My daughter started kinder this year and the lunches are freaking me out! The reason for my ridiculous freak out can be firmly laid at the feet of both the kinder and my 4 year old daughter. The kinder has freaked me out by advising parents, that the government is doing a survey of the children's lunches to see how healthily they are being fed, we are advised to not give the kids chips and chocolate etc in lunch boxes. Along with nut and dairy warnings I am terrified I'll walk into kinder and be greeted at the door by government officials, there to take me away for packing to many bad things in my daughters lunch box. Because of this paranoia I get overly cautious and end up packing the lunch box with nothing but fruit. Don't get me wrong, I love fruit, but a few times now Charli has opened her lunch box to be greeted with nothing but fruit. And when your lunch consists of two apples, a mandarin, fruit cup, dates, sultanas and grapes you can get a bit sick of it. But every kinder morning, after a week spent thinking up a stack of brilliant lunch ideas that don't come to fruition (ie. I forget and make things like Chocolate eclairs instead!), I run around frantically trying to balance Charli's fruit to non-fruit ratio... Charli also doesn't help that every week she decides she doesn't want an integral part of her lunch (for me, not her!). I buy a slab of two fruit cups, she doesn't like them anymore! I get 2kgs of mandarins, she gives up eating them! I give her cheese and biscuits, she won't eat the cheese, or the biscuits or anything.. ARRGGHHH! Sometimes I feel like coating her lunchbox in chocolate, rolling it in peanuts, filling it with sugar and chips and sending her off to kinder. Annoyingly, someone might die and then I would get looks in the waiting room....
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| Sorry about the flash.. |
When I tell you what recipe I'm featuring you might be confused about why I have been waffling on about kinder lunches. The reason for the above waffle (as confused as usual) is because originally I was going to tell you about the Muesli Slice (which is seriously tasty!). Instead I noticed the Sang Choy Bow and as I had (for once in my life) been slightly organised and pre-written a big chuck of my introduction, I decided to forge ahead and hope you would be confused enough by the above that you wouldn't noticed a completely unrelated recipe, and here it is :)
Recipe - Sang Choy Bow
2 tsp sesame oil
1 small brown onion. peeled and chopped finely
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and grated
500g minced pork
2 tbs water
125g fresh shiitake mushrooms, chopped finely
2 tbs light soy sauce
2 tbs oyster sauce
1 tbs lime juice
160g bean sprouts
4 green onions (spring), sliced thinly
1/4 cup chopped fresh coriander
12 large iceberg lettuce leaves, white parts cut off
Put the oil in a wok. Turn the stove on to med-high and heat the wok. Add the brown onion, garlic and ginger; use a wooden spoon to stir-fry until the onion is soft. Add the pork; stir-fry until the pork is browned, breaking up any large lumps with the back of the spoon.
Add the water, mushrooms, soy sauce, oyster sauce and lime juice; stir-fry until mushrooms are tender. Take the wok off the heat. Stir in the bean sprouts, green onion and coriander.
Arrange the lettuce leaves on a large platter. Spoon the pork mixture into the lettuce leaf "cups".
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I love the method for all of these recipes, they have been designed with kids in mind, so everything is fairly simple with explanations for everything. Along with the delicious muesli bar, there is also a pizza dough recipe that we use whenever we are making pizzas. It has heaps of photos and a great mixture of sweet and savoury that are not just for the kids to make.
The Sang Choy Bow recipe is great, simple and easy to make while being extremely tasty. Be careful with the bean spouts, I brought a pack of 250g and chucked the whole lot in, I think that was way to many bean sprouts. I would also maybe put half as much again of the sauce (maybe) and more coriander (I always put more coriander). I think this may become a regular mainstay in my weekly cooking roster, not only does it have hidden veggies, it also looks fresh and tastes scrumptious! As a added bonus the kids will actually eat it, although they also agreed with me about the extra bean shoots, apparently they look like worms!
Thanks
Kate
xx
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| Sam eating tea |
Hahahahahaha
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