A productive day in the garden...

Our eggs, my first lemon, kale, leeks, lettuce, radishes, spring onion, and parsley.

Yesterday the kids and I got out in the garden for the first time in a while. It's really ticked through winter quite nicely this year and producing some good colour and veges - this would be my first winter where I've had a good amount coming through. Out of my kitchen garden I pulled out what I thought was a weed (didn't recognise the leaves), but discovered a forgotten radish in there. I haven't grown radishes before, but had some in a bundle of seedlings I purchased from the supermarket a while back. After looking over the rest of the garden, I realised I had most of a meal out there waiting for me.

I made a self-crusting quiche - just added in some GF flour, cubes of potato, chicken, milk, and cheese to my leeks, kale and eggs.
Served with salad made with lettuce, radish, egg, spring onion, and lemon juice all from the garden.
Crutons baked in the oven with butter using semi-stale gluten-free bread.

One of those throw-together meals...

The cupboards were beginning to appear bare (my fortnightly shopping day is due today). Although I knew that that were plenty of meals to be cooked from what we had, I was feeling less than inspired with what I saw. After going through the freezer I found a container with half a tin of coconut cream, another with frozen tomatoes, and a chicken breast and thought I would be able to throw together a tasty and nutritious curry. So, out came a tin of chickpeas, an onion, a potato, the rice and the spices - and I had my meal.

A trip out to the garden for a large handful of silverbeet and we were good to go.

Yummy salads

Now that I've fully recovered from the flu I had (aside from the lingering cough), my appetite seems to have returned after a week of not really eating. Yesterday I had a sudden craving for good, fresh, raw and cold vegetables to go with the rest of my dinner. I had seen a recipe for a 'tri-colour salad' in one of my new cookbooks, and planned to get what I needed with my weekly vege shop.

Beetroot and homemade mayo salad (very nice!)

Carrot and toasted spices (not bad, but will cut back the salt required)
Watercress salad (nice too, only I didn't want to pay $4 for watercress so used my own lettuce from the garden). I do have some packets of watercress seeds though that I have been meaning to grow.

Learning about Ayurveda

I have a friend who was showing me her books on Ayurveda earlier in the week. We did the quiz in the book and I came out strongly Pitta/Kapha. Since I know nothing about the Ayurveda philosophy (aside from having heard about it at various times over the years), I decided to get a stack of books from the library a few days back.

One thing that stood out to me is that my "type" really needs to cut back on onions, garlic and hot spices. What is interesting to me about this, is that we eat a variety of these most nights and I was keen to see if cooking appropriate recipes for my type (and incidentally, Simon is the same dual-type as me) would make me feel different. And since I'm all for finding some new recipes, I look forward to finding some new recipes. Of course, as per my usual, I will need to wait till shopping day to buy particular ingredients I need (shopping day is today).

Has anyone followed an Ayurvedic diet at any stage, and how did you find it?

Another wintry meal or two

Once our household returned to normal after the weekend, and after the icky bugs were gone, I got out my library cookbooks again for a bit of inspiration.

I had bought some fish (frozen) and mushrooms at the supermarket last week - I don't normally buy either of these ingredients, not because I'm particularly adverse to them, they just seem to fall outside of my "normal". So, out came the Irish Folklore book again, and I found the recipe that had me buying the fish and the mushrooms for. Fish Pie - yes very ordinary! I've made fish pie a few times, but the kids just weren't into it, so I think I just didn't bother again - until now.

It used a lot of pots and it called for quite a bit of preparation time (not usually my thing to be in the kitchen for a length of time), but it was super yummy. Both kids ate it, so a success I'd say.

I then made another visit to the library and grabbed a few more books. A couple of gluten free ones (I was particularly interested in reading up about Fructose malabsorption, and this author takes that into account in her recipes) as well as a River Cottage one. I've been watching the current River Cottage series on TV and really enjoying it - I even have a batch of ginger beer on the go at the moment.

Tonight's dinner was a Chicken Casserole from one of the GF books and handily used up my remaining mushrooms. Also a success!

Changing seasons and a changing menu...

Now that the weather's cooled off for good, I've been having the feeling of really needing to change the types of foods we're eating. While I've been bringing back some of our cooler weather meals, I've been kind of bored with the same ol', same ol'.

When we went to the library on Tuesday I decided to grab a bunch of books to draw a bit of inspiration from.


The Feeding the Whole Family book was one I had my
library purchase a few years back.

I really liked the idea of a couple of the seasonal books I found, including the Irish Food and Folklore one. Having a bit of Irish blood in me, I'm always drawn to a good old potato recipe (and this book doesn't fail me!).

I was presented with a slight challenge in that I wanted to use what food I had available in the pantry and freezer. Since I only grocery shop once a fortnight and don't step foot in a supermarket or dairy in between times, I needed to find recipes that suited what we had (and I only shopped last Friday). Next shopping day I can plan my shopping list around what I decide I'm going to give a go. Wasn't too tricky as we eat fairly traditionally anyway and generally have a good range of spices in the pantry, fresh herbs growing in the garden, and other basic ingredients on hand - especially potatoes ;). I was a bit pressed when it came to the Ox Tongue or Lamb's Liver recipes though... :P

First up was Irish Farmhouse Bake and Meat Loaf served with broccoli - nothing unusual there, and fairly ordinary, but meatloaf is something I have only made once or twice (I just used some fresh gluten free bread for the crumbs). Not the best meal for those on a reduced calorie diet lol, but it went down well and tasted goooood!

The kids were keen to help out, and a bit of boogying in the kitchen to U2 was just the thing.

Last night was an Irish Stew cooked in the crockpot - so once again, nothing too out of the ordinary, but did have me using the chops in a different way that I usually do.

I already have my eye on making a few of the vegetarian meals, but will need to wait tll shopping day for them as I need to get some more parmesan and arborio rice. If I can find some prunes and a kumara in the pantry, I think I'll make the Chickpea and Sweet Potato Stew tonight.

Fast food

I have a standard 'fast food' meal that I tend to cook once a week - and I try to keep it seasonal. We have one day where we're out of the house and not home till 5.45pm. Although Nathan's gym class isn't till late afternoon, I've been picking the kids up straight from school and do a bunch of errands or go to the library to try and use our fuel economically. I will probably start doing a crockpot soon though, now that it's getting colder.

When asked by the kids "what's for dinner?", my reply is "the pasta tomatoey dish". Always received with a "Yum!".

A large tin (or 2 small) tins of tomatoes (or fresh if in season)

1 large onion

2 cloves of garlic

Fresh seasonal vegetables - grated courgette, finely chopped silverbeet/spinach/chard, broccoli pieces, capsicum, etc

About 1 T of fresh herbs (I usually use oregano, parsley and thyme and some dried basil)

A packet of GF pasta

It's as simple as sauteeing up the onion and garlic, adding in the tomatoes, veges, herbs, season with a bit of sugar (brings out the flavour of the tomatoes) and salt if desired. Meanwhile cook up the pasta and toss it into the tomato sauce when done. That's about 15-20mins all up.