The Markets

Fluorescent lighting, bad music and apathetic teenage staff - no I'm not talking about a new nightclub, but multinational supermarket chains.

No one looks good in lighting that harsh, but that's not the point, it's what they're doing to our wallets that's the real issue and, even worse, what they're doing to the livelihoods of our farmers. Not only have the two majors marked up their prices by more than 41% in the last 10 years, they've made billions of dollars in profits in the process including more than $100 billion dollars in 2009 alone.

The ABC's Hungry Beast program did a great piece about these "friendly giants" a couple of weeks back. Check out the clip.



As well as the consumer, farmers are getting a pretty raw deal. There are reports they're not being paid enough for their produce, that 'imperfect' fruit and veggies are being rejected and that the ones which do make it through are being kept for a questionable length of time in cold rooms.

We decided to ditch the superstores and headed to a nearby farmer's market in West End in search of local fare, a hot breakfast and some seriously cute puppies.

So next time you're contemplating that quick trip down to the shops, why not wait until your local farmer's market rolls around. Read more...

Banana bread and healthy cookies

So we're a couple of weeks into things now and all we seem to do at work, even more than before, is talk FOOD! Seriously, if you could gain weight by talking food I’d be the size of my house and then some. We have an impromptu dinner thing happening tonight which could be interesting as it’s happening after work drinks.

Roast Pumpkin Feta Patties, all thanks to this week’s Who magazine which we were gawking at over lunch yesterday. We didn’t think much of their 25 Most Beautiful People 2010 but we were definitely drooling over the patties!

On Saturday morning we’re off to our first group excursion in search of Jamie-inspired things and, of course, breakfast. Fresh fruit, veg, fish, meat, cheese, bread, pastries, small goods, all at Davies Park Market West End or as I thought it was called, The West End Markets. Can’t wait!

I’ve been doing a little baking. No exciting reasons why. I had 3 overly ripe bananas and found the rest of the ingredients in the cupboard/fridge. Oh, and I was hungry. P.S - I have no idea where I got this recipe from, but obviously off the net as it’s on a very messy piece of printed A4 paper. Mega easy, can’t go wrong.

{ Banana Bread }

155g (2/3 cup) caster sugar
60g butter, softened
2 eggs
3 tbs water
3 very ripe bananas, mashed
220g (1 ¾ cups) plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease loaf tin.

In a medium bowl, beat the sugar and butter together until smooth. Beat in the eggs, water and bananas until well blended.

Mix in the flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt and baking powder until the mixture is just moistened. Be sure to scrape the sides of the bowl to blend all the ingredients.

Pour into prepared tin. Bake in preheated oven for about 1 hour. Time will vary depending on oven and tin size. Check at 45min. Bread is done when the top is firm to touch and a golden brown colour.

Allow to cool on its side for 10 minutes, then remove from tin and let cool on a wire rack.

101 Cookbooks. We are really really in love with this blog. That’s why I wanted to whip up these delicious little delights. They are also super easy and, even better, they're healthy. Well, healthy for cookies anyway. I certainly didn’t feel guilty eating them. Though I did hand most of them over to Mum as her Easter pressie. I didn’t stray much from the recipe which I usually tend to do. I used organic coconut oil and dark chocolate drops.

{ Nikki's Healthy Cookies }

3 large, ripe bananas, well mashed (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup coconut oil, barely warm - so it isn't solid (or alternately, olive oil)
2 cups rolled oats
2/3 cup almond meal
1/3 cup coconut, finely shredded & unsweetened
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
6 - 7 ounces chocolate chips or dark chocolate bar chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, racks in the top third.

In a large bowl combine the bananas, vanilla extract, and coconut oil. Set aside. In another bowl whisk together the oats, almond meal, shredded coconut, cinnamon, salt, and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until combined. Fold in the chocolate chunks/chips.The dough is a bit looser than a standard cookie dough, don't worry about it. Drop dollops of the dough, each about 2 teaspoons in size, an inch apart, onto a parchment (or Silpat) lined baking sheet. Bake for 12 - 14 minutes. I baked these as long as possible without burning the bottoms and they were perfect - just shy of 15 minutes seems to be about right in my oven.

Makes about 3 dozen bite-sized cookies.

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It begins with bircher.

It started not with a kiss, but in the ‘caf’ over reheated leftovers and falafel wraps dripping sweet chilli one lunch hour. Since we’re always talking breakfast, lunch and dinner, since we’re always comparing recipes, reminiscing about food from faraway places, and making each other hungry at our desks with naughty chocolate cake descriptions, we thought maybe we should start a blog. So we did.

Welcome to the beginning. To guide our tasty ramblings, each month we’ll pick a recipe book or a chef then go fossicking for inspiration – at markets, community gardens, farms, production plants, school tuck shops and yes, maybe the odd dining establishment – so by the time our monthly three-course dinner rolls around, we’ll have oodles of ideas and knowledge (and perhaps larger dress sizes) to impart on our plates, and hopefully, you.

Since we’re all suckers for cockney English charm, Jamie is first cab off the rank. We love him. Haters, slink away now. We picked an entree, main and dessert for our first dinner on April 24 from Jamie’s At Home book over some seriously good Bircher muesli last weekend, and we’ve got all sorts of adventures in the works. Jamie says use free range eggs? We want to meet the chooks that make them. Jamie says grow your own? Well, okay. We’ll plant a tomato or ten, veggie eating possums and all. Jamie says ‘stop being a vegan and start enjoying what you eat’ (he did say that folks), we’re all over it. Just watch.

And ‘cereal for dinner’? ‘What’s that ‘sposed to mean’, you ask? Well, it goes a little something like this: We’re three twenty-something girls who, thankfully, are seated in close proximity to each other in our 9 to 5 office, and share a mad love for a lot of things – music, lunch hours with Cleo Bachelor of the Year spreads (okay, not really. Well, maybe really), Sex and the City, travelling, travelling, travelling, sunshine, Keith Urban (whoops, maybe that’s just ONE OF US) but mostly, food. Yep, we live to eat but snooty foodies, we are not.

Sometimes, things go wrong. You ding the car, you forget to pick up the kids, you lose the ability to spell or to function like a human being. You’re heartbroken, or tired, or overworked or completely and utterly lost. Sometimes, the most basic thing in the world – cereal in a bowl – can be comforting. And whether you’re eating in a five star restaurant, defrosting fish fingers, cooking a gourmet feast for your friends, gobbling Thai takeaway in front of A Current Affair or pouring cream over Weet-Bix (true story), the reasons are the same. Food comforts, and brings joy, and evokes memories and brings people together. We need to eat to live.

To paraphrase a famous Buddhist teacher, “anyone who has their shit together is standing in it at the time.” Cereal for Dinner is kind of like that. Not everything is always right or ideal or even healthy, but we’re doing our best. And if we can have granola while we figure out what we’re doing and where we're going? That’d be great.

We’d love to know what makes you tick, too dear readers (that doesn’t include you, mum). Whose recipes should we attempt? Any cookbooks you’d recommend? What do you want us to explore or investigate? And hey, what’s your favourite cereal? Stay in touch – we’d love to see you at our monthly dinner cook-ups one day.

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