Here’s some Pancake Recipe suggestions I shared on Facebook.com/4ingredientspage today. Appropriately it’s Pancake Tuesday but my family also like to eat them on any other day ending in ‘y’ 

CITRUS PANCAKES

1 cup self raising flour
1 cup milk
1 egg
1 whole orange

Mix the flour, milk and egg until a nice smooth batter forms. Add to the mixture the zest from an entire orange. Mix thoroughly and dollop onto a non-stick frying pan over medium-low heat. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes or until it bubbles before you flip it over. Serve with Citrus in-fused maple syrup by steeping a little orange and lemon peel in 1 cup of maple syrup … Yummy!

NB: I love this basic recipe, as it requires NO ADDED SUGAR, you are sweetening naturally with the zest of the orange.

BLUEBERRY PANCAKES

1 cup self raising flour
1 cup soy milk
1 egg
200g / 7 oz. fresh, plump blueberries

Combine the first 3 ingredients in a bowl, add the blueberries and mix well. Cook in ¼ cup portions in a non-stick frying pan over a medium-low heat. Wait for bubbles to appear before flipping and cooking the underside.

Optional: Add half a teaspoon of nutmeg to the batter.

CINNAMON PANCAKES

1 cup self raising flour
1 cup milk
1 egg
1 tbsp. cinnamon

Lightly whisk all the ingredients together. Heat a small non-stick frying pan, pour in enough batter to coat most of the base and over a medium heat cook until bubbles form. Flip and cook until golden on the underside.

Optional: Serve drizzled with honey or as in the following picture topped with the deliciousness of Caramelised Bananas ~ OMG! They are soooooooo good; butter, brown sugar and bananas in a frying pan = HEAVEN!

I do a lot of public speaking; Corporate events, P & O Cruises, Food & Wine Expos from Brisbane AUS to Bermingham UK last year, and one constant is the comment “Oh! You are soooo lucky!” 

“Yes”  I reply  “there has been some luck along the way, but I am where I am because of one thing and ONE BIG THING ONLY … HARD WORK!”

Life presents many opportunities to us all, but having the courage and the time to purse them in what is an ever increasingly busy, demanding world is hard. But let me be the proof you need (as I sit here at 12.10am on a Sunday night with hours of work to complete before daybreak) that you can achieve whatever you want in life with a great idea and lots and LotS and LOTS of HARD WORK!

In parting tonight, I leave you with a diagram that I feel best sums up my continuing journey toward success … As we say fondly here in Australia “It’s a cracker!”

With that, I served a cheese board. It was simple cheese board but drew comments about the two cheeses I used (Brie and Peppered Cheddar) and the accompaniments (crackers and grapes).

When throwing together a cheese board I heed the advice from p. 36 of 4 Ingredients Christmas

* Compliment a soft cheese with a hard cheese

* Allow a minimum of 50g of cheese per person when serving cheese at the start of a meal or as a nibble and 100g at the end

* Provide a variety of crackers / breads as accompaniments to the cheese

* Provide some fresh fruit, grapes especially, to refresh the palette and compliment the cheese

* Never serve cheese straight from the fridge!Cold temps can make even the tastiest, ripest (and most expensive) cheeses taste bland.

Sticking to these little pearls of wisdom will have you effortlessly creating a simple, welcomed indulgence when next you have guests over … The best thing, to create it, you don’t even have to turn on the oven 

• Meatloaf; and there are SOOOO many quick and easy ways to change the flavour of what is essentially made with mince, eggs and breadcrumbs
• Shepherd’s Pie
• Baked Ravioli
• Lasagne
• Chilli con carne
• Minestrone Soup (check out the one in Baby Bowl … Soooo good)!
• Casseroles
• Stews
• Beef Stroganoff
• Sloppy Joes
• Savoury Mince
• and of course … Spaghetti Bolognaise

When researching for Baby Bowl, here are some handy tips I learnt along the way … Let me know if you find any of them helpful?

Foods NOT TO FREEZE

• Creamy and Milky dishes (although cream with greater than 40% fat is fine to freeze)
• Fruit high in water content eg.,
o Watermelon
o Strawberries
• Vegetables high in water content eg.,
o Lettuce
o Celery
• Foods thickened with cornflour and flour, instead foods thickened with arrowroot are perfect for freezing.

TIPS WHEN FREEZING & THAWING FOOD

Bread the main thing is not to let any air or moisture in or any moisture out, as this will cause freezer burn. Wrap bread carefully in freezer bags or tightly seal it in its own bag.

Butter can be frozen for up to 8 months without any change in texture.

Eggs can be stored in the freezer perfectly for up to 9 months. Never freeze eggs in their shells, as they will burst, but store them cracked open in airtight containers for the best results (I didn’t know this, nor have I ever done it, but I found the fact interesting)!

Fruit and veggies will keep for around 6-8 months in the freezer, this means that you can have summer fruits and vege, that have been picked at their most juiciest, plump and flavoursome, in the winter and winter fruits and vege, picked at their prime, in the heat of the summer … At this time of year in Oz, think mangoes!

Herbs can be frozen for several months. They will lose their texture, becoming soggy and limp, yet their flavour and nutrients are retained. This means that they will be perfect for soups, stews, sauces and most cooked dishes, but not for garnishes!

Meat, a raw product will fare better in the freezer than a cooked one, as much needed moisture has already been lost through the cooking process.
The best way to defrost meat, is to place it wrapped in the refrigerator to thaw, with a tray beneath to catch the drippings. The slow thawing allows the meat to reabsorb much of the moisture, helping to keep it tender when cooking.

What made me do this is that I was pondering how many lunchboxes I had to pack, if today was DAY 1 of my boy’s new year at school ?

Excluding weekends and holidays, that gives me about 200 odd days of school, multiply x 2 for two boys, and that’s a LOT OF LUNCHBOXES!

Here are some of my kid’s CURRENT favourites:

Mr M

• Egg & Bacon Muffin with a trickle of BBQ sauce
• Chicken, lettuce and mayo sandwiches with a little chopped dried apricot mixed in
• Easy M & M slice (this is the BOMB, its just sooo easy to make)!
• Frozen juice

Mr H

Mmmmm … Mr H doesn’t like sandwiches so he’s a tough one!

• A variety of rice crackers, cheese and slim carrot sticks
• Yoghurt tubs
• Grapes
• Watermelon cubes
• Chocolate Brownies

With H I always offer up new varieties of fruit. I’ll cube it, slice it, ball it and cut it into sticks or wedges to encourage him to dip it into his yoghurt … It’s a challenge and somedays I’m like “Won’t you just try a vegemite and cheese sandwich …. PLEEEEASE!”

Let me know what works for you?

Our greeting conversation went like this;

“H, how was your day champ?”

“Mum! They were the BEST chocolate thingy’s EVER in my lunchbox today, can you give me them again tomorrow?”

Not once, but THREE times he bought up the ‘Chocolate thingy’s” in conversation on our trip home … When we got home, I got them from the fridge, made him “close your eyes and hold out your hands” and popped a chockie crackle into it! He was SOOOO HAPPY you’d swear he’d just won LOTTO!

My hubby and I got caught up in the hysteria and decided to eat one to, then another, then (just kiddin’ we stopped at two)!

3 Simple ingredients and here they are …

CHOCOLATE CRACKLES

Makes 24

A quick, easy and truly delicious recipe from the beautiful Melanie Roberts.

• 200g milk chocolate
• 100g butter
• 3 cups (240g) coco pops

In a large, heavy based saucepan over a low heat melt together chocolate and butter. Set aside and cool. Meanwhile, line two mini-muffin trays with cupcake papers. Stir the coco pops into the melted mixture, coating thoroughly. Divide the yummy mixture evenly among the papers and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Here is one of my favourites from 4 Ingredients Fast Fresh & Healthy … Fast & Fabulous!

Serves 4. A recipe from Suzanne Bradley that is a weekly staple … It’s scrummy!

120g mixed salad
2 chicken breasts, sliced
1/4 cup sesame oil
1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter

Place salad on a long rectangular serving plate. Grill the chicken in the hot sesame oil for 2-3 minutes each side or until tender. Remove from heat and rest to cool before laying on top of the salad. Microwave peanut butter with 2 tbs. of water stirring every 30 seconds until runny. Drizzle over chicken and salad.

Optional: Can use Chinese cabbage, finely shredded, and a variety of freshly chopped vegetables for extra colour and texture. 

This recipe and 400 MORE are available in 4 Ingredients Fast Fresh & Healthy, a cookbook we co-authored with Deepak Chopra, one of the world’s leading authorities on Mind, Body, Health.

1,1,1,1 CAKE

1 cup (120g) coconut
1 cup (250ml) milk
1 cup (200g) caster sugar
1 cup (175g) self raising flour

Preheat oven 180C. Place all ingredients in a bowl and mix. Line a loaf tin with baking paper and pour mixture in. Bake for 40 minutes.
Optional: Serve warm with butter or cold with cream cheese icing … Deliciously SIMPLE

Available from 4 Ingredients 2 p. 48 and our iApp on iTunes for just AUD$2.99

4 Ingredients KIDS is a compilation of new and trusted recipes. Each of these has been taste tested by my children, my neighbours’ children, my nephews and friend’s children, parents, grandparents and essentially, any other stranger whom I could forge an unbiased opinion out of!

Our family favourites are Bacon & Cheese Patties (page 75); Dinosaur Eggs (page 160); Chicken Carnival Cones (page 156) and Spaghetti Cupcakes (page 117).

The beauty of 4 Ingredients KIDS is that like each of the cookbooks in the series, there are only 4 or less ingredients in a recipe, there are just 4 or fewer instructions to each method, and you will need very few utensils. This book is designed for children to take an interest in homemade cooking, discover tastes, learn the basic skills of cooking and above all, eat well and ENJOY themselves as kids should!

I hope you and your family receive as much satisfaction and fun from this book as we have.

Happy holidays to you all and be safe. Kim xo