Posts tagged ‘vegetables’
Friday Feast: Carrot, Pineapple and Soybean Stir-fry
Ok, I know this combination of ingredients sounds weird, but it’s good, trust me. This is one of Yankee Elv’s recipes, and she first made it while she was in the USA. I think it’s some kind of weird US North Pacific Rim fusion sort of meal. Anyway, it’s really easy and tastes great, so give it a go!
Carrot, Soybean, and Pineapple Stirfry
Carrot, Pineapple and Soybean Stir-fry, with rice.
Ingredients:
• 2 tablespoon oil
• 3 cloves garlic, minced (or as much as you want)
• 2 medium carrots, sliced
• 1 240g (8oz) can pineapple chunks WITH juice – don’t drain
• 1 – 1 1/2 cups frozen green soybeans (edamame)
• 2 tablespoon soy sauce
• 2 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper (less or more to adjust spiciness)
• 2 teaspoon sesame seeds (optional)
• cooked rice (preferably cooked at least a day before, so it is less sticky)
Method:
1. Heat the oil in a wok or large frying pan over medium-high heat.
2. Add garlic and carrots and stir-fry for about 4 to 5 minutes
3. Add the pineapple with the juice. Saute on medium-high until juice is almost gone; about 5 to 10 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, defrost the frozen soybeans so they are no longer frozen (but they can still be cold) by heating them in the microwave, in water to cover, for 1 minute (if you don’t have a microwave, you can do it on the stove).
5. When the pineapple juice is almost gone, add the soybeans, soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, and red pepper. Heat for 3 to 5 minutes, until the spices are mixed and the beans are warmed through.
6. You can either mix in the rice and cook it some more with the stirfry (gives the rice some extra flavor), or just ladle the stir-fry over the rice.
Optional: sprinkle sesame seeds over the meal for a bit of a crunch.
Friday Feast: Vegan Quiche
I was reading my local Vegsoc forum and came across a thread about vegan chickpea omlettes. The thread included a recipe for a batter based on chickpea flour (rather than eggs), plus a tonne of rave reviews. Apparently, this batter can be used to make lots of things: omlettes, fritters, faux scrambled eggs, pizza bases, frittatas and quiches. Considering I hadn’t had any of this eggy stuff for at least 6 years, I thought I might give it a go. I made a quiche, and it was pretty good! I thought it tasted quite quiche-like. Yankee Elv, who still eats eggs, didn’t think it tasted exactly like quiche, but she liked it a lot anyway.
I made mine in a pie dish, so it was quite shallow. If you wanted a thicker quiche, you could put it in a smaller dish or double the mixture. You might have to increase the cooking time too. I didn’t make mine with pastry, but other people have made it with vegan puff pastry and it worked well. I might try that next time.
Vegan Quiche
My very first vegan quiche (no longer an oxymoron) - made primarily with chickpea flour and topped with pine nuts.
Ingredients
**batter**
- 1 cup besan (chickpea) flour
- 1.5 cups water
- 2 tabs olive oil
- salt/pepper to taste (be generous)
- vegan margarine (to grease the dish)
**my filling** (this is all optional, change as you like – you want to add flavourful stuff though or it will be bland)
- sun-dried tomatoes, finely diced
- roasted capsicum, finely diced
- black olives, finely diced (consider the strong flavour of these when deciding how many to add)
- shallots (green onions), finely diced
- nutritional yeast (I used about 1/8 cup)
- garlic powder
- onion powder
- Italian herbs
- pine nuts (to sprinkle on top)
Method:
- Preheat oven to 200°C (390°F).
- Sift besan flour into a bowl. Add other batter ingredients (aside from vegan margarine) and combine very well.
- Add filling ingredients (except pine nuts) and combine.
- Pour mixture into a greased dish. (Use vegan margarine to grease.)
- Bake for 25 to 30 mins, then sprinkle pine nuts on top and return to the oven.
- Continue to bake for about another 10-15 mins, or until set and golden brown around the edges (and on top, if you want).
Friday Feast: Bean Tortilla Stack
Bean Tortilla Stack is the first food my mother made me after I became vegetarian, about six years ago. It was originally a beef meal, but there were instructions in her recipe book on how to alter it for vegetarians, so she did and it was fantastic! I got the recipe and have made it myself a number of times over the years.It’s kind of like a Mexican lasagne, with tortillas instead of pasta sheets.
Recently, I decided to try veganising this dish using Bryanna Clark Grogan‘s Melty Pizza Cheese recipe (which I found on pakupaku) to replace the cheese component of the original dish. It doesn’t have the same taste or texture, so don’t expect that or you will be disappointed, but it looks good and it does add a little something-something in my opinion. I’ve only included the link here, since this is a direct copy of someone else’s recipe and I haven’t modified it in any way to make it ‘my own’.
The original recipe calls for a packet of taco seasoning. I don’t find this spicy enough, so I add paprika, chili powder and cumin to taste. In contrast, Mum will make it with only half a packet of taco seasoning if she is cooking for my sister – she’s a spice wimp. It’s really up to you.
The best kind of dish to use for this is a pyrex or ceramic type of dish, the kind that comes with a lid (although you don’t need the lid unless you want to use it when you store leftovers in the fridge). The dish should be round, to fit the tortillas, and high to help the stack keep it’s shape. Pie dishes are too short. The dish I use is a little small; I have to trim the edges of my tortillas. Mum’s is the best. It’s about 25cm in diameter (just under 10 inches), as opposed to mine, which is about 20cm in diameter (just under 8 inches). Still, both worked, so just get as close as you can.
Points to remember:
- The tortillas soak up some of the sauce, so if you have to trim them to fit in your dish, you might want to reduce the amount of sauce you put in, or it will be runnier than it’s supposed to be. Use your judgement! If it’s a bit goopy, don’t worry – it will still taste good.
- The smaller in diameter your stack is, the higher it will be as the sauce layers will spread out less and therefore be thicker.
Now read on, then cook!
Bean Tortilla Stack
Bean Tortilla Stack after a night in the fridge. The layers hold up best after refrigeration.
Ingredients:
**general**
- 450g (16 oz) can refried beans
- 425g (15 oz) can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
- 5 tortillas (I use wholewheat, but it doesn’t matter what kind you use)
- Melty Pizza Cheese
- oil (cooking spray, margarine, olive oil…)
**for the sauce**
- 1 onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 cup capsicum, diced
- 1/2 to 1 cup vegetables/mushrooms (like grated carrot, diced zucchini or chopped mushrooms) (optional)
- 425g (15 oz) can crushed tomatoes
- 3-4 tabs tomato paste
- 1 cup water
- 1 tsp vegetable stock powder (Vegeta!)
- 35g (1.25 oz) packet taco seasoning
- paprika, chili powder and cumin, to taste (optional)
Bean Tortilla Stack with smooth guacamole. This slice is fresh from the oven - you can see that it doesn't retain it's shape straight out of the oven.
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
2. Add some oil to the bottom of a large pot or frying pan and combine sauce ingredients. Bring to the boil and simmer for ten minutes.
3. Take one cup of sauce out and leave to the side.
4. Add beans (both kidney and refried) and bring to the boil again.
5. Grease a round, tall, oven-proof dish (I use cooking spray oil cos I’m using up my current can). Place one tortilla on the bottom and spread 1 1/2 cups of the mixture over it.
6. Repeat tortilla/sauce step three times.
7. Top with the last tortilla. Pour the extra cup of sauce (sans beans, that you had set aside earlier) over the top and spread evenly.
8. Gently spread faux cheese on top.
9. Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until faux cheese has a skin. You can put it under the grill (broiler) if you want to get it a bit brown.
10. Leave for five to ten minutes before serving. (It will be goopy if it’s fresh out of the oven; it holds its shape better after refrigeration.)
Wassup?
I haven’t been steadily posting recently cos I’ve either been busy or tired. Life has been interfering with my life! So here’s a snapshot (in hindsight, it’s more like a full school photo) of what’s been happening in the house of ELV.
The house of ELV (speaking of) is being sold – we have to move elsewhere. We don’t know for sure whether they want us to see out the lease for a few more months, or leave ASAP (although they can’t force us), but already plent of debate about buy vs rent has ensued. We’ve decided to rent again for now. So the house-hunting begins. I will miss our friendly neighbour even if he does kill passionfriut vines and can’t understand most of what I say. I already miss the duck at the other neighbour’s house – I don’t know what happened to cute little Mishka. I will also miss the sounds of the chooks over the back clucking away in the mornings. *sigh* I hate moving.
My butternut pumpkin vines are growing rampantly and have already started to flower (so pretty!). If we can stay for a few more months, I may get a pumpkin or two. Otherwise, the new owner will be feasting on the fruits of my labour.
I’ve been telecommuting up a storm, which has proved more enjoyable than I anticipated. I really thought I’d miss the camraderie of the office, but due to a combination of many of my chatty friends moving to other jobs and the use of collaborative technology to talk to my remaining friends, it has been pretty cool. I get more work done and my lungs enjoy the lack of air conditioning. I’m only going into the office once this week. Think how little the impact of my transportation is this week!
I read No Impact Man‘s book. I liked it, although it did get a little preachy at times, but only momentarily, then it went back to interestingly philosophical and funnily anecdotal at the same time. It took me back to when I first started reading No Impact Man’s blog a couple of years ago. I loved it and it inspired me no end. It was nice to feel that zeal again. A note though: why was it ok to tell the world that his wife used menstrual cups, but not share what he used instead of toilet paper? I’m not one for secrecy about bodily functions anyway, although I respect his choice not to expose everything, but isn’t that a bit of a double standard? (I shan’t stir up controversy by discussing what this double standard may indicate…).
My buddy went to Singapore and all I got were these two metal ear diggers. I only got them on the proviso that I blogged about them! Yankee Elv and I have both tried them. Apparently I have pretty clean ears, so nothing much is happening for me, although I’ve heard good things from others. Yankee Elv doesn’t get dirty ears at all (we’re not sure why, perhaps something to do with a lack of inner ear hair due to deafness?). She mostly uses cotton tips to itch the ear in which she wears her hearing aid. For this purpose, she tells me, the ear digger is a poor substitute – she can’t think of anything other than a cotton tip that will do the job, as she doesn’t like the hard, scrape-y feeling of the ear digger. Can anyone think of an alternative?
I’ve been reducing the amount of soy milk I’m consuming, since I’ve increased my intake of soy yoghurt and soy cheese as I’ve struggled through my first six weeks of veganism. I’ve been supplementing my soy milk intake with oat milk, and thought I’d do a little unofficial research into which is the best. Expect an oat milk review post coming soon.
Something is eating my sweet potato leaves. I thought it was a caterpillar, but I only saw it on them once. For a while I saw these shiny little bugs about the size of large fleas, but they seemed to disappear a week or so ago. Now they’re just holey leaves. What has been munching them?
I’ve decided before we move house, I am going to take cuttings of rosemary, pink frangipanis and jade plant. All three are growing brilliantly here and I don’t want to lose them. The grapefruits aren’t in season or I’d plant some seeds – the grapefruit tree really is prolific in its bounty and produces the most enormous, spectacular, juicy fruit. Alas, I think I shan’t be around to see it this year. Does anyone know if you can grow native ginger from a cutting? I’m sure we have some of that somewhere too…
I’m looking for a copy of Sharon Astyk’s Depletion and Abundance at the library as I’ve heard it’s good. I used to read her blog, but found it too heavy for my short internet attention span. I think I will like it better in book form. Unless I know the author or have read the book already, I try to get all my books from the library. What’s the point of wasting resources and space with a bazillion books you’re only going to read once? I like the books on my shelves to be old friends.
I’ve been trying hard to be a good vegan, and I think I’m mostly succeeding, but I haven’t always been able to keep a cheery face on. Now, you might think that a cheery face about veganism isn’t necessary, but I think it is when you’re talking about it with non-vegans. As a vegetarian, I always present the face of ‘gosh, I am supportive of everyone’s choices, and if you want to eat meat, that’s your right – but wow, vegetarianism is easy, tasty, fun, healthy, good for the environment… wow, it’s just so great!’. Yeah, that’s quite a face. I better hope the wind doesn’t change. However, I guess I didn’t have as many people to talk with when I first went veg, as opposed to now, when all my co-workers know and ask me how it’s going. They are all very supportive, but I find it hard to publicly keep my chin up on a day when I’m really missing cheese or chocolate – especially since these things are often to be found in our office! I think they all think I’m a bit of a fringey, fanatic weirdo – in a nice way, of course. Telecommuting has helped since I’m not around those foods so much, and so has Lindt Lindor’s 70% dark chocolate (I know it’s not Fair Trade, but one step at a time)… but still, I find myself feeling guilty over my inability to be perky, sunshiny vegan at work. Breaking the dairy addiction is hard – much harder than giving up meat was! Sometimes I think it’s too hard and I’m being mean to myself (after all, isn’t life about experiences? I like my experiences to be as pleasant as I can make them). I think maybe I could just get dairy sparingly, from a nice organic farm… but then I think of the baby cows, especially the bobby calves, and their poor mamas! I think the guilt I’d feel over that would surpass any nice feelings the cheese/chocolate/ice-cream gave me. And so I stick with it. Soldier on, you know. Codral hit the nail on the head with that one.
Yankee Elv and I went to the West End markets on Saturday. We missed out on Dagwood Dogs from Ykillamoocow, to our surprise. They normally start cooking them at 10am and this week they started at 7am, bowing to popular demand. Not my demand, I like a sleep-in! I got a pumpkin/barley roll (kind of like a vegan sausage roll, but one that isn’t trying to taste like herbed, minced animal bits. It was a tasty breakfast with the home-made tamarind sauce and the homestyle lemonade we bought. Plus I had a few of Yankee Elv’s Greek honey puffs for dessert, and a vegan melting moment (passionfruit cream, from The Bakery V stall). We also tried Hibiscus juice (gorgeous, tasted similar to sweetened cranberry juice), tapenade, local honey (also not vegan, I knooooow), pineapple chunks and more juice. We were quite restrained really. We got lots of stuff, including some things I haven’t tried before (parsnips and fresh olives, like, right off the tree kind of fresh). I also got a couple of plantains, which I think I’m going to use in a curry, plus lots of our usual kinds of veges/fruits. I loved going to the counter and paying tiny amounts; I paid 75 cents for the two most enormous carrots ever. I did not like going within a five stall radius of the feral seafood stall. We mightn’t eat fish, but Yankee Elv and I both grew up around seafood and I’m sorry, but if it smells like that then you do not want to be putting it in your body. Ew. We wound up the morning with a visit to Reverse Garbage, but didn’t buy anything. It’s fun just to look and imagine.
Only two of my spring onions have lived and they are tiny – I think they drowned in their wet little corner. From one extreme to another with them! I’ll try again at the new place. I can’t tell my carrots from the weeds, so I guess the new owner will be in for a surprise eventually…
The new Clem 7 tunnel is brilliantly fast, but apparently has tonnes (literally) more pollution that was originally estimated. I don’t know that the two air sucker towers (I can’t remember what they’re called! One is Jacaranda purple and the other is Poinciana red) are doing their job.
One of the Clem 7 air sucker tower things is the colour of the flowers on the Jacaranda trees.
Motorists have been advised not to wind down their windows in the tunnel because the pollution is so bad. We found this out after we spent 25 mins in a traffic jam in there, with the windows down cos our car has no air conditioning. This is why I like buses. The tunnel was very zippy outside of peak hours though, taking about 4 mins from end to end.
I’ve just remembered I haven’t hung out the wet sheets and blankets I washed, which made me think of the clothes line, which made me remember that all potential new houses must have a place for an under-the-house line. The list of requirements seems to be mounting.
And I have also realised that I’ve written a tonne! Clearly I needed a post like this. I started on the oat milk review yesterday and it just seemed to drag and things kept distracting me… sometimes I guess you need to just let it all flow out higgledy-piggledy.
Speaking of pigs (well, piggledy, close enough) – look!
It's Edgar Alan Pig from Edgar's Mission! He's so cute!
And that’s all I have to say about that.
Friday Feast: Rosemary Butternut Pumpkin with Couscous
Another belated Friday Feast… this is a recipe Yankee Elv has made before, with butter. Yesterday she cooked it up for me vegan-style. Basically the only thing that changed from her previous version was using Nuttelex (vegan margarine) instead of butter. It tasted the same to me… gorgeously soft, savoury-sweet goodness. Perfect rainy-day eating, which is good, because we’re about to hit our third straight week of rain (by which I mean, days during which it has rained, not a constant monsoonal bucketing down – this is Australia, after all).
I love any recipe that allows me to use goodies from my garden (few that they are), and for this one we snip sprigs of fresh rosemary off the bush near the letterbox!
The rosemary bush at our front fence smells so good, I'm always happy to check the mail! I think I will take a cutting when we eventually move out.
Yankee Elv created this recipe based on The Pioneer Woman‘s recipe for Sweet-Roasted Rosemary Acorn Squash Wedges.
Rosemary Butternut Pumpkin with Couscous
Rosemary butternut pumpkin and onions, with couscous and infused oil (margarine).
Ingredients:
- 1 butternut pumpkin (aka butternut squash), roughly chopped
- 2 red onions, roughly chopped
- Olive oil (not a huge amount)
- Salt to taste
- 8 tabs vegan margarine (that is, 115g, 0.25lb or 1 stick)
- ½ cup brown sugar (lightly packed)
- 2 tabs fresh rosemary (minced)
Rosemary butternut pumpkin and onion over couscous.
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
- Place the pumpkin pieces in a baking dish, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle lightly with salt. Roast for 15 to 20 minutes.
- While the pumpkin is roasting, mix the margarine, brown sugar, salt and rosemary into a paste.
- Remove the pumpkin from the oven and add the onion. Gently toss to combine.
- Add dollops of the paste to the vegetables.
- Return the dish to the oven for approximately 30 minutes, roasting until the vegetables are tender and caramelised.
Note: Halfway through roasting, your paste will have become a sauce. It is recommended that you brush or spoon the sauce over the top of the vegetables at this point, then continue roasting until they are ready. - Serve over couscous*, drizzling more sauce over the top.
*Cook the couscous with a bit of salt for an even more obvious contrast between savoury and sweet. Super yum!
Look at the texture of the onion - yum!
This recipe will leave you with lots of sweet rosemary, onion and pumpkin infused oil (melted margarine). Don’t throw it out! Keep it and use it on other vegetables, spread it on crusty bread or use it as a base for another dish.
Rosemary roasted butternut pumpkin in the baking dish, with lots of leftover melted margarine.
This post was entered into the Grow Your Own roundup, created by Andrea’s Recipes and hosted for March 2010 by House of Annie.
Spotlight: Composting
So it’s taken me a good long while, but I finally have our compost bin up and running! I used this post on You Grow Girl to guide me, but I didn’t add quite as much to the bin as I want to keep using it as I go along, not fill it up right away.
You could buy a special composter, but I decided to use a big, old, concrete laundry tub as my compost bin. It has three sections, so it will be easy to turn the compost from one section to another as required. I put a bit of gutter guard we had lying around over the drain holes to stop them getting clogged.
The compost bin is an old concrete laundry tub.
First I put in a layer of ripped newspaper (darned free papers they keep dropping off in spite of our No Junk Mail sign).
First, a layer of paper...
Then I put in a layer of browns – mostly dead leaves, sticks, dead camelias and crusty old passionfruits and grapefruits that have been rotting on the ground. I can add to this with old pasta, pet hair, paper and other dead bits and pieces from the garden.
Then, a layer of browns...
Next came a layer of greens – weeds, passionfruit leaves and frangipanis. I’ll be adding to this with grass cuttings I don’t use to mulch the garden, tea bags and food scraps.
Next, a layer of greens...
Finally, I wet the compost. It’s supposed to be as wet as a wrung-out sponge, so I think I overdid it a little bit.
Finally I wet the compost!
Luckily the tubs have drain holes from when they acted as sinks, so the compost won’t stay too wet. I added ice-cream containers underneath to catch any drips (with bricks in the containers to weigh them down).
Too much water - luckily there are drainage holes!
Yankee Elv got me a big piece of wood from Reverse Garbage to work as a lid, and I’ve used bricks to weigh it down so no animals get in. I can’t imagine they would anyway – the bin is in the fenced area under the house so nothing bigger than a possum could get in there.
Yankee Elv got me a lid, and we already had the bricks.
Now I can divert the majority of our kitchen rubbish into the compost bin! I’m very pleased about it, especially when you consider articles like this one indicate that people in the US waste 28% of their food (I imagine Australian stats are similar). I hope I don’t waste that much, but whatever I do waste will at least no longer be going to landfill. Have a look at this video if you wanna learn more.
I’ll be using these two posts to guide me on what I can add to the bin:
- Things you can compost that you didn’t think you could, from You Grow Girl
- 163 things you can compost, from PlanTea.
In several months, I should have some compost to put in my garden (or give to Mum as a gift, just in time for mother’s day). Now all I have to do is control myself enough to not go fiddle with it everyday just to see how it’s doing!
Friday Feast: Quinoa-stuffed Butternut Pumpkin
Today’s recipe is a bit of a quirky one that I made up a few months ago and perfected this Thanksgiving. I really wanted to try out quinoa, a grain commonly eaten in Peru and really protein-rich (great for folks who are after low-carb meals). It’s about the size of couscous, so I figured making it into a stuffing would be a great idea.
Quinoa - it looks sort of like couscous, but it's a protein-rich grain
Here’s the recipe!
Quinoa-stuffed Butternut Pumpkin (Squash)
Quinoa-stuffed butternut pumpkins (squash)
Ingredients
- 1 butternut pumpkin, cut in half with the seeds and some flesh scooped out
- 1/2 cup uncooked quinoa, rinsed
- 1 cup vegetable stock
- 2 apples, diced
- 1 large onion, diced
- 2 ribs of celery, diced (you can also include the chopped celery leaves)
- 1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped well
- 1 handful of broken pecans
- 1 small handful of craisins (dried, sweetened cranberries)
- 2 bay leaves
- salt and pepper to taste
- olive oil
Celery, onion and apples - oh my!
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180°C.
- Rub pumpkins all over with olive oil and place cut side up in a roasting or casserole dish. Rub some brown sugar on the cut areas. Place in the oven until the pumpkins are justsoft enough to pierce with a fork, but still firm enough to easily hold their shape.
- Meanwhile, place quinoa and vegetable stock in a pot and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer with a lid for 10 to 12 mins. Remove from the stove and set aside, covered (the liquid will absorb).
- Pour some olive oil into a large frying pan and add the veges/fruit as you chop – celery, onion and apple. Add salt and pepper, then cook for 10 to 15 mins to soften the vegetables/fruit.
- Add the parsley, celery leaves (if using), pecans and craisins, and cook for 2 mins more, til the greens wilt and the craisins plump up a little.
- Remove from the heat and add the quinoa.
- Tightly stuff the pumpkins with the quinoa mixture, cover the dish with foil and return to the oven. Cook for approximately 30 mins.
- Remove the foil and bake for another 10 mins, unless the pumpkin is soft.
Pecans, parsley and craisins, ready to go into the pan.
Let me know what you think!
Review: 20 Natural Health Tips
I’m sick today, so when I saw in my twitter feed that Natural Papa had posted 20 natural health tips, it seemed like a timely miracle! Just what I was after. So off I went to look. (I’d just like to note also, that while it might be cold and flu season in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s really not here in Australia. Clearly I didn’t get that memo.)
Natural Immunity Booster Drink - everything is in the cup except the honey and the water.
While I sip my funky drink, here’s a high-level list of Natural Papa’s tips (in bold) with my responses (not bold).
- Wash your hands frequently. I’m a bit of a serial hand washer with a regular bar of soap. I avoid pump bottles of soap as part of my ‘avoid unnecessary plastic’ gig, and I really dislike antibacterials soaps (dudes, there’s supposed to be some bacteria around the place). I’m being particularly conscious of hand-washing at the moment since I’m touching snotty tissues all the time. Gross.
- Change your hand towels often. I washed the darned things on the weekend and I was sick by Tuesday. Humph.
- Clean the places that harbor the most germs in your house (door handles etc). Ok, aside from hand-washing, I could probably do this. But isn’t it a bit OCD to walk around wiping things all the time?
- Get plenty of sleep. If this was a month ago, I’d totally agree that I need to do this. However, the last couple of weeks I have actually been doing pretty well with sleep. I could probably still use more though… I’ve gone from 4 to 6 hrs to 6 to 7 hrs. Aiming for 8 hrs is probably not unrealistic.
- Stay hydrated (especially with central heating). Well, I live in Queensland. We don’t do central heating. Aside from which, it’s a week away from summer over here – it’s plenty hot enough, and not dry heat either (humidity is nice). Also, I drink more water than any other person I know (no, I’m not kidding).
- Take your vitamins. I try to eat foods that have vitamins in them naturally or through fortification (go Milo!), rather than having to remember to pop pills. Good for people who don’t eat like that though.
- Get sunshine on your body. This is so true. Unless I have a migraine or a fever, sitting in the sun makes me feel better when I’m sick. Some of my paler friends think this is weird, but it really helps! That being said, living in the Sunshine State, I get plenty of sun, so I don’t think this is the problem.
- Be active – move your body. I have been doing pretty well with walking from work to the busway over the last week or two, and I’m hoping that as of next week I’ll be able to start back at yoga. I could do more though.
- Be positive. I am usually positive, although sometimes work gets me down. I’ve been ok lately though.
- Laugh. Yeah, I could do more of this. But all the ‘funny’ movies are full of toilet humour, and that’s not really funny at all. I laugh more in general conversation with family and friends. Maybe I should go visit my folks after I’m well, or organise a social outing with work people. Now I’m in a slightly different position at work, I’m missing the chats and laughs I used to have a lot of with J-Mo. I do laugh with other people too, but I think they’re at a lesser level of crazy that J-Mo and I am. Hmm.
- Vitamin C. I’ve been drinking orange juice this week, like it’s going out of style.
- Eat more fruits and veggies. Yeah, I could do this. We’ve started a thing where on Sunday we chop up enough fruit to last the week and pack it into a bunch of containers, so it’s easy to just grab fruit and go. That’s been helping. I could do more with veges though… I really only eat them cooked, so if it’s a lazy night and I just want pizza, then I miss out. I think I eat more than most people… not that it’s a competition. Ultimately, yeah, I could use more.
- Drink your juice. See point 11 – it’s not fresh though.
- Use herbs for healing. Tomorrow, you will see this recipe I’ve tried out for a natural remedy drink. Interesting stuff.
- Use a neti pot. I just can’t make myself do this. All that water going up my nose… nope. Can’t do it. I’d rather go to the beach and let a wave do it for me. (Which is what I was planning for this weekend, if I’m better.)
- Get a massage. I’d love to do this! Who knows a non-expensive masseuse? Anyone? Really, do I need to ask Beuller again?
- Take it easy on the coffee and alcohol. I don’t drink coffee, and I think my body has been telling me to lay off the alcohol (not that I drank much in the first place). Every time I drink wine these days, I get heartburn within 15 mins. I don’t think I’ve had more than half a glass a week for the last two months. It gets too painful and Yankee Elv keeps having to finish it for me.
- Just say no (to going to work when you’re sick). I’m home, for the second day in a row!
- Avoid taking over-the-counter medications. I have been dosing up on the Sudafed, but only cos it was helping make the headache and fever go away a bit.
- Hug your family. I spent a fair chunk of last night lolling on Yankee Elv on the couch, and the previous night snuggling with Mr Teeny-bop whilst watching Xena, so I think I have this covered. Plus I hug the kitties and pat the dog all the time!
While Natural Papa’s list is really quite good, I’m unfortunately already doing most of this stuff. Poop. Maybe there was no escaping this illness. One of my colleagues yesterday (when I called in sick) suggested that maybe I’m just run down. There’s probably some truth to that.
I guess it’s just time to rest up and drink weird drinks.
Meanwhile: Bug-free Gardening
What am I going to do about the bugs in my container garden?
They are these weird little flying critters that look a bit like fruit flies. I think they are the same ones that killed my herbs last time I tried to grow them. They hang around, looking innocuous and blending their little black bodies into the soil. Then they suck all the moisture out of the plants… like those creepy prehistoric bugs sucked the moisture out of people on The X Files! And there’s nothing you can do about it.
Or is there? Does anyone know how to get rid of these bugs? My basil is just a tiny bud, and my parsley and oregano aren’t even up yet!
Tiny baby basil.
And they’re lurking around my shallots (spring onions).
Little shallots, all in a row.
Strangely, they’re not bothering my onions and spinach.
No bugs by the spinach.
Maybe it’s because they’re out the back and the herbs and shallots are on the front verandah. The herbs were out the front last time too, but I made sure to scrub the pots and use different soil and I grew from seed rather than buy seedlings… and still there are the bugs!
I don’t really have room to plant companion plants (I already have nasturtiums, in a hanging basket), but I will find room if that’s the wayto fix it.
Nasturtium seedling.
Anyone, ideas?
Friday Feast: Roasted Vegetable Tart
This recipe comes from The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook, from bay books (apparently there is no author or editor). Yankee Elv and I got it for Christmas one year, and like so many of our cookbooks, have only tried a few different meals from it. We tend to find something we like and eat it lots. Plus, time is at a premium and some days you just want to cook easy things.
This dish, whilst easy, is a bit time-consuming. It is super tasty though, and there’s enough that you’ll definitely have leftovers. I recommend giving it a try! Cooking this meal is also a great opportunity to roast some extra veges and just eat them by themselves… maybe with a bit of salt, or on pizza. Roasted butternut pumpkin (squash) with shallots (green onions) on pizza is awesome – especially when the pumpkin is squishy and soft!
Roasted Vegetable Tart
Roasted Vegetable Tart, ready to go in the oven.
Ingredients
Filling
2 Lebanese eggplants, cut into thick slices (halved if they’re fat eggplants)
350g pumpkin, chopped
2 zucchini, halved and cut into thick slices
1 to 2 tabs olive oil
1 large red capsicum, chopped
1 tsp olive oil, extra
1 red onion, cut into thin wedges
1 tab korma curry paste (we make our own using the sauce base, sans coconut milk, from our Chana Masala recipe)
Pastry
1.5 cups plain flour
125g butter, chopped
2/3 cup (100g) roasted cashews, finely chopped
1 tsp cumin seeds (or ground cumin)
2 – 3 tabs chilled water
Method
1. Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F).
2. Brush eggplant, zucchini and pumpkin with oil and bake in a tray for 30 mins. Turn, add capsicum, and bake for another 30 mins. Cool.
3. Meanwhile, heat the extra oil in a pan and cook the onion for 2 to 3 mins, or til soft.
4. Add curry paste and cook (stirring), for 1 min or until fragrant and well mixed. Cool.
5. Reduce the oven to 180°C (350°F).
6. Make the pastry:
- Sift flour into a large bowl.
- Rub in butter until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
- Stir in cashews and cumin seeds.
- Make a well in centre and add water.
- Mix with a knife, using a cutting action, til mixture comes together in beads.
- Gather dough together and place on a sheet of baking paper.
- Flatten into a disc, then roll out to a 35cm (14″) circle.
7. Place pastry on a tray and spread onion mixture over it, leaving a wide border.
8. Add other veges over the onion, piling them higher in the centre.
9. Work your way around, folding the edges of the pastry up over the outer veges.
Work your way around, folding the pastry over the outer veges.
10. Bake for 45 mins, or until pastry is golden.
11. Serve immediately (but it’s also good reheated the next day).
Roasted Vegetable Tart, ready to eat. Yum!
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