A busy night for the guys in the kitchen at our Old School Kitchen Kids cooking classes yesterday, they had a lot to do. It can be hard to find the right amount of works to do, without doing it all for them but also making sure that dinner is ready when parents come to pick up!

They needed to:
Prepare the sweet potato and potato chips

Make the tomato sauce

Trim, cut and the flour egg and breadcrumb the chicken breast

Pan fry the schnitzels

Prepare to bake and get them in the oven

Make the mayo for the slaw

Cut the slaw

The nuggets recipe is in The real Food for Kids Cookbook, Mayo from Packed, tomato sauce should be in one of my book somewhere probably packed for the cannelloni or home made pizza?

Dinner was really delicious I think I heard my kids say at least 3 times each while cooking ‘I can’t wait for dinner’. Roast sweet potato, sweet potato chips anything sweet potato is my current crush, I have got some in the oven right now, lucky they are also only $2 a kilo now.

 Charlotte had her child care baby again for class, Archie was a little unsettled but lucky Charlotte had her village around her to help hold the baby and she managed to cook her dinner pretty much all on her own with a little help from the other girls.

If you are following our adventures with our Salamanca Market stall it was looking better again last week, that was week 3. I have taken the plunge (and a bit of commitment) and ordered a new commercial marquee that will hopefully arrive by the weekend, this will make the stall look a lot neater. I am thinking of a new theme for my books and classes “love the food that loves you back” what do you think? Gentle and it really is an important message, cooking our own food is always going to be the healthiest way to eat. I think that if you have been following me for a while you know I hate the evil food corporations that convince us we need to buy their poison packets But I am also VERY mindful that people are just doing the best they can. So I try to avoid preaching about how bad the processed food is and try not to “guilt” people into buying my books and we are absolutely not food perfectionists ourselves. It was hilarious at the market I was chatting to someone about the importance of cooking with real food etc and turned around and Steph was sitting down scoffing a dagwood dog, but seriously who can resist the occasion battered and fried sausage. But I do love it when I hear things like “I now get the kids to make the nuggets it is so easy” or when I have helped someone click and realises they actually don’t need to buy a whole heap of expensive ‘lunch box snacks’ they thought they needed or helping someone eat less take away by finding a few great freezer bulk dishes of mine to have in the freezer for busy nights.

We are back at the market we are at site 145, so down near Irish Murpheys but in the middle of the market next to The art of Words Studio, we are there for the next 4 weeks. Please come and say hi, buy some books for gifts and tell your friends if you do like or use the books to keep an eye out for us. The Market is looking pretty full each week for Winter it is worth a trip, lots of lovely Tassie makers and other Authors. Maybe even grab yourself one of the dagwood dogs! Or a delicious miso and garlicScallop stick

My lovely market neighbour John who has Self Published and printed in Australia a memoir of his life as a pilot. Brendan rolled his eye when I came home with yet another book, this one is on top of my to read pile.

Last night at our Old school Kitchen Kids cooking class we made Lasagna, garlic bread and pea, cabbage and fetta salad. The kids split the work up and all helped make it together this week. Making pasta is always fun with kids and who doesn’t love a good lasagne on a cold winters night? This salad is delicious and perfect when lettuce just doesn’t cut it in winter. We also had the added pressure of a child Studies baby that was on an overnighter with on of our students but little Jimmy was a perfect baby and slept until about 6.30, he did end up with a bit of food on him but that is real life!

Lasagne recipe from The Real food for Kids cookbook
salad is from Seafood Everyday, it is with grilled occy in the book
bread recipes in all my books.

We had our second stall at Salamanca on Saturday, I think the stalls look is improving? We made some signs with quotes from what people have said about my books, trying to get the message across that are great books-with recipes that work-the recipes are easy-it is more economical to cook-it is healthier to cook, in the ENTIRE 2 seconds I have while people are walking past the stall. You know a super easy task really, seeing that the evil processed food corporations have spent 50 years convincing people cooking is hard, time consuming and expensive, so that we buy there packets of crap. I go on about cost and health of cooking in Packed cookbook, this week I spent $117 at Aone Fruit market that included 4 dozen free range eggs. Pumpkin is $1.20 a kilo, a beautiful bunch of beetroot for $3 a entire bench full of lovely veggie and fruit and eggs. I’ll make some delicious meals out of that lot for the entire week with some fish, meat and chicken. Soup and an egg is an easy meal for busy kids through the week and we are using the thermos everyday for school lunches. It is an absolute lie that eating well is more expensive, we spent more on burgers for four of us for ONE meal on Saturday night. They were nice burgers but even the dodgy ones are still expensive in my opinion.

The new stall signs looked cute printed and framed and will look good if I go ahead and purchase the commercial tent for the stall, if we continue on in a more permanent and regular arrangement at this Saturday market. I offer a 2 book special for people at the market and I have now loaded that online so that tourists can order when they get home. If you order and want to pick up from Glenorchy just use the code localspickup so you don’t get charged the $10 post.