My fella Adam loves salads. Kind of unexpected in a bloke, you'd perhaps think the big classic roast dinner or lovely Italian pasta might be the big hitters (that's me TOTALLY projecting, they'd be my favourites right there) but Ad loves a salad. Pretty much anything green and fresh.
Here's one I made on Sunday to take to my sweet nephew Nate's 2nd birthday party/picnic in the beautiful botanic gardens in Camden.
Spinach + roast pumpkin + cherry tomatoes + toasted pinenuts and sunflower kernals
Dressed with mix of olive oil + balsamic vinegar + lemon juice
Fresh and yummy.
My sister Suze made the birthday cake:
Oh yes. The classic awesomeness of a butter cake with spectacular green icing and freckles. Doesn't get any better.
Butter Cake (our Nan's recipe)
125g butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 cups self raising flour
1 cup whole milk
Beat butter and sugar until creamed. Beat in one egg at a time.
Stir in one cup of flour. Add half the milk. Stir in the other cup of flour. Stir in the other half cup of milk.
Bake in moderate oven (180deg) for about 30 mins.
Really, greasing, flouring and lining the pan takes longer than throwing this cake together. And it never fails. It's an awesome recipe to have memorised.
Icing is usually approx 2 cups icing sugar mixture + 3 teaspoons of milk + 2 teaspoons of soft butter or margerine. Add food colouring by drops and decorate with treats!!
(Birthday cakes tend to break colour/sugar/additive rules in my house but you usually only get one piece and birthdays are a wonderful excuse to break some rules.)
Birthday boy.
Is that REALLY a chocolate freckle? Has MUM seen it?
xxx
Ok, so I notice you left out the bit where Henry only ate the freckles from his cake and then tried to quietly take the freckles off the rest of the cake LOL... AND the bit about one husband having three (3!) pieces. :)
Posted by: Suzie B | Tuesday, 30 June 2009 at 08:21 PM
Ah, ahem, yes. Both boys VERY excited about the freckle. xxx
Posted by: Fiona | Tuesday, 30 June 2009 at 10:06 PM
Too funny, Suze. I can totally imagine it! Wanted to comment on yummy looking salad. If I ever see pumpkin again (it's been months!) I'm going to make it. Yum yum. Here is my favourite salad at the moment:
1 beetroot grated
1 apple grated
1 BIG handful of rocket
sunflower seeds (dry roasted in pan if you like them like that - or raw, whatever)
some lemon juice
some olive oil
This is TASTY! And you can feel the vitamins flowing through your body from the first mouthful. xo
Posted by: Naomi | Tuesday, 30 June 2009 at 10:15 PM
Love both these salad suggestions and will try them both.
Having drama with my two at the moment - we had a 'manners meal' the other day when G'ma came over and both James and Edward had to use their very best manners. Well, James was super well behaved, lots of 'can I serve you some meat G'ma', 'would you pass the carrots please Daddy', 'thank you Mummy for a lovely meal'.... and then... they got down from the table and he was devil spawn again. Bloody children. Edward hasn't quite mastered the art of a knife and fork yet, much to my horror ;-)
I did ask why (this was last night) he insisted on being so horrible to me all the time, and complain about the food I serve, and when I asked if I should just serve sandwiches (jam or vegemite at breakfast, cheese or ham at tea) for a while so that he could appreciate the good food I prepare when it comes again, he said YES!!! Bloody cheek.
Suffice to say, the gorgeous salads (Fi & Naomi) will be made JUST FOR ME - Rick is eating three times a day at work and so he doesn't appreciate what I cook either!
Ho hum, will keep you posted with my adventures in feeding the great ungrateful
xx
Posted by: Alex | Tuesday, 30 June 2009 at 11:07 PM
Nomie: how do you cook your beetroot before you grate it? boiled? how long?? I'm making your recipe tomorrow!!
Alex: I've been thinking about your comment and picturing the boys sitting up at a manners meal. Priceless. And 'the great ungrateful' is SO perfect, it's bound to appear as a blog post any day now!
Fi xxx
Posted by: Fiona | Thursday, 02 July 2009 at 07:38 PM
Yumbo. Nan would be very proud of the cake. Keep up the lovely blogging Fiona, I adore it. xx
Posted by: Ros | Monday, 06 July 2009 at 12:30 PM
Hello there. I'm the same with food colourings, preservatives, over processed food, etc.. however, there's no food rules at birthday parties. We went to one recently where the cake icing was VIVID blue and all the kids had BRIGHT blue tounges. Tom's poo the next day was GREEN. Emerald. I probably wouldn't have put the two together except for a similar experience I had a uni.... lets just say I haven't drunk Blue Cacao since...
Posted by: estelle | Monday, 06 July 2009 at 08:36 PM
ALSO, Fi, great photos. Have you bought a new camera? The salad shot is fab. x
Posted by: estelle | Monday, 06 July 2009 at 08:38 PM
Darl, thanks SO MUCH because no, no new camera, still on the crappy little digital one and man, I'm TRYING REALLY HARD!!! I'm getting a new camera in the next couple of months, we're just doing the research, and I'm learning how much harder a digital SLR will work for me!
Posted by: Fiona | Monday, 06 July 2009 at 08:50 PM
Fi. Have sent this post to a couple of friends - seeing as that spinach/chard salad is so utterly yummy. Do you cook the chard first or eat it raw? I have bought chard seeds this year just so I can make this salad on a regular basis!! Yummmmmmmmmmm
Posted by: Alex Nolan | Wednesday, 07 April 2010 at 06:10 PM