When the joy of cooking strikes (Part 1)
You share your favourite recipes, hacks, bits and pieces with those who've lost it
I've been meaning to write this post for nearly two months now, so strap in. There's a bitta food in here. When I'm in a food funk, I find it really helpful to see how others are getting creative in the kitchen, so this is for those people that get to a new day and think to themselves, feck, I can't believe we have to feed our family again... Didn't we JUST do that?!
I've tried to keep this relevant to mums and parents navigating make work, work alongside motherhood so you'll find some great make-ahead snack and breakfast recipes that I religiously go to. But, because life isn't all about work, we're having some fun and going off course, too. Desserts and dinner parties and delightful delicacies! Oh my!
Something else that inspired this newsletter a recent conversation we’ve been having on the podcast and on Instagram:
In an Instagram poll and subsequent Witching Hour episode, we asked you what the most difficult thing about cooking for your family was. And, in what will come as no surprise to most parents, the mothers agreed: the hardest part of cooking is coming up with what the bloody hell to cook. As my husband said the other day, it just never ends. BAM! 24 hours passes and the smugness you felt after coming up with last night's dinner has worn off and you're back to square one.
This is a rut that I know all too well. Sometimes, you just can't seem to access all of the meals you've made. It's like my food memory has been wiped. All of the recipes that I know and love and tweak along the way fall into some sort of abyss that I wished my kids' floor scraps would also be swallowed by.
Other times, you're in a good rhythm. The meal plan flows, the cooking feels joyful, and you start to think that the homemaking side of parenthood isn't such an arduous task after all.
I'm in that rhythm now. Where cooking sometimes feels like a never ending chore, at the moment, it's more like a creative challenge and an act of love. That carrot will be sad tomorrow - what might I turn it into? Why did my husband buy so many oranges and does that whole lemon/lemonade idiom apply to oranges and orange cake? Because if so, I'm-a-making-one! Hi sad bag of spinach, do you want to mingle with some sweet potato and become my favourite vegetable loaf? You get the idea, I'm enjoying my food.
Now, I know that cooking is often the opposite when there's little mouths to feed and laundry to fold and work to do and dishes that sadly, still in 2024, do not clean themselves. So, this newsletter is for any parent that's currently in a funk (AKA me the whole time Posie was in the womb and the first six months of her life) and needs some inspiration.
So here, I'm sharing my make-ahead snacks that save time during a busy week of working and mothering, how I turned one dinner into something new the next night, what I cooked for a group of mums who had the night off to watch the footy together (a sentence I’m not sure you’d have read all that much until recently), a pasta my husband made, and all the bits and pieces that I'm loving.
Let’s start off with some joyful cooking moments that have nothing to do with making work, work.
A moment for the mother after another big and beautiful day of mothering: I turned nearly done-for apples into a delicious dessert. Caramelise apples (and bananas or whatever you have!) in butter, maple syrup, a bit of salt and miso paste. Top with sesame seeds and serve with ricotta or something cheekier. SO GOOD! Bowl is by my favourite, Made in Japan. I’ve had these for five years.
While we’re on Made in Japan, I FINALLY bought soup bowls and small side plates. Also from MIJ and I really love them <3
And a
orange olive oil cake! What a joy. When my husband came home with an obscene amount of oranges after another bout of childcare sickness, I used the last few to make him a Father’s Day orange cake. The recipe is here, but because it was Father’s Day, I iced it the way he likes instead of the beautiful presentation of this recipe.
I recently hosted a whole lot of mums for an Italian-themed (AKA ode to Lygon St, Melbourne) dinner party ahead of watching the mighty Blues lose not so mightily to the Brisbane Lions. With a vegetarian and some gluten free girlies, a vegetarian pasta with a GF option was the meal of the night. I can’t believe I didn’t take a photo, but I actually made this pasta up. The ratio was all off — I didn’t have enough of the topping for the amount of pasta and people — but if you nail the ratio, I think you’ll love this.
I served it with breadstick, homemade garlic butter, an orange and fennel salad (we still had bloody oranges that needed using) and two girlfriends brought the most delicious salads.
Here’s one and here’s the other (although my friend didn’t add tuna). With the additions of the salads, the meal really came together so beautifully.
And HOW could I forget Molly from Hold the Mother’s Twix slice? I’ve made this three times in the last month. The perfect postpartum snack and the most decadent healthy-ish dessert. My husband surprisingly loved it, which was sort of disappointing tbh. Less for me. Postpartum is forever, so off I pop to make more.
Next up: One meal, two ways
If you’ve read this piece and listened to the corresponding podcast episode, you’ll know that I am very passionate about getting two dinners out of one base recipe. It is the ultimate hack for parents navigating the juggle.
Now I’m not a huge carnivore, so when I make a meat-based dish, I want to get as much out of it as possible. My husband or I make a slow cooked beef dish perhaps every three weeks and freeze a portion of it. We’ll eat it with pasta or greens and mash the first night, then with rice and spinach or in the form of a shepherd’s pie another time, or on top of pita with vegetables and served with lemony hummus and chilli oil. The options really are endless, and you can apply the same rules in most cases to bolognese sauce.
To mix up the shepherd’s pie topping, I make a bechamel of ghee, garlic paste, and silverbeet. Cook it down then add ricotta and then add some mash to that.
PS — I love the Nutra Organics range and use their beef bone broth, hot choc drinks, and veggie hero for kids in my cooking religiously.
Last up here, as it appears I am nearly at my email length limit — I also love to cook a veggie loaded chicken san choi bow. I’ll serve it traditionally in lettuce cups the first night, then with noodles, veg and herbs the second night. This could be done with tofu and it’s a delicious meal.