I am blessed with some truly awesome people in my life.
Some of them are total nut jobs but I guess that’s why I like them, due to my nut job status. Nuts like company.
That’s why peanuts grow in twos and threes.
One of my darlings has just done the FIRST YEAR of having a baby. I took their baby photos yesterday, it seems, but in reality it was a lifetime ago.
Before everything fell apart.
This was from that shoot. One of my all time favourites.
We’ve been trying to hook up a meal together, sans bambinos, for about 6 weeks.
The brilliant plan of my friend, Mrs O, was she’ll put her boy to sleep, go to her local famous Portuguese Chicken shop pick up a chook (and a small chips), I’ll make salad and ensure wine is cold, and we will dine together, alone, for the first time since we went away overnight 1.5 years ago.
That was the first time I’d left my babies overnight.
walking in Bowral on our night away.
Now I was seeing my friend, alone, for the first time since everything.
You know, the EVERYTHING thing.
The first week of the plan she was in her car and on her way. Her boy was busting zeds and she had slipped into her vehicle and was en route to buy chook when I was suddenly afflicted by terrible stomach pains. Most unlike me. I went and lay in the dark wondering if my uterus was trying to make a break for it and I called her and cancelled.
Such disappointment in both of our voices.
We scheduled another date.
They big day came and I had some kind of contagious illness but I was going to risk it, I didn’t want to be THAT FRIEND that cancels twice in a row, but then she cancelled. Her son was ill and restless and she didn’t want to leave him.
Foiled for the second time.
We didn’t ask for much. We didn’t want to go out dancing or yahooing. We didn’t want to go away for the weekend. We just wanted a chat that didn’t sound like I had Tourettes.
“Oh, really, how do you fee……..PUT THAT DOWN!!!”
“That sounds……KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF!!!”
“I just don’t…..QUIT IT!!!”
But then a miracle occurred.
We made a date, the planets aligned and lo and behold there we were at my dinner table eating take-away peri peri chicken and talking about life. There was a tear or two but for once it wasn’t me. It was time for Mrs O to go back to work after 12 months maternity leave.
Remember that feeling that the umbilical cord just can’t stretch that far?
I sweetened the conversation by pulling out a pineapple tart tartin.
This tart is the thing you make when you have nothing in the house to make dessert out of. Pastry is always in the freezer, some fruit (can be apple, pears, peaches), some butter and some brown sugar and you’re good to go.
What you will need :
- 1 pineapple, chopped into half moons and cored
- 35 g butter
- 1 sheet puff pastry, defrosted
- 1/4 cup loosely packed brown sugar
- ice-cream, cream or vanilla yoghurt to serve.
What you will need to do :
Preheat oven to 200C.
Place your butter and sugar into a saucepan that can go from stove top to oven and melt together over a medium heat. Stir until mostly dissolved then don’t stir it any more.
Allow to go a nice caramel colour, but do not burn.
Lay your pineapple out in a nice shape, and lay your pastry over the top, tucking the edges around.
Whack the lot in the oven for about 20 mins until the pastry is golden brown and puffed up.
Pull it our carefully because that sucker is HOT.
You need to be strong, fast and brave as you pop a big plate over your pan, and flip that puppy out. Beware of the caramel because it’s sticky and boiling, but oh so yummy.
Serve with ice-cream. I had leftover lychee and chill sorbet and that was amazeballs.
Cook Once, Feed All is about making your life easier whilst preparing nutritious and quick food for your family. Hailed by Mouths of Mums as the ‘must have recipe book for all families’, this book is a collection of family friendly recipes, all accompanied by stories from my life.
To order your hardcopy of Cook Once, Feed All head to the Holsby Shop right now.
2 Comments
You make that sound so easy – and I reckon I could almost pull it off. Isn’t a pan that can go from cooktop to oven just something that fabulous chefs and foodies own? All my pans have giant crappy plastic handles. I need to fix this. Glad you ladies finally got together – ladylove conquers all. xxx
Why is it so damn hard for us gals to get together? But when we do – BAM! – magic happens. x
(PS: gorgeous shot of the bub)