Pumpkin Bites

Ingredients:
1/4 pumpkin
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 tablespoon sugar (preferably brown but white will do as well)
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon

1. Wash, dry and cut pumpkin into 1 inch pieces
2. Toss them all in a large bowl, and mix in olive oil, sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon.
3. Arrange them nicely on your baking sheet (don't crowd them! They need to brown, not steam.) 
4. Pop them in an oven, set it to about 200 degrees celcius for about 35-40 min. The centers should be tender, the outsides should be a little hard from the sugar, and the whole house should smell like heaven. 


I make basil pork while the pumpkin bakes. 

Stir fried Basil Pork:

Ingredients: 
Around 100g minced Pork (or chicken)
Half an onion, chopped
A huge bunch of Thai Basil
Handful of cherry tomatoes (about 10)
1 tablespoon fish sauce 
1 tablespoon olive oil

1. I heat up the olive oil. When I'm only cooking for myself I also fry up some small chillies at this stage. 
2. When oil is sufficiently hot I toss in the chopped onions and the minced meat at the same time. 
3. Stir fry for about 2 minutes until meat is not crumbly anymore, and put in the tomatoes next. 
4. Make sure the meat is cooked through, then the fish sauce goes in. Stir it around for about a minute more.
5. Toss in the Thai basil last. You know it's done once all the leaves are wilted. This whole process takes no longer than 5 minutes on medium to high heat. 

We normally eat that with a sunny side up and some rice. 

Right, now it's time to wake her up!

xoxo
Kayla's mommy

So, after wrestling Kayla into bed at 1pm, I am finally free. A couple hours to myself! I put on some Dionne Warwick and start singing along while I prepare our lunch.

Couple of chicken drumsticks
1 quarter lemon
A couple thumbs of ginger
A smidge of freshly cracked black pepper
Fresh basil leaves
Teaspoon of olive oil
Splash of soy sauce (optional- I don't put this) 

1. Wash hands, then wash chicken. Remove all those fatty bits that are sticking on the skin
2. Pound the ginger and squeeze the juice. We want about 2- 3 tablespoons' worth
3. Chop the basil into pieces
4. Extract the juice from the lemon. 2 tablespoons should do it. 
5. Mix chicken, ginger juice, basil, pepper, oil and lemon juice. I toss the solid bits of leftover lemon in there as well just cos the yellow is so pretty. 
6. Marinate at least half an hour in the fridge
7. Pop the chicken in the oven at 175 degrees celcius and cook for half an hour.

While the chicken is marinating, I check if Kayla is still sleeping soundly. All is good. Time for salad. 

1. Cook pasta. Don't overcook it. Soggy pasta is the worst. 
2. Chop everything else up- Tomatoes, onion, olives, dill, cucumber
3. Mix all that chopped stuff with the cooked (and cooled) pasta, together with feta cheese.
4. I go easy with the vinaigrette, a teaspoon is good enough. Since I am kooking for Kayla, I want to avoid dressings, salt whenever possible, and I try to skip anything canned or processed. 
5. Put that in the fridge for a couple hours, it tastes so much better when the flavors mingle!

xoxo
Kayla's mama