Best Ever Porridge with a touch of Ayurveda
It seems to be true that as you get older your digestion becomes more sensitive and reactive. I used to be able to eat anything and in large quantities and suffer no consequences. Now I need to eat in a conscious way and choose carefully what I put into my body. Don't get me wrong, for the most part of my adult life I've endeavered to eat organic wholefood. However, these days there seems to be an increasing overload of weird stuff that goes into or onto our bodies no matter what we do. One of my daughters rang the other day to tell me she had read the label of the 'organic' rice milk that she had been enjoying of late and there it was. To her disappointment they were using canola oil. As my other daughter told me recently when talking about food "you have to choose your battles". Taking into account the high prices of everything so-called organically produced, for most regular families to make those healthy choices it must feel almost unachievable.
Cooked Beetroot Salad
This is my latest craze. Cooked beetroot salad. I've been having it nearly every day or a variation of for lunch for the last few weeks. Packed full of goodness, all the ingredients are usually close at hand. I cook enough beetroot and chickpeas to last me the week, and then 
pick the fresh ingredients each day to make a bowl of deliciousness. I've been used to cooking for a tribe and it's strangely difficult to make the change to cook and eat healthy food for one. I'm still making the adjustment and looking for ways to feed myself well. For me fresh and simple tastes best. I've been researching beetroot recently and it really is a wonder food, touted for keeping cholesterol at a healthy level. Eat it 3 times a week for maximum effect. I sure won't be finding that a difficulty! For the recipe read the full post.
PLUM SAUCE
I've finally got around to making another batch of plum sauce. The last precious bottle was consumed nearly a year ago and by gosh I've missed it. I don't care for any of the commercially made sauces. I use my plum sauce on burgers, sausages, fried eggs (divine), and pan fried potatoes. I do have plum trees but they haven't got to the age yet of producing enough plums for sauce or jam making. I had some plums given to me last season and was too busy at the time to make them into sauce. They keep well enough frozen for sauce making so I freeze them in 2.7kg (6lb) lots until I'm ready and psyched for a day in the kitchen. Today was that day. It was cold and rainy, and Molly, my eldest daughter was visiting. We had planned to do some house painting. Instead we stoked up the fire, and spent a day inside cooking and eating. For recipe read the full post.
Chickpea Potato Top Bake
Chick peas are great don't you reckon. Creamy hummus in summer, stews and casseroles in winter, chickpea flour in pies, cakes and biscuits, roasted in a bit of tamari for nibbles. My Bulent's chickpea recipe is always a hit and here's another keeper. This one is perfect for autumn/winter meals for lunch or dinner. There are absolutely no fancy ingredients but it's tasty enough to serve up to guests!
Quintessential Quince
My latest fad is cream cheese and quince jelly on toasted gluten free bread. The cream cheese and the quince jelly are perfect foils, subtley enhancing each other. I confess I'm a little addicted. Have you ever got up close and personal with a quince. The aroma of the ripe fruit is divine, evoking tropical flowers. The quince is actually a pear, though astringent until cooked. It's under-rated and under-used in my opinion. I have two different types of quince trees growing here. The Japanese and the European. Both are suitable for jelly making. The Japanese quince makes a darker coloured jelly which I have used this time. For the recipe read the full post.
Bottling Beetroot
I gathered up the last scraggy beetroots from my summer garden and bottled them today. I preserved the main crop about a month ago. These were the ones that weren't big enough then. They still haven't grown much but needed to come out of the ground. I buy beetroot from the vege shop all year long, boil or steam it, slice it and keep it in apple cider vinegar in the fridge. It comes in handy as an extra veg for most meals. Come next spring I'm going to grow a main crop of beetroot for bottling and will aim to cultivate a years supply. They are so very easy to bottle. Here's how.
Vege Lasagne
Sounds dull doesn't it! Vege lasagne, It won't win awards for haute cuisine, but it does win awards in my book. What I'm looking for in a meal is something that tastes good, looks good, is nutritious, and is packed with fresh vegetables. This dish changes seasonally, is freezer friendly, child friendly, nutritious and delicious. I usually make two and divide one into single-sized portions to go in the freezer. For more details read the full post.
Rongoa Maori weekend workshop
Where to start! What a weekend. I attended the Rongoa Maori, traditional Maori medicine workshop with Rob McGowan (Pa Ropata) and the lovely Donna Kerridge in Te Puke. Nestled in the ngahere, lush coastal forest, we were taken on a journey. Rob shared his knowledge of the land, the plants, the birds and our own history captivating us all. Each person carefully gathered samples of plants and brought them to the table. These would be our focus for the weekend. We were encouraged to get to know each other because a lack of community says Rob is one of the major sicknesses of this world. Learning is easier when we are together as friends and not strangers. For more details read the full post.
COMFREY Symphytum officinale
Comfrey was first brought to my attention after the birth of my son more than thirty years ago. My domiciliary midwife, the wonderful Joan Donnelly was a staunch advocate of eating weeds and comfrey was one of her favourites. She was a picture of health and as well as her weed salads she used to knock back tablespoons of cayenne pepper to keep any bugs at bay. Undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with and she was a guiding light in the homebirth movement in this country. But I digress... comfrey also a force to be reckoned with, there's no getting rid of it once it establishes itself. Every little rootlet will grow a new plant. I used to curse it when my garden was tiny. Now I welcome the huge clumps it makes and I have created gardens around it. In early spring when I am planting seedlings or planning to make a comfrey tea for the garden I can never get enough of it! It has had some very bad press during the last few years for causing hepato-toxicity in laboratory experiments with rats, but there's no need to throw out the baby with the bath water. Problems can occur from ingesting the roots, in quantity. Topically it is one of our most marvelous healers for all manner of wounds and injuries from the skin through to the ligaments and the bone, nicely backed up by placebo double-blind trials I might add! For more details read the full post.
Savoury zucchini slice
At this time of the year anyone who has a couple of zucchini plants in their garden and a few chooks is overrun with you guessed it..... zucchinis and eggs. This savoury slice recipe takes care of both of those little problems and what's more you can freeze them in convenient meal-for-one sized pieces. I live alone most of the time and find it quite diffficult to make healthy meals for myself. I love cooking for OTHER people and I like to cook BIG meals so I'm am particularly challenged in this respect. These savoury slices are ideal for vegetarians as well as for getting vege's into your kids. A perfect light meal on a hot summer day accompanied by a fresh garden salad. The actual recipe I'm sharing with you here is only a suggestion. Create your own version with what you have on hand. I do use some fabulous recipes that I follow to the letter but this is a dish that invites your own input, inspired by seasonal availablity or your own personal taste preferences.
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