Squid, Chickpeas and preserved lemons....
These three ingredients were those chosen for the foodlovers challenge this week.
We had to immediately exclude preserved lemons from consideration as we didn't have any and it takes a few weeks to make them.
Kyla decided to make Salt and Pepper 
Squid.
We have had this a couple of times when we have been out for dinner, and all the kids love it, so were very pleased with Kyla's choice. She made a tempura batter, and dipped the scored squid pieces into it before deep frying it. I did help at this point as the thought of leaving Kyla to it (capable though she may be) was a little too worrying.
I chose to use chickpeas this time.
I don't normally buy pre-prepared food, but one that I have been buying lately is Lisa's Felafel Mix. It is really tasty and convenient as it stores in the fridge for a few weeks in it's nice little plastic pouch, just waiting for a busy day.
So, I thought I should give felafels a go myself. I did cheat and use tinned chickpeas as I did not have time this weekend to soak and boil the dried variety.
It was easy to make as you just throw everything in the food processor, then chill for 2 hours. I think that I pureed them for a little bit long as they were a bit smooth in texture, and should have had a bit longer in the fridge... It was getting a bit late to wait for them to chill fully. They tasted really good though, and I will definitely make them again. The garden is still producing parsley, tomatoes and lettuces so they were nice and fresh for this.
Last weekend Sandra and Craig took the kids to the Dad's soccer game while I did some work. They dropped into the Swiss bakery on Rosebank road, and bought some pretzel rolls. This afternoon we were at Nosh, and we got the kids a soft pretzel from there. So, the next thing to do was to see if I could make them.
Kyla had described these little rolls to me, and so after a look on the very useful net, I settled on a recipe to try. After a bit of further searching, we discovered that the caramel/brown colour on the rolls was dur to dipping them in a lye solution.... which seems slightly alarming when it comes with a warning about how caustic the lye solution is! Due to not having lye on hand (surprise, surprise) I had to do a bit of trial and error.
I did half the rolls dipping them in a cold baking soda solution (on the right of the photo), and the other half (on the left) were dipped in a boiling baking soda solution for about 30 seconds.
Kyla snuck out of her room (she was supposed to be going to sleep) when she heard the oven beep, and was quite impressed with my efforts. She tells me that the ones on the left (boiling baking soda solution) look the most like the ones they had. She has yet to taste them, but we have tried them and they are really nice.
This weeks soccer scores:
Kyla - her team had a bye
Braden - his team won, 6-1 (the 1 was actually an own goal scored by another defender - not Braden)
Lauren - her team drew 3-3 against a team called The Champions. They are actually really good team, so they did well.
Daryl - the old boys won 2-1, a hard game, and apparently it was supposed to be one of the easier teams in the league!
You could be forgiven for looking at the title of this blog and struggling to find a link.
There really isn't one.
So the soccer bit first.
This weekend saw the start of the kids soccer season, and Daryl managed to miss it by being in Singapore. He ended up arriving home today at about lunchtime due to the Icelandic volcano with the unpronounceable name preventing him from catching his flight to London.
But I digress, so back to the games.Lauren's team was the first to play, and given that they only had once practice together beforehand, it was interesting to see them play and see who was good at what. All in all it was a good game, and they are learning to pass well now. Lauren had a great assist, where she was at the back of the field in defence, and kicked the ball over everyone's heads, and it landed neatly in front of another player from her team who slotted it into the goal! Final score 5-0.
Kyla's team was second to play, and that was a great game to see. Everyone played well, including the 2 new girls who had never played before. Kyla scored a cracker of a goal from about 10m back, and was justifiably pleased with herself.Final score 4-0.
Braden's team was the final game for the day, and due to the game being at Shepherd's Park in Beachaven, I was only there for about the last 10 minutes of the game. I did notice that Braden (who is a defender) was playing well into the opposition's half, and it soon became clear. He tells me that his team's goalies (one for each half) did not touch the ball as goalie. It really was a bit of a walkover - and the score would have been much higher if the goals had been the proper size instead of the tiny ones that were being used.
Final score 7-0
So , a successful day of soccer, and apparently Daryl's team won too, 1-0, even though Daryl was not there to help.
So, now to the Cabbage.
The foodlover's challenge for the week was to use cabbage or almonds (or both) in a recipe we had never cooked before.
I did Chinese steamed pork and cabbage rolls.
This gave me a chance to use my Bamboo steamer for the first time, which was fun.
The kids and Daryl all liked the rolls, which we had with rice, Andrew's sprinkles from Japan, and soy sauce.
The verdict was a 4/5, I would probably do this one again. A good way to use a vegetable that up till now I have tended to only use in coleslaw or sauteed or in colcannon (once).
Kyla chose to use almonds, and due to the fact that we had been to Blossoms for lunch and had cake today (we met Daryl there after he arrived home from Singapore) we didn't need another cake. So she made Praline, which we had with cream/vanilla yogurt mixture, and peacherines.
This was also voted 4/5. Very yummy indeed.
We have done a few more food challenges over the last few weeks with varying results, but then I suppose the whole idea of it is ti try new things, and some are bound to be better than others.
There was the chocolate and peas week, where I tried a recipe for pumpkin and chocolate loaf from the Green and Blacks Chocolate book. Daryl was not convinced, and even less so when he found out that it had pumpkin in it. A bit too close to pumpkin pie taste for his liking.
One week we had fruit as the ingredient, which left things wide open, and in the end I made an upside down peach and almond cake which went down a lot better with Daryl.
Last week the ingredient to try was dates, which left me with a bit of a problem as Daryl does not like dates, which meant I really was destined to fail. He likes sticky date pudding, but as I have made that many times before, I could not make it for the challenge. I made a Chicken Tagine instead, and have to say that it was actually really nice. We had it with Couscous, and the kids ate it well. Daryl maintained that it would have been better without the dates. Aaargh!
Kyla had never made a sticky date pudding before, so she made it for the challenge.
Check out the photo of her dish.
I would have uploaded the photo to the blog, but it was put onto the other computer, so the link was easier this way.
The ingredients for the challenge this week are Almonds and Cabbage. Mmmm.I am thinking of trying asian pork and cabbage rolls, cooked in the bamboo steamer I bought a while back and have yet to use. I have found a recipe, so may try it tomorrow night, or on the weekend.
Apart from cooking, life goes on pretty much as usual. Soccer season starts this weekend, and we have had the great result of ending up with all 3 kids soccer teams practicing at the same place on the same day! Fantastic! That will make life a little easier.
Daryl leaves tomorrow for his yearly jaunt to England, via Singapore. He will miss the kid's first games of the season, but at least this time he is only away for one weekend, although he won't be much use next Saturday for Soccer as he arrives back in the middle of the day.
Well, that was a blog that doesn't really tell you much, so I will try to make the next one a little more interesting.
Oh, I will add one photo that may interest you...
This is what you get when kids slide down the hill at Tawharanui on an old inflatable mattress when the grass is damp. They only stopped because they hit the fence at the bottom, leaving them with bumped heads and ears, and wire lines on shins and shoulders.
They were actually very lucky they were not badly hurt as the next day Annelise ended up with a concussion after going down the hill with Jonathan and a few kids.
Camp was great fun, as usual, with lots of boogie
boarding, fun and food. We even got up early enough to watch the sun rise one morning.... actually wasn't really very early as it was before daylight savings ended, so sunrise was a bit after 7:30 in the morning.
Squid. 
