Welcome to The Kitchen Playground. Cooking can bring great joy and great despair. I hope that the recipes you find here, many of which are very quick to make with the weeknight in mind, help you to experience more joy than despair. Many recipes have instructions for the Thermomix 31 as well as traditional instructions. The emphasis is on real, fresh food that combines flavour, texture and scent to delight the senses.
While I haven’t been blogging, I have been reading blogs. There are so many blogs about frugal food coming out of the US its crazy. Much of it is food I wouldn’t feed my dog but there are some great ideas, based on real food. This recipe for an inexpensive meat substitute for tacos is […]
I’m going through one of my frenzies of cleaning out the fridge and pantry. Every now and again I seem to get a build up of obscure ingredients and just before Christmas when I’m trying to save money is a great time to use them all up. Not only does it tidy up the cupboards […]
Being Sunday, it’s First Born’s turn to cook. Tonight, he has whipped up a broad bean and feta risotto in the thermomix. I can’t say it often enough, the thermomix is absolutely brilliant for teaching children to cook. The risotto was fantastic and First Born was very proud of himself. As well he should be. […]
Shocking though this seems to me, First Born is SIX years old. Really. I’ve been doing this parenting gig for six years. Crazy. In fact, I think this is the third of his birthdays that I’ve blogged about. Which must mean that this blog has recently had a birthday too. This year, the boy had […]
The end of spring in Melbourne has been scorchingly hot. Which I am absolutely relishing. I love both the warmth and the complete transformation of our meals into the wonderful world of salads. We’ve had this one twice since I first threw it together a week ago, the second time with the addition of some […]
The hot days have hit early this year and I’ve not yet adjusted my fruit and vegetable buying habits. While I am buying what is seasonal, the ratio of vegetables I prefer cooked to vegetables I prefer raw is where some adjustment is needed. The bright side of this is some inventiveness in the salad […]
The onset of spring has brought about a craving for light but filling meals here at chez KP. As the weather has been relatively cool, salads haven’t made much of an inroad to our table, instead, the varoma has been getting quite the workout. Fish and steamed vegetables, with or without rice has become a […]
In our part of the world, today is Father’s Day. In the interests of serving up a decent Eggs Benedict for breakfast, as it is the Bread Winner’s favourite, the Ankle Biters and I struck a deal. I would cook breakfast, First Born would cook dinner and Lil Miss would make dessert. Everyone was happy. […]
At the very start of winter, I made a massive big pot of minestrone, or what passes for it in this house, I don’t stick to a traditional recipe. This week, we finished it. So today I made another pot. When I say massive, I am referring to my industrial size stock pot, the capacity […]
Sometimes, the simplest of meals receives the highest accolades. Tonight was one of those nights. Some simple little prawn and potato patties made from $3 of prawns and 3 potatoes with a simple lemon chive sauce and a mound of steamed vegetables. The family feed for just under $6 and the plates licked clean. There […]