It’s official – I now work for food, literally. A couple of months ago, I started working with an organization here called Ooooby doing grant research and now some writing. Ooooby does produce box delivery in the Sydney area. As a thank you, I’m now getting free deliveries for my effort. Jason’s joked that I should change my picture on LinkedIn to me holding a sign that says “will work for food”.
When Jason travels, I tend to eat the simplest meals. So far so that Jason (wrongfully) thinks that they aren’t meals. They usually include a hodge hodge of fruits and vegetables. I’m completely ok with this. Especially a couple of weeks ago week. I’d just finished an introductory course on Permaculture with Milkwood and have become even more conscious about the food I eat. So this time, I made a specific effort to eat simple meals in order to really taste what I was eating. The end result was really great, so I thought I’d share. I had some black beans that I cooked earlier in the day and went from there. To be honest, the lime is unlike me, but I had these two beautiful limes from a woman’s garden that I worked on a couple of weeks ago and didn’t want it to go to waste. Ingredients 1/2 black beans 1 cup chopped potatoes, 1inch or smaller in size 2 tomatoes 2 lime slices 2 tsp salt 2 tsp margarine salt and pepper …
I’ve made a promise to myself to buy fruits and vegetables that I’ve never heard of before, or have never tried when I find them at a market or store. The idea behind this is that if more people buy these things than more market producers will grown them and the diversity of food that we find in our stores will continue to grow. There’s so much more food out there than what we are given in a grocery store. With that in mind, we went to a market recently that had a number of things I’ve never seen before.
I decided to try out this cauliflower curry that I found a couple of weeks ago. I love all things curry so I figured it would be delicious, and it was! We had just a bit of rice left in our pantry so I decided to add it, and I adjusted the spices a tad. I also adjusted the lentils, but I don’t think it was necessary. I made a lentil shepherds pie earlier in the week and had some left over (roughly 1.5 cups), so that’s what I used. If you’re cooking them for this recipe, I would use the original amount of 2.5 cups. I’m one who loved a crunchy texture, so I served this with two pieces of toasted sourdough (naan would have been ideal). I forgot to take a picture of it once it was finished. So here’s my leftovers and empty bowl. Whoops!
I’ve started volunteering with a community center in Sydney that’s doing some pretty great work. The Lane Cove Community Center has a host of volunteers that provide various services. The garden volunteers go to the houses of folks in the community that can no longer maintain their gardens. The idea is that if the volunteers work in the gardens, then the home owners will be able to stay in their homes longer.
I’ve been working on making meals that don’t need to be heated before eating – so that I can take my lunch on the go and eat it wherever I end up in the city (I mainly do this because restaurants are crazy expensive in Sydney, and honestly, it’s easier). Enter grain bowls! I’m so happy they exist. They add a new twist to my kale salads that we all know I love. Anyway, here’s my first attempt after reading about them. Read more here.
Ok, I’m really back this time. And, with a first for cooking (for me at least). I used anchovies! I found this recipe on epicurious and decided to use it the other night when I was feeling lazy. It’s just a basic pasta with sauce, but you bake the sauce. You pretty much just dump everything into an oven safe container and leave it alone. What more could you ask for? Read more.
Alright, I’m back with a new time zone! We’ve finally made it to Sydney and this is the first day where things aren’t completely crazy (it’s Wednesday, we got here on Monday). So, I wanted to start my new adventure by telling you about one of my favorite chocolate brands, Chocolove. To be fair, I’ve only had their dark chocolate, but I’m assuming the milk chocolate bars are just as delicious. Right now, my favorite is their Chilies and Cherries in Dark Chocolate. Chocolove is a chocolate bar company that takes their social responsibility seriously. They take a variety of approaches towards ethics, social issues, and sustainability (see below), because they believe that each of these approaches addresses a different need for both the customer and the farmer. Read more here.
In order to prepare for our move to Australia, I stopped working in January. Before quitting, I was very worried about being bored. I’m now in my second week and I have no idea how I could have thought that. I’ve started taking two courses on Coursera, walking to yoga classes rather than taking the metro, and now I make lunch from scratch every day for Jason and myself. It’s wonderful! Temporary unemployment is turning out to be awesome. One thing that I’ve made a number of times are variations of a roasted vegetable sandwiches. These have turned out to be quite delicious! I started off with a whole wheat sourdough loaf from our local bakery. I roasted most of the vegetables in the oven and then added the bread in towards the last 5 minutes (we packed our toaster). Read more here.
I think it’s safe to say that I love anything involving noodles. I crave them all of the time. So naturally, I try to find healthier recipes to make so I can have them more often without feeling bad about it. A couple of days ago, I found an article on Huffington Post that provided a number of number of vegan meals. One of them was a recipe for Sugar Snap Pea and Carrot Soba Noodles from Cookie and Kate. I changed a couple of things based on convenience, but it still turned out really well. Give it a shot!
one-quarter vegan 