This week I am struggling somewhat to find inspiration for interesting and varied meals to serve up for dinner, lunch, side dishes and pretty much all those other little snacks in between. I still enjoy cooking. I still enjoy eating a wide variety of wholesome, flavoursome food. And I still enjoy nurturing my family with nourishing home cooked meals. My lack of enthusiasm and inspiration is due to a lack of sleep because my nights have been commandeered by a newborn requiring regular feeds. Let me just say that meal production has now been extended to include milk production. Regardless of how many children a mother has, one never adjusts to waking at night, and I am so, so looking forward to when my baby sleeps through…eventually. 

Of course it is very easy to fall back on my “go to” recipes like spaghetti Bolognese, tuna pasta, oven baked chicken and rice and slow cooked goulash, which the children and my husband will devour with gusto. They are always appreciative of the meals I dish up on a daily basis. However I find MY taste buds become weary and want something more. I am also keen to introduce the children to a variety of cross cultural dishes so that they may better appreciate food and ingredients in general. 

Baking is a genre for which I never have problems finding inspiration. This is partially due to my sweet tooth and also because I find whipping up batches of biscuits, cakes, slices and breads satisfyingly relaxing. I often find myself pulling flour, eggs, vanilla and other essential ingredients onto the kitchen bench long after my children have fallen asleep, and in the quiet of the night, having great satisfaction in turning accessible, basic ingredients into the most wonderfully fragrant and delicious baked goods. Hence the two blog entries already this week, featuring items of “Baking Bliss” – Morning Tea Macaroon Slice and Chocolate Kuglehopf Cake.

Speaking of baking late at night, my mother-in-law was up turning flour, water, eggs and cheese into her incredible Cheese Pita, a traditional savoury dish from the former Yugoslavia that features hand made pastry stuffed with various cheeses and baked until golden brown. Just as I was pondering the question of what to make for dinner, my mother-in-law turned up at my door, her arms cradling a Corningware dish crammed full of pita. Perfect timing! 

This Cheese Pita became a main part of tonight’s dinner, served alongside bowls of Greek-style plain yoghurt, barbecued succulent sirloin steak from Chilcott’s Butchery, oven roasted capsicums, and two salads; an iceberg lettuce with mustard dressing and a warm char-grilled zucchini and mushroom with olive oil. I am so grateful to my mother-in-law for bringing over the Cheese Pita which made my dinner decision much less of a dilemma. 

I haven’t included her recipe because Cheese Pita is time consuming to make and requires practice to get the consistency and elasticity of the pastry just right. It is a recipe best learnt by watching an expert like my mother-in-law or my mother deftly work the pastry and filling until it is just right.