Home safe and sound!

Happiness is having my other half home

I am happy to say Frankie’s best friend Ines and her family are safely back home from Tokyo. 

Now I can stop focusing on the news and their safety and instead focus on making Ines a yummy welcome home dinner!

Frank had no idea Ines was coming home!

It’s been a big day for the girls. An early start (picking them up from the airport) followed by hard core playing…all day!

So they need something nourishing to fill their little belly’s before I tuck them in for a good nights sleep.

I have salmon in the fridge that I bought yesterday (from my favourite fish monger ‘Barry’ from the best fish shop 'The one that got away') at the fox studio farmers market.

I’m off to the shop to get some ginger which I need to make my marinade for my salmon. 

I will then cook my rice and steam the broccoli.

While the girls played I prepared the marinade – in a bowl I put:

½ cup of soya or tamari

2 tablespoons of either agave or honey

The juice of one lemon

2 garlic cloves minced

A 2 -3cm knob of ginger grated very finely

And chilli (for adults only)

You’ll need:

2 salmon pieces with skin removed around 500g in weight, cut up in cubes or small pieces.

Pop these in the marinade and leave, covered in the fridge 'til it’s time to cook.

Lets make the rice:

You’ll need: 

1 cup of rice

2 cups of water

1 tablespoon of oil

Step by step rice cooking

Get your saucepan and put the oil in, followed by the rice.

Let this toast a little stirring constantly, you will see the rice getting a little opaque. 

When this happens pour your water over the rice (being careful as the water will hit the hot rice and a lot of steam will rise). 

Bring the rice back up to boil and let it bubble until the water has almost gone (this will take around 10min) then turn it down to the lowest heat, pop the lid on and simmer till all the water is gone and the rice, when forked, separates. (Another 5-8min)

Then leave covered till serving at least 10 mins.

While the rice is cooking you can prepare whatever vegies your kids will eat, tonight at our house it’s broccoli, red capsicum and carrots.

I must admit, I had to do a few broccoli monsters tonight (this is where I make up a story about this world famous broccoli monster who loves there broccoli so much that they always eat it, and I never find out who they are because when I turn around, it has always disappeared from my hand - my kids and every other kid that comes to my house wants me to do this, I've now taught Jemima how to pull it off with absolute perfection) …but that said everyone ate their broccoli without to much fuss!

Rice and vegies ready. 

I put my skillet on to warm up and when it was smoking hot I pan-fried my salmon pieces in a tablespoon of olive oil. They will only take a minute on each side. Once you have placed them in the pan you will have to turn them over.

I didn’t do this tonight because I ran out of time, but usually I would strain the marinade and bring it to the boil and cook for about 15 min till it's kind of syrupy and then pour over the salmon and rice – Yum!

Tonight we just had soya sauce which my kids were more than happy with.

Ines' dinner (left) & Frank's dinner (right)

The kid’s table looked like this tonight:

Mima – salmon, rice, broccoli, capsicum and carrots

Ines – leftover Bolognese with kamut pasta shells, broccoli, capsicum and carrots

Frank – salmon, rice, broccoli, capsicum and carrots

Wilco – Bolognese, salmon, broccoli, capsicum and carrot (eaten all on the run I might add – which is how we do it this week)

A special dessert for a special day…Max Brenner melted chocolate pots taken home and eaten with delicious organic strawberries.

Welcome home ! xxx

©Michelle Schoeps 2013

All photos taken by Michelle Schoeps