Still keeping the kitchen honest...

MONDAY

I have been slowly looking through my cookbooks for new healthy meal ideas, and this one by Gwyneth Paltrow isn't bad...

I made her meatballs on Monday night using veal mince instead of the turkey mince she used...

I don't think I've ever put so much green into a meatball mix before! To 500g (1 lb) of meat I added one cup of rocket (arugula), half a cup of basil, half a cup of parsley, and handfuls of other greens I could find as I didn't have all the ones she used.

I also made a fresh tomato sauce and served it with the meatballs over the last of our sour dough  bread, which I grilled with garlic and butter. No photo because it was late and the light in the kitchen is ghastly for night photos.

Dessert was an absolutely YUMMY strawberry & rhubarb crumble...

 I've never put those two together in a recipe before, but this will have an encore performance very soon, especially whilst its strawberry season...

TUESDAY

Bread baking day...

...this time with lovely pumpkin seeds studded across the top like a hedgehog...

I wanted to use up what was on hand for Tuesday's dinner, so I cleaned out the veggie tray in the fridge before I shop again on Wednesday.

Corn fritters are a wonderful breakfast food, but we like them as a main. I start by removing the kernels from two corn cobs...

Then I chopped up the remaining coriander and parsley, and grated my zucchini...

Finely diced spring onions, and sun dried tomatoes were added next...

...then a cup of spelt flour, a tablespoon of cornflour, some Celtic sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Final step is to add filtered water until the ingredients until they come together.

I drop tablespoons into melted butter and fry them. We had these for dinner alongside the leftover baked potatoes from Sunday, and the last of our bacon. 

I fried the bacon and potatoes in a little olive oil until the potatoes were crisp. Dinner was wonderful!

We finished off the day enjoying the last of the strawberry & rhubarb crumble with a little custard.

 I have a new sour dough mother brewing, a fresh batch of buttermilk made, and more yoghurt almost ready.

Tomorrow I'll be using the crockpot to cook the last of my chicken portions, and I'll serve it with the rice I'm soaking. 

Truly, sharing what's happening in the kitchen via this blog is helping me stay on track. 

Hope you're enjoying the visuals along the way!

hugs

Jenny

 

The weekend...

My dear husband really is changing his ideas about food, what we eat, where it comes from, and how we prepare it.

As our youngest child will be leaving home for good in October, these days I am working on a good routine of plan and preparation for the meals both he and I enjoy, without considering her too much. She's still a KFC and Macca's girl, you see. One day I think she'll have a change of heart, but until then I just fill her memory banks with all I learn about healthy foods, so she can access it when she wants to.

Friday night I soaked oats, pecans, almonds, yoghurt, milk, water and a little honey for Saturday morning's breakfast, which my hubby agreed to try. We still have a glut of strawberries so they tend to end up in almost everything!

It was yummy, and very light on the tummy, so we'll do this again. He did say that it would take him a little getting used to as he normally has boxed cereal with yoghurt.

Surprise, surprise!

The raw buckwheat I had soaked the afternoon before, drained, and left sitting on the bench to sprout did so in just 18 hours! I know this happens faster in the tropics, but this was super fast! I bought really good organic buckwheat kernels at Sprout on Friday and I think that is why they sprouted so fast - no chemical sprays to inhibit the sprouting?

 Anyhow, the superfast sprout meant I had to bring forward my granola making morning by 24 hours.

I made up my mix this time with soaked almonds and sunflower kernels, freshly ground flaxseeds (linseeds), cinnamon, olive oil, coconut oil, raisins, cranberries, and organic honey. I've never made it with honey before - always using maple syrup previously - but as I truly am trying to use what is on hand, honey was the obvious replacement.

I filled three trays in the dehydrator...

The dried fruit soaking in tea overnight was ready to be mixed into an Irish Tea Cake....

I like this recipe because it uses no fats, and though we do eat healthy fats in various forms (olive oil, organic butter, nuts and seeds, avocado..) every day, I do like to balance that with treats that have none.

I also added only 1/2 the recommended brown sugar as I find dried fruit sweet enough. Next time I may omit sugar completely, but for the next few weeks just cutting right back on our sugar consumption is a good way to begin breaking our way out of the 'sweet tooth' addiction we've both shared in the past...

I had also soaked short grain rice on Friday, in preparation for my Nana's 'Baked Rice Pudding'.

I know Nana never soaked her rice, but I really do find it's nice to eat and better on the digestive system.

Nana had enamel pans for her puddings, and I cherish the ones I have purchased at garage sales and charity shops over the years. This pudding screamed to be baked in one...

It baked in a water bath, and I used a large ceramic dish to hold the water. A generous grating of nutmeg, and in to the oven...

Nana would be proud.

After all that work it was time to use up more of those strawberries, so I made a soy/strawberry/cacao smoothie, to enjoy whilst browsing through a new recipe book...

By lunchtime it occurred to me that we'd been eating a lot of grains this week so I threw together good old fashioned bacon, eggs, tomato and mushrooms for a protein lunch. But we still opted for a slice of sour dough toast to soak up the yummy, runny egg yolk...

Dinner plans were put on hold when the lovely couple who bought my station wagon a couple of months ago invited us over for a meal! What a blessing. 

Before we went out I still made sure I had my nightly prep done for Sunday's meals. As Sunday was Fathers Day here in Australia I decided to soak some spelt flour in buttermilk and yoghurt overnight for scrumptious blueberry and orange muffins at breakfast...

I write myself a 'to-do' list each night now, and leave it on the fridge, so I can be sure to stay on track the next day. 

I also have a list with meal ideas for the days ahead, that makes use of what we already have on hand so that nothing spoils and I don't waste those precious $$'s. I wish I'd thought to do this years ago.

Sunday was the first day of Spring here in Australia, and Fathers Day as well!

My spelt flour had soaked overnight and was ready to have other ingredients added before baking...

I popped some fresh blueberries on top before they went in the oven, and my oh my, these were yummy when baked!

My husband was rather chuffed with his Father's Day brekky!

There was still some mix leftover, so I baked another four muffins, but this time with strawberries...

 Planning ahead, I've frozen half of the blueberry muffins for quick breakfasts on busy days.
Just out of curiosity I counted how many blueberries were in the punnet, and there were 86. I was impressed.

After breakfast my granola had finished dehydrating and was cool so I stored it away...

...and the new rye sour dough starter I began on Friday had tripled in size and was bubbling like crazy so I popped it in the fridge to be used in Monday's bread baking. One brilliant side effect of tropical living is that things ferment very quickly...

Lunch was simply grilled tomato and cheese on sour dough, served with some Tea Cake from Saturday's baking.

After lunch I made a marinade of lemon juice, lemon zest, olive oil, garlic, and honey, and used some to marinate chicken pieces for dinner...the rest to be used in baking the chicken with potatoes in the early evening.

Dinner was wonderful but I forgot to take photos...it's something I'll be making again (and again) so I'll share the finished pics then.
The day ended with more Baked Rice Pudding, and fresh orange jelly.

Wow, when I look back over this post I think, "what an amazing weekend in the kitchen!"

What did you make that was yummy?
hugs
Jenny

Friday's kitchen adventures!

What a day Friday was in the kitchen.

I put all my sewing work aside and immersed myself in cooking, baking, and food preparation for the weekend ahead. Truly, I was in a blissful state of heart.

Breakfast was a bowl of my sprouted buckwheat granola, which is fast running out...

 

I served it with strawberries and soy milk...

...and then soaked a fresh batch of buckwheat kernels to sprout.

I also soaked some medium grain rice in some warm water and whey for a baked rice pudding on Saturday night.

The rye sour dough starter I began a few days ago was ready for me to turn it into bread...

Years ago I used to make bread completely by hand every day, but after surgery on my a finger in 2010 I've never had the same level of sustained strength to knead for twenty minutes. However, I still start my dough by hand when making sour dough bread because I need to 'feel' the dough in order to be satisfied with my ingredients - I don't measure anything you see! 

When I'm pleased with the consistency I put the dough in my bread maker for kneading and the first rise.

After that first rise I take the dough out and give it a quick knead before shaping it for the second rise, and adding a few slashes across the top for the bread to 'spread out and up'...

30 minutes later the bread was ready for the oven. It's always warm in the tropics so bread rises very quickly...

 I used my hot stone for the baking, and 40 minutes later this delicious loaf was ready!

The Labne cheese I made the day before was lavishly spread across slices for our lunch - yum!

Next on my recipe list was homemade orange and passionfruit jelly. No sugar; just orange juice, strained passionfruit, a little water, and gelatine. The perfect dessert...

With strawberries at their peak in the tropics at the end of winter I've been buying punnets for $1.50 and using them in smoothies and freshly cut in cereals for breakfast. It's been a while since I've made jam so those strawberries became apple & strawberry jam!

  

My husband and I are cutting back on the amount of sugar in our diet so I used only one third of the sugar used in most recipes. The grated apple, and teaspoon of lemon juice gave the jam enough natural pectin, so the only ingredients were 250g chopped strawberries, two small organic apples (grated), 1/3 cup of rapadura sugar, one tablespoon of water, and a teaspoon of lemon juice. My husband raved about the flavours! "It's yummy...you can taste the fruit instead of sugar..."

 

I found a new store to get organic supplies, 'Sprout', so after lunch I went for a look and came home with a box of goodies to cook with. I used the organic flour and some buttermilk as the base to make pikelets for afternoon tea...

 ...which we served with that lovely jam!

In preparation for dinner I made a marinade of lemon juice, lemon zest, garlic, oregano and olive oil. As we were having lamb skewers I rubbed the marinade through chopped pieces of lamb and set them aside in the fridge. The lemon juice breaks down the lamb if left for a few hours and apart from cooking faster the meat is incredibly soft...

 

I also made a new hummus recipe from HERE.

5 minute Chilli & Lime Hummus...

...as well as Tzatziki using the yoghurt I made earlier in the week.

My last bit of prep was to soak dried fruit in a cup of Prince of Wales tea, ready to be baked into an Irish Tea Cake on Saturday morning.

 For dinner I skewered the lamb chunks and fried them in a lightly greased frypan, before serving alongside a tossed green salad with an olive oil and orange juice dressing. 

I served the hummus and the Tzatziki on the side with a slice of the sour dough bread.

(Sorry, forgot to take a photo of it!)

Some things I'm doing in the kitchen these days...

1. using only 1/3 - 1/2 of the sugar quantity listed in recipes

2. eating smaller servings

3.  looking at what I have already in the pantry and fridge to use before purchasing more food

4. thinking seasonally, and like with the strawberries that are cheap and at their peak, choosing recipes that make the most of what's local and ripe right now

5. planning ahead, and doing some food prep before bed each night if things need to soak

6. brushing up on my health studies to remind me why we, as a family, need this

 Things I have noticed...

1. we eat less naturally because the food I make is not loaded with refined ingredients or an overload of sugar, and therefore it's more nutritionally hearty

2. the less sugar we eat the less we desire it (and we are huge lolly and chocolate lovers!)

3. we're drinking less coffee

4. we are saving $$'s

5. sleep is far more restful

6. cravings have gone 

7. our digestive systems are working really well

I won't be posting again until Monday as I avoid the computer on Sunday. 

I hope you have a restful and refreshing weekend. :-)

hugs

Jenny