Pasta Zoo Happy Meal

I noticed last November that there was a new dish for Children at McDonalds, Pasta Zoo Happy Meal!!! A vegetarian, healthier option, yeh. I asked for one, and was told that they would be available in January! Not sure why it is on the menu in November!!!! We have now tried the dish twice and the kids like it.

I wanted to check the ingredients yesterday, as I was concerned about a child who seemed to react to the new dish (not my kids), I checked the McDonald's website and they have lots of information about their food and where it comes from and how it is prepared, but not about the Pasta Zoo Meal. So I rang them and they sent me the information. I am sure it will be on their website soon.

Here are the ingredients and main alergens found in the new Pasta dish being presented for children at McDonalds.

PASTA ZOO HAPPY MEAL

INGREDIENT INFORMATION
Reduced Fat Milk & Sipahh Straw - Chocolate MILK: Reduced Fat Milk CHOCOLATE SIPPAH STRAW: Sugar, Tapioca Starch, Cocoa, Maltodextrin (from Corn), Flavour, Sweetener (955), Vegetable Gum (414), Vanillin
Contains milk Reduced Fat Milk & Sipahh Straw - Strawberry MILK: Reduced Fat Milk STRAWBERRY SIPPAH STRAW: Sugar, Tapioca Starch, Maltodextrin (from Corn), Flavour, Vegetable Gum (414), Vanillin, Sweetener (955), Colour (162) Contains milk.

Zoo Goo Tomato [Tomato, Salt, Acidity Regulator (330), Calcium Chloride (509)], Fructose, Thickener (1422), Salt, Vegetable Powders, Vegetable Oil (Sunflower), Acidity Regulators (330, 270), Yeast Extract, Animal Fat, Colours (160c, 100), Preservative (202), Vegetable Gum (415), Herbs, Spice, Antioxidant (320).
Contains traces of sulphites in the thickener (<10ppm)

Pasta Zoo Cooked Pasta (Water, Durum Wheat Semolina, Eggs), Cheese [Ricotta (Whey, Milk, Salt, Acidity Regulator (260), Tasty (Milk, Cultures, Rennet, Salt, Anti-caking Agent (Tapioca Starch, (450)), Preservative (200)) , Parmesan ( Milk, Tapioca Starch, Cultures, Rennet, Salt)], Roasted Vegetables (Carrots, Onions, Celery), Sunflower Oil, Water, Tomato Paste, Sun-dried Tomatoes (Contains Preservatives (220, 202)), Potato Flakes (Contains Preservatives (220, 223), Emulsifier (471), Mineral Salt (450), Acidity Regulator (330)), Sweet Corn, Breadcrumbs (Wheat Flour, Yeast, Emulsifier (472e), Flour Treatment Agent (300)), Peas, Natural Flavour (Contains Milk), Salt, Thickener (461),
Garlic, Paprika Oleoresin (Colour), Herbs And Spices.

Contains gluten, milk, egg
Contains traces of sulphites (<10ppm)

Less healthy but yummy

Here is what we had for breakfast the other day - don't you just love pancakes in the holidays!!! JSR had his with jam, AJR had his with butter, maple syrup and icing sugar.

Sunday Breakfast for One

Here is a great breakfast idea, it is vegetarian, low gi and healthy.

1. Cut up some mushrooms and red onion and a little garlic and saute them in the microwave (no fat)
2. Toast a slice of whole grain bread (no fat)
3. Poach an egg

Pile everything onto the toast and then sprinkle with chopped parsley or corriander

Peacherine Crumble

Tonight we had homemade pizza and tried out the new Pizza stone - it works very well, thanks for the great present. We had a beautiful garlic and oil pizza, as well as a half salami, baby eggplant and capsicum with mottzarella cheese pizza.

Sorry no pictures, we were too hungry!!

Afterwards we had Peacherine Crumble.

Step 1
Cut peacherine's and then mascerate in sugar and marsarla and then poach.


Step 2
Put cooked peacherine's into a pie dish

Step 3
Make Crumble - mix rolled oats, brown sugar, butter, flour, mixed spice to bread crumb consistency.

Step 4
Cook at 180 for 20-30 minutes

Step 5
Eat (with cream as we did or ice cream or both)

Recipe Finder Sites

I got a request for a recipe finder site, you know where you can put in the ingredients you have and it spits out a great recipe - enabling you to declutter your cupboard. It is a great way to do this. I also go through my pantry once a year and anything that I have not used and is not out of date I donate to a giving tree. This year it was the giving tree at work, around Christmas time there are a lot of charity's looking for food donations. If you have serious congestion problems, you could do it in winter as well. Food is always needed.

So now you will see on the right hand site some suggestions for recipe finder sites (thanks for the great request JC), if you find better ones then let me know.

Aunty A

Calamari for Tea

We had a lovely repast of Calamari, seared lemon, steamed broccolini, fried garlic, pangrattato (basically fried or toasted breadcrumbs in garlic oil), and rocket salad.

Potato and bean salad with lemon yoghurt dressing

To serve 1

Ingredients
240g potatoes - unpeeled and cut into wedges
150g green beans, trimmed and cut into 3 cm lengths
1 cup baby rocket leaves
50 g (1/2) small red onion sliced thinly

Lemon Yoghurt Dressing
1/2 cup sheep milk yoghurt
1 tspn finely grated lemon rind
1 tbspn fresh lemon juice
1 tbspn finely chopped fresh flat leaf parsley

Method
Boil, steam or microwave potato and beans seperately, until tender, drain. Rinse beans under cold water, drain.
Meanwhile combine ingredients for lemon yoghurt dressing in small bowl
Place potato and beans in medium bowl with rocket and onion, toss gently top combine.
Serve salad drizzled with dressing.

And of course I did not follow the recipe slavishly -

• I used goats milk yohurt, as I did not have sheeps yoghurt
• baby spinach instead of rocket as I did not have rocket
  
• corriander instead of parsley, by mistake - was a good mistake and
  
• doubled it to feed both of us.

Enjoy!
Aunty A

Thai for dinner

JSR had a great game of golf today and came home loaded with chocolate from our friends C&M. He then made a beautiful Thai inspired dinner of prawns and scallops with a corriander, red onion, rocket and baby spinach salad. JSR added some lime juice to the egg mayonaise for the dressing.

Mediterranean Puff

I had arranged a special class for Andrew which finished at 9.15 - so I headed to TSS's place for a little refreshment, while waiting. First thing this morning Andrew decided he really did not want to go, even though it was for Manga art (his passion). Decided to head to TSS's anyway.
Checked out the food from the fridge, selected several video's from the collection for possible viewing and headed across the road for a bottle of vino. For less than $5.00 each we had our frugal feast!!

Photo courtesy of TSS

The dish is puff pastry with olives, fetta, sundried tomatoes and zucchini baked in the oven. Simple and delicious.

In the end we were so busy talking (not sure how that happened) that we did not get around to the video's.

642.4 Brunch

Photo courtesy of TSS

642.4 is the dewey number for casual dining, and when all is said and done I am a librarian!! There is a group of four of us who meet regularly to eat and chat and this is the feast we had last Sunday.

• Bagels and cream cheese,
  
• fruit platter,
  
• omelette,
  
• wilted spinach and garlic,
  
• salmon,
  
• olives,
  
• grilled haloumi, and
  
• tomatoes.

Champagne and OJ of course.

Yummy Frittata and Good for You Too!

Ingredients
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 small onion finely chopped
1 clove garlic finely crushed
2 cups (300 g) grated sweet potato
2 zucchini grated
1/4 cup basil leafs torn
1/2 cup grated low fat cheese
salt and pepper to taste
4 free range eggs
150g cherry tomatoes halved

Method
Preheat the oven to 180c. Lightly greese a 20cm round cake tin and line the base with non-stick baking paper.
Heat olive oil in a non stick frypan and cook the onion and garlic for 4 minutes or until soft. Add the sweet potato and zucchini and cook , stirring for 3 minutes, until softened slightly.
Transfer the vegetable mixture to a bowl and cool slightly. Mix in the basil and cheese, and season with salt and pepper. Stir to combine evenly. Fold in the eggs, and pour the mixture into the prepared tin. Smooth the surface.
Arrange the cherry tomatoes over the mixture, cut side up, and press in gently. Bake for 45 minutes, until set and golden. Leave in the tin until just cool enough to handle, then turn out and quickly invert right side up onto a plate.
Cut the fritatta into 6 wedges and serve with salad leaves, lightly dressed with lemon juice.

This is a great tasting frittata and I had one and half slices for tea and am taking a slice for lunch. Of course I varied the recipe. I put the tomatoes in cut side down and I served from the baking dish - most importantly I cooked this in the microwave for approximately 12 minutes - who has 45 minutes on a weeknight!!!

Enjoy.
Aunty A.

Some December Food

My current favourite Salad
lettuce, sun dried tomatoes, capsicum and corn - super easy super quick super healthy (no dressing required due to the oil from the tomatoes).

Gluten Free Cakes from Deeks



The three stooges make pizza. MLR's included chopped up dinosaur chicken pieces, AJR's was a Marguerita (cheese and tomato paste) and JSR's was a garlic and Parmesan one (not pictured). There was flour from one end of the kitchen to the other, as they made the bases from scratch. A great feast was had by all.

Aunty A.

Meals in the last week

Spanokopita.
This is a standard of mine.

Take 500gm frozen spinach, 250gm of ricotta or fetta, 3-5 spring onions chopped (or small onion chopped), dash of lime or lemon juice and two eggs.
Mix all ingredients and put into a 20cm pie dish. Take three leaves of filo pastry and fold each in half. Spray with oil and cover the pie dish, take the next leaf of filo and do it again, until you have used the filo. Bake in a moderate oven (185) until brown on top, about 25 minutes and serve immediately.

Risotto
1 and half cups of risotto rice, 5 spring onions, 1 litre of vegetable stock, 1 glass of white wine, 1 cup of water, vegetables as desired, 125gm parmesan.

Spray frypan with olive oil and toss rice and onions. Once they are coated with the oil, then add the wine. In the meantime heat the vegetable stock and water to boiling point. Ladle stock in one ladle at a time waiting for the stock to absorb, about 20 minutes, then add vegetables (capsicum, peas etc) and stir, once they are warmed through add the cheese and take off the heat and stir.

For this risotto follow the above recipe, but chop two small or one large fennel bulb, two large mushrooms (side plate size), half a cake of blue cheese (about 125 gms or what you like) and a half a cup of parsley. Add these ingredients just before you have added all the stock, to enable the mushrooms to cook.


Both risotto meals are vegetarian and gluten free. Serve both with a green salad. My favourite at the moment is a mix of salad greens, spinach leaves, rocket, with sundried tomatoes, pine nuts, corn and toss. Today I added cucumber, or you can add capsicum. Really does not need a dressing because of the oil from the tomatoes.

Dine on regional chow

This post is all CJK's fault!!!

The article (linked above) discusses eating regionally, within certain limits, such as 250 or 100 mile (it is a US article).

I thought it might be fun to try a dinner made this way! Of course if we limited it to my garden right now we would have a meal of parsley, rasberries (not sure if there are one or two rasberries on the vine), some tired lavender and under ripe peacherines!!

Here are some sources of local ingredients we could use - local to the Canberra region to about 100 miles.

Wine
Lets start with wine - Canberra grows a variety of wine in the local region, and is a cool climate wine grower. The main varieties include Chardonnay, Riesling, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz and Pinot Noir with some Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Viognier, Sangovese and Merlot.

Map and description of 40 local wineries.

In 1853 John Hardy planted vines in Hardwick, near Yass. Helms wines are one of the earliest wineries in the district, still producing fine wine, with first plantings in 1973. There are tours you can take of the Canberra wineries, which is on my list of things to do in 2007. There is Kamberra wine company, which is an organisation that has its own wines, it showcases all Canberra region wines, runs wine appreciation courses (which I have attended) and does a lot to promote our wines.

Cheese
And what goes with wine, well cheese of course and so we find Bega Cheese.
Check the link out as it has great cheese recipes. So we have the makings of a good casual get together, but who knows about dinner. Bega cheese also produces milk and so along with the Capital Chilled Foods people who produce Canberra Milk, we should be able to drink something other than wine and water.

Meat
For those of us who are not yet vegetarian, we can get some locally produced, interesting and even gourmet meats, as well as smoked vegetables and fruits, from Poachers Pantry, near Hall in the ACT. It is right next door to Wily Trout Vinyard, planted in 1998/99. You can taste test both the wines and the gourmet foods in the one place.

Salad and Vegetables
To put olive oil on our salad, I have found Gundaroo Gold, an olive plantation. Hopefully they will sell at the farm gate. Williamsdale Organics is also a local producer of Olive Oil and other organic products like soap and shampoo (it is good to be clean). I have found a market garden out at Gundaroo, which looks good. The market garden is called Allsun Farm. This means we will be able to eat salad and other vegetables, with our meats, wines and cheeses. Alternatively Joyce Wilkie, a geologist turned farmer at Gundaroo, runs a subscription system in which you subscribe and then go out to the farm and pick what you have requested in your subscription. Often four families will subscribe and then each weekend one family goes out and brings back four boxes of fruit and vegies. Joyce also has free range hens and will supply eggs.

Vegetarian Option and Desert
With the eggs the milk and the cheese, we should be able to produce a vegetarian frittata and a pannecotta or other custard type dessert.

Food we will not be able to put on the table are things like, flour, rice, chocolate, coffee and tea. Anyone for dinner?

Victoria's Food Trail

More TV food shows. Last week and this, started watching a show with Paul Mecurio as the host - Victoria's Food Trail, currently on Sunday nights on Channel 7, at around 5.30pm. It was first shown in February-March this year and is now in its second or third repeat. The link includes a recipe book of all the food Paul prepares. You can also buy the dvd of the show.

More information about Paul Mecurio.

The Chef and the cook

Say Cheese!

No really this is the title of episode 41, in this fabulous series with Maggie Beer and Simon. I watched this the other day and just wanted to eat every dish. I must ask CJK for a gluten free biscuit base and then I will try the savoury cheesecake. There is a section of the show where they go to the markets in central Adelaide, where I too have browsed with excitment and anticipation of what might be around the next corner. You can tour the market and I intend to do that next time I get to Adelaide.

Fetta and mint omelettes with crisp bacon

Serves: 4

Cooking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients
1½ tablespoons olive oil

8 slices thin bacon

12 eggs

¼ cup (60ml) water
s
alt and freshly ground black pepper

20g butter

4 green onions (green shallots), chopped finely

¼ cup fresh mint leaves

120g fetta cheese, crumbled

75g baby spinach leaves

Method

Heat 2 teaspoons of the oil in medium frying pan; cook the bacon until crisp. Drain on absorbent paper.
Combine eggs, water, salt and pepper in a large bowl; beat lightly.
Heat a quarter of the butter and 1 teaspoon of oil in same pan. When butter is just bubbling, add a quarter of egg mixture to pan; sprinkle over a quarter of onion, mint and fetta. Cook over medium heat, tilting pan, until egg is just set. Slide omelette from pan and fold in half. Repeat with remaining butter, oil, egg and filling.
Serve omelettes immediately with spinach and bacon.

So that is the official way of doing it and of course that is not what I did. I added extra greeen onion, I poured all the mixture into the pan and made it into one omelette and then divided it into four, I put the spinach leaves into the omelette, I did not have any mint, so I left that out. I did not use any oil to cook the bacon - why would you.

Recipe for happiness

Today's Recipe-To Make us Happy and Agreeable to Other People.

Ingredients -1lb Good Temper, 2lb Forbearance, 1lb Patience, 11/2lb Contentment, 3lb Unselfishness, 1lb Fun and 2lb Cheerfulness. Method - Mix well with two quarts of Human Kindness. Dose - One glassful the first thing in the morning, repeat as soon as the effect wears off.

Recipe Inspirations

I really hate the question "what's for tea?" and you know you only get it on the day that you just wish that the food genie would just magic dinner out of thin air. For those times you may choose to come here and gain some inspiration.

When you're down and troubled and you need a helping hand, and nothing, whoa, nothing is going right. Close your eyes and type in my URL and soon I will be there....

with sincere appologies to James Taylor.


Australian Sites
ABC Backyard Recipe Finder
Recipes from around Australia hosted by the ABC.

Australian Women's Weekly Recipe Finder
Offers an emailed recipe of the week, as well as finding recipes based on your ingredients.

Dining Downunder Recipes
Uses Australian native food.

Golden Circle Recipes
Good if you love Pineapple, does have other recipes and it is Australian Owned.

Nestle Recipe Search
Also gives you access to your own online recipe book that is free and you can add to.

Old Aussie Food Recipes
Click on the links down the side to get to these classic Aussie recipes. If you pay you can access many more recipes.


US sites
There are many US sites, but these two are my favourite.

I Village Recipe Finder
US based - enables you to put limited choices for a list of suitable recipes.

Busy Cooks
Great US site that gives recipes, you can sign up for an emailed recipe, and you can search for recipes. This site is a bit like going into a great bookshop, it can be hard to get out.

If you have great sites or recipes that you want to share, please send them to me or link from there to here.

Aunty A

Bush tucker, Borders and Blarney

Here are the cooks extrodinaire - very black and white.

Wonderful food was prepared for a feast last night - vegetarian (bottom of photo)and non vegetarian (top of photo) entrees, mains and dessert. The cheesecake was topped with passionfruit pulp and cream from a can.

Food was followed by a trip to the new Borders Store at the Canberra Centre. This trip was taken under the misunderstanding (from the brochure supplied to TSS by Borders) that the store was open til 10pm on Thursday, Friday and Saturday!!!

Well we can report that it definitely was not open at 9pm on Thursday the 9th of November 2006. We all mournfully gazed through the windows at the expanse of books, and cash registers and wondered what we would have bought, had they been open!!!
If you check out the Borders link it suggests that it is open until 11pm?!?!? I later spoke to a Borders person who suggested that in the States they stay open long hours and that here they had two options, stay open later and change people's shopping habits or wait until the patrons demanded longer hours - they have gone for the former rather than the latter.

Here is the view through the grill into the store and here is what TSS thought of the night.

We also checked out the Ms Dewey site. Note that this is very slow loading even on broadband, so be prepared to pop out to Borders (as we did) or do a load of washing and hang it out while waiting!!!

This morning I came into work and was rung up by the Borders store to see if they could help me. I thought "they want to apologise for last night", but no they wanted to see what my needs were as a Librarian! I am going to breakfast with them next Friday morning and I have told them to invite JC, so we will see.

Wednesday Dinner

Well today we had home made pesto and pasta.

Pesto
1 bunch of corriander
splash of lemon
splash of oil (to bind)
half a cup of pine nuts


Blend all ingredients in the blender or whizz and then pour (or scrape) over cooked pasta and serve.

Use gluten free pasta for a gluten free dish

Dinner on Monday

Hi there,

well there was left over salmon that could not be wasted, so here is Aunty A's new recipe.

500 gms light riccotta (for a heavier effect you could use 250gms of philedephia cream cheese)
1 bunch corriander (sorry JC) could use basil or parsley
squeeze lemon
handful of pine nuts
1 bunch aparagus cut into three
3 spring onion chopped into three
left over smoked salmon
6 sheets of filo pastry
oil spray
medium sized muffin tray (12)

Method
1. put first seven ingredients into the blender and blend until moderately smooth.
2. Spray muffin tray with oil.
3. Take three sheets of filo and cut using a scone cutter to fit the muffin tray.
4. Spray the filo in the tray.
5. Add heaped teaspoons of filling to filo pastry and bake in moderately warm oven (180) for 10-12 minutes - watch for burning.

Take second set of three filo sheets and repeat steps 2-5. To make a meal of this, serve with a green salad or roast tiny tomato's.

Great Tapas food, or Melbourne Cup food.

For Gluten free, serve on rice crackers or gluten free bread (as I did).

Fabulous Recipe

I made this today. Action shot going into the oven!
Brie Smoked Salmon Stackers


The link at the top of this page is a site that sends me recipe's regularly, from the US - so of course at the moment I am getting recipes for Autumn. Check it out and sign up if it looks interesting.

I have made changes of course, I added a spinach leaf to each stack and used no mustard as there is no mustard in fridge.

Here is what the children had for tea. Veggie burgers.

Cheers
Aunty A

Cooking and Blogging

Sweet Potato Rosti recipe
I got this recipe from Sanitarium, who send me a recipe a week to try. Sometimes I try and sometimes I delete. This one I should have deleted, however it was not a complete disaster.

TSS came around with beautiful offerings of an apron (need to have an apron if you are an internet cook!!!!), modelled by Aunty A on this page, as well as a meatless recipe book, which will feature in books section of this page. TSS kindly marked all her favourite recipes for me.

First Aunty A chopped up the sweet potato and then the red onion. We were making sweet potato rosti with tomato and bean salsa. Using my brand new whiz - pictured here. (that has a blender as well as a whizzer) I grated the sweet potato and the onion, mixed it with the egg and flour and made a mess. After some consideration, and consultation, it became obvious that the rosti's wanted the freedom to turn into a fritata (on account of how the rosti's where trying to get together in the pan), so I added some garlic and tomato, sprinkled grated cheese on top, omitted the beans and hey presto we have sweet potato fritata. Here is what we did with the original recipe. TSS and I had no trouble consuming our "fritata", along with a bottle of wine, ice cream and lollies.

We then looked at how I load photo's (we need to get out more I know) onto my blogs. I need to download photoshop at some point, but it does take 10 hours to download, so I want to do it at night, and then of course I forget and then it is another 24 hours.

Halloween Adventure

Here is the adventure we had today when all the scary people came to our house. First there was the food!!

Snakes in bats blood


Eyeballs
and frogs in green slime, worms in sludge
and of course there were cupcakesdecorated by the ghouls, ghosts, pirates, princesses, fairies and vampires.

Then there were the people
Big witchesand little witches


Vampiresa pirate and the grim reaper

A yellow ghost, a fairy a princess (dressed up here as a ghost)was also spied.

Here are the whole crowd it all ended too soon and all the characters had to go home to bed.