and imaginative stories to accompany her structure, which shows that her thought process is so much deeper than the superficial creation of a 3D shape. These tiles are just wonderful!


If you don't have a set, go out and buy it today! Ps this is not a paid or endorsed advertisement!! Just advice from one parent to another!!

What's for dinner tonight?

Ginger flank steak fried rice!

Buy the best beef you can afford. Slice very, very thin:

Marinate for an hour in sesame oil, soy sauce, freshly grated ginger, 4 cloves of garlic sliced, hoisin sauce, honey, vegetable oil. Don't add salt until you start stir frying in your wok. Heat wok to high and add some vegetable oil. Stir fry the beef until just cooked.

Remove cooked flank steak and keep in a dish together with the cooking liquid.

In a little more oil, stir fry your favorite vegetables. I used, broccoli, red pepper, carrots, grated and squeezed zucchini, mushrooms, onions, cabbage, green onion and green beans.  Make sure you cook things like the onions, pepper and carrots before more delicate items that require less cooking time like mushrooms. Once stir-fried, add soy sauce, salt, pepper, a dash of honey and sesame oil. Do not over cook !

When the vegetables are almost cooked, add day old cooked white rice, if the rice is dry, you can heat separately with a sprinkle of water in the microwave for a minute or so to revive it. Stir fry still on a high heat. 

After a few minutes of stir frying, reintroduce all the cooked flank steak (it should look a little ground or chopped beef and be very tender) and all if its juices and liquid. Stir fry for a few more minutes before adding anything that requires off-heat last minute cooking such as toasted peanuts, chopped cilantro, free onions or sesame seeds.

The New House!

Well, it's about time I blogged about our new home since we are just about to enter the framing process!!! This has been a project in the works since 2012 and partially explaining my two year hiatus from this blog!! I had my third child and we started this process and I simply ran out of time! But 2015 is going to bring so many new changes and a re-commitment to myself and my writing!

The new land! Summer, 2014

So to recap, we bought our dream piece of land in 2012 when Miss R was only 6 months' old. We just sort of sat on it and didn't do much as we were not yet ready to embark on a big project. All we knew was that this was where we wanted to live and we wanted to build our own family home to raise our children in. Last year, when we had our third child, we soon realized what it meant to outgrow a home.



The current home we were living in seemed to shrink in around us! With no finished basement, no driveway and a very small yard, my 4 year old moved into the guest room that we actually use for guests very regularly and the kids were taking over so much of our main floor.  When my Dad visited from overseas in the (bitterly cold) winter of 2013-14, we truly felt the squeeze!

Our current home also has no food pantry! So with three young children who seem to eat everything (and nothing), I have been playing tetris with my available kitchen storage, cramming boxes in here and tins in there.  I have been forced to grocery shop three times a week because my small 30" fridge holds a bare minimum and certainly not the 2 gallons of milk we go through in a week!

It took us a little over a year (Sep 2013-Oct 2014) from the beginning on the design process to obtaining permit plans but we got there finally, after several engineering hiccups and other delays! Thankfully, the weather here has been mild so far so we were able to demolish the old house in October 2014 when the weather was still in the 50sF.   I remember calling my project manager on a Monday to find out when the old house was being torn down and he said, "about 2-3pm". I asked, "today????" "yes today!" So I rushed and pulled out Mini-V from preschool early and we rushed over to the site just as the excavator arrived! The best part was my 4 year-old got to do the first demolition! She sat in the excavator and was not scared. She giggled with excitement as she slammed that claw into the dilapidated roof! I was equipped with my camera and recorded it, priceless!

My 4 year with the contractor in the excavator!

My turn!

We watched for about 30 minutes and then we headed home to relieve the nanny and grab the two little ones who were waking from their naps.  The four of us enjoyed "the show" and even I got to do some demo work!  It was a little nerve racking when the excavator shook with each demo impact!

It wasn't long before JNP arrived and had a blast going for the old garage, reducing it to a pile of bricks and metal.  I am sure we hindered the scrap sorting process but boy were we lucky to have made some memories that day!

JNP climbs in the excavator for his turn...

Since then, it has been fun watching the hole made for the new house, footings erected and concrete poured.  We've encountered some further unanticipated complications along the way (bad soil, working with the water table etc) but I am certain it won't be the last.... isn't that what we should expect with any large project?

The weather is now getting cold and the next steps will be framing and getting walls up.  I have signed off on the window selection and roof so it won't be long before it starts to look like a house!

We are so excited to start this project! Stay tuned for more updates!