Catherine Comes to Tea

My sis Catherine came for tea last night ... it was ace to see her and I cooked the best tea (if I do say so myself).

 

 

I have been on a very big budgeting curve for the last 4 months. School fees are killing us but they are non negotiable so I am trying to find other ways to save cash (isn't everyone!).

 

I have found a heap of ways to cut down on our grocery bill - I will do a post at some stage!

 

So yesterday I wanted to use up ingredients in the fridge and pantry and not go to the shop (because when I go to the shop to buy a carton of milk ... I spend $50... weird). I turned these ingredients into the yummiest dish.



Curry Lentil and Cauliflower Rice.
1 x onion chopped
1 x Couli chopped
1 x table spoon of curry paste
brown rice and chicken stock.
Cook onion and add curry paste, couli and rice. Add stock and cook until rice is tender and then stir through a tin of lentils. I added mint and lemon at the end. It was delicious (and pretty good for us).

 This was also pretty good for us :-)

 

I hope your weekend was good

Big Love

Ex

Eating like Daisy part 254

2011 is the year to eat more greens and even Oprah has jumped on the band wagon. I am still living and loving eating a mainly plant based diet (maybe I should just call it a less processed dairy free with extra veg diet) and these are two recipes that I'm hooked on at the mo.

Stir Fry Brussel Sprouts (inspired by this book by Jane Kennedy)

Not my pic - I don't own nice plates.

Brussel Sprouts

Toasted silvered almonds or pine nuts

3 spring onions or 1/2 red onion
1/3 Cup lemon or lime juice

Cracked pepper

Tiny amount of oil

Boil the Brussels Sprouts for 4 mins or so (so they are still bright green)

Use small amount of oil to fry the spring onion.

When translucent add the drained Brussels Sprouts, nuts, lemon juice and pepper to taste. Stir fry for a bit to get a bit of colour on the sprouts.

That's it. You can also add bacon if you like with the spring onion step.

Carrot Mash

This one looks dodgey but taste great as a dip or spread on wraps or with veggie sticks or corn chips.

Carrots

Garlic cloves or teaspoon of minced garlic

Pepper

Lemon Thyme

small amount of oil

Roast on a tray all the ingredients until they are cooked and then stick all the contents of the tray into a food processor and blitz to a chunky mash. I add a bit of stock or water if its too chunky.

That's it!
I make both these dishes on the weekend and take them to work to have throughout the week. Both are really packed with flavour and the Brussels Sprouts dish I eat like a salad for lunch. You could add chicken etc to make a substantial meal.

Happy Vegging!

Eating Like Daisy

No wonder I love the Guinea Pig so much ... we have the same diet.

I know at least one person is slightly interested in what I shove in my mouth (Hello Mother Goose) so I will continue to bore the rest of you with my thoughts on a Plant Based Diet.

First a few questions answered.

The beautiful and hard core running Jessica said :
I'm asking you the same question that I ask everyone: is it true that you don't crave the bad stuff? And a new one: when you "mess up" the Diet, why did you? Or how do you avoid messing up?

I am not a big sweets eater. We don't usually have desert after tea and I don't do a lot of home baking (other than all the meals I prepare EVERY day). I am a huge savory fan and I did crave salty foods like potato chips before I started the plan. The salty cravings have disappeared. I imagine the sweet cravings would lesson too. Eating this way fills you up and leaves you feeling very satisfied (low GI?) so its not like being on a diet where all you think about is what your next meal is. Also I think looking back that the preservatives in some of the processed foods I ate made me a bit "addicted" to them. Once I stopped eating them and went through the awful 3 days of withdrawal I didn't crave them anymore. Also fruit tastes really sweet to me now and satisfies the sweet need for me.

Messing up : When I first started eating this way I was consumed (haha) with sticking to the plan and of course it did my head in. Now I stick to it about 85% to 90% of the day and I am very happy with myself for achieving that. I try not to see it as messing up that way and its also more flexible. For example I know my purchased marinated mushroom and salad wrap from our work cafe has butter and egg mayonnaise in it, but it also has lots of great stuff and is so much better for me that the ham and cheese melt I use to have.

Really Messing up: This for me means being unorganised and having to eat something with lots of dairy or meat . This has only happened once when I left my lunch at home and realised at 3pm and the cafe only had a ham sandwich left. I ate it and I didn't die. On that note eating this way makes me look at meals differently (obviously). I can have a fruit and veggie salad for lunch with nuts or sultanas and its enough to fill me up where before I would have to have a sandwich as well and the fruit salad would have been a side dish.

My lovely Mate from High school Matt said:

wow I should try this one .....might drop a few mega kg's...lol....you go girl keep it up....




Firstly Thanks Matt! I think this diet is used for peeps who need to drop weight fast pre surgery for example because you WILL drop the kegs quick sticks. But its not a diet you can dip in and out of (IMO) because once you stop eating lots of crap and go through the annoying withdrawal you wont want to keep eating the stuff that makes you feel crappy. I have lost about 5KG ( most of it off my boobs... such a winner NOT).

Other Very Random Stuff

I'm still nervous about Christmas but hope to keep the 85% method going. We spent last weekend with at my In laws and David's very generous Brother Stevie made a special trip to the cheese shop to get a selection of very expensive cheeses ( truffle pecorino at $150 bucks a keg anyone???). Yeah I didn't say "oh no eating dairy gives me this nasty mucus drip down the back of my throat ... you should read this book..." What I said was "oh yum thank you my Sweetie".

Before the Plan I would make a salad with tea almost every night. I love salad but I actually eat less salad and more veg now.

I have found all milk substitutes way too sweet. So I still have a bit of skim milk in my coffee. Its not killing me.

I have one coffee a day. I think 2011 will see me get off the crack for good. This is a good susbtitute.

If you are thinking of doing this Plan, organisation is the key. Also talking to or emailing other veggie freaks is really useful and helpful. Tips like buying spinach in bulk and freezing it or making up a veggie pizza at the start of the week to grab and go have been invaluable (Thanks again Celia Fae).

I take an Iron supplement (everyday) and a multi vitamin (when I remember). Its probably all in my head but I think I feel better when I take these.

Don't read this if you are my Father or my Father in Law.

Before eating this way the main pmt symptom I would get would be sore boobs. Very Very Very Very Very Very sore. I'd also go up about 2 sizes so my chest would arrive at functions 2 minutes before me. Sore boobs are not really as much fun as they sound and my Dr's advice was panadol. I took a lot of panadol. Since eating this way...no sore boobs. At all. Those last two sentences should be highlighted and in sparkling flashing font... but I do have some class.

Lastly here are some of the food I eat.

Spinach smoothie - I like orange , watermelon and spinach the best. I make up about a litre of if and freeze half so I have a few frozen shakes in the freezer to grab and go. I don't like adding frozen berry's cos the pips get stuck in my teeth! Frozen bananas sweeten the smoothie but make it pretty thick.

Veggie pizza ... Capsicum, olives, marinated artichoke, coriander, onion, mushroom, chilli, anything else in the crisper. Cook in the oven no cheese required I promise.

Vegetable pasta sauce with pasta. If you use a potato peeler to make long peels of carrot for the sauce it is both yummy and crunchy and filling. I also use this sauce with mince meatballs and Dave and the kids eat that with the pasta too.

Wraps with salsa and veggies. Wraps with humus, Wraps with kidney beans and salsa, wraps with salad... I love wraps (obviously).

I have also tried the prepared lentil patties from the shops. Some are ok, some are foul beyond words. I think I am on to a good one now - chickpea and coriander. I did try to make a chickpea patty myself and that was worse than foul!

I keep a nut muesli bar in my handbag (which is no doubt loaded with sugar) and also some fruit just in case I feel like I need to shove more food into my mouth whilst I am running around. I haven't died of hunger or malnutrition yet so I think I am probably doing the Plan ok.

You had me at Post Nasal Drip

***Warning this post is completely self focus and all about ME ME ME. You have been warned***

When we got back from the Wedding/Thailand excellent adventure in August I really struggled for a while. It was more than post holiday blues. I was tired and anxious most of the time. I actually started to put on weight (who puts on weight after their holiday?) and for the first time in a long time I didn't want to exercise or run. I then developed a sinus infection and the post nasal drip I often have got worse. 2 lots of antibiotics didn't touch the sinus infection. I was taking antihistamines and flushing out my sinus's twice a day and not getting much relief (I'm lazy so spending that much time on my nose and getting half an hours relief pissed me off the most). I was miserable. My heart was telling me my life was hard when my head knew my life was a cakewalk.

I already realised that some foods like dairy and caffeine made all my sinus and anxiety problems worse so I was sort of eliminating them from my diet (sort of ... I would still have killed anyone standing in the way of me and my coffee).

I then read two blogs and a book that has made a huge difference to my life. I say read when what I really mean is inhaled.

The book is called Eat to Live by Dr Joel Fuhrman. The shortest explanation is that it is a vegan diet.

I have been following it principles about 85% - 90% of the time and I LOVE it. I feel so much better about everything and my sinus problems have all but disappeared. Goodbye constant worsening Post Nasal Drip that threatened my sanity on a daily basis.

I have been on this plant based way of eating for about a month now. I am new at it and still feel like I am just jumping on the latest bandwagon. But its good and even if I gave it all up tomorrow I would still like to follow some of its tenets.

I am worried about Christmas. Both my Cath & Andrew and my Mother in Law show their love through cooking and food. My fear is offending them. This is most likely unfounded as the world really doesn't revolve around me (gasp) and no one really notices what you eat. We went to my MIL for David's birthday celebration and I ate really well whilst sticking to the plan and no one noticed ... I imagine Christmas will be the same. (Strangely people get more annoyed that I don't drink).

I didn't begin this plant based diet with the express purpose of losing weight, as always it was more a control issue. I felt like my relationship with some food was controlling me (or I was putting way too much emphasis on controlling it). I also knew that some of the foods I craved (like salty salty potato chips) made my body feel like crap (pmt anyone?).

I'm no poster child for the plant based diet but I have learnt a lot about what I shove in my mouth and how it effects my daily life. And I am REALLY enjoying eating this way and the benefits I am feeling.

The benefits for me:
I get to eat this (as an example)
Breakfast - Fruit and Spinach smoothie
Lunch - Multi grain Wrap with homus and roast veggies
Tea - Vegetable Curry with Rice

I wake up with energy and look forward to exercising. I don't collapse into bed at 8.30pm exhausted from my pretty cruisey life.

I am less anxious. Hallelujah Brother.For this alone I love this way of eating.


The Down Side:
It is a time commitment. To not lose your shite you have to prepare lots of veggies in advance so you can grab and go. You have to seek out new plan based recipes and not be afraid to try new things. Case in point. I now eat a lot of brussel sprouts in lots of different ways... and I enjoy it. I really should re read this last paragraph to myself as I have been too scared to buy tofu. What can I say I am a work in progress.

I felt crappy for the first week of eating this way. All my symptoms got worse and the post nasal drip turned into a really sore throat. I took a lot of panadol.

Other things worth mentioning:
David and kids are not on the plan. They all laugh at my green smoothies.
This post and the gorgeous Vyc are the only peeps I have told about the plan. It will probably stay that way.
I have one coffee a day.
I feel great.
If I can do this anyone can.
David (who once went 24 hours without noticing I has cut about 15cm of my hair off) said he thought I had a "sparkle" about me since I had been eating on the plan. I don't even think he was trying to get me into bed by saying it ;-)
I think its worth making any changes for the better to your diet.
The End.

PS Feel free to ask any questions - I wont know the answers but I have contacts who will ... wink wink nudge nudge.

Oh let's cook ... and build a retaining wall.

On Friday afternoon Lulu informed me that this weekend was a weekend to COOK. Oh how wonderful to have my child share my kitchen with me and experience the wonders of meal preparation... is what I wasn't thinking. I would rather stick hot needles in my eyes than have to help a smaller person cook this weekend is more what was going through my head. Many years ago before I actually had kids (you know when I was a brilliant parent) I have a vivid memory of sitting at Wanguri Oval watching David play cricket ... sitting back in my banana lounge and reading a book by this bloke . I'm pretty sure I told the Coaches Wife (who actually had children) that my children would be cooking a main meal for tea by the age of 9. Yeah I'm still embarrassed about that 14 years later (can you imagine what she was thinking?). Fast forward to now and Bear can make 2 min noodles and rice... neither of which I ever want for tea.

Lulu does actually show a bit more interest in cooking (not cleaning up the cooking mess - just the cooking) so I sucked it up and we did have a weekend of cooking.

We made Zucchini Slice and Banana Bread (no pics so use your imagination).




She decided that she wanted to make and play with playdough. She is growing up way to fast so I was stoked she wanted to do this... and she played with it all weekend.


My in laws brought back a small countries worth of Toblerone from Europe and we are not big eaters of chocolate so I found a cheesecake that used some of it up.

by some I mean about 5%.

It was nice cheesecake though.



As well as cooking Lulu and Bear helped David construct a retaining wall. Dave is so lucky to have their help ;-)

And that was the weekend that was.

Whadda ya want for tea?

This is both the question I loath asking and Dave hates answering lately. Everyone in this fam is a bit sick of our usual dinner options (curry, spaghetti bolognaise, stir fry, casserole, chicken schnitzel .... and repeat) so in an effort to find some different things (bearing in mind there is a huge list of food 3 peeps in my house wont eat) I cooked a new recipe last night... and it rocked and it was easy.

Chicken and Sweetcorn Soup

1 x BBQ chicken or any cooked chicken meat shredded
1 x tin of creamed corn
1 x tin corn kernels

1 litre of Chicken stock

1 x chopped onion

1 x garlic clove crushed

1x 10cm piece of ginger grated.

Fry onion garlic and ginger in a little bit of oil

and then add the rest of the ingredients.... stir simmer for a few minutes and serve.

It was delicious and the kids sort of liked it... Ive yet to find anything my kids "love" to eat (chocolate and coco pops don't count).