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Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst 

Yumi Stynes

Does the question “What’s for dinner?” make you groan with despair?

Are you lacking both time AND inspiration?

Author Yumi Stynes and cookbook publisher Simon Davis are both busy, love food, and here to help.

In a podcast you can whack on for the drive home from work, you get meal ideas realistic enough to be cooked that night, AND you get laughs while learning more about the food you've been cooking every day.

Easy recipes and cooking hacks that will save you time and get you loving food again. For recipes, videos and laughs, check out: instagram.com/5minutefoodfix/?hl=en https://www.tiktok.com/@5minutefoodfix

And to contact the show: foodfixemail@gmail.com

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5 Minute Food Fix

Apparently we’re in our Freezer Girl Era now – – and yes, I know I’m a boy. But this trend?

I’m fully on board. It’s about filling your freezer with little things that make weeknight cooking feel like you actually have your life together.

This isn’t bulk meal prep. This is freezer magic – a stash of flavour bombs and shortcuts that save you mid-week.

Here’s what’s in my current rotation:

 Flavoured butters: mix butter with garlic and herbs, or miso and sesame oil, or

truffle and parmesan. Roll into a log, freeze, and slice off coins as needed.

 Pesto ice cubes: blitz wilting herbs with oil and garlic, freeze in trays. Add to pasta,

soups, sandwiches – boom.

 Rice balls: leftover rice + soy + sesame = freezer patties you can pan-fry from frozen.

 Wine cubes: splash of red or white to rescue a bland dinner. You’re welcome.

 Cookie dough blobs: bake one, freeze ten. Smug levels: high.

Stock your freezer like you’re feeding your future self – or just buying yourself five quiet

minutes.

- Simon

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Simon's "Freezer Girl" era

It feels like Spring and Summer are around the corner, and Yumi is excited about a pasta salad that can be served warm and has a super-cute, mouth-pleasing texture that may well intern it into the FOREVER FILES.

Based on this recipe, Yumi has halved the quantities to suit her ("Mercifully Divorced") lifestyle and improved it by cooking the corn and adding chopped smoked almonds at the end.

Quick answer to a riddle we don't solve on-air: Creste di Gallo looks like this!

And the book Simon is talking about is The Geometry of Pasta.

SUPER-CUTE PASTA SALAD

 • 125g ditalini pasta
 • 2 ears fresh corn, shucked and washed
 • 1-2 large stalks celery, peeled and finely chopped
 • 2 tbs finely chopped fresh chives
 • roughly chopped smoked almonds (optional)

DRESSING

 • Granulated sugar (probs don't need)
 • 2 tablespoons white or yellow miso
 • 2.5 tablespoons lemon juice
 • 1 tablespoon hot hot chilli sauce, minced chipotles in adobo, or gochujang, or sambal oelek
 • 1/4 cup mayonnaise (I use Kewpie)

METHOD

Prepare the dressing by whisking all the ingredients together in a tiny bowl or jar.

Prepare the celery by chopping to pieces the same size as the pasta will be when cooked (about the same size as an adult human tooth).

In a large, heavy-based pan, cook the corn until slightly charred.

Boil the pasta to al dente. (Very important not to overcook it or it'll be gross!)

Drain the pasta well then combine the salad ingredients, mix well and pour over the dressing.

Serve immediately with smoked almonds scattered over the top.

LEFTOVERS can be revived with some fresh rocket, tuna, chopped tomato, etc.

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Super-Cute Pasta Salad

Apologies in advance! 

Your hosts completely lose it and start laughing like hyenas over the Netflix doco 'Poop Cruise' - which is not for the faint-hearted!

Listen along though - it's good for you to laugh!

Otherwise skip through to the 3 minute mark for chat on making:

STEW - HORRIBLE WORD. BRILLIANT THING TO EAT

A meaty, miso-boosted winter stew that’s big on flavour, low on fuss – TERRIBLE name, EXCELLENT dinner.

RATIO: Meat to Veg = 2:1

Brown your meat in batches to get the meat lovely and flavourful. Take your time.

Add some onion wedges and get it softened in the pan. Add in your more robust herbs like thyme and rosemary, tomato paste and aromatics.

Add a big blob of miso paste and then your vegetables (evenly cut, not too large), and your (good quality) stock.

To serve?

Freshen the whole thing up with a grate of lemon zest, squeeze of lemon or a dash of vinegar, and a scattering of fresh herbs like parsley or basil. Serve with a hunk or bread, or mashed potato, or even rice!

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LAUGHTER THERAPY - and Stew

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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TOUM - A Lebanese Garlic Sauce that's beautifully fun to make

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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Cooking DEVIL'S FOOD - with kids!

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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Making an "average" dinner better

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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CODE CRACKED: Office Lunch!

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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2 Nasty Bananas!

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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'UPGRADED' Greek Salad

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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Cheese Board Minimalism

[RECIPE IN SHOW NOTES] 

 

When I was a kid, my mum used to have to bring udon noodles back from Japan. Now they’re available in the supermarket, which is AWESOME, but I think some people are scared to cook them. SO, in this episode we’re going to tell you how to get it right, including the CHEAT’S way to make the SAUCE... 

 

Want more food tips? Check out the 5 Minute Food Fix Instagram. 

 

RECIPE

INGREDIENTS 
Packet udon noodles 

SAUCE 
Udon Sauce (bottled), diluted with water, then cooked to a gentle boil 

TOPPINGS 
A fried prawn, snipped spring onions, a boiled egg, a sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds 

METHOD 
Open the packet of noodles separate the cake of noodles by scrunching gently apart with hands in cold water. Plunge into a pot of boiling water for 2-3 minutes (check packet instructions for exact times, don’t overdo it.) Rinse the cooked noodles with cold water through a mesh sieve. Serve with the sauce immediately and add toppings. Delicious! 

 

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Udon noodles, “The Soothing Nood”

Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst

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