What’s a Dad to do?

There’s a very amusing post over in Blogfathers about how you react when you meet a new dad (or mom) at the playground and everyone hits it off.  You swap numbers – but never hear from them again.

Thursday night cooking

Want something simple to cook tonight? – here’s our recommendation.

Roast Pork Steaks with Tomatoes and Pine Nuts

1 tblspn olive oil, plus extra to drizzle

4 lean pork steaks or chops

250g punnet cherry tomatoes

25g pine nuts

Splash balsamic vinegar

Basil leaves

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.  Heat oil in large frypan over medium heat and cook the pork steaks for 1-2 minutes each side until golden brown.  Transfer to a large roasting pan, spaced well apart.  Cut the tomatoes in half and scatter over the pork, followed by the pine nuts.  Season well.  Place the roasting pan in the oven for 12-15 minutes until the prok is tender.  Remove from oven, sprinkle over the vinegar, and scatter with he basil leaves.  Serve drizzled with a  little extra olive oil.

This really is delicious.   Even my wife, who doesn’t really like pork all that much, loves this dish.

Eat your greens

How do you get your kids to eat their vegies?  Someone told me today that they get their 3 year old to eat more by allowing them to sprinkle them with those sprinkles you put on cookies.  While personally, the idea of candy coloured broccoli doesn’t appeal, I can see why a toddler would love this.  The combination of control over their environment and colour and movement might just do the trick.  If you don’t want to encourage the whole sugar/food colouring thing, maybe there’s something else you could try?  Sesame seeds?  Breadcrumbs?  Parmesan cheese?  Salt?  (just kidding on the last one.)

Must have gadget

Who needs one of those fancy bluetooth earpieces, or even a speaker phone – when you can have the Third Hand. I’m proud to say too that this piece of genius was invented in Australia. (click on the image to make it larger)

Parent Hacks

We’ve got a two year old, who comes complete with about 1000 toys and each one has about 1000 pieces. (<<insert comment about spoiling children here>>)  This makes clean up time a complete pain in the ass – especially when he’s not being co-operative and doesn’t want to help. (which is most of the time)  That’s why I’m intrigued by the BAM! game, as related to Parenthacks.com.  Basically, it’s all about throwing toys (the non-breakable kind) into their respective containers, while yelling “BAM!”   Simple, I know – but it’s one of those things that you don’t think about until someone points it out.  I know our son would love this, but personally, I’d be worried that he’d start doing it outside clean-up time.  Anyways, give it a try and if it works for you (or doesn’t), let us now in the comments.

Cooking Tips

As any dadpreneur knows, there comes a time in the day when you have to stop being a preneur and start being a dad – that’s right, dinner time.  Personally, I love cooking and modestly think I’m not too bad at it – but there’s always room for improvement.  So, with that in mind, I give you Lifehacker’s Kitchen Timesavers that Speed Up Dinner.

I especially like the idea of keeping a ‘cheat sheet’ somewhere inside a cabinet door.  With most of our cookbooks coming from Australia, I’m always finding there’s a moment when I need to know how many grams in an ounce…..

Any other tips you want to share?  Post them in the comments section.