Jamie Oliver and the Busy Mum

I have been a Jamie Oliver fan for a while now. He's not as snooty as some of the other celebrity chefs out there, and I feel like not only would he be supportive of my tendency to adapt his recipes, he'd probably encourage it. It's not that I have the cheek to try and improve on a recipe by one of the world's most famous chefs, but those of you who have read my gripes about the availability of fresh produce here would know that adaptation is often a necessity.

While I was working I found it really tough to come home every night and think of something to cook for dinner. I tried desperately to be inventive and make meals that we could all eat, but most nights we turned to the old standards - spaghetti bolognese, curry from a jar, or some form of scrambled eggs. My husband, frustrated by my sensitive pregnant digestive system, refused to be responsible for important culinary decisions, after I shrieked for the dozenth time "Euurgh, I can't eat that!" And that was the status quo until one night when we happened to catch an episode of Jamie's "30 Minute Meals." I was captivated by the promise of a decent home-cooked meal on the table in half an hour, and motivated by Jamie's faith in me that I could do it too. The other books of Jamie's that I own have never let me down yet; his recipes seem do-able, and he taught me the basics of awesome pizza and simple, but oh-so-good risotto. So I bought the book and after a few trial and error attempts at one or two of the recipes, I decided to jump in feet first and planned our whole week's worth of dinners using meals from the book. I have to admit that I have yet to cook any of the meals in the promised 30 minutes, but I do not have a food processor, or a proper kitchen for that matter, and there is usually a small person hovering around my knees wanting saucepan lids to bang on while I'm cooking, so things will inevitably take a bit longer. It also helps if you have all of the main ingredients ready at the time of cooking, so you're not rushing over to the neighbour's to borrow mustard for the Mustard Chicken recipe.

My fellow Hong Konger's will know that the most ambitious part of this project of mine isn't the cooking part, it's the grocery gathering. Last night I sat down and made a list of everything I needed for the 5 or so meals I plan to cook this week, and the cupboard is pretty bare, so it was a long list! I only had time to visit one supermarket today and I knew deep down that it wouldn't be enough, but I valiantly hoped that I could at least get everything for one of the meals, for tonight's dinner. I was disappointed when I flicked through the book and found a gentle warning from Jamie that it was probably best not to mess around too much with the recipes when you first started making them. He said that they had all been tried and tested by his team and worked exactly the way they were printed in the book. Well, I'm sorry Jamie, but there was no way I was going to get my hands on Creme Fraiche today, and chicory? Forget it! I was disheartened, knowing it would be impossible to find some of the ingredients here, but I was determined to give it a shot and make it work with what I had.

I walked out of ThreeSixty with maybe two-thirds of the items on my list, and even though I knew there would be at least 2 more shops to visit this week to get everything, I was pretty pleased with that phase of the delicious dinner production process. D is away and I hate cooking for one so tonight I made Cauliflower Macaroni (sorry, couldn't find the recipe online to share it), hoping J would eat it with me. I didn't make the salad (no chicory), or the dessert (block o' chocolate will suffice), and I had to substitute bacon for pancetta, and cream for creme fraiche, but it was delicious! My 2 year-old chose chicken nuggets instead but the whole time we were eating I kept telling him he was seriously missing out, and I went back for more (and there is still a lot left over). I didn't time myself while I was cooking (I didn't need the pressure) but I have to say dinner was ready pretty quickly. Even though the whole point was to cook something tasty, quickly, cooking feels like less of a chore when the end result is that good. I figure if I can cook a decent meal on a two burner bench-top oven, in a tiny Chinese style kitchen, with equal parts enthusiasm and improvisation, in around 30 minutes, then anyone can. The most time-consuming part is the shopping, and the washing up as my husband will attest, but it's definitely worth a shot if you're super busy and looking for something a lot more interesting than spag bol for dinner during the week. And if Jamie can forgive me for messing with his recipes, and I can tolerate 3 trips to 3 different supermarkets to buy most of the required ingredients, we may just have a food revolution in our house (and more time for lazing on the sofa after dinner!).

PS: Thrilled to get a plug this week on http://digitalparents.com.au/ as 'Blogger of the Week,' Yay!

Food For Thought

After parenting and blogging, the other love in my life is food. I love cooking, and baking, and planning meals, and shopping for  food, and I especially love eating. I wrote about how important food is to me in a post last year, Love and Lasagna, and my battles to find good quality produce here in Hong Kong here. Today I'm hooked on Masterchef and seriously considering a foray into professional cooking - if only I could study something other than Chinese cuisine while I'm here. I could write a dozen different posts about food at the moment but since this isn't a food blog, I thought I'd give you a quick summary of what's happening in my kitchen and what's inspiring me lately:

Delicious Magazine - I love this magazine! A subscription is the only thing I ask for when Mother's Day is coming up, and if the postal system here wasn't so random I would be waiting by the mailbox on delivery day. I make a point to cook something from every issue and I have them all organised in chronological order next to my cookbooks. Yes, I am a food nerd.

DIY - Fed up with trying to find decent bread, we invested in a bread maker when we first arrived in HK. It spent a lot of time gathering dust in the cupboard until we realised that bread was one of the few things J will eat. We now make our own on a weekly basis; no nasties, no fuss. Our $500 HKD, second-hand Princess bread maker just bit the dust, so we're upgrading to the Kenwood BM450, a bread maker that's bigger than our oven - that's how serious we are about our bread.

We've also started making our own yoghurt. It can be messy and getting a good batch requires patience and exact measurements and mixing, but it's worth the effort, especially when you see how much added sugar goes into some of the more common commercial yoghurt brands. It's the kind of cooking once reserved for hippies, but everyone's doing it these days. DIY yoghurt is cool, people.

GIY (grow it yourself) - Our rooftop kitchen garden has taken off with the heat and humidity of the last few weeks. It's resembling a jungle more than a garden at the moment but we're loving it. So far we've only managed to harvest herbs, zucchini flowers and some rock-star quality beans, but we'll soon have a bumper crop of tomatoes and the pumpkins won't be far behind. I'm excited about food in a way that I haven't been in a long time, and there's nothing more rewarding than sitting down to a meal with ingredients that you've grown from scratch on a hot rooftop (where, by rights, nothing should grow).

Going Vege - We've been talking for a long time about eating less meat. All the meat we can buy here is imported from somewhere, and it's hard to know what's ok to eat and what's full of hormones, antibiotics, and animal cruelty. I also have to wonder how long it's been sitting at the airport or on a truck, between leaving its country of origin and arriving on my supermarket shelf...  When we buy Australian beef I think about the good quality beef I used to buy at Coles, and I know they use the crap stuff for export. When we buy beef from South America I think about the swathes of Amazon rainforest that have been cut down for farming, and I can't stomach the thought of anything other than free-range, organic, corn-fed chicken. I spent 10 minutes in the egg section of the supermarket last week, trying to decide whether the 'free-range' eggs were better than the 'vegetarian' eggs. Were the corn-fed chickens kept in cages? And what were they feeding the free-range chooks that made them not-vegetarian...? Not to mention how expensive imported food is in general. I grew up in the country where we would see the sheep in the paddock one day and be served a roast lamb the next. I've always made an effort to know where my food comes from, but the process involved in getting it from the paddock to my plate has always made me squeamish, and more than a little uncomfortable. My husband bought a vegetarian cookbook recently and we've been enjoying coming up with new ways to eat our favourite dishes without meat. Until now I haven't quite been able to completely make the break from steak, but over the weekend I caught some of the footage of Aussie cows being slaughtered rather inhumanely in Indonesia, and finally decided my meat-eating days were behind me. I feel better for it, physically and morally, but I'd probably be laughed out of any professional kitchen if I rocked up for an apprenticeship and told them I was a vegetarian, "sigh".

Finding Familiar Favourites - When you're an expat you find that the things you once took for granted are the things you miss the most. Every month one of the local supermarket chains has an international food week, and this month happened to be Australian Food Week. Yay! So I was thrilled to find Arnott's Shapes, Scotch Fingers and Assorted Creams, Brookfarm muesli, Caramello Koalas and Vita Brits on the shelves, and they're now in my cupboard at home. I also discovered a range of gourmet cordials that I'd never heard of, which are great mixed with soda water on these hot summer nights. I've tried a lot of great, new products from all over the world since living here, but nothing beats having a tin of biscuits in the cupboard that are exactly the same as the ones you used to sneak from the tin at Nanna's house.

Family Dining - Our J bird is a fussy eater sometimes. He has his favourites, but like most toddlers, he's not all that keen on vegetables. I've had to get creative to get him to eat well, and most of the time that involves hiding vegetables and meat in things like baked beans. I've also made sure that everything that's available to him (with the exception of Scotch Fingers) is relatively healthy; whole grain bread, organic baked beans, natural yoghurt etc. I've also brought in a new regime this week, with the three of us eating dinner together at the table, with the TV off. He's more inclined to eat something if he sees us eating it as well, so it's a no-brainer really. I haven't forced him to adopt vegetarianism, because that would be irresponsible I think, so dinner last night was vegetable bolognaise with spaghetti, and a few meatballs thrown in for the blokes of the house. After some subtle persuasion, and much ignoring of his protests about the TV being off, dinner went down a treat. J does love his fruit and having so much of it in the house means that we're eating more of it too. I still sat down, after J was in bed, and tucked into a packet of Pepperidge Farm Cookies, but I'd had at least 2 pieces of fruit during the day and a salad for lunch, so I felt like I'd earned a treat. And because food should be fun.

Being Inspired - There are a lot of foodie websites out there, and some great recipes online. If there's something specific I want to cook and my Delicious collection doesn't have the answers, I hit the web.

Here are some of my favourite food sites (in no particular order):
http://smittenkitchen.com/ - she's a foodie and a mum, I love this website!
http://allthingsnice.typepad.com/tastebuddies/ - loved her zucchini flower recipe recently
The Cook and The Chef - a great show, and Maggie Beer is one of my food idols
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/ - a huge catalogue of recipes from some of Britain's best chefs
http://www.taste.com.au/ - should be on everyone's bookmarked list

and for the parents:

http://www.annabelkarmel.com/
http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/

Have a great week everyone, and please check back in tomorrow for a brand new regular feature - Top Tip Tuesday.

* Photo courtesy of Suat Eman, FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Grass is Always Greener

I had a bad day in Hong Kong yesterday. The kind of day that makes me want to pack my bags and take my little boy with me somewhere far away. You'll be pleased to know that I have resolved those issues today over tea, an almond croissant and the latest issue of Red magazine. When I'm mad at this crazy city I have to remind myself that although the issues I have here might be unique to Hong Kong, there were days when I hated Sydney and wanted to pack my bags.

While I was at uni, and for two years after, I lived in the city of Canberra. For those of you who don't know it, it's allegedly the capital of Australia, but it's really just a flat, boring, large country town. It did offer me a great deal at the time but once I had graduated I felt elation every time I left, and was literally sick at the thought of going back. Nothing sunk my heart faster than stepping off the plane at Canberra airport. It never felt like home. In fact I think I can say it felt less like home than Hong Kong does sometimes. Sydney was a complete contrast. It was vibrant and exciting and moving there on my own at 22 was just about the bravest thing a girl from the country could do (the only thing scarier was moving to Hong Kong, but I at least had the commonsense not to do that alone). Sydney definitely felt like home, but it was a hard place to live. People who grow up in Sydney aren't that interested in getting to know people who didn't. It was as if they had all the friends they were ever going to need and there were no vacancies. I tried lots of different things to meet people; yoga classes, art classes and extra uni tutorial sessions. None of it made any difference. My first year there was the loneliest year of my life and so many times I wanted to, yep you guessed it, pack my bags, but the city itself fit me like a glove. I couldn't walk away. It wasn't until I met my husband, and he introduced me to his friends, that I felt like I had a group of great people around me. Ironically almost none of them were originally from Sydney, and we had a fabulous time together.

The city did have other downsides. Being from the country I found Sydney chaotic and overwhelming at times, and I needed to go back to my parent's place every few months for some peace and quiet. The first flat D and I lived in together was on the ground floor of an old building in Coogee, a block away from the main road. We had people above us and people beside us, and our bedroom was right next to the building's driveway. Our street was a shortcut for people coming home from the pub at night, and in the summer, every night was pub night. There was never a time of day when it wasn't noisy. In the summer, as well as the late night revellers, there were innumerable tourists clogging the footpaths, littering the street with their takeaway containers and baring all on the beach. It drove me mad! We eventually moved to a quieter neighbourhood, in a suburb without a pub. Naturally there were problems in this area too... We lived on a fairly narrow street, just around the corner from a local primary school. The school was in a cul-de-sac so every day at 8am our street would be packed with mums and kids in SUV's trying to get around each other to get as close to the school as possible. And you could forget trying to get a park out the front anytime between 2-4pm.

I know I often complain about the lack of fresh produce here in Hong Kong and I pine for a Coles or a farmer's market down the road but if I'm really honest, most days getting to the supermarket in Sydney was a pain in the butt. Here on South Lantau, on a weekday, I can leave here, drive to Mui Wo, do the shopping and drive home again in the space of an hour. In Sydney, with the shopping centre much closer than Mui Wo is to here, it would take at least 2 hours. By the time I battled the traffic, circled the carpark 40 times, made my way around the enormous supermarket, made it to the end of the queue and explained to the 12 year old on the checkout the difference between zucchini and cucumber, found my car in the basement, battled the traffic again to get home, hours had passed. Most days, unless I was desperate, I made do with whatever I had in the house to avoid going through all that. A trip to the supermarket was a surefire way to elevate my blood pressure beyond healthy limits, and a great way to waste 2 hours. My husband and I joked that Bondi Junction Westfield was like a vacuum - you went in to get milk and emerged 4 hours later, with no idea where the time went. I can't imagine what that would be like with a child in tow!

So whenever I'm frustrated by the fact that I can't find hummus anywhere, or someone cuts in front of me in a queue, or when the air quality is so bad you can smell it, and I'm really missing home, these are the things I think about. And I feel a little bit better.

Where has all the Hummus Gone?

A minor crisis has occupied my thoughts this week: I have not been able to buy hummus for about 3 weeks now. It’s not an essential part of our weekly diet but I do like it as a snack now and then, and I have been looking for it every time I go to the supermarket. I can’t find it at Taste, Wellcome, Park N’ Shop or threesixty. I thought I was going mad but a friend brought it up today so I know it’s not just me that’s noticed. Most days I can walk into any supermarket and buy yoghurt from the UK, cheese from New Zealand, pears from South Africa and beef from Australia, so I do. But then there are days, I guess between shipments, that I can’t buy any of the above and I have to either drive to another supermarket (sometimes 2 or 3 more) or have pizza for dinner. Sometimes things are out of stock for weeks, or they're available in bulk for a limited time and then they're gone forever. You never know from one week to the next whether or not you're going to be able to get everything you need. Some days I can't even get milk. It’s probably obvious by now that I really like food, and I love cooking, so this is a big problem for me.

In Sydney we lived in the Eastern Suburbs and my local shopping centre was a Westfield, where I could get everything I needed, and lots of things I didn’t, under the one roof. I loved being able to buy fresh produce, imported delicacies and gourmet treats whenever I wanted. Don’t misunderstand me, I was never a caviar and smoked salmon type, but I have always been very specific about what I eat (my husband would say I’m a fussy eater, I prefer discerning). For example, spaghetti bolognaise tastes better with freshly grated parmesan on top and hot, crusty pane di casa on the side. When I make an Indian curry I want raita and pappadums and mango chutney. I have never in my life cooked with watercress or celeriac but I loved the fact that I could get them at my local Coles if I wanted to. Hong Kong has proven a challenge in this respect because almost nothing is grown here; there’s no room. A lot of produce comes from China but you can never be certain that it’s not been covered in pesticides or pumped full of antibiotics and hormones. I may sound neurotic but I think the fruit and vegies from China taste different, and I’m sure when it comes to meat, animal welfare is not an issue. So, we rely on imported foods most of the time. They are fairly readily available, just not in the same quantities or varieties we’re accustomed to. We’ve had to compromise a lot and be a bit more creative. We used to eat veal and lamb at least once a week, now it’s a rare treat. We eat a lot of spaghetti bolognaise, minus the bread, and we’ve accepted that to eat well we need to pay a premium. This issue has never been more of a problem than it is now I have a baby to feed. I want my son to eat well and I’m determined to make as much of his food myself as I can. I may sound a bit pretentious but when I can I buy imported organic vegetables or D shops when he’s away and brings things back. It’s not ideal but it’s worth the effort, and things like nappies and cleaning products actually cost significantly less elsewhere than they do here.

When it comes to imported fruit and vegies the level of freshness is hit and miss. The food has travelled a long way and who knows how long it sat in the back of a plane before it hit the supermarket shelves? (Don’t get me started on our carbon footprint – that’s a discussion for another day). We seem to waste so much food here, which makes me sad, but most of the time it’s almost out of date before you put it in your trolley. On the other hand there is something to be said for having less of everything. I remember going to a supermarket on our last trip to Australia and being completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of choice available to us. Fruits, vegetables and meat were piled high in great quantities and I was almost embarrassed by the excess of it all. It seemed so unnecessary and I wondered how much of it was thrown out at the end of the day.

On Saturday I went to Taste, the largest supermarket on Lantau island, and I could not get pears, yoghurt, curry paste or the baby cereal J likes. I was incredibly frustrated and had a bit of tantrum if I’m being completely honest. Part of me feels like it’s arrogant of me to expect to be able to maintain my culinary lifestyle in a foreign country, in an Asian country no less. If I was willing to embrace a diet of rice, pork and Chinese vegetables I’d be able to find what I wanted at the supermarket 100% of the time. That might be oversimplifying the local cuisine quite a bit but I hope you get my point. Ironically I can buy vegemite, Tim Tams and Aussie beef sausages at my local Wellcome, a tiny village supermarket. There are also foods available here that I never would have bought before. Things like kale, quinoa and aloe vera juice are new things we’ve tried. As I already mentioned products on the supermarket shelves come from all over the world and I have been introduced to so many different brands. I have become quite attached to certain biscuits, cereals and pasta sauces, and will miss them when we leave Hong Kong. I also noticed that there are many more organic products available here and there’s a real effort to stock eco conscious and fair-trade products. 

On the days when I take my sense of humour to the supermarket I get a kick out of trying to track down the items on my list; it’s a bit like a treasure hunt. On other days I sound a lot like a spoiled expat, but all I really want is to have my hummus and eat it too.

Love and Lasagna

In my family growing up we were never big on saying I love you. It wasn’t until I left home and my parents feared I may never come back that they started saying it more often. Even today sometimes my dad still throws it in very quickly between other pieces of conversation; “ok, talk to you next weekend, love you (cough), bye.” We were more of an “actions speak louder than words” family and a lot of the time we said, “I care” with food. One of the greatest lessons my mum taught me was a love and respect for good food. We never had chocolate, chips or lollies in the house and if we did it was a rare treat. I think the worst we got fed in our house was white bread as my father flatly refused to eat “bird seed.” As a kid I thought Mum was pretty mean but she set me up for a lifetime of healthy eating, and I have tried to do the same with my son (so far!).

Even when times were tough we always had 3 decent meals a day and still today there are foods I associate with certain times and celebrations. Carrot juice, always vile and swallowed in one gulp while pinching your nose, was to prevent a cold. When that didn’t work we were fed chicken and corn soup and a disgusting garlic, honey and lemon drink. I sometimes pretended I wasn’t sick to avoid the medicinal flavours of that particular concoction, but the thing was; it actually worked! The soup was also great for broken hearts and exam stress. There was minestrone on cold winter days, veal schnitzel and chips in front of the TV, and nothing says, “I missed you, welcome home” like a roast lamb with all the trimmings when I came home from uni on weekends. Sausages with tomato and onion gravy, mashed potato and peas is a dish of mum’s I still crave from time to time, it reminds me so much of home. When I was in high-school Mum worked in the evenings for a few years and Dad would do his best to feed us a home-cooked meal on those nights. Chops and vegies were pretty standard and for some reason the smell of a pot that’s boiled dry reminds me of those days. I think Dad was pretty pleased, as were we, when KFC opened up down the road!

The one dish that united us all, that everyone requested when the family got together was Mum’s lasagna. You could count on it being exactly the same every time and there was always enough to feed a dozen people, with leftovers. Mum would make a big batch of it and freeze it for me to take back to uni with me. I lived on it for weeks at a time. Whenever there was a new baby or someone was in hospital a lasagna would be delivered so they wouldn’t have to worry about dinner. My mum also taught me to cook, for which I will be forever grateful, and I have carried on the tradition of saying “I love you” with food. I think it’s the reason why I’m so obsessed with cooking for J. I don’t care if he throws his mushy peas and parsnip at me, or if I end up feeding him porridge for dinner, at the end of the day I prepared and pureed his meal with love, and it’s that principle that counts. My recipes might be a little different to Mum’s but the sentiment is the same.