For someone who loves being in the kitchen as much as Julie Goodwin, it might be surprising to learn she doesn’t necessarily consider what ends up on the plate to be the most important part of cooking.
“In the grand scheme of things, the food is secondary,” the cook, author and presenter writes in her latest recipe collection.
“If you’re overloaded and under-resourced and not organised but you still want to see your kids’ faces light up and share a few minutes with them over dinner, then chuck a few snags on the barbie and call it a sausage sizzle night.”
You can always make up on the “green stuff” later on, she says. When you’re juggling the day-to-day demands of family life, cooking is about survival.
As Goodwin explains, this doesn’t necessarily change as children grow. When kids are younger, the question of “what’s for dinner” is a daily inevitability. Now that Goodwin’s own boys are grown, that question has become “who’s home for dinner”. That shift adds an extra layer of logistics to accommodate changing commitments and lifestyles: how many people will be eating, whether friends or partners will be coming over, and if they need to eat early or late.
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Goodwin’s cookbook is about managing those fluctuating demands. Home for Dinner aims to make meal time as easy as possible by creating space and time for family to connect and check in with each other, and breaking down the “barriers that stand between us and a beautiful, beneficial daily ritual”. The collection includes tips and strategies alongside inexpensive recipes that can be prepped or cooked ahead and easily reheated, served in solo portions or stretched out for many people, and allow anyone in the household to pitch in.
Because ultimately, Goodwin says, if you share the food, you should share the load.
“Each person can pitch in to their own capabilities,” she writes. “You will see such a reward, not just from the meal but also from the lightening of what truly is, quite often, a serious burden on one member of the household. Give your housemates the gift of participation. You never know what passions, skills, future careers or hobbies you might be unlocking.”
“Fridge-shaker” refers to the use of leftovers – shake the refrigerator, and whatever falls out goes in the frittata! This makes it extremely economical as well as being super-quick to cook. It can be eaten hot for dinner, or cold for lunch or a snack.
This is an edited extract from Home for Dinner by Julie Goodwin, published by Penguin, RRP $49.99. Photography by Steve Brown.
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