Trying to be an eco-mum on a budget

So my mum is really into cooking blogs. She can spend all day reading these blogs. It’s actually how she got into reading blogs at all. When I told her I was starting a blog, she was very excited, because I think she thought it was going to be about food!  While I may blog about food from time to time, it obviously isn’t the main theme.

Until tonight, when I put on quite a feast, I have to say!  Tonight’s theme was Morocco.  My son is really into this book called the ‘Mirror’ book (Janine Baker), which is about two boys on opposite sides of the world, living very different lives, but something connects them. He loves that book. I’ve wanted to go to Morocco for a long time. When I was in Abu Dhabi I had a Moroccan colleague who surprised me on my birthday with a box full of Moroccan things.

In my current job, we have a book club and I was so excited when I saw a Moroccan cookbook. Since then I have been planning this meal and tonight I decided to cook it all up.

My Montessori book also told me to teach children about countries one at a time, focussing on a country, its culture, food, geography etc. So this is our first country assignment. This morning I showed my son where Morocco is in the world. We looked at some photos of its geography from snow-capped mountains to desert, from the markets to the villages. I also told him he would help me cook this Moroccan feast, so this morning he woke up very excited waiting until we cooked ‘Moroccan food’.

Obviously we’ll have to re-visit Morocco, but for tonight we enjoyed some of its foods, even if I had to take short cuts to get the meals all cooked. So what did our menu consist of tonight?

• Spicy aubergine and tomato salad (zaalouk) – very yummy!
• Roasted peppers with goats’ cheese, onion and parsley (salada felfla wa jban) – yummy also!
• Chick pea salad with onions and paprika (salda hummas) – very nice
• Chicken k’dra with chickpeas, raising and red peppers (k’dra djaj) – for the kiddies
• sautéed spinach with orange and almonds (saute d’epinards) – interesting, but nice!
• Honey glazed pumpkin with spices (ambassel mechoui) – very yummy

If anyone is interested I can share these recipes – all were nice and spicy.

For those inspired to cook, here are some vegetarian friendly cooing blogs:

However here are a few vegetarian friendly cooking blogs (I’m vegie) http://www.veggienumnum.com/ this looks really yummy actually and I’ve cooked a few things from it.

Here is the one my mum really likes: http://scandifoodie.blogspot.com.au/

Enjoy and if you have any favourite recipes that kiddies might enjoy also, please share.