To make the Toum, blitz

6 garlic cloves

2 egg whites

2 tablespoons lemon juice in a food processor.

While it’s running, slowly drizzle in 1½ cups of vegetable oil until it thickens into a fluffy white cloud. Season with salt. It’s bold, punchy, and keeps for a few days in the

fridge.

Chicken Pita

Mix 3 tablespoons lemon juice, 2 tablespoons tomato paste, 1 tablespoon ground coriander and 3 tablespoons oil with a spoonful of toum (or not – if you're allergic to garlic/alliums).

Slice 500g of boneless chicken thighs in half lengthwise, salt them, and marinate for a few hours or overnight!

When you’re ready, skewer the chicken – folding the pieces onto themselves – and grill over

medium heat for 10–12 minutes until beautifully charred.

Serve on warm pita with pickles and, if you dare, a very generous smear of toum.

And if you’ve got leftover toum? It’s brilliant slathered on roast veggies, stirred into yoghurt for a quick dip, dolloped onto fried eggs, or used in place of mayo in pretty much anything.

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Yumi's son is the main budding chef in the brood, and he's obsessed with this book by Reece Hignell. It means Yumi and Manbaby have tried MANY recipes from the book, including this one for a giant Devil's Food Chocolate Cake.

CAKE BOI'S DEVIL'S FOOD CAKE - aka Chocolate Lover's Heaven!

Pre-heat the oven to 160C fan-forced.

Grease and line 2 20cm cake tins.

Sift 480g flour, 700g caster sugar, 170g cocoa powder, 4tsp baking soda, 1tsp baking powder and 1tbs salt. (Yep, I said 1 teaspoon but it's actually a whole TABLESPOON.) Reece's recipe also has 1tsp ground nutmeg to add in at this point although we left this out cos = fussy kids.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, add 480g milk, 1 cup vegetable oil, 2tsp vanilla and 4 eggs. Mix on medium speed for 1 minute.

Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Fully combine before repeating with the remaining 2/3.

Add in 480ml boiling water then mix for 1 minute.

Divide the mixture evenly (I use scales) between the 2 cake tins then bake for 50 - 55 mins.

Check with a skewer that the cake is cooked - a few moist crumbs is good, wet batter is not.

Allow the cooked cake to cool on a wire rack.

My kids don't like icing so we stop here!

ICING:

Finely chop 400g of 54% cocoa chocolate. Place in a stand mixing bowl.

Heat 600ml thickened cream in a small saucepan until it reaches a simmer. Add in 50g butter, then pour the lot over the chopped chocolate.

Allow it to sit for 1 minute, then mix it until smooth and glossy. Add 1tsp vanilla and a pinch of salt. Stir well, then refrigerate for 1 hour to set.

Run the icing in the electric mixer to get fluffy and awesome. Spread over the two cakes. Reece suggests horizontally halving the cakes to make 4 layers.

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Sometimes a dinner is SO BAD that it just has to go straight to compost.

Sorry, inner-tightass, but it's true.

Simon shares a recent take-away food experience that would get a less-busy man writing angry Yelp reviews!! LOL.

Yumi shocks Simon by revealing just how much of a tough-nut she can be when it comes to fish and chips (his reaction is worth the price of admission)...

And Simon has a good handful of tips for how to turn some "meh" homemade dinners into something - maybe not brilliant? - but something DECENT and EDIBLE.

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It's with some amazement that your hosts reflect on the fact that they're both currently working in offices.

LIKE, HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?

Yumi struggles with boredom in meetings, and has directed a lot of that restless energy into concocting the PERFECT OFFICE LUNCH. This code also applies to school/uni lunches if you have a common room.

LANGUAGE WARNING: It's not technically "swearing" but at some point Yumi does say "kick it in the dick"

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Yumi has come up with a way to use up 2 really, really nasty bananas - in a way the kids won't even notice.

2 NASTY BANANAS -> CHOC CHIP MUFFINS

2 nasty, dead-looking bananas 180g

55g melted butter

1 egg

1tsp vanilla

100g greek yoghurt

150g wholemeal (or regular) self-raising flour

70g dark chocolate chips

Pre-heat the oven to 180C

Prepare a 6-hole muffin tray

Mash well your bananas. Sometimes if I can be bothered, I used the back of a spoon to smoosh them through a sieve so there are absolutely NO LUMPS

Add in the butter, egg, vanilla, and yoghurt and mix well.

Sift in the flour. Mix with a light hand - just a couple of emphatic stirs with a big slotted spoon.

Add in the choc chips. Mix around, being careful not to overdo it.

Distribute batter among the 6 muffin holes.

TO ENSURE I get the kids over the line, I sprinkle some brown sugar on top of each muffin. This is optional.

Bake for 20 mins or until cooked.

REALLY GOOD eaten hot with butter but I freeze them then put them in school lunches direct from the freezer.

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Is it offensive to say you've "upgraded" an absolute classic?

In this case, it's not Simon making the claim - it's from an online recipe... But enough users are in the comments RAVING about the so-called upgrade that Simon had to give it a go.

The big difference? Marinating the fetta in broken pieces (not cut cubes) in oil made from frying lemon slices. Blistering the red peppers/capsicum. And using fresh oregano (as well as traditional dried if you want to really, REALLY upgrade)!

RECIPE:

Start with 225g of feta – tear it into chunky pieces and place in a bowl. Thinly slice 1 lemon, remove the seeds, and cook the slices in 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high heat until nicely charred – about 5 minutes. Add the lemon slices and oil to the feta, along with ¾ teaspoon dried oregano and a big pinch of salt. Let it sit and soak up the flavour while you prep the rest.

Now, in the same pan, cook 3 long sweet peppers in a bit more oil until they’re blistered and soft – about 5–7 minutes. Remove and let cool slightly, then slice them into bite-sized pieces.

In a large bowl, toss together:

1 medium red onion, thinly sliced

1 large cucumber, chopped

500g cherry tomatoes, halved

A big pinch of salt

And 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

Add in the chopped blistered peppers and gently mix.

To serve, pile everything onto a platter, spoon over the marinated feta and charred lemons, and drizzle with any leftover lemony oil.

MORE IDEAS - Want to make it dinner? Add some grilled chicken or chickpeas and call

it a night.

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Your hosts explain the hows and whys of a perfect CHEESE BOARD - and I think you're gonna learn something today. It really is within reach to make a cheese board classy AND effortless - by stripping it back.

ALSO - why is it so hard to spot one's own kids in a crowd?

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Your favourite cooking nerds get EXCITED over an internet recipe that has the Comments Section going off.

You know how they say "you should never read the comments"?

Not in this case!

The recipe is here.

The modifications are:

Cut the chicken into smaller pieces than suggested, then marinate them in 2tbs Garam Masala, 1tbs finely minced ginger and 1tbs fish sauce. To up the coconutty flavour, fry the chicken in coconut oil, not neutral oil. Don't use coconut cream (too oily), use coconut milk.

Yumi also beefed up the cashews to 1 whole cup, and added 1/4 cup currants. (Raisins would also be amazing.)

Yumi forgot to say in this episode - before you put the lid on and pop in the oven - LAY THE CHICKEN PIECES ON TOP OF THE RICE. Lol.

Okay - any feedback ("comments") on this or any other episode foodfixemail@gmail.com

LOVE YOU

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