As the cold days well and truly envelop us, our instinct is to turn towards comfort food to give us that warm hug that we desperately need. This winter I made the executive decision not to use any heating. Madness, I know, but so far we have been getting away with it. You may find me wearing a puffer jacket and scarf indoors, but it’s a small price to pay, especially when there is such a large price to pay in energy costs at the moment.

Thankfully, a lot of winter comfort foods involve turning on an oven and I feel as though I’m being frugal by cooking a meal and warming my kitchen at the same time.

This pie came about one day when I was definitely seeking warmth. It’s pretty much a classic chicken pie, but it’s surprisingly easy when you take a few short cuts like buying the pastry and using a store bought barbecue chicken. If you wanted to make a smaller pie, you could even use leftover chicken from the previous night’s roast. As it is, using the meat off one whole chicken makes a huge quantity, more than enough to feed my whole family for two nights.

(NOTE: I used the Careme brand pastry for this recipe. Whilst it’s super yummy, boy it’s expensive! I found that each sheet of pastry was rolled fairly thickly. This being the case, if you are using a supermarket brand such as Pampas, I’d suggest using two sheets of each type of pastry to make up the thickness. )

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter or oil

1 leek, washed and roughly chopped

1 brown onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped

2 stalks celery, diced

2 rashers bacon, diced

2 cups brown mushrooms, roughly chopped

3 sprigs thyme, leaves stripped

300ml cream

2 tsp chicken or vegetable stock powder (or 2 cubes, crumbled)

freshly ground pepper

1 stalk broccoli, cut into small florets

hand torn meat from 1 small cooked chicken

1-2 sheets shortcrust pastry

1 -2  sheets puff pastry

Method

Preheat an oven to 180°C. Line the base of a 20cm springform tin with baking paper at the bottom only. Place the sheet (or 2 sheets) of shortcrust pastry into the tin so it lines all the way up the sides and over the edges of the tin. Place a sheet of baking paper on top and fill with baking beans (or dried beans or rice) and blind bake the pastry for 20 minutes. Remove the beans and baking paper and place back into the oven for a further 5-10 minutes to cook the pastry through, but not brown too much.

To make the filling, place the butter or oil into a large frying pan on high heat. Add the leek, onion, garlic, bacon, celery, mushrooms and thyme and cook for 10-15, stirring occasionally until everything is softened and translucent. Pour in the cream along with the stock powder and pepper. Taste and add more seasoning if needed. Turn off the heat and add the chicken and broccoli, stirring together until combined.

Pour the filling into the prepared shortcrust base. Top the pie with the sheets of puff pastry, sealing the edges with a rough crimp, then place back into the oven to cook for 30-40 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown.

Remove the pie from the oven, but let it sit on the bench for at least half an hour before attempting to unmould.

Slice carefully into wedges and serve with a green salad.

The post Chicken Pie appeared first on The Life She Made.

The challenge has been officially going for just over a week now and anybody who has decided to join in would probably be feeling the benefits by now. It’s not too late to join in by the way and I encourage you to take part, even if you don’t have a Vitamix. If you’ve got any blender or a Thermomix, join in and reap the benefits along with the best of us.

The best part is if you register on the website you go in the running to win your own Vitamix. They are giving away 7 in total, one has already been won, so you still have plenty of chances to win.

My favourite Green Smoothie recipe

You get access to 7 recipes when you sign up, but here’s a bonus one that I have come up with that I really love. To me it’s what any good drink should be – refreshing, a bit tart, a bit cooling and very satisfying.

INGREDIENTS

1 small cucumber, roughly chunked

1 lime, peeled

1 kiwi fruit, halved

1/2 cup pineapple, chunked

1/4 cup paw paw, chunked

1/4 cup mint leaves

1/2 cup spinach leaves

1 cup coconut water

1/2 cup ice

METHOD

Place all the ingredients into the Vitamix jug in the order stated. Switch on slowly at first then increase the speed up to maximum. Blend until you can no longer see any bits.

Makes 4 glasses full

A few tips that I learned along the way

It’s usually not much of a challenge to get adults to try a green smoothie, kids on the other hand can be a bit tricky.

• Start with more fruit and less veggies. Kids have sweet tooths and can be sensitive to the bitter flavours that come from greens. If you start off light with the green stuff, every day you can add a little more in as they become accustomed to the flavour.
• Make sure there’s enough liquid in the jug. A lot of people love thick smoothies, but I learnt that my kids really preferred them when they were runny and suckable through a straw. You can use water or coconut water and ice to up the liquid content.
• Be creative with how you present the smoothies. The people at Vitamix gave us a couple of these cute little milk bottles that my kids have now renamed their smoothie bottles. I just bought cheap packet of straws and it’s made a big difference to their uptake of the idea. I’ve also heard it suggested that if your kids aren’t particularly keen on the green colour, a trick is to put it in one of those opaque sippy cups with a straw and they’ll be none the wiser. Trust me, the smoothies taste really good, I have no doubt they’ll love them.
• Lastly, let them place all the ingredients into the Vitamix and let them turn it on. IT’S SO MUCH FUN! 

In the local newspaper

If you’ve been following along on the facebook page, you would have seen me and the kids were interviewed for our local newspaper. The kids were really excited to see their pictures in print (I’m sure it will make a great ‘news’ item). Here it is for those of you who missed it.

How does the Vitamix compare to the Thermomix?

As you might know, I already had Thermomix before I got a Vitamix and have been using both in the past few weeks. How do they compare?

Firstly, I think there are obvious similarities  - they are both powerful, they can do some similar things like chopping vegetables and making nut butters and soups, but in all honestly they are quite different. I think each product is suited to different sorts of people.

The Vitamix doesn’t cook like a Thermomix. It does make soups by whizzing up vegetables at such a high speed that eventually it actually heats up and makes soup. The first time you see it you’ll be blown away. You will like the Vitamix if you want to make smoothies – period. It’s the best thing that it does. I’ve tried making smoothies in the Thermomix and it does a ‘fair enough’ kind of job, but if you’re fussy about texture the Vitamix wins hands down. You just cannot achieve the same level of smoothness. If you want to incorporate green smoothies into your diet every day, the Vitamix is the clear choice.

On the other hand, the Thermomix is more of a food processor to me. I think the best thing going for the Thermomix is that you can actually cook a sauce or risotto in it – set and forget. It also does great doughs and pastries as well as cakes. Then there’s the steamer basket – it really is an all-in-one kind of machine.

Apparently you can also make doughs and grind spices in the Vitamix (though I haven’t personally tried to do this yet).

There’s also a big cost difference. Neither machine is cheap, but at $995 the Vitamix comes in at almost half the price of the Thermomix. Both are the highest of the high quality when it comes to the motor and construction. Both these machines are going to be work horses in your kitchen.

I’m really glad that I have both! I do realise that I am really lucky in that respect. I think if you’re thinking about either of these appliances you should really think about what your dietary needs are. What health benefits do you want? Do you want to save time? Do you like the idea of all-in-one meals or do you like the idea of making green smoothies?

I hope my little review helps a bit anyway. I’m happy to answer more specific questions about both machines.

The post Vitamix Go For Green 7@7 Breakfast Challenge – Part 2 appeared first on The Life She Made.

Today I am so incredibly excited finally reveal Vitamix’s brand new 7@7 Breakfast Challenge here on my blog. If you’ve been paying attention to my twitter feed you’d have noticed that I’ve gone a bit green smoothie crazy in the last couple of weeks. My family and I have all been taking part in a challenge to get our 7 fruits and vegetables in before 7am. A bit of a tall ask? Obviously this is where the green smoothies come in.

Let me back track a little though. You all know me as a food blogger and I write recipes that suit families and try to cater to the tastes of children and adults at the same time. This is true, but if you assumed that my children are all wonderful eaters you’d be wrong. My family is just like many others out there, dinnertime is a crazy nightmare.

All three of my children seem to have different food aversions. For Luka it’s carrot and most fruits, for Sophia it’s anything that’s not corn, tomato or potato, and Sebastian, oh man, that boy might just be a carnivore.

Breakfast at our house is usually rather chaotic. One wants toast, another wants porridge and another simply cannot decide what he wants and has a tantrum instead. Lunch is usually a plain old sandwich which might be ham, or it might be cheese, but usually it’s just vegemite. Then dinner, well, I’m trying to cater to so many tastes that I don’t know what has been eaten half the time. In short, I’m pretty sure that unless I make a veggie packed bolognese sauce, my kids are not eating many veggies at all. Does tomato sauce count as a vegetable? No? Drats.

When I heard that Vitamix were looking for a family to take on the challenge, I knew that ours was a perfect candidate. I mean, they wanted a challenge, they’d get it with my lot. I sneakily thought to myself, I’d like to see them make my kids eat 5 vegetables and 2 fruit, their whole daily allowance, before school. They’ve got buckley’s I thought. I’ve only been trying to get them to eat veggies their whole lives. What chance do they have?

Every journey begins with a ‘first step’ and ours was walking into a beautiful house with the most gorgeous French Provincal kitchen whose kitchen benches were bursting with fresh fruit and veggies. We were greeted by Janella Purcell, Naturopath, Nutritionist and ambassador for the Vitamix 7@7 Breakfast Challenge. We also met the other family taking the challenge, Anita Patterson and her three big boys.

We spent a whole day making smoothies with Janella. I’d tried making the odd green smoothie at home before, but if I’m honest, I never really loved them, but the ones we were making with Janella were all wonderful. She put things in these smoothies that I’d never really thought to add – such as avocado (including the seed), coconut oil, parsley and limes. The Vitamix makes easy work of pulverising everything to a true smoothie texture – that is SMOOTH. It’s sounds silly, but even with my own high powered blender/processor at home, I could not get the texture this smooth. It actually makes drinking it very pleasant.

And the kids – wow, I don’t think they’ve ever eaten so many vegetables in one day ever in their lives! They loved even some of the more challenging grown up flavoured combinations. At the end of our wonderful day with Janella, we took home our own Vitamix machines plus a big basket of goodies to make our smoothies with.

Tomorrow I want to share how the family went with the challenge, plus a couple of smoothie combinations that everybody really loved.

In the meantime I’d love for you all to go and check out the 7@7 Breakfast Challenge page where you will find lots of great information about how you can join the challenge, why you should do it as well as checking out me and my little family as we make smoothies with Janella. We had such a great time working with Janella and the whole Vitamix team.

If you join in the challenge on the Vitamix website, you go in the running to win a Vitamix. They’re giving away 1 per week!

As always, I welcome any questions you might have! I’d love to hear from you. Make sure you check in here at my blog tomorrow as I’ll be sharing a few of my own favourite green smoothie recipes, tips and tricks to get everyone to love them.

Do you and your family get 7 fruits and veggies every day?

The post The Vitamix 7@7 Breakfast Challenge – Part 1 appeared first on The Life She Made.

This competition has now closed!

The winner is…

Nina Downes!

Thank you to everybody who entered.

~~

You might remember my post about the Little Bellies range of snacks for toddlers from a few weeks ago? Go over and have a read of my review then come back here to enter my giveaway.

You back?

Wonderful!

In conjunction with Little Bellies, I’m giving away a pack of all their goodies! If you’d like a chance to win one of these fabulous packs enter by leaving a comment on this post. Which product from the Little Bellies range would you most like to try and why? 

You can also get extra entries by completing the rafflecopter buttons below.

The competition will close on Friday 7th July at 5PM EST. Get cracking, you’ve got nothing to lose!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The post Little Bellies Giveaway appeared first on The Life She Made.

The incident over the weekend where a 13 year old girl called indigenous Sydney Swans football player Adam Goodes an “ape” has really affected me. I watched the morning news program where the image of the girl being ejected from the ground was showed no less than 5 times in the space of 15 minutes. My first thought was how embarrassing for this girl. The whole of Australia now knows that she is a racist. What a thing to be known for. Shame on her.

I was really proud of Adam Goodes. I thought, good on him for choosing not to ignore it. Because he took a stance, the media is now abuzz with conversation about racism.

This morning I saw some more footage of the girl apologising publicly on television. She said that she didn’t realise that the term “ape” was racist and that she didn’t mean to be racist to Mr Goodes and that she was incredibly sorry. See, the thing is, I believe her. I don’t actually think when she called him an ape she was meaning to be racist. I’m usually a big believer in looking at someone’s intent, not just the words that are said. Similarly Delta Goodrem has been accused of being racist on two occasions in recent weeks, calling Seal and Voice contestant Steve Clisby “brothers” and then just weeks later retweeting a picture of a white person covered in black paint, pretending to be Seal and commenting that it was funny. In both of these cases I truly believe that Delta meant no malice. I do think her heart was in the right place. How unfortunate for her to make two mistakes so publicly.

But it brings me to a point: are Australians casually racist?

Even though we don’t want to be racist, is racism quietly bubbling under the surface and coming out in flippant and non-intentional ways? The 13 year old girl was no doubt swept up in a frenzy at a football match and before she could even stop and think about what she was saying, she was calling an indigenous man an ape, a sub-human primate without the ability of intelligent thoughts an actions? Would she have called one of the other white Sydney Swans players an ape? Somehow, I highly doubt it. This stuff doesn’t come from nowhere. It’s got to be in a person somehow whether it’s from casual racist comments from her parents over the years or from other grown ups she’s been around and heard saying casually racist things.

I hear it all the time. Sweeping generalisations made by otherwise intelligent people about whole races. Off the cuff statements that shock me to the core, yet are said so quickly if you blinked you’d miss them.

In my opinion, there has to be a big social shift in Australia. As individuals we can’t sit back and let people say things that are even slightly racist. We can’t let slide just because it’s not that offensive. I also think that the media and the government have a big role to play in instigating social change. I think it’s so wonderful that the incident over the weekend has finally got us all talking about this issue. I hope that what said in the media in last few days has really hit home with a lot of people and has on some level gotten people to reflect about whether they have said casually racist things without really thinking about it.

The post Being casually racist appeared first on The Life She Made.

Firstly, let me apologise for my lack of posting lately (they actually advise never to apologise, but whatever, I am.) As a food blogger, winter sun can be challenging. I used to not really care and take my dinner photos at night anyway, but the results really annoy me so I have been aiming to try and cook dinner during the day to photograph it properly. You can see how this is fraught with problems for a family. My life has just been insane lately, but anyway, I guess you don’t want to necessarily hear my excuses! I’m thinking about rigging up some sort of lighting situation so that I can take photos at night that I’d be happy to put on here.

Today there is a distinct chill in the air in Sydney, perhaps the first time that I feel like winter is truly on its way. I think it’s the perfect day for something slow cooked and comforting and these Massaman Lamb Shanks fit the bill.

Massaman curry is a great one for children as it’s mild and sweet. I really wanted to make my own curry paste and I’d encourage you to give it a go yourself. I was wandering around the supermarket the other day (sans list as always) and I looked at the aisles and aisles devoted to pre-made pastes, pasta sauces, simmer sauces, stirfry sauces and so on. It was actually baffling. I get that people are time poor and don’t have the time to spend hours on making dinner, but I don’t think that these jars and sachets are actually saving much time. If anything the fact that these products exist in such abundance has educated us the consumer to believe that making them ourselves is too hard. I can assure you that in most cases it’s not.

Take making the paste for this recipe. It’s literally about roughly chopping a bunch of stuff, pan frying it for a bit then blitzing up in a blender. It’s not hard and it doesn’t take that much time. I made enough for two curries with the amounts in this recipe so I stored half in the fridge and used it the following week to make a chicken curry. The flavour is so superior to anything I’ve had from a jar. I also don’t want to sound snooty by suggesting you should eschew all jars. All I’m trying to say is don’t doubt yourself in the kitchen. Be confident that you can make things from scratch. That way when you use a jar to save time, you’ll really appreciate how good your home made version is in comparison.

INGREDIENTS

Curry Paste

1 medium red onion, roughly diced

6 cloves garlic, peeled

4cm piece of galangal (or substitute with ginger), peeled and roughly chopped

1 stalk lemongrass, white part only, roughly chopped

1 bunch coriander, roots and bottom stem only, well washed and roughly chopped

4 long red chillies, roughly chopped

1 1/2 tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 cardamom pod

1 cinnamon quill

3 cloves

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 star anise

1 tblsp sea salt

The rest

4-6 lamb shanks (1 per person)

oil

2 large potatoes, peeled, diced into large pieces

500ml chicken stock

1 tin coconut cream

1 tblsp white sugar (I actually omit this)

1 tblsp tamarind paste

1 tblsp fish sauce

coriander leaves

steamed rice to serve

METHOD

Place a large non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat and add the onion, garlic, galangal, lemongrass and coriander roots to the pan. Dry fry for around 10 minutes until everything softens.

Meanwhile take a small non-stick frying pan and dry fry the coriander seeds, cumin seeds, cardamom pod, cinnamon quill, cloves, nutmeg, star anise and sea salt until fragrant and toasted. Place the spices into a small spice grinder or blender and whizz until ground down.

Place the spices and softened aromatic vegetables along with the red chillies into a blender or food processor and blend for 2 minutes until a smooth paste is formed. You can drizzle in a little oil to bring it together if needed.

To make the curry, preheat your oven to 160°C. Take a cast iron casserole and place on your stove on medium heat. Add some oil then brown the shanks in batches all over. Set the shanks aside on a plate whilst you add a little more oil to the pot and begin frying half the curry paste that you made (reserve the other half for another time). Fry until fragrant and add your lamb shanks back to the pot along with the potatoes. Add the chicken stock and coconut cream and top up with a little water if necessary, to barely cover the shanks. Cover with a lid and bake in the oven for 2-3 hours, until the shanks are tender and the potatoes have thickened the sauce.

Remove from the oven. Add the sugar, tamarind paste and fish sauce. Taste and add more seasonings to suit your palette. Serve with rice and coriander leaves and perhaps a squeeze of lime.

The post Massaman Lamb Shanks appeared first on The Life She Made.

I was recently invited to an event promoting the “Little Bellies” range of snacks for toddlers and I snapped up the opportunity to attend as the subject of food labelling and marketing of so called “health” products is a particular area of interest for me.

There are a lot of products out there specifically marketed as being healthy for you and more incredulously healthy for your children, that have little or no nutrition value, yet somehow clever marketing and labelling will have you believe otherwise. It’s so interesting because only hours after coming home from this event I read an article by Paula Goodyer talking about this very subject. She mentioned specifically the “Healtheries” branded potato straws, using emotive words such as “75% less fat” and the very use if the word “healthy” in the brand name as implying that this was a health food. The problem is, potato straws are made out of little more than potato powder and palm oil. This is no health product, just another nutritionally vapid snack food. To be honest, you’d probably be better off with some Kettle Chips, at least then you wouldn’t be kidding yourself about making a healthy choice.

So I went to this product event with a big personal prejudice and I was determined not to go soft in my questions to brand founder Clive Sher. Clive was there with his wife and youngest boy and he was clearly passionate about the products and had a great belief in their integrity.

Mandy dos Santos, a food scientist and nutritionist  was there to explain the benefits of choosing Little Bellies. Mandy likes that the products are all very low in salt. She spoke at length about the current anti-sugar trend (of which I am a personal fan) and brought up an interesting point: in the quest to avoid sugar, perhaps we’re feeding our kids snacks that are unnecessarily high in sodium (salt). I’ve got to say that I’m probably guilty of that and it’s something I hadn’t really thought about too deeply. It’s especially important for babies and toddlers to have very low salt diets as their kidneys are not able to process the amount of salt in common adult snack foods (like chips and Shapes).

As for the sugar content of the products, they are sweetened with so called ‘natural’ sugars such as grape juice concentrate, brown rice syrup and agave nectar. Generally speaking most of the products are fairly low in sugar. For example, my son Sebastian who was with me at the event absolutely fell in love with the “Number Cereal” and positively this product has 4.4% sugar. (When I’m looking at nutrition panels, I try to make sure that products are under 5% sugar as a guide.) Another great product are the “Fiddlesticks” which are kind of like a yummy breadstick I guess (only 2.7% sugar). Some of the fruit bar products such as the “Fruity Choo Chews” are a whopping 46.4% sugar! Yes they are all natural and are made organic ingredients and no artificial colours, flavours and preservatives, yet for me personally, this is too much sugar in one product.

On the Little Bellies website Clive says,

With seven young children between us, we know how hard it is to find healthy foods that will satisfy fussy eaters, and how easy it is to be misled by ambiguous marketing claims when many so-called ‘healthy’ snacks are anything but healthy.

Clive told me that his family has been in the health products industry for over 30 years and it wasn’t until his brother’s oldest son had various food allergies that they were prompted to delve into making healthy snack foods that are better choices. One of the very pertinent points that Clive raised was that the Little Bellies products are snack foods, they’re not meant to replace real food, they are just there to be convenient and better snack choices for parents to have on hand. They are portion controlled to be just the right amount of energy for a toddler snack.

Mandy lead the group in some fun food related activities. We made these clever little ‘Hungry Caterpillars’ with slices of cucumber, cheese, capsicum and sultanas. A lot of the children who were there were crawling babies and let me tell you, there was a lot of mess. Mandy told us of her fondess for baby-led weaning which prompted a lot of discussion around this area and it was clear that a lot of the babies present were into discovering food. There were little hands into everything and smushed up food in the carpet to prove it. I think it was a great activity to show that food can be fun and interactive.

What I like about the products is that they don’t claim to be health foods, they are not sold in the health food aisle (like those Healtheries Potato Stix from earlier). They are a snack food that is trying to be quite transparent about the ingredients they use. They are certified organic, but that’s not a health claim, it’s just a fact that may or may not be important to you as a parent. Otherwise they compete with similar product by Heinz and other small snack brands and are found in the baby food section of the supermarket.

I think there is certainly a place for products like these, just use your head! It’s a snack food and treat it as you would any other snack food. Also, read the labels and make informed choices in relation to sugar, salt and additives.

Mandy said one thing that really resonated with me and I think if I can take anything away from the event to give to you my readers it’s this: when reading the nutrition and ingredients labelling on any products ask yourself,

Because let’s face it, sometimes we have the time to make things from scratch and sometimes we don’t.

Little Bellies products are available at Woolworths, Coles, IGA, and healthfood shops. 

Visit their website for more information.

I received free product samples for this review and was not paid or required to write this post. All opinions are my own.

The post Little Bellies appeared first on The Life She Made.

I toyed with the idea of calling this blog post Butter: An In Depth Study, such is my love for the stuff, but instead, I thought I’d address the very common conundrum: salted vs unsalted butter. Which do you use when? 

I personally use salted butter pretty much all the time, yes even in baking. This probably goes against the grain of common wisdom, but I think it works.

Salt is basically added to butter as a preservative as well as a flavour enhancer. Unsalted butter has a shorter shelf life (not that it matters in my house). For me it is more convenient to buy just one butter than to have a special one for baking, another one for savoury foods and yet another as a spread. Salted does the lot.

You’ll find that most (good) baking recipes ask for salt anyway. If you use salted butter, you should omit this additional salt in most cases.

An interesting tid-bit: did you know that butter in the USA is white and that butter in Australia is really yellow? Do you know why? Well, dairy cows in the states are typically grain-fed whereas in Australia dairy cows are pretty much all grassfed. The grass turns the fat part of milk yellow. It also happens to turn the fat inside the animal yellow too, so that’s one way to tell if you’ve got grassfed beef.

Butter is fabulous stuff, I couldn’t go a day without it. I just love it. Margarine can go JUMP! Yuck!

What do you think? Salted or unsalted? 

The post Which butter should I use? appeared first on The Life She Made.

I have lived in Sydney my whole life and yet there are still so many places I’ve yet to visit and discover. Now with a young family we’re always looking for child friendly ways to see our city. I had the idea to start a blogging series called Discover Sydney. Today’s post is first of many, but keep checking back as I add more awesome places to vist if you’re ever in Sydney.

Today our family did the Cremorne Point Walk and it’s most definitely one we’ll do again. If you want to see the natural beauty of Sydney, contrasted against the vast expanse of the Sydney skyline, this is the walk for you. It’s even manageable with a pram, with most of the walk, especially on the ‘money shot’ Sydney Harbour side having softly undulating, really well maintained paths.

The best place to start the walk is off if you arrive by car is Bogota Avenue. The other option, especially if you’re a tourist and are staying in the City is to catch a ferry directly to Cremorne Point.

View Larger Map

We drove, so this is where we began, witha helpful sign explaining the route.

There are a few steps right at the start, but the rest of the way on the first half of the path, along the Sydney Harbour foreshore, is all flat. This is great for prams, bikes or scooters.

Much of the path is well shaded by canopy which makes it rather pleasant, even in the middle of the day. As the view begins to reveal itself, you begin to realise why you came.

A very pleasant surprise along the way is MacCallum pool. I don’t even think the photographs convey how spectacular this location is. I’m definitely keeping this pool in mind for next summer. Probably the best located public pool in Sydney!

You can’t help but notice all the properties along the water. Mostly apartments it would appear. All I could think about was how they were so lucky to have some of the best views in Sydney.

Next time I go I will definitely bring a picnic. This is such a picturesque patch of grass and relatively quiet (for a public holiday).

Half way along the walk you come to the ferry warf. There is a lovely cafe that sells some light snacks and coffees, perfect to sit and take a break or take up to the playground.

The playground itself is wonderful. Lots for kids to play on and even some adult fitness equipment. Need I mention the views?

At this point, if you have a pram, I would suggest going back the way you came because the path on the other side of the pennsula is a lot more narrow and in slightly worse condition. There are also a lot of stairs right at the end!

However, if you’re just on foot, it’s about the same distance either way you go and this side of the peninsula has some wonderful surprises and features.

Along the way there is a beautiful garden that is maintained by the council and it’s absolutely worth seeing. There are some great benches to sit and soak in the beauty that surrounds you.

We had such an unexpectedly great time doing this walk. I think for us the best part was that it was a manageable distance with the children plus there was so much to see along the way. It’s great that you can just take it as slowly as you like, pausing at all the brilliant view stops. Definitely bring a picnic!

More information about the Cremorne Point Foreshore Walk can be found at the council website.  

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The post Cremorne Point Walk appeared first on The Life She Made.

Soup is a point of contention in our house. Nobody seems to like soup except me. I can have it in any form, from a brothy chicken soup to a silky pumpkin to this chunky vegetable minestrone.

As the weather cools down and the nights begin to get crisp, to me there is nothing more warm and inviting than a big steaming bowl of soup. So I said, “To hell with it, I’m making soup!” I can’t say the children ate any, but my husband pleasantly surprised me by really enjoying it.

The reason he dislikes soup so much is that when he was growing up he ate a lot of it. He’s probably exaggerating, but he says that most dinners started with soup. So I guess these days he’d much rather avoid it.

As a girl I didn’t much care for soup either. My mother used to make chicken soup all the time and the thing I hated about it was the layer of fat on top which she never removed. It was also always underseasoned. Thankfully though, I’ve grown up to crave the stuff, which is a good thing because most soup is fairly healthy. This one included.

My recipe pairs the minestrone with a fresh basil pesto. I really think in this case it’s very important to make the pesto fresh yourself rather than using a jarred one. The whole reason it works so well in this soup is the green freshness really livens up vegetables that have been simmering for a while. It’s a contrast of earthiness from the soup and green vibrancy from the basil. I think it has to be made just before serving. And really, it takes about 2 minutes to make!

INGREDIENTS

300g piece speck, cut into cubes

300-400g bacon bones

1.5L chicken stock

2 tbsp olive oil

1 brown onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 fennel bulb, diced

2 stalks celery, diced

1 large carrot, diced

1 cup chopped kale leaves

2 tablespoons tomato paste

400g can chopped tomatoes

4-5 sprigs thyme

1 bay leaf

1.5L chicken stock

salt and pepper to taste

1 x 400g tin cannelini beans, rinsed and drained

Basil Pesto

1 clove garlic, peeled

60g parmesan cheese, roughly diced

1 small packet pine nuts (70g)

1 bunch basil leaves, picked

olive oil

juice half lemon

salt and pepper to taste

METHOD

Place a large pot over medium heat and add the diced speck and bacon bones. Fry gently until the speck releases its fat and begins to brown and crisp.

Add the chicken stock (and top with extra water if needed to cover the bones) and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for around 25 minutes.

Meanwhile in another frying pan, add the olive oil along with the onion, garlic, fennel, celery, carrot, kale, thyme and the bay leaf. Fry over medium-high heat until the vegetables begin to caramelise. Pour the contents of the pan into the simmering stock. Add the tomato paste and chopped tomatoes and bring back to a simmer. Cover, leaving the lid slightly ajar and simmer for another 25-30 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender. Add the cannelini beans and cook for a minute or two to heat through. Check for seasoning and add enough salt and pepper to taste.

To serve, sprinkle a generous tablespoon of the fresh basil pesto over the top of each bowl of minestrone and stir through.

* Minestrone typically has pasta in it. I don’t eat pasta at the moment so I’ve not included it in my recipe. If you’d like to add some pasta, choose some small shapes and add around 100g of dried pasta in the last 12-15 minutes of cooking. 

Basil Pesto

Place the garlic, parmesan and pine nuts into a food processor. Whizz until finely chopped. Add the basil leaves and a little olive oil (a few good lugs). Turn on the food processor and whilst still running, add enough oil to make a loose, pesto consistency. Add some salt, pepper and lemon juice, whizzing briefly to combine.
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