Cooking Up a Storm

6 Comments

Posted on May 17, 2015

I didn’t sew today (or this week) but today I cooked. More specifically I cooked this afternoon and evening as I went shopping this morning.

Last night I cooked pumpkin with vegetable stock in the slowcooker. This afternoon I cooked potatoes, fried some onion and added the pumpkin mixture. This made 7 large serves of soup. I had one for dinner and here are the others ready to go in the freezer.

With the remainder of the pumpkin I sliced it up, brushed with a mixture of oil and balsamic vinegar and roasted it. I will use the roasted pumpkin slices on pizzas for dinner on Tuesday night. Two trays ready to go in the oven.

Once the pumpkin mixture was finished in the slow cooker I cooked the chickpeas which had been soaking over night to make hummus.

The next thing into the slow cooker was honey soy chicken. 8 chicken thigh fillets, 3 tablespoons honey and 2 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce. Once the chicken was cooked I removed the pieces with a slotted spoon and poured the juice into a small saucepan and thickened it with arrowroot. 4 serves ready to freeze.

After the chicken was done I washed the slow cooker then added kidney beans to make refried beans which you can find in this blog post.

I make my own gluten-free pizza bases and normally make enough for 6 bases and freeze them. There were none in the freezer so it was time to make another batch. Here is the dough divided into pieces. The first 2 bases were already in the oven by the time I took the photo.

Here are 6 pre-cooked bases ready to be bagged and frozen. I use opened out cereal packets to separate things that I am freezing. The dividers can be washed and re-used many times.

I picked lemons and made lemon cordial. You can read more about it here.

I also made more butter mixture and 8 serves of chilli con carne (no photo) as well as dividing up the meat which I bought and packing it into the freezer.

Cooking and preparing meals is a never-ending task but it is good to have a few meals and ingredients prepared to make the job a bit easier each evening.

A Packed Lunch

2 Comments

Posted on May 11, 2015

I pack our lunches (and breakfasts) each day for work but I am usually in a rush so the camera is the last thing on my mind. This morning I had a little more time and I remembered to grab the camera.

This is what GMan took today. Banana, apple, 2 Vitabrits and psyllium husk, 2 slices bread, almonds and raisins, baked beans, grapefruit.

He always has 2 pieces of fruit, dried fruit and nuts for snacks. Lunch can be baked beans, flavoured tuna, salad, soup or leftovers. He generally has Vitabrits for breakfast but I had prepared a grapefruit yesterday so the Vitabrits were kept for tomorrow.

Sometimes I feel like I am packing the same old thing every day but we are happy to take our packed lunches and save around $10/day each on bought lunches. That is $200/fortnight that we can use for other expenses. The other benefit is that it is all packed in reuseable containers and ziplock bags so we are minimising any waste.

We are lucky that we both have access to refrigerators and microwave ovens at work.

Do you take a packed lunch?

Flashback Friday

The Duke Does Dough

1 Comment

Posted on March 14, 2015

It has been a busy week at work and today has been full of activity. I had not given a lot of thought as to what I planned to write tonight but that was solved for me earlier this evening when The Duke removed the fruit loaf from the breadmaker.

He is often quick with mock ridicule at the things that I simply have to take photos of for a potential blog post, however, his first comment was, “Quick, get the camera – this is worth a photo”. Naturally, it was just begging to be part of a blog post.

I have to agree – it is a pretty impressive loaf of bread. I am not sure how he is going to slice it, though.

On very rare occasions, I have made bread in the breadmaker but generally speaking that is The Duke’s domain and he does a great job.

Kitchen Appliances – Part 2

4 Comments

Posted on March 11, 2015

Thank you all for your thoughtful responses yesterday. I have read them quickly and will go back and respond once I have written this post. As for the list from last night, here is my response.

1 Blender – I have one as part of a combination with my food processor.

2 Electric Grill – we had one which we did use but when it died I did not consider replacing it. A bit of a fad, I guess.

3 Baby Food Maker – it is a long time since I was making food for babies but I have no idea what this would be.

4 Microwave oven – yes, I have a microwave but I use it less and less. If it died, I would not automatically rush out and buy another one.

5 Panini Press – I expect this is like my sandwich press which I use quite a bit.

This is my food processor and all of the associated gadgets in the cupboard. The blender is with some of the other bits in the box at the back. Like most things, I do not use it to its full potential although the blender, citrus juicer, grater and slicer attachments are well-used.

I also have a Kitchen-Aid stand mixer and the pasta attachment for it.

Here are the rest of my appliances in the convenient appliance cupboard.

Top shelf:

Kettle – used on the gas stove if we lose power. Also on the slow-combustion heater during winter.
Slow-cooker – very well-used for soup, baked potatoes, casseroles, refried beans.

Middle shelf:

Sandwich press – toasted sandwiches and I also use it for cooking pancakes
Bread slicing guide – very useful for home-made bread
Toaster

Bottom shelf:

Juicer – rarely used – very difficult to clean
Breadmaker
Jug

I also have a stick blender in another cupboard.

I have never been seduced by the single-purpose appliances such as a pie-maker, ice-cream maker, popcorn maker or hot dog thingummy but I still have plenty of gadgets. If I were to get rid of any it would be the juicer, I think. It is interesting to consider how our needs change, particularly as families grow and children leave home. Our diet and the types of food we eat has changed over the years, also. This is how clutter can become a problem – something that was essential 10 years ago is not longer required but we are loathe to move it along.

How do my appliances compare to what you have? Everyone has different essentials and priorities.

Kitchen Appliances to Keep – Or Not?

10 Comments

Posted on March 10, 2015

I am short on time tonight but I thought I would share this link which is food for thought. It lists 5 kitchen appliances that you may not really need. They are:

1 Blender

2 Electric Grill

3 Baby Food Maker

4 Microwave oven

5 Panini Press

I have been giving quite a bit of thought to this exact topic recently so when a friend posted the link it caught my eye and gave my a bit more to think about.

I would love to hear your thoughts on what you have and why. I will be back with my own detailed response tomorrow.

Keep watching for a new series beginning on Friday.

Facebook Food

5 Comments

Posted on March 9, 2015

If you are on Facebook you will be familiar with the dozens of recipes that seem to hit your newsfeed every week. Most of these barely rate a cursory glance from me. Even the ones that look interesting never actually end up being made as they are often special occasion treats or similar to something I already make.

However, last week I saw a food post which caught my eye so I had to try it for myself. I cannot find the original Facebook post but here is my version which I think was a pretty good replica.

The girls were here for the weekend and they were pretty pleased with their treat for morning tea.

It is a simple and fun idea for a healthy snack.

Too Much Food

21 Comments

Posted on March 5, 2015

I am sure you have seen the statistics which indicate that we discard between 20 and 50% of all food that is produced. Although this is from the UK, the situation is similar in all developed countries.

It is disgusting that so much food is wasted while there are millions of people on this planet who go hungry every day.

When I first read these figures, a couple of years ago, I found it unbelievable. However, since then I have realised that many people have very different ideas to me when it comes to food usage and storage.

I work in a city office of a large global corporation and from time to time there are catered events. I understand the difficulties of predicting quantities when catering for unknown numbers and tastes. However, the fate of the leftover food is disappointing, to say the least.

This week (Tuesday) there was a large tray of untouched green salad – specialty lettuce, red onion, cucumber, bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, shredded carrot and corn kernels as well as breads, dips and fruit. This was placed on the bench in the kitchen area and generally announced in the open office. I decided to have a plate of salad with hommus and basil pesto for my lunch and save my packed lunch for another day. There may have been one or two others who had a little salad but there was still a substantial quantity left a few hours later. I did not want to see it spoil so I packed it in the fridge. I put as much as I could into a square plastic container that I had plus I filled this container that was on the bench.

That accounted for about half of the salad so I put the rest in 2 large noodle bowls, covered them and placed them in the fridge.

I brought the 2 plastic containers home which provided enough salad for 4 lunches plus dinner for both of us tonight, alongside our hamburger patties and some fried mushrooms and onions. The salad remaining in the container is enough for my lunch tomorrow – last of the 4 lunches.

I was not in the office yesterday and when I arrived this morning the 2 bowls of salad were untouched but the midday they had disappeared. I cannot be certain but most likely they were discarded into the bin. I am constantly astounded by the lack of interest in using up perfectly good food. I am not suggesting that people gorge themselves on the excess but rather use it for future meals.

On a similar note, I went to a small community gathering yesterday evening and the request was to bring a plate of supper to share. This is what I took.

Does it look meagre? I constantly witness over-catering at events where there is ‘bring a plate’ catering.. If you think about it logically, you should really only contribute the equivalent of what you or your family group would reasonably eat if there was no other food to choose from. If everyone adhered to this principle, rather than bringing huge cakes or platters of sandwiches, there would be minimal wastage and less over-indulging.

What do you think?

New For Old

2 Comments

Posted on March 2, 2015

Apart from consumables such as food and to a lesser degree clothing, I do not have a need to buy a great deal of stuff. Household items sometimes need to be replaced and I think this purchase falls into that category.

I bought a set of two china mixing bowls from Aldi for the princely sum of $10. It bothers me a bit because how something can be produced, transported across the globe and sold at a profit defies logic. Someone is losing out and I suspect it is the worker. This is a good reason to minimise your purchases, particularly of cheap, imported products.

They are to replace these two bowls which have seen better days.

The white bowl is a Tupperware one which came to me from my grandmother about 37 years ago. The surface is crazed and discoloured. The yellow bowl (36 years old) is more of a salad bowl and not ideal for mixing and it has a crack in the surface which makes it impossible to clean properly. It is time for them both to go and make way for my shiny new bowls. I hope they stand the test of time as the others did.

Get Growing

6 Comments

Posted on February 27, 2015

If you live in a location with a reasonably warm climate, there is one thing to grow that I cannot recommend highly enough. Sweet potato. It is a nutritious, versatile vegetable that will grow with the minimum of fuss. There is a heap of information here.

I have had them growing for a couple of years and there are almost always some available to harvest. This is my latest haul.

Sweet potato can be boiled, baked, steamed and mashed. You can make chips or soup. I grate it coarsely and stir-fry it and serve instead of rice or pasta with chicken stir-fry or bolognaise sauce. You can even use it to make chocolate brownies.