In an effort to be healthier today and avoid eating something naugthy I threw caution to the wind and made myself this super easy quiche from ingredients we had in the fridge and it was so fabulous I just had to share.

Ingredients:

2 eggs

1 dollop of cream

1 handful of spinach leaves

5 cherry tomatoes

1 slice of ham

1 sheet of puff pastry

Salt + Pepper to taste

Method:

Place your puff pastry over your a small baking dish and let it fall naturally.

Chop spinach and mix all the ingredients together before and placing inside pastry.

Cut your ham into strips and lay over the top of your mixture

Cook in the oven for 20 minutes at 175.

Take out and let it cool and then ENJOY!

Seriously, how easy is that. 

Earlier in the week I had a rather boring conversation with my dieticianI, it was the usual stuff I had heard before. I was managing my diabetes well but I needed to work on day time food, I needed to start snacking. I wanted to tell her I’m just not a snack kind of girl and that I only get a limited amount of time to actually sit down during the day and take time out for me. Instead I smiled and told her that wouldn’t be a problem and she went on. The whole time I sat there I kept thinking how young and skinny she was, like seriously skinny and I just don’t know how much I can take away from that. Hasn’t she seen that sign, never trust a skinny cook.

This morning Luigi left early to go fishing so I decided I’d take her advice on board and skip our usual breakfast routine and try a bit of snacking during the day. The first step to that was pancakes but not just any pancakes, whole meal pancakes.

It was a bit of a risk. I wasn’t sure if the kids would taste the difference as I’d never used wholemeal flour before but thankfully they were gobbled up without a single compliant. Not that to me is a total success.

Wholemeal Pancakes

1 cup whole meal self raising flour

1 cup of milk

1 egg

Enjoy!

Schools back today so yesterday was a full on day of baking and preparing for a few goodies for the kids lunch boxes over the next few weeks.

One of the things on the top of our list was mars bar slice but its getting pretty hot up here now and we needed to make it lunch box friendly so we altered the recipe a little to suit the hot weather.

What you will need:

360g of mars bars

90g of butter

3 cups of rice bubbles

Lets get cooking:
Place your mars bars and butter in a bowl and microwave for 1-2 minutes until melted.
Mix with rice bubbles
Spoon into party pans and pop in the fridge to rest for 2-3 hours.

Hot tip:
Hide from your husband and children or you will have to make a second batch.

I have always been a bit of a wimp when it comes to hot food and then one day last year we were out at lunch at a fancy seafood restaurant hubby ordered a Laksa and pressured me into having a taste. Perhaps my taste buds has refined over time or perhaps I was just growing up and getting over it but I really, really like it.

Until recently it’s been more of a holiday food. We would pull into a new town, hunt down an asian place and discover a new Laksa to sample. But lately I’ve been craving Laksa all the time and most weeks it ends up somewhere on our meal plan because it’s so darn easy to cook.

There is a few different ways to cook it depending on how authentic you want to get and how much work you want to put into it so I thought today I would share a fool proof recipe that you can not get wrong.

This is the bottle of laksa paste I’m using today. I purchased this bottle last weekend at the local filipino store but there is a lot of different options out there these days and many of them can be found at your local supermarket in the asian aisle.

What you will need:

Green Prawns {4 or 5 per person}

Seafood flakes

Bean sprouts

Scallops {2 or 3 per person}

Coconut cream

Laksa paste

Let’s get cooking:

Step One: Take a packet of vermicelli noodles and put them in a bowl of cold water for 10 minutes. This will act as the base of your laksa. You could also use rice or any other combination of noodles if you prefer.

Step Two: Take your laksa paste and empty into your wok also adding in a jar of coconut cream and two bottles of water {use your laksa jar to measure} Stir and let it cook for 5 minutes.

Step Three: Add seafood, bean sprouts and anything else you wish to include and continue to cook until your seafood is cooked.

Step Four: Place in a dish with your vermicelli noodles and enjoy!

So there you have. It’s super easy, it’s fast and it’s delicious. So you have absolutely no excuse not to run to the shops and come home and make your very own laksa for dinner.

p.s – make sure you post a photo on instagram or facebook when you’ve cooked your laksa so I can have a peek.

The thing I really miss most of all about living in the city is having sushi train just five minutes drive from my house. For the first few months the cravings were insane so I really had to make a plan and do something about it. My solution..to create my own.

Now I’m the kinda person who doesn’t cook by measurements. I’m the kinda girl who glances at a recipe, tweaks, throws everything in there and hopes it works for the best. So I’m going to do my best to guide you along the way and were going to make some kick arse dumplings for you to dish up this weekend.

Now the first step is to put on a fancy apron {I know you totally can’t see it} and your favourite necklace, I choose to wear my emily green necklace because it always makes me feel fabulous and it’s important to be happy when your cooking.

The next step is to pull out some gow gee wrappers. You can find these in the fridge section of your super market. Mine is usually kept near the pasta but I have also found them near the eggs at times too so just hunt around and if you can’t find them ask for assistance. You can also get them from your local asian store. They cost just under $2 a packet so their super cheap.

Then your going to need about 500 grams of mince. Now I usually use pork mince to make my dumplings but I made these for a friend who doesn’t eat pork so this time around I used chicken mince.

Now you get to be a little bit creative. It’s time to make these dumplings your own. Throw in your favourite herbs {fresh is always best} and any other flavours you may like but remember don’t go crazy. I usually add spinach to mine but I didn’t have anything time so I kept it simple  with a little bit of ginger and mixed herbs.

Last time we were in town my husband brought me one of these flavour packets from the asian so I threw one of those in too.

Once you have everything in your bowl give it a good mix and pull out your gow gee wrappers. Place a tea soon of mixture onto the wrapper and fold it in half. Now start from one end and create little folds along the top.

Once your done you should have something like this. Doesn’t it just look delicious! Now it’s time to cook them and there is a lot of ways you can do

this. You can steam them, boil them or deep fry them. I usually boil mine but today I choose to steam them and serve with sweet and chilli cause and sushi train mayo which you can also buy from your local supermarket. This recipe can make up to 40 dumplings but you will need two packs of gow gee wrappers.

Enjoy!

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So the first thing you do is. Take your pork buns out of the freezer. Easy peasey.

Now boil a pot of water {don’t mind my messy splash back there}

Now search through your cupboards until you find your bamboo steamer. These can be purchased from an asian supermarket or most cheap stores. It will set you back $2-$8 depending on what size you buy. Once you’ve got your steamer place it on top of your pot and put your pork buns inside.

After a few minutes take them out and dish them up on a plate. Don’t try and make them pretty just put them out there and go off and find your kids and sit them down for lunch.

Make sure you cook enough. Sound kids are really hungry.

And before you know it. Lunch is over. Seriously..how easy is that.

Now your probably feeling hungry. I’m really sorry about that.