Sleeping angels and carrot cake

All the grandkids were here on Saturday and stayed for a sleepover. They ran around like headless chooks in the afternoon, Eve watched a little bit of Peppa Pig, the boys watched Dan TDM, they had a drawing competition and played with Gracie and the Lego. I made lasagne for dinner but only three of us ate it. Eve filled up on avocado and bananas and Alex had grilled cheese on toast and some milk. They all slept in the same queen sized bed and when I went in to check on them at 11, all I could see were three tiny angels resting their sweet heads in a bed way too big for them.  😇😇😇 They slept soundly until 7am.


It was easy childminding - no one in nappies, everyone had fun and there were no quarrels. Shane arrived at 8.30 on Sunday morning and took them to a pre-screening of the new Lego movie.  Hanno and I waved as they drove down the driveway, then we were in the recovery ward for the next few hours.  Hats off to all the parents out there. Kids take a lot of energy.

This was the making of turmeric salad.

As you know I cook most of what we eat here from scratch. Over the past few days I made lasagne, a chicken and mushroom casserole with herb dumplings, turmeric rice salad with salmon and avocado and yesterday morning I made an old favourite - carrot cake.

To make turmeric rice salad I boiled rice with ½ teaspoon of turmeric and some salt. When it was cooked and cooled, red onions, red capsicums, corn, bread and butter cucumbers, salmon chunks, avocado and green onions were added. The dressing was ¼ cup of pickling liquid from the cucumbers. This salad is delicious and easy and you can use whatever vegetables are in the fridge.

Chicken and mushroom casserole with herb dumplings.

Beautifully moist and slightly spicy carrot cake.

I made most of the carrot cake in the food processor. It's one of those add all dry ingredients to all the wet ingredients cakes and it was in the oven in about 10 minutes. I even grated the carrots in the processor and, without washing the bowl, processed the wet ingredients. Then I transferred it all to a large bowl, added the dry ingredients and gently mixed them in.  Here is the recipe.

I usually make these flat cakes now.  They're much easier to store in the fridge than a layer cake.

Apart from a short period in the late 1960s, I've never been a follower of fashion. I wear what I like and if it's in fashion, fine, if it's not, fine. I think carrot cake has been placed in the ridiculous position of being out of fashion so people don't bake it anymore. New bakers don't know about it, except if they see it on a cafe menu. Black forest cake, prawn cocktail, lemon meringue pie, chicken Kiev and many other excellent family meals, are now seen as being too old and daggy to be worthy of a place on the kitchen table.  We're still eating all these meals here and they still taste as good as they used to in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.  You're missing out if you've never tried any of them.

Of course we also eat sushi, kale, smashed avocado, sour dough, spelt, nut milks, vegetarian and vegan food and many other "modern" dishes but they're all old too, they're just considered fashionable. I don't know why the cost of eating "modern" food is to leave the old ones behind. It can't be that young cooks don't know how to cook them, you can Google any recipe on the planet and have it before your eyes in a flash.  Hopefully it's not a fashion thing.  Whatever it is, if you haven't eaten any of the popular foods your parents and grandparents used to eat when they were young adults, ask them for recipes and have a go.  You might be surprised at how tasty it is.

This might be a good idea for a retro food blog - "what my parents ate". I wouldn't want to write it but I'd certainly read it. 🙂🥧🥘🎂😋