The Food I Have Been Eating

I have the heartiest appetite in the whole world!!! Even when I'm sick I rarely don't feel like eating... I think this is a good thing as when I worked in a hospital once I noticed that patients who retained some appetite did much better than those who lost theirs and couldn't eat their meals...
There has not been very much vegetarian living going on in this house. I think I have come to accept that possibly I will never be a vegetarian again. I think that is is highly likely I will continue to eat a lot of vegetarian food but I know that as long as I live this current lifestyle it is not likely I will stop buying, cooking and eating meat on some occasions. I don't have enough(do I have any???) vege inclined friends... it makes socialising and sharing food with people a meaty affair...
However last night we just had tomato soup, vege fritters and eggs for tea and it was yummy. I finished the last three fritters today with another egg, heated them up in the frying pan.. I don't think they are nice cold.....
Right now I have a pot of chicken and vege soup simmering for our colds. I had roasted a chicken on Monday for B.'s sandwiches and today the rest has gone in the soup. In the oven there is a single pizza I have made for my lunch that has olives, pineapple, spinach, garlic, a bit of ham and cheese on it. I used a burrito tortilla for the base. They are nice and thin and crispy! The night before we had chicken kievs and coleslaw. Coleslaw is my absolute favourite salad in the whole world. Yet it's sooo simple!!! I don't put any fancy things in mine.... just cabbage, carrot, finely chopped onion and finely chopped capsicum sometimes, if I have one, oh and parsley. I like Heinz Salad cream on it and also on top I like hardboiled eggs.
The night before I was really really grumpy with my cold and very tired.... I brought home a packet of sausages and we had them with mashed potato, peas and grilled tomatoes with cheese melted on them. So you see there's not much vege stuff happening especially this last week. Not organised enough. I have a crisper full of veges but I'm scared to look in there as half of them are bound to be rotting away in the bottom... it's because I've been busy doing extra hours that I blame for this level of disorganisation, but it's a really poor excuse as how do other people manage to stay on top of things when they have a lot more to do than me?????? Oh well, that's me... always a little behind with lots of things....
Last weekend on my birthday we had a BBQ on the Saturday and then on the Sunday I cooked a whole rump roast and veges and we had another lot of people over for that! Then later in the week we went to our friends' house for dinner, the same ones we always have mid-week dinners with and we had a Morrocan theme.... I made a roast Morrocan chicken dish with pumpkin and onions and it was on a couscous base.
Next week, I'm going to make sure to cook and eat TWO vegetarian meals every day. In other words out of the three daily meals... only ONE is allowed to contain any meat....it sounds like hardly anything but considering it's possible to eat meat three times a day in some form.... I think it is a realistic goal... perhaps as well, I could say THREE of the days the whole day has to be vegetarian.... I will outline my plan, and perhaps a menu, so that I won't go off the rails, tomorrow, in my next post!

FOOD!!

I love food so much!! I'm always hungry it seems but even while I'm eating I'm thinking about the next meal and what I'm going to eat then...
For our anniversary meal at Nicola's B. ordered a half dozen oysters kilpatrick which are his favourite... I chose fried mozzarella balls that came with a spicy tomato sauce. There was not anything vegetarian at all on the entree menu save for bruschetta which I am not keen on as it often makes me feel a bit sick.. the balls had a small piece of prosciutto in each one...it was quite nice but I felt they had not been freshly fried.. they seemed to be heated up...but neverthless I always enjoy my food..
For the main they had a special of more or less a duck ravioli( although it was called capriletto or something else..) that was prepared with an oil based sauce and had enoki and oakear mushrooms. B. thought he would try this for something different. It was quite unusual with the funny oakear mushroom which were sort of like crunchy seaweed but without a sea taste!! Quite good! But no discernable taste of duck, I didn't think.. ( I tried on of his "dumplings'). B. had perfectly steamed veges with his main meal while I chose a green salad which I think I should have got for my entree.. that was really fresh and crunchy!! For my main meal I had field mushroom and spinach ravioli with creamy saffron sauce... there were three huge ravioli on my plate.. the pasta itself was quite thick although it was very tasty, I reckon I could have rolled it thinner... but I enjoyed it.. very VERY filling.. boy I was ready to burst after all this!!! We shared a yummy bottle of Taylor's wine and for dessert we shared a tuille basket with three scoops of gelato and berry coulis and we had a long black each as well..
I really like Nicola's.. the service is just excellent there and the prices are really reasonable for very good meals... I nearly wanted to order the potato gnocchi with the gorgonzola sauce that I really love there but I thought I should order something else for a change... I wasn't sorry, but I have to say, I really think that gnocchi is the BEST!!! I will order it again next time!!!

What I'm Doing With Leftovers!

I have got way too much food in the fridge! This happened cos I had a few days where people were coming over and I have a bad habit of panic buying in case there's not enough for them to eat!! I am trying not to throw food away cos it's wasteful and also no good for the environment to put food in the landfill.. makes methane gas!!
I can't compost all of it as I don't like to put certain things out in case it attracts rodents and the dogs cannot eat all the leftovers as they will get overweight. A lot of scraps the birds will eat, but I have a bit of conflict feeding them TOO much for fear they'll become overly dependent...
Mostly there are too many veges at the moment and hopefully I'll get around to eating them before they go yellow and limp(or slimy!). If not they can definitely be put into the compost safely. It still doesn't remove the fact though that money is wasted if you buy more than you need....

Here are some examples of what food is in there and how I plan not to waste it.....

Leftover roast potatoes - I don't like leftover potatoes, they taste funny.. I chopped these up and cooked them with some mince I bought yesterday for the dogs.. I cooked it in the pot I cooked our rice in last night so all the stuck on rice will also go into the mush. I also put the small amount of leftover porridge from my breakfast today in and some leftover cooked veges.. it's good for them to have some veges in their diet as well.

Some cooked rice noodles - I always think I'm not going to have enough noodles for the amount of veges/meat I've cut up... there has to be more noodle than other ingredients for me to enjoy the dish... same as there has to be more rice than stirfry!!! There's not enough noodles for a dinner for both of us though.... but there is enough for a lunch! I will have my lunch with them and the balance Paul can take tomorrow. Today he took the stirfry and rice left from last night... there was just enough for a lunch size portion. We eat a bigger meal at night.

Pasta with hardly any sauce on it... for the same reason I cooked too many rice noodles I have too much curly fettucine but there was very little sauce left. But in the vege crisper there is a third of an eggplant. I can make my famous eggplant pasta dish for tonight and that will use up the fettucine AND the eggplant! I can also use some of the tomatoes that my friend Marg gave me to make the sauce!!

There is a container of stale gravy - that one is easy! It can go on the dogs' biscuits to make them more tasty this evening!

There is a pot of cooked Thai red rice - I bought a packet to try but I don't like the look of it. Also easy... this can be cooked with the rest of the mince for another dinner for the dogs! Rice is a good allergy-free food for dogs and also a good filler to make their mince go further. I'll just be sticking to white rice and brown rice in future..maybe not very adventurous of me but the red rice just does not look appealing!

A Simple Recipe

Over the tummy stuff but now a cold I've been battling for a few weeks seems to be getting a stronger foothold....bah! Still don't feel too bad and I had an enormous appetite today. I had an egg on toast before work and then for lunch I had a toasted fieldmushroom and cheese sandwish and some potato scallops I made for the three of us to share.. Donna, Katherine and me!!! Needless to say I ate most of them but it's truly amazing how many one smallish potato made!!! It's a good way to make potatoes stretch if you have a large family or not very many potatoes left just when you thought you might have mash... oops, reach into the bag, dang! two potatoes left only.... aha!!!

Potato Scallops

Heat enough oil to deep fry... I find using a small saucepan will give you depth without having to heat up a lot of oil in a bigger pan....

Cut potato/es into thin slices, only about 2-3 mm think or they'll take too long to cook through.. peeling them is optional but you should wash and dry them and dry the slices too, of the juice after you've finished slicing

Have a batter ready of plain flour, salt and pepper and a large pinch of Bi-carb... you can add yellow food coloring if you wish but not imperative..

Have some more plain flour in a dish and flour the potato slices before dipping into the batter.

Fry in really hot oil or better still use the solid white vegetable shortening, it makes things really crisp... probabaly not good for you but no fried food is that good anyhoo!!

Cook till golden brown and the potato is tender, drain, sprinkle with more salt( and pepper if you're a pepper fiend like me) and eat!!! Yum!!!

A cheap and filling snack!! Or a good side dish!!!