We tend to eat 'clean' here in the moveable house. 

And by clean, I mean as little processed crap as possible. Of course, we have a freezer full of chocolate, and there's 3 boxes of Krispy Creme sitting on our bench after the trip to Canberra; I mean we aren't strict, we simlpy prefer to eat well. (Which means we tend to shop from the edges of the supermarket rather than the middle isles. Very little that is good foor you is found in the middle isles of the supermarket.) 

Last nights dinner was steak and salad. In summer, I like to add fruit to our salads. It seems to make them crisp, light and refreshing. 

Last night we had watermelon and rocket salad. Which is just rocket, a few finely chopped mint leaves, balls of watermelon, cucumber, danish feta and cooked proscuito. (If it was just me eating it I would have also added some sliced black olives, but I am the only one in this house that eats olives so I omitted them.) The dressing is balsamic vinegar, runny strawberry jam, salt, pepper, a sprinkle of sugar if needed and olive oil.  A friend of mine got a thermomix lately and has been making all sorts of stuff in it. She made strawberry jam and gifted a jar of it to me. It's rather runny for a jam, but makes a nice sauce. So I fgured it would work well in salad dressing and it did. 

I have no picture. It was demolished at break-neck speed. 

But breakfast this morning is not a clean meal. Not by a long shot. (And it's something I rarely eat, but the family loves it, so I endeavor to make it at least once a fortnight) We're having Dutch Pancakes.  My pancake mix is a little different to regular pancake mix. 

1/2 cup of condensed milk

3/4 cup of hot water

(I mix these two ingredients first, then go have a cup of tea while it cools. I usually make a double mix because my boys are pigs, so to save time I add 3/4 cup of hot water and mix then add 3/4 cup of cold water from the fridge.) 

To that I add

20grams of melted butter

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

1 cup of plain flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 egg. 

(Even when I double the mix, I still only use one egg. But that's because we have our own chickens and they lay massive eggs. so depending on the size of the eggs you buy, you may need to experiement.) 

I mix it all up and pour it into a large squeezy bottle.  This is just easier for use with the dutch pancake hot plate. Melted butter on the plate is super yummy, but I just use spray oil to cook the pancakes. They are quite small bite sized rounds of pancake. My plate makes 14 at a time. With this mix you can get 6 plates out of it. I usually double it because the man will eat 4 plates worth on his own. With cream and maple syrup. My little guy will eat 2 plates worth (sometimes 3) but he likes his with melted butter and cinnamon sugar. (They taste like donuts when you eat it like that.) On the rare occasion that I do eat pancakes, I like mine with lemon juice and sugar. 

So a double mix will make 12 plates of 14 mini-cakes. (we usually do have some left over and they are delicious eaten like pikelets with jam and butter.) 

If I get the chance to take a pic before they gobble them up, I will. 

(If I make this on a weekday morning, I make the mix up the night before. I used to put it in the fridge overnight, but the mix would go a little weird sometimes so I only put it in the fridge over night now on really hot nights. But these pancakes are surprisingly quick and easy to make. Its the prep work that takes the most time.) 

Not a good pic, but this is what 1 plate of naked dutch pancakes looks like. 

(Note, this is a side plate not a dinner plate.)

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11/9 '14 18 Comments

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That makes me smile! I haven't made them in a really long time. I probably should.
Mmmm, I want that salad! I'd eat the version with the olives in it.
I'd make it for you with olives and share it. Anytime.

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I am so lucky all my kids are adventurous with tasting food. (I read somewhere once that it takes kids ten times of tasting a food to develop a taste for it.) My only food rule is that if I make I expect to you to eat at least ONE decent bite. And I will dish it up to you a few times before admitting defeat and not putting it on your plate again! (So far there are only a few foods Jake, my youngest and most pickiest, won't eat. He won't eat eggplants, avocado, olives or anchovies. Not an unreasonable list.)

We eat as little grains here too. I have suffered from bowel and digestive disorders all my life and my boys seem to suffer some also. As they've gotten older (Matt is 16 now) they seem to be able self regulate and know when they have eaten too much processed crap. Matt will occasionally say to me that he needs a couple days bread free. Breaking them of the need for sandwiches is hard. Plus it creates more work for me (and them) with the need to make an actual lunch. They do eat 2 minute noodles (much to my disgust, but I buy the bloody things for them and really, they're as bad as bread) I do try to make bulk meals that double as lunches. So I make things like tuna and rice (which is a little like mornay) that every one can reheat for lunch, or large scale salads with meat, or frittata's. Sometimes I'll make sushi and rice paper rolls. It just depends on how much time I have.

I'd rather myself and my kids to be eating full fats than processed sugars. Since Jake hasn't had an asthma attack in the past 3 years, I have switched from lite milk to full cream. (The fat content in milk is an asthma trigger.)
When food has labels like gluten free or sugar free or fat free, it's screaming at you 'this is a chemical shit storm.' My body really struggles with artificial sweeteners. (So I hear you with the gluten thing, we were gluten free for a long time since most wheat based products are basically glue it clogs your system horribly, but I found after time, even eating gluten free substitutes were still causing me problems. So I just gave up most grain based foods.)

Ah, the duvet cover. I turn my cover inside out. I put the corners of the duvet (what we call a Doona) with the corners of the inside out cover. (So put your arms inside the inside out cover right to the corners and grab the corners of the duvet or get someone else to do that part) then pull the cover over and down, it will be in the right way and there's a lot less struggle. (Not sure I am describing that right. Next time I change the duvet cover I'll make a video for you.)

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I'll have to have a look at those recipes. (I love food too.)
I adore Amanda Doherty's clean eating recipes. She's an Australian IFBB Figure Professional athlete. (and she's a mum of four. I am in awe of her.)

I try to menu plan as much as possible which saves me heaps of time (and money). It helps that all three of my kids can cook, so they help out. I get home from work around 6pm and that's when I work out. So if they have a menu plan to go off they'll see what's for dinner tonight and prep any part I haven't already prepped and then cook it. Occasionally this will mean there's a dinner here and there that are inedible in some way but I am determined they will all be able to have a diverse range of meals they can cook when they leave home. (Bella made chilli rissoles last night with veggies. The veggies were good but the rissoles were inedible. Matt called them meat biscuits and Jake called them rocks. But she rarely has a mishap. (Which is just as well since she's kitchen boss at her workplace!!)

I often marvel at how much food my boys can inhale.
I'm making a breakfast casserole for them on Friday for breakfast. There won't be any leftovers. (Which is a shame because it's really delicious) As you may have noticed, our breakfasts tend to be our higher fat, higher carb, less clean meals. I try very hard to live by the saying Breakfast like a King, Lunch like a Lord and Dinner like a Pauper. (Says she who usually ends up having a cup of tea and maybe a fruit smoothie of some kind while dishing up platefuls of food for the family.) I struggle to eat. I am rarely hungry. I can actually forget to eat. If not for being a Mum, I could probably go a couple of days before needing to eat.

I love making frittatas. I make mine lower fat by using a tin of creamed corn instead of cream. And I like baking them in muffin tins so I can make individual serves. One frittata muffin and a side salad. (I had to do a double take reading your earlier comment, I forgot you guys call rocket, arugula.)
Jakes favourite blended juice is just watermelon in the blender with some mint leaves. (Sometimes I add soda water to make it fizz)

In summer I chop all our fruit into bite sized pieces and freeze them. Convenient healthy snack. (Also frozen grapes are an awesome way to keep a glass of wine cool without watering it down.) It never ceases to amaze me how a piece of frozen banana tastes like ice cream. I'd rather my kids eat sugar in the form of fructose than highly processed, corn syrupy and in packaged foods.

Raw Vege sticks with tzatziki is another favourite. My kids lament the lack of potatoes in this house. we don't eat them often. (We all love them.) Twice baked potatoes is another breakfast food we love.
Tuna and rice is easy and convenient. I find I use a few different types of cheeses in it now. The family won't let me add veggies to it. (So I don't tend to eat it. It sits heavy in my stomach for a really long time.) I don't eat a lot of hard yellow cheeses. I prefer to eat soft white ones. I love mixing a small tin of tuna with a small tub of cottage cheese and chives.

Apparently I can talk about food forever.
Frozen grapes in wine? You're a genius! I have to try that!
Wish I could take the credit for it but a friend in Darwin would put them in our wine when we would have our weekly get together. I make wine slashes when it's really hot. I just pour a glass of wine into a plastic cup and put it in the freezer. Then I scrape it into my wine glass and viola, wine slushy. Tacky? yes, but so enjoyable.
Archer would love that watermelon smoothie. I want to make a list of all these recipes. We don't prep ahead and we really should - I'm getting bored with our usual run of meals, but I am happy with the cold weather addition of crock pot chili.

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Also ... tell me more. Tell me about all the meals you make. We need more ideas! Roasting veggies (that idea came partially from you and partially from my sister-in-law) was a great one. Easy and delicious and fresh not frozen veggies. We do a lot of frozen veggies, but only beans and black olives out of cans.
Frozen veggies can be healthier for you than fresh ones at times. (when they freeze veggies they are frozen extremely close to when they were harvested so the nutrient value is much higher than fresh veggies you buy in the supermarket.) All vegetables start to lose nutritional value fro the moment they are picked. So never beat yourself up for using frozen veggies. And even canned and pickled veggies are still better for you than eating processed foods.

I love roasting veggies. And things like roasted sweet potatoes can be thrown into a salad so if I ever have left overs I keep them. (My favourite pizza ever was a homemade one J made me. He used the left overs from our lamb roast the night before. Instead of pizza sauce he used mint jelly and put chunks of roast lamb and roasted veggies all over the base. He didn't use any cheese. It didn't need it.)

I need to bookmark this post. We don't make anything that takes over 30 minutes to prepare (except on weekends) but our menu items are more pre-prepped food than I would like.

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I don't often put cheese in my frittatas. When I do it's usually cottage cheese, ricotta or feta. I barely make mine with a crust. (But I live with a man who lives by the same motto as my Dad 'Real men don't eat quiche" so if I put a crust on it, it's a quiche and no, I can't put a lid on it and call it a pie. A pie has meat and gravy) the closest I can do to a crust is to use salami slices to line the mini muffin trays and put spoons of the egg and veg mix into those! But I would love to know how you make a polenta crust. (I love polenta)
I love ALL olives. Archer loves the canned black olives that you can eat off your fingers, but that's it, no kalamata, no green. Oh well, at least he likes some olives.