There has been a lot of backyard culinary creativity going on around here. Lani, Eli and Lilly have all been totally hooked on MasterChef and Lani is thrilled that Adam her favourite since about half way through took out the honours last night. She would like to be a fan of Japanese food (which Adam cooked a lot of) because it’s so pretty, but like her fractured relationship with strawberries, she has learnt that just because you like the look of something doesn’t mean you can stomach the taste.

Since their sudden interest in food I have been noticing many food related schooling opportunities. We have been shopping and cooking together, reading the labels on the back of food products and talking about all the additives and preservatives that are hidden in food. Alanah has also asked to stay up and watch Jamie Oliver’s show Jamie’s Food Revolution which we decided to let her because it shows quite dramatically the difference between healthy and processed foods.

So when the kids went to see Wombat Stew I wasn’t surprised to see their passion for cooking to develop into a passion for cooking lumps of backyard goop. After tipping out yet another plastic bucket full of gooey brewy brown goodness that had found it’s way into the house I had a brilliant idea. I’ll get them to create their own masterpiece meals then write down the list of ingredients used so that we can make our own Gooey Brewy recipe book. I thought we can even have a go at being food stylists and photograph the finished dishes. How brilliant am I, I crowed inside, I can even turn mud into school work!

I’m pretty sure the bible has something in it about crowing. I’m also pretty sure we have all lived in this world long enough to guess the lesson that was about to be learnt, It wasn’t the lesson I intended but it did have to do with cooking, well eating at least, eating a specific type of pie…

I presented my Really Cool Mum schooling idea as a surprise when they were having an outside break after maths. I waited positively glowing inside for the squeals of delight. The two girls were sufficiently impressed and ran of to hunt down the best ingredients our backyard could produce (please note we don’t have a veggie patch). Eli however stood stock still staring at me, a look of horror slowly consuming his features. “I’m NOT doing that” he finally blurted out followed quickly and firmly by a “I”M GOING INSIDE!!!” “Oh come on Eli” I responded softly “It’ll be fun” (doesn’t that just sound like one of those teachers) I even offered to help him with the writing thinking that might be the problem. “YOU”ER NOT GOING TO MAKE ME DO IT!!!!” he screamed backing away from me outstretched arms protecting himself from the horror of mud pie schooling.

Now I don’t know whether it was PMS or just not being back in the swing of things after the holidays but this performance was like a red flag to a bull. Fully aware that my gardening neighbours were only 5 millimetres of metal away from us and with all the blood in my body rushing to my cheeks I growled back “Yes I am, this is school work and you are going to do it” (Grrr). And as the girls skipped happily around the backyard filling their buckets with twigs and leaves Eli and I performed a dance that would put any pantomime to shame. He ran, I followed. He climbed over play equipment, I followed. He dashed through the dark garage, I followed. He clambered on top of a rickety pile of old furniture and perched like a living gargoyle baring his teeth at me, I yelled “Get down here now” He responded with “YOU can’t get me” and then just in case the lovely neighbours weren’t worried enough already “DON”T MAKE ME DEAD”

It was at this point I think that the sense kicked back in and I asked the bleedingly obvious question “Why don’t you want to do it?’” “I don’t want to get the yucky stuff on my fingers” he said  “but you are always making soup and potions in the backyard, you like doing it” (That’s why I thought of this totally stupid idea) “No I don’t” he shouted down indignantly “Lilly makes them for me so I don’t get it on my fingers”  “oh” I said.

See this is the reason I chose home over school, so that if anything stressed Eli out he would be able to approach the task at his own pace. So that he would be free from pressure and here I was practically dragging him kicking and screaming into an activity that was causing him anxiety. granted he can sometimes refuse a task just to be defiant and I am pretty sure he has touched gross things before but that is beside the point. He was stressed and after all my back patting earlier I turned out to be the worst educator in the world that morning. Let’s face it people my pride was hurt by his reaction and instead of focusing on the ones keen to do the activity I entered a battle of wills I shouldn’t have been in.

I apologised to Eli told him he could go and find something else to do and walked over to help the girls. The girls and I had fun, the rest of the morning played out as excepted and low and behold as Lilly was plating up Eli rocks up cool as a cucumber with his bucket full. As soon as he had time to think it through he wanted to join in and was just as keen as the girls.I’m not sure how much education the kids got that morning but I learnt my lesson and the dish I plated up was flavoured humble.

Lilly’s Snake Stew

Alanah’s Zebra Stew

Eli’s Red Belly Black Snake Stew (He did do the writing, in fact he insisted only I have temporarily misplaced his writing book, see what a bad mother I am)

We read Jeanie Adams book Pigs and Honey. The book tells the tale of a family living in the Aboriginal community at Aurukun, a town on the cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland. The story follows the family as they go bush, hunting wild pigs and collecting wild honey. It’s the sort of family feast that makes you want to grab all your relatives and head out camping. As part of the feast the Mum cooks a damper to eat the wild honey with. We don’t have a tent and it’s getting a bit cold to just hang out under the stars so we thought we would have a go at the damper and honey part.

Here’s how.

pre heat oven to 180 degrees

• 2 cups of Self Raising flour
• 1 cup of plain flour
• 1 Tsp salt (ours was a little too salty but that may have been because we let Lilly do this step)
• Water to mix
• You can also try adding sultanas or herbs
• To make it, mix the salt and the flour together then form a well in the centre. Add  water a little at a time till you have a firm dough. Kneed on a board then place on a lightly floured tray and bake on the top shelf of the oven for 10-15 min then turn over and cook for a further 10-15 min. If you are camping it can be wrapped around a stick and cooked in the ashy bits of the camp fire, so much more exciting. When its done it will be really hard on the outside and really only tastes good if its smothered in butter and honey.

So I was having this lovely day. The kids and I had successfully made two slices one safely tucked away in the fridge and the other cooking in the oven and I was feeling pretty good about life in general. It doesn’t take much to make me happy, I’ll take any achievement I can get . Then Saby decides she’s been patient enough through all this boring cooking business and you are going to feed me now, right now Immediately. So I think well why not sit down and read a few blogs while feeding. The kids all head of to continue the adventures of The One Gloved Terribly Sad Pink Princess and the Giant Kangaroo and I look for a laugh on the internets.

This post by dooce has me chuckling away in agreement over the squirminess of those movies and ridiculous cartoons. When all of a sudden The One Gloved Terribly Sad Pink Princess bursts into the room flapping her hands frantically and shouting an incoherent jumble of words. The first half of the sentence made no sense whatsoever but the translator microbes must have kicked in about half way through her ramble because suddenly three words stand out crystal clear "Lilly…Swing….FALLING!!!!!!" the last word deserves all those exclamation marks because it was spoken with such blood curdling force ( note to self must get that girl into drama classes). I leave the not too happy to be finishing that quickly baby in the care of the Pink Princess and run towards the back door. A quick glance through the window reveals a soon-to-be disastrous scene. Lilly is hanging like a professional trapeze artist from the bar on the swing set, however she cannot unravel her limbs from around the chains and her fingers, presumably slippery from panicked sweating, are loosing their grip. She is moments from landing on her face again. I say again for a good reason.  This child has had us to the emergency room at the hospital five times, three of which she has been bleeding profusely from gaping head wounds. So if I panicked a little I’m sorry, but with Lilly you never know.

With maybe a little more speed than was called for I race through the back door and into the sun room heading for the stairs down to the back yard. While charging madly to the rescue I notice my way is blocked by the Boy child still decked out like a Kangaroo, his face a look of horror and that high pitched note on the edge of his voice. The one that means a total flip out session is about to begin. Without breaking my pace I look to see where his trembling finger is pointing, and there it is on the floor, horror of all horrors, a cockroach and ITS LEGS ARE STILL WIGGLING!!  By now I’m already past him and have no intention of battling the horrendous creature right this moment, so I turn my head while descending the stairs to send comforting platitudes in his general direction. This proved to be somewhat of a mistake as looking backwards over your shoulder means that you’re not looking where you’re going. And not doing this while going down stairs at your maximum top speed can sometimes results in misplacing your step.

I feel myself slipping but I know that if I fall, Lilly falls too. So I summon up all my strength and will myself to stay upright. I manage to make it down the stairs running a little like a hippo with a dislocated hip my right leg twisted around so that my big toe is 90 degrees out of wack and falls with each step in the position that my left foot normally occupies. My poor left leg with nowhere to go is bent awkwardly and is attempting to maintain momentum by a series of rapid bunny hops. Somewhere inside it dawns on me that I can’t really keep this up.

It takes two or three more seconds before I loose it completely about the same amount of time it takes to reach the steep slope we have in the middle of the lawn.Right at the top of the hill my legs give this whole thing up as a ridiculous joke that they will no longer participate in and slip out from under me. But the speed that I have gathered and the fact that the ground is now rapidly sloping away from me catapult me into the air. As I fly across the grass superman style I happen to notice that approximately exactly where I am going to land is currently occupied by a large pile of dog poo (second note to self: never put off cleaning the backyard, it’s just gross). While still in the air I twist my body pulling my arms down by my side. A manoeuvre that successfully moves me away from the giant pile of dog poo but also takes my landing gear out of action.  With nothing to land on but my face I hit the ground with full force and slide along the grass on my eyeball and right shoulder. I look up and realise I had come to a stop just in front of Lilly.  She looks down at me her face red from hanging upside down so long now frozen in a look of shock. I look up at her, the right side of my face smarting and my hair full of grass, and then the two of us burst into peals of laughter. I think it was the release of tension plus I do have a tendency for laughing at very inappropriate moments. Laughing is nice but when you are hanging upside down with your legs wrapped around trapeze chains relying on your own very slippery fingers to hold you there it is not a very good idea. I see Lilly let go and with no time to stand up and grab her I commando crawl forward, roll on my back and stick my hands up. Just in time. My hands really don’t help much and I end up with my four year old very bony kneed daughter sitting on my head. But she’s not bleeding so I count this one as a win.

I head back inside the house deftly defeating the hideous roach and rescuing the Kangaroo Boy with one kick of my boot. I get to the kitchen door only to find Little dog on top of the table happily licking the new container of butter, have you ever seen a guilty smile on a dog?  I step onto the kitchen floor which admittedly isn’t always the cleanest but it doesn’t always go crunch. The large dog is in the process of showering the entire kitchen with the rolled oats he is shaking out of the bag I left on the bench after making the slices (third note to self: always clean up after cooking no matter how loudly the baby is crying). Now my Mum is quite good with sayings and one she is always using is "My get up and go just got up and went" I think mine left me at that moment and took a little piece of my sanity with it. I decided I needed a coffee.

However (this is turning into one of those fortunately, unfortunately stories) the sound of the kettle boiling reminded the children that they have stomaches and that it is now approximately one minute past lunch time. I debate making them wait till I finish cleaning the kitchen but I don’t want them to starve to death so I decide the cleaning can wait. They neeeed noodles so i flick on the hot plate, stick the pan of noodles on and when they are close to finishing I grab the frozen corn and peas out of the fridge. Just then the phone rings. I quickly grab the pan of noodles and pop them into the sink thinking with the luck I’ve had today they’ll burn or worse get knocked off the hot plate while I’m on the phone. I throw down the peas and corn and grab the phone. It’s Glenn and a perfect opportunity to vent about the day I’ve just had. While I’m chatting away I grab the bag of peas and as I lift them a fountain of frosty green balls explode from the bag not unlike that scene in The Exorcist. They go everywhere. All over the oven, the bench, the sink and some even make it to the floor where their fall is broken by the piles of rolled oats. You see I hadn’t exactly put the bag on the bench I had in fact placed the plastic pea bag on top of the exact same hot plate I had been using for the noodles. It’s at this point that I remember the post I had been reading and the irony of the whole thing hits me with such force that I think if I were and octopus I’d forget I could swim too.