yum, yum, yum

This cooking post is to balance out the cooking disaster of the other night.

I had an eggplant in the fridge and was on the hunt for a suitable use for it. I've made stuffed eggplant so many times, and I love it, but tonight was not the night. You have to feel like stuffed eggplant, you know? You also have to feel like cooking it, which was not a happening thing.

I also had a little bulgur in the cupboard. I love bulgur and I remember cooking a delicious dish with it a while ago. I've searched and searched but cannot find the recipe.

Time to find another one. I plugged in 'eggplant and bulgur recipe' on Google and this is what came up: Eggplant, bulgur and tomato casserole. Looked good and sounded delicious but I wanted to see if there was anything less fiddly around, so back to the search results until I came across this: Taste of Beirut style eggplant tomato bulgur casserole without the dish. Different site, basically the same recipe, groovy presentation - a sign surely? I just had to cook it!

This is the result:

If you think it looks good, believe me it tasted even better! I'm definitely going to be cooking this one again!

oh the dilemma

Thank you for your feedback and comments both here and on facebook.

In response to overwhelming demand, I will reveal the company in question as Spiral Foods. As far as I can tell they are small. You probably won't find their food in the two big supermarkets here, but they are readily available in small, locally owned stores.

As to the ACCC, I'm still not sure. I am so uncertain I have been conducting indepth self-psychoanalyses to discover the root cause of my dithering. I think partly I'm tired of the whole thing. If they want to sell bad tomatoes and do diddly squat about it, that's their problem not mine. On the other hand, the approach they have taken is pretty appalling. It's not even about the tomatoes any more, but their woeful handling of the affair.

I stayed up way too late last night, watching a cute French movie on SBS. We cut down on our television viewing last week because we were mindlessly wasting away too many evenings. Last night was a bit of a catch up, but now I'm very tired. Perhaps this is the cause of my uncertainty? I'm going to just sleep on it and see what I think tomorrow.

And to put the whole thing in context, go read this: Conspiracies and the IPCC. Suddenly bad tomatoes seem totally insignificant!

the story (aka 'a most revealing email')

I have this really bad habit of being like a dog with a bone. I cannot just let an issue be, unless it is resolved. Or until I have done absolutely everything possible to see it resolved.

For the last twelve months I have been caught up in just such an issue. I knew I was being annoying, but I could not let it go. Finally, in the last day or two I have found some peace. Not the solution I wanted, but I have let go of the bone.

The story goes like this.

On the 21st November last year I opened a tin of organic tomatoes and tipped them into the saucepan. The tomatoes turned out to be bad and, after leaving a message with the company in question, I had to throw the meal away.

The company were less than accommodating. They possibly called Frank's mobile, but he didn't know what they wanted and hung up, so for all intents and purposes they did not return my call. A week later the bad tomatoes were still in my fridge and I rang again, during the day, and spoke with the PR woman. She advised me the company had no use for the product I had been keeping in the fridge, and since they process thousands of tons of tomatoes every year of course there might be a rotten tin or two, as if the situation was completely acceptable. If I wanted to, I could email her our address (which I did) and she would send out some replacement product. We didn't hear back until January 2009, when we received a box with a selection of the company's organic produce. I figured that was that and got on with life.

Lurking in the back of my cupboard, however, was another can of tomatoes bought at the same time. I was rather reluctant to use them, but eventually decided it was unlikely there were two tins of bad tomatoes, so I opened the can, cautiously tipped them into a bowl before pouring them into the saucepan and...

Another can of bad tomatoes! Who would have thought. I carefully bagged them up, put them in the fridge and wrote a letter to the company. I opted for snail mail to see if I could avoid dismissive PR woman, and dropped the letter in the post on 10 May 2009.

Nothing. By 2 June I had received no reply, so I emailed another copy of the letter and asked if they had received the paper copy. The next day PR woman replied. Yes, they had my letter and were following it up. To help in their investigations could I please respond to a few questions, including clarification of the date of the first incident - did I mean December 2007? (No, I meant December 2008 - don't you remember that?) Wanting a speedy resolution, I immediately sent off my answers and waited.

And waited.
And waited.

By 11 October 2009 (yes, that is FIVE months!) I had heard nothing from the company, so I emailed again to ask how their investigations were going. 'Oh yes, the investigation,' PR woman replied the next day, 'could you please answer the questions we sent you in June? We can't do anything until we hear from you.'

Ha. She picked the wrong person. I keep all my emails. I'm surprised Yahoo haven't emailed me and complained on the size of my sent box, leave alone the overflowing inbox! I found my previous email from 3 June 2009 and forwarded it to her again, pointing out the date I had originally sent it.

Further silence.

By the 28 October I was tired of waiting. This had been going on for nearly six months. Eleven if you counted the first can of tomatoes, of which they conveniently had no record. I contemplated letting it go, but (dog with a bone) I just couldn't. People die from tins of bad tomatoes. This is a serious health issue and shouldn't be ignored.

I wanted them to admit it was really bad that I had found two tins of bad tomatoes. I wanted them to acknowledge this was no minor matter. I wanted it enough to start investigating how to take it further, so I decided I would email one more time. If I did not receive a reply I would make a formal complaint to the ACCC.

Five days later (on 3 November 2009) I received my reply. The Italian company who process the tomatoes were very surprised as they have never had a complaint like this before, and without testing the product they could do nothing further. If I would like replacement product or a refund, please forward my address to them. Oh, and sorry for the inconvenience this has caused.

Not the most satisfying outcome I've ever had. Especially since they already had three copies of my address - from the first tomato incident, the letter in May, and the emailed letter in June. Then of course, I had kept the tomatoes for more than a month before throwing them out due to the company's complete lack of interest. And does no previous record of bad tomatoes make it OK? I don't think so.

So last week I told them what they could do with their replacement product and refund. Politely of course - something along the lines of 'in view of the protracted and indifferent way this issue has been dealt with, I feel less than reassured of the quality of xxxx Organic Tomatoes, and would prefer not to receive replacement product. This was never really about the money (a tin of tomatoes does not cost that much, after all), but about bringing a potentially serious problem to the attention of xxxx.' I informed them my concerns were not allayed but I had decided to accept the situation. Putting the bone down, over and out, thankyou and goodbye.

I was not sure what response this would provoke, but an immediate reply from the company director was not amongst my imagined possibilities. PR woman and I had been cc-ing him into our emails for some time, but he had never communicated with me directly. I clicked on the email with some trepidation - I really hate when my inbox becomes a battle zone, which it tends to when I've asserted myself electronically.

This email was shocking but delicious:

Possibly we should ask her what she would do ? Put a warning on the can ???

Nothing more.

Ha. Caught out by the 'reply all' button.

I now knew exactly what they thought of me. Yes, to them I was 'annoying woman'. Understandably - I had been badgering them since November 2008!

I started wondering if I'd been unreasonable. Should I have given up on this one? If hundreds of Australians have recently caught hepatitis A from semi-dried tomatoes, did that make it OK to sell bad tomatoes that didn't make someone sick? Did I take it too far? And what did I want - if it wasn't replacement product or a refund, what was I after?

I think I've figured it out. I wanted to be treated with respect. I wanted the company to listen seriously to my complaint, rather than taking twelve months to conduct a lackadaisical investigation. I wanted to be assured that a company that prides itself on being organic and ethical, really is organic and ethical.

I am sorely disappointed. I'll certainly never touch their tomatoes again, and I'm still deciding about their other products. But harder for me has been the realisation that they didn't really care. I thought companies were obligated to care. I thought they would want to ensure their customers were healthy and happy.

Like I said in my final email to the director (in addition to 'whoopsie, don't think I was supposed to receive this email ;-)') - I have learned a lot through this process. I stumbled upon the ethics of a company, and it isn't so pretty. And that final, accidental email? What a clincher!

(If you want to know the name of the company, email me. I'd hate for you to get sick and die from rotten tomatoes when I could have prevented it!)

diabetes eat your heart out...

I've just submitted one of the final assignments in my Grad Dip Counselling. It was a personal reflection in which I was asked to identify strong attitudes and values which might impact on my work with clients. I mentioned all sorts of things, but one thing I failed to mention are my increasingly strong views on healthy eating.

The more I read, the more I am convinced that we in the west are slowly killing ourselves with our diet. Take this news headline today: by 2050 one in seven Australians will have type two diabetes. One in seven! That would be fourteen percent of the population.

Does anyone else have alarm bells ringing in their head? Are you looking at our diet and thinking we just might be bringing this on ourselves? Do you walk down the aisle and silently rage against the rubbish supermarkets peddle as food? Can you see the health system, already crumbling, imploding under the weight of bad food?

We could avoid this disaster if we made a few better lifestyle choices. It might mean ditching processed foods for real fruit and vegetables, taking more time with food preparation, and even (heaven forbid) choosing to work less so we don't need to reach for those convenient packet foods. Radical I know, but wouldn't it be worth it? (And we might even be a little less stressed)

So there you have it - my exceedingly strong attitudes on the state of the nation's health. Before I get back in my box, here is my offering in the fight against diabetes:

asian-style chicken salad
photo: happy chatter
recipe: 'light & lean', The Australian Women's Weekly

i think i've kicked the sugar habit

I broke the cardinal rule and went to the supermarket hungry this evening. It wasn't intentional.

I was improvising for a recipe I was a few ingredients short on when Frank arrived home. He'd had a crazy busy day and hadn't been able to purchase the milk and yoghurt as planned, so I thought I may as well pop down to the shop, get the milk and yoghurt and pick up some tomato paste for the pasta mince bake. (Good, hearty winter fare)

While I was there I remembered the group I am running at school tomorrow with pre-adolescent girls. To introduce the topic of value and worth we play a mini game of 'The Price is Right'. Usually I rush to the supermarket on the way to school and select the tastiest, most inexpensive, nut-free, ethical chocolates available. Nut free, inexpensive and tasty I can usually do but ethical is out of the question so I resort to cadbury or nestle and salve my conscience with the 'it's for a good cause' euphemism.

And there tonight, were the kit kats in all their glory. And I was hungry. And they said 'new creamy recipe' on the front and 'it's all about balance' on the back. So I succumbed and went against my fair trade, no crap additives, cut-out-the-sugar ideals and bought one.

And when I got home I tore open the packaging and bit into it... and it tasted disgusting. I remembered too late that the 'new creamy' claim was misleading, I much prefer the old recipe. And sweet? Awful, sickly sweet. Almost put me off my tea.

I guess going to the naturopath and detoxing for a month was worth it after all. I had my doubts about her at the time. She seemed to be prescribing supplements to get more money out of me, and when I questioned this she side stepped by claiming she would rather not prescribe and only does so when absolutely necessary. After three visits valued at over $500 I opted out. But I can't deny my skin has improved, I have new energy and enthusiasm, my hideous abdo-pain-for-a-week PMT has disappeared and I don't crave sugar anymore. (Unless I go to the supermarket hungry it would seem) I grudgingly cede to the healing power of her naturopathic supplements - I have been freed from the grip of sugar-laden, crap filled sweets. I might even go back for the liver cleanse she said would free me from debilitating dysmenorrhoea.

Maybe.
She was a little odd.

Naturopathic dilemmas aside, I will never eat another kit kat in my life.
Well most likely not.
Unless I dash to the supermarket with an empty stomach.

It just isn't worth it. Urgh.

thankyou nigella, thankyou from the bottom of my heart

Sheesh I was cranky tonight. Really, really cranky. Crankier than I have been for a while, since the detox seems to have ironed the worst of the wrinkles out of my emotions.

It was my first shift back at work for a while, and after being on my feet all day I was tired, just plain tired. And I had a headache. And I really should have gone to the toilet before I left work.

So there I was, trying to reach the (still not fixed) toilet and the traffic lights before they changed and I lost the opportunity to cross for, I don't know, three minutes or so. I missed the lights and responded by hitting the pedestrian button vehemently, wondering what the traffic authority might have against me personally. Maybe 'wondering' is a little too generous... I muttered and vented and rolled my eyes before collapsing against the post of the traffic light to tap my foot and wait. It did cross my mind that perhaps I looked rather stupid, cursing and cussing about missing the lights - the world does not revolve around me after all! Just as I was starting to pull myself together a white ute screeched around the corner, encroaching on my position of safety on the footpath in its effort to beat the lights. Instantly I regressed into a fit of hissing and glaring and fury worthy of an adolescent. Again I started pulling myself together until the lights changed and I completed the remainder of my journey home unhindered.

I duly collapsed on the couch, poured over recipe books wondering what on earth to make for tea and pumped out a few rows of crochet on the darling scarf I'm working on before dragging myself to the kitchen to cook. I selected 'Linguine with Lemon, Garlic and Thyme Mushrooms' from Nigella Express and set to it. Chop, chop, mix a bit, stir, done. Gotta love fast food.

Half way through the preparation I stopped scanning the instructions for the barest of detail and started absorbing all Nigella had written:

Slice the mushrooms finely, and put in a large bowl with oil, salt, crushed garlic, lemon juice and zest, and marvellously scented thyme leaves.

Who writes like that in a recipe book? Nigella obviously. Marvellously scented thyme leaves... I slowed down just a little and smelt the thyme leaves (mmmm) and some of the crankies mosied off out the door.

Toss everything well, then add the chopped parsley, grated cheese and pepper to taste, before tossing again, and eat with joy in your heart.

Eat with joy in your heart! Ha ha. This is one lush recipe book. So I did. I took Nigella's advice and ate with joy in my heart, and my tongue joined the party with a little jig of excitedly firing tastebuds. Delicious!

Ah. Hearty, healthy food - a beautiful way to beat the crankies for sure and for real. I am so thankful for food. And for Nigella (who is still making me laugh with her querky little food homilies: 'I'm afraid this dish had to be forcibly taken away from me during the photo shoot for this book, otherwise I'd have eaten it all up before it could even have its picture taken.')

breakfast

Sometimes I get all enthusiastic in the kitchen before I've even had breakfast. Not that that means I get going early... this morning breakfast was after nine! This was what we ate, with blackberries fresh off those wild bushes down the side of the house and walnuts instead of pecans. Yum.

Warm and nutty cinnamon quinoa

where's cecily?

I'm still here. I haven't forgotten my password or been languishing ill. Just busy enjoying the fruits of summer. The kitchen has lured me into its warm arms a fair bit lately. Apricot jam, blueberry jam, strawberry and rhubarb, blackberry and apple... our neighbour just gave us a huge bag of greengages so it looks like they'll be the next batch!

Then there was an experimental batch of blueberry muffins using barley malt instead of sugar - a little less than outstanding, but I'll keep working on it!

And the piece de resistance:

Blueberry tart.

Then there's my favourite hang out, the vegie patch, walking and cycling the streets to get fit (that makes me sound far more energetic and motivated than I really am), and work. I have a few blog posts simmering in the back of my mind, but in the mean time I'm going to live in the moment and release myself from the stress of keeping up a blog all the time! (Seriously, the things I beat myself up about!)

little ole wine drinker me

We've just enjoyed a Christmas BBQ with our 'Curious' discussion group. The conversation flowed freely along with the wine and we had a great time together. (Thanks guys!)

As I cleaned up the last of the lingering wine glasses and bottles (oh dear... that makes it sound like we did nothing but drink. Seriously, we ate too - sausages, steak, vegetable kebabs, tabouleh and fennel salad, tossed salad, tiramissu, fruit salad), and pushed chairs and tables back into their usual position I noticed one of the wine bottles (come on, it wasn't that bad, there were only two bottles all up) had a few drops in the bottom, so I decided to swig them down.

Bad move. I cannot safely swig wine. Instead I managed to choke and shudder my way through the gigantic mouthful that slid so willingly past my lips.

It appears that at this stage I am not capable of stashing a bottle in a brown bag and sitting in the gutter swigging on it.

Phew. What a relief to know that!

botulism: worse than nablopomo bloating

If I should not be here to write my daily NaBloPoMo post tomorrow, it may be because I have succumbed to botulism and am ventilated in ICU.

It is more than likely I won't have botulism, but tonight, when I was cooking up some garlic, onion, zucchini and organic tinned tomatoes to accompany the black eyed pea and quinoa patties, I opened the tin of tomatoes and they smelled strange. More than that, in the tin was a piece of blackened tomato, like it had a worm or rotten bit. By that stage I had already tipped the tomatoes into the saucepan with the afore mentioned vegetables, and I didn't want to waste them. So I kept stirring and hoping all would be OK. However, the strange smell kept emanating from the saucepan. I dipped a finger in to see if the whole thing tasted strange. It didn't, but when I googled botulism I was shocked to discover as little as 1 microgram may be lethal to humans. How many micrograms are in a lick of the finger? More than one I imagine!

I stopped licking my fingers, stopped cooking the tomato and phoned the company and left a message describing the tin contents. I then carefully wrapped the unwashed tin, its lid and the piece of offending tomato in a plastic bag.

And so now I wait. For a phone call from the company. To see if I develop a dry mouth, vomiting (half a tick - nauesous, but not pregnant, before you jump to any conclusions), drooping eyelids (tick - I could do with going to bed earlier) and difficult breathing.

I suspect I'll be OK. And I'm not naming the company because this is what happened to the last company named and shamed for botulism. I will however let you know if I am awarded thousands of dollars. Ha.

random, totally random

I've had a nice weekend. Which does not account for the ongoing battle with crankyness - is PMT really a valid excuse? But still, it was nice. I sewed a pretty summer dress, enjoyed some sunshine and started my 'get fit' crusade. Not that I'm really unfit, but they changed the time for the aqua fitness class I attended for three years. I got a little huffy because the new time was totally unsuitable and (somehow) changing aqua nights didn't fit in my head with everything else I was holding in there. So I quit going and my body has slowly converted to mush. Not that I've put on any weight, but there are rolls of, ah, flesh that weren't there before. So I've walked everywhere this weekend, rearranged my brain so I can attend aqua on Monday and I'm thinking toned thoughts.

Which brings me to all the fat I've eaten this weekend... lemon meringue pie (I made it myself, so I know how much butter was in it), garlic bread (I made it myself, so I know how much butter was in it), asparagus and barley risotto (again... I know exactly how much fat was in it). Tally it all up and that's one big weekend. I'm wondering if we always made everything from scratch, would we eat so much crap food? Or would it scare us so silly we'd start cooking healthier stuff? Whatever, tomorrow night I'm going for a crisp, fresh, low-fat stir fry. And aqua.

Hey... maybe the fatty food is making me feel catty?

odds and ends from the fridge

I'm in a bit of a cooking slump, a state of being not helped by a whole drawer of little pieces of a load of vegetables. I don't have enough of anything to make something decent!

I didn't use any of the odds and sods tonight, but I did scrape together a few other bits and pieces to come up with (there's no other way to say this) a gourmet pizza. Potato, asparagus, caramelised onion, wilted baby spinach leaves, smoked chicken, basil and sour cream. Yummo.

If only I could take pictures as good as that pizza tasted. Take your pick... flash or no flash.

ah... huh?

I have been away and I feel a little disorientated now that I am home again.

In view of my week of being super cook (OK, OK I wasn't really super cook - do you know how hard it is to estimate quantities correctly? But the food tasted OK and the kids were kind so it all worked out OK. Sigh), Frank wants to take me out for dinner tonight. Whoopee! The one proviso is that I not book at the most expensive restaurant in town. That place is too pretentious for me anyway, so I am not bothered by his caveat. Instead I phoned this restaurant to make a booking.

As far as I can tell from their ad, they are open Friday evenings and they do do dinner. But at my request to make a booking I was incredulously told 'we're not open this evening!' as if I was stupid to even consider asking.

It is Friday isn't it? And 7:30pm counts as dinner time doesn't it? What is going on?

Now I am back to scouring the phone book for inspiration on another restaurant serving the particular food I feel like eating tonight. Even better, I might check out this website!

*****

And we're done... Cataract Bistro it is!

oh i get it

I know this is... ah... really obvious, but I figured out why shepherd's pie has lamb in it, not beef.

It was like the moment I realised why car reverse lights are 'white'... because they light your way backwards in the dark. Clever huh?!

For some reason I always made shepherd's pie with beef mince. It was a little disconcerting when I finally found an official recipe for said pie and it called for diced lamb. Lamb? In shepherd's pie? What ever happened to the good old beef mince?

Oh.

Shepherds. Sheep. Lamb. They made the pie with the sheep they looked after?! Now I get it. Clever.

(And on the pantry clearing front, I used a couple of packets of old, old, old (June 2007) two minute noodles. Not in the shepherd's pie of course. In a vegetable stir fry I threw together last week. Maybe I should have taken more notice of the 'best before' date... they were revolting. Then again, they were Home Brand so they may have been revolting to start with...)

icey-cream

You could be forgiven for thinking spring is here, but only if you were using shop windows as your guide. Gone are the jumpers, coats and boots, replaced by tee shirts and drifty skirts and flowing blouses. Meanwhile, outside a stiff, cold wind is blowing.

Of course there are the early signs of spring outdoors too - daffodils sneaking out of the dirt, buds swelling the tips of branches, smudges of light on the horizon when the alarm drags me from my dreams. Soon, soon it will start to warm up.

But not yet. Right now snow is comfortably settled on the mountain, the morning grass crunches frostily with each step and only the five layers of clothes I slavishly don keep the wind from cutting me in half.

And what do I crave in all this chilled coldness? Icecreams! No idea where that is coming from, but I am working my way through the packet I bought on Tuesday with alacrity. Strange but true.

I'm wondering if this ice cream crave is a subconscious attempt to conjure summer out of a box? As if each warm lick takes back a small portion of the territory currently trapped in winter's icy grip. Or maybe I'm having delusions of summer, imagining the air is already warm and ice cream a perfectly normal indulgence. Or maybe I'm suffering from SADS, feeling grumpy (yes) and miserable (a little) and bored with the same, dowdy winter clothes each day (totally) and ice cream is the comfort food of choice to drown my sorrows.

Really, I have no idea why I am craving ice cream in the dead of winter, but one thing I do know - I am over it and no amount of crisp, beautiful, clear air or wintery sun on patient, delicate, naked trees will change my mind. It is time for spring. Really and truly time for spring.

the measure of my cupboard

Four or five weeks ago I started working in the operating theatre of the local hospital. Mostly I loiter in the recovery room, but I also spent a couple of days with the anaesthetic nurses in order to get my head around airway management.

I don't mean to be demeaning, but a lot of anaesthetic nursing, at least in this hospital, seems to be about stocking cupboards. Not that that isn't a bad thing, being prepared with supplies for any possible emergency and all of that. I have no doubt that those anaesthetic nurses contribute to Australia being one of the safest places in the world to go under... it just doesn't make for exciting learning. I mean, I stock cupboards all the time. And I'm good at it. Too good.

So when the experienced RN set me to cutting trachy tape in readiness for tying people's laryngeal masks I set about it with gusto. Would 10 be enough? Fifteen? I had no idea, so I chop chopped away until I had a goodly looking pile. The RN choked when she saw it - no need to cut tape for the rest of the week after my super effort.

Later on we restocked the general supply trolley with drugs, needles, gauze and syringes. I set off with my shopping basket to the anaesthetic store room and again tried to figure out how much was enough. Did '25g needle +++' mean 10? Or 50? I hazarded a guess and threw what seemed like a reasonable amount of this and that in the basket. When I arrived back at the trolley I realised I had done it again... over stocked and no amount of pushing or shoving would fit everything in their place. The RN I was working with offered a bit of an exasperated laugh before turning and asking what my pantry cupboards look like at home...

How did she know?

It's not like I am greedy or selfish (oh, OK I am), but I like to be prepared for those unpredictable cooking emergencies. One cannot have too much food on hand. Can one?

I can't believe she figured me out so quickly. In less than a day she picked the state of my food supplies. Incredible!

On that note, I am still working on clearing out the old food in my pantry - yesterday the arrowroot biscuits (use by 2006) and a packet of strawberry jelly (surely there's enough sugar in jelly it never goes out of date) went towards jelly slice. Today I made cornmeal muffins and finished off a container of baking powder. I can see the bottom of several shelves now!

clearing the deck

When Frank and I first married I took my wifely duties very seriously, and set about stocking up the pantry. Frank couldn't cook to save his life (though I will concede he had not yet starved to death) and I had been living with friends, so there was a lot of stocking up to be done. Every week I purchased a few extra items at the supermarket until I was satisfied I had everything I might ever need. The cupboard was... stuffed.

You will understand my shock then, when upon observing a friend's briefly opened pantry I spied almost no food. How did she manage to feed us so well with so few supplies?

I came home and reviewed my well stocked cupboard, realising we had more than enough and I should probably find a way to reduce some of our excess food. When the new year ticked around I resolved to use up all those boxes of dried fruit, sweet biscuits for cheesecake bases and fish stock I might need one day.

Here it is May and I have made some progress. The mixed fruit is almost gone, some of the choc chips have found their way into biscuits, and slivered almonds have augmented a dish or two. I can see extra space on a shelf or two.

But I'm not sure this is really called for...

...pink soup?

I had some left over vegie soup. The beetroot made it pink, but at lunch time there wasn't quite enough for two of us. So I dug out the Cream of Asparagus soup Frank's mum must have bought before we were married. I don't quite know how many years it has been sitting there, but it wasn't rusty so I opened it up and stirred it in to create this pretty brew.

It tasted OK, but I wouldn't do it again.

And it might not have been such a good idea to make that cake with the tin of sweetened condensed milk with an expiry date 2004. But I made it anyway, and even managed to use up the slimy glaze cherries, pineapple and ginger. And we're both still alive to tell the tale.

Now, what can I make with those moth eaten pistachios?

guilty

A supermarket stacked full of food which tumbles from the shelves and into my trolley.

A catered afternoon tea with an abundance of sandwiches we can never hope to eat.

A pub meal so big I wearily push the still full plate away.

A worldwide food crisis in which people are starving because there isn't enough food and what there is they cannot afford.


I think we have stuffed up.

i know, i know, this is a terrible meal but...

... doesn't the double yolk make it at least a little more nutritious??!

And I worked the whole long weekend - is that a good enough excuse for a slack meal?
And the sheep ate all the vegetables - so what else could I cook?!

These are the third and fourth double yolk eggs in a couple of days. I'm beginning to think the whole dozen might be special!

this is what i did with the beetroot

I confess I didn't eat the beetroot as immediately as my post indicated... I cooked it up tonight. Roast beetroot is a bit of a favourite, so I made a roast beetroot and sweet potato (kumara) salad.

Even with a few less herbs than directed (due to a paucity of supply), and lettuce replacing the baby spinach leaves, it tasted amazing. Here's the recipe:

Beetroot and sweet potato salad with feta (from 'cool food' again - page 273)

350g fresh baby beetroot, trimmed and washed
250g orange sweet potato, peeled and cut into 2cm chunks
60ml (1/4 cup) garlic oil
1 garlic bulb
3 tablespoons olive oil
20g butter
1 red onion, cut into 1cm wedges
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon soft brown sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon shredded basil
150g baby English spinach leaves
2 sprigs rosemary, leaves removed and stems discarded
120g feta cheese

Preheat the oven to 180C (350F/Gas 4). Wrap each beetroot in foil and place on a baking tray. Brush the sweet potato with garlic oil and season. Place on another baking tray with the whole garlic bulb. Cook with the beetroot for 35-40 minutes, or until tender. Test with a skewer, and when tender, remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil and the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat until the butter has melted. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for minutes, or until soft. Add the vinegar and sugar, cook for 3-5 minutes, or until the onion is golden and starting to caramelise.

Peel the garlic cloves and combine them with the lemon juice, basil and remaining oil. Season to taste.

Toss the spinach, beetroot, sweet potato, onion and rosemary in a bowl. Crumble the feta over the top and drizzle with the dressing. Serve warm.

Serves 4


Then I cooked up this Eggplant, tomato and sumac salad and a couple of rumps of lamb and served it all up for tea. Yummo.

(This recipe came from the sister book 'bbq food', another fabulous investment)