The more observant reader will have noticed that TC mentioned in a post yesterday that he was going to make a bacon and egg pie for dinner.
Well, that was the plan and I was delegated to the task but his sister called and invited him around to dinner so he did that and the bacon and egg pie plan was put off until today.
So now you know.
I will be preparing the pie today and will soon take some 'bacon' out of the freezer. I say 'bacon' but, as you know I use Tegel chicken rashers instead of the usual pork bacon. I find the chicken version less fatty and, while not necessarily good for you they are made from 100% NZ free range chicken with no added hormones. which is a lot better than the mostly imported pork bacon that is stuffed with preservatives and bulked out with water.
Anyway - moving on.
The Old Girl is in Christchurch which means that, when making this bacon and egg pie I can put in things that she disapproves of. Bacon or chicken rashers is a given as are eggs obviously which meet her approval but I like to add peas, red onion, capsicum, spring onion etc jazzed up with some chilli sauce.
"That's not the way you make a bacon and egg pie" she tells me which always reminds me of that old 1990s television commercial on Uncle Toby's instant porridge and which always annoyed her.
Preheat oven to 180°C fan bake. Add the olive oil to a frying pan. On a medium heat, sauté the red onion, capsicum and spring onion for 5 to 10 minutes until soft. In a large bowl whisk together 2 of the eggs with the sweet chilli sauce, and garlic chilli paste and season well with salt and pepper. Line the base and sides of a large baking dish with puff pastry sheets. Pour in the egg mixture. Scatter in the chopped bacon, cooked vegetables and the peas mixture. Crack the other 4 eggs directly on top, use a fork to break the yolks if desired. Add a splash of Worcester sauce. Place morer pastry on top of the pie and seal the sides. Brush any extra egg from the bowl over the top of the pastry. Bake for 50 minutes until golden and cooked through. Leave to sit for 10 minutes before serving
This is an adapted version of a VJ Cooks recipe I found on the internet thingy. Thanks VJ.
The Old Girl's away at present so I've got the house to myself for a couple of months.
Amongst other things this means that I can be a bit more creative when cooking.
When I cook dinner for The Old Girl I have to 'stick to the recipe' as she can be a bit of a purist and often tells me off for adding too many things to the dishes I make.
"Less is more Matey" she says after turning her nose up at the addition of plum sauce, sweet chili sauce, cubed potatoes and most of the contents of the herb drawer when making my Bolognese sauce.
She pretty much told me this last night on our nightly FaceTime call when I told her of the excellent noodle dish I'd made - a kind of variant on Singapore noodles.
Kind of like this
I'd decided on a shrimp stir fry and pre-prepared sliced spring onion, chopped red and green capsicum, chopped garlic, 'Julienned' carrots and zucchini and frozen peas, shrimps and red chilli from the freezer. I also took out of the freezer a very small pottle of chicken stock. This had written on the lid 'Stock - Me' which identifies stock that The Old Girl makes which is superior to the Campbell's stock we often use and freeze any left over from cooking.
Anyway, once I had everything set out (when making a stir fry it works best to quickly flash fry everything to keep the vegetables crisp. This means having everything prepared and ready to be tossed into the wok) I set about making the dish. I sauteed the garlic in olive oil and added the shrimps spring onion and red chilli to quickly cook through. I took these out of the pan and added sliced carrots and zucchini with the peas and added soy sauce, teriyaki sauce and a dash of Worcester sauce quickly whisking these around before reaching for the thawed out chicken stock. "Funny" I thought "that stock looks quite yellow." I added it anyway, returned the shrimp, spring onion and chillies and stirred through. I tasted it to check on the seasonings and was surprised at how fruity and tangy it was. It then dawned on me that the 'stock' I had used was actually lemon juice. When I'd juiced a whole lot of lemons a while ago I'd frozen the juice in ice cube trays but also remembered that I'd put some in a small plastic pottle. In my usual haste I hadn't changed the wording on the lid. Never mind - it tasted good.
I heated through a packet of noodles in a bowl of boiling water, drained them and decided to mix these through the mixture to fully coat them. As the mixture was already fruity I added a half a cupful of mixed nuts and fruits I had as snacks in the pantry and gave the pan a quick burst of heat adding a little more teriyaki sauce and some sweet chilli sauce. The result was outstanding. This will be a go to dish for me in the future. Not for the Old Girl though.
I decided to make chilli today - for dinner tonight and with several portions to freeze for later. The red chillies fresh off the vine are looking good and I had some lamb mince in the freezer so ...
Sautéed onion, spring onion, garlic, ginger, chillies, a splash of Worcester sauce, bit of soy sauce, oregano and basil, grated carrot, canned tomatoes and can of red kidney beans and - Está poca madre!
I prepared this early to allow the flavours to meld while the chilli is sitting in the pot (heat off). I'm looking forward to this with rice tonight and maybe a glass of red wine.
I've mentioned before how The Old Girl and I while not being vegetarians, don't eat much meat. Our cooking is usually dominated by the use of vegetables, grains, nuts, legumes and beans with fish and meat as a side rather than the main feature.
On average we use meat or fish about once every third meal. The meat we use is predominately chicken and the fish salmon for her and snapper or terakahi for me. If we do cook with red meat it is lamb either as mince, shanks or fillets. I guess that this would only be about one meal in a dozen at most. We have been gradually reducing use of meat including chicken for a while now but this has been accelerated after watching the food documentary series on Netflix - 'You are what you eat'.
After this we have cut out all processed meats from our diet - ham, bacon, salami, sausages etc. and accelerated our weaning off from beef, lamb and even chicken. Since using soy and oat milk products for some years now, our dairy intake is limited but we still might look to reduce our cheese usage even though it isn't that high. The challenge will be in sourcing viable and tasty alternatives. The final outcome might be, while not vegan, having a plant based diet with the occasional use of meat and dairy.
A plant-based diet focuses on foods primarily from plants. This includes not only fruits and vegetables, but also nuts, seeds, oils, whole grains, legumes, and beans. It doesn't mean that we will be vegetarian or vegan as we will still eat some meat and dairy. Rather, we are increasingly choosing more from plant sources.
The benefits of a plant-based diet are:
Health Benefits.
Heart Health: Plant-based diets have been linked to a lower risk of heart disease. Weight Management: People following a plant-based diet tend to have a lower body mass index (BMI). Diabetes Prevention and Control: Plant-based diets can improve blood sugar control and can sometimes even reverse type 2 diabetes. Cancer Risk: Certain plant-based diet components can reduce the risk of developing cancer. Gut Health: High-fibre foods prevalent in plant-based diets can promote gut health.
Environmental Benefits
Reduced Carbon Footprint: Plant-based diets generally require less energy from fossil fuels, less land, and less water to produce. Biodiversity: Reducing meat consumption can decrease the demand for land used for meat production, thus lowering the impact on biodiversity.
Nutritional Considerations
Protein: It's a common concern, but plenty of plant foods are rich in protein (e.g., beans, lentils, chickpeas, tofu, and quinoa). Vitamins and Minerals: Certain nutrients, like Vitamin B12, Vitamin D, omega-3 fatty acids, iron, and calcium, may be more challenging to obtain in a plant-based diet and might require supplementation or careful planning. Fibre: Plant-based diets are high in fibre, which is beneficial for digestive health and can help prevent various diseases.
The Netflix series we watched was set in USA which, while being so far behind New Zealand in food standards and environmental controls, with hideous factory-based meat and dairy production still, with such a large population in cities has developed affordable, nutritious and flavoursome alternatives to meat, milks, cheeses, breads and even eggs. Unfortunately, in New Zealand the alternatives are either tasteless and crap or hellishly expensive. Our primary industries of meat and dairy production being so dominant, don't as yet allow successful alternative experimentation and production to effectively reach supermarket shelves - certainly not outside of the major cities where we live.
For some years now I make my own bread (several loaves a week) and purchase my ingredients from Bin Inn which is a bulk provider of wholefoods and specialty groceries like flours, grains, nuts, cereals and 'healthy' foods. In addition to the bread mixes I often buy dried fruits and nuts and other things for the pantry - herbs and spices, breakfast cereals and mueslis, for example. I'm waiting for Bin Inn to expand into cheese alternatives, and vegetarian meat alternatives.
We are quite a long way down this road, certainly ahead of some but still need to learn how to create or find products that while healthy are also nutritious and tasty. We need to plan ahead more to make sure we're getting a balanced diet. Living a bit out in the country doesn't help as I tend to do one shop a week in town so buy all of my fresh fruit and vegetables in one go. This is a challenge in summer in keeping them fresh. I will need to build new planters and grow fresh and perishable salad vegetables.
I really can only see the upside for us as we rarely eat takeaway food, seldom eat out and, as I said don't eat that much meat to the point where, if we stopped completely it wouldn't be a biggie. It would be good though, if soon we were able to make or buy wholefood plant based products that replicated the things we're used to like cheese, 'hamburger' patties and chicken. We will continue to eat fish though until such time, if ever, our seafood producers hit the rock bottom (pun intended) that overseas producers have.
Heigh ho heigh ho - in the words of Joni Mitchell it's "back to the garden".
I'll be able to wear those new gumboots that Richard likes so much.
With The Old Girl away I'd kind of planned out the things I was going to cook for myself. Some of the dishes 'planned' are Nicoise salad, Caesar salad, pizza, stir fry, Kaimai steak KAIMAI, bacon and egg pie, fish and chips, stuffed potatoes, beetroot salad and orange and kumara pasta.
It's the last two that I've run into a problem with.
Northland has a problem with the supply of apples and kumara. The kumara stocks and replanting were last year decimated by Cyclone Gabriel and the other bad weather and Hawks Bay orchards were devastated by the same. Nowhere can I find either.
I need the apple - Granny Smith green apple for my beetroot, apple and carrot salad with pomegranate molasses as a dressing.
Yummy!
I've got the beetroot and carrot - here's a pic of these for the meat eaters down south ...
... but the salad just won't be the same without the apple.
The other dish that I'm thwarted by lack of ingredient for is Pasta Siciliana which I've made many times and absolutely love.
Unfortunately I cannot make it without kumara (I use golden kumara). I don't see potato as a viable alternative.
It's Lynn's birthday today and we've had a cracker of a day - the best of the summer so far.
Morning walks before it got too hot and a visit from my sister and husband, their daughter and her husband and their new 8 week old baby boy Zac filled the day nicely for an old Gruncle like me.
I've pre-prepared dinner (salmon, shrimp and zucchini pie with salad) and the pie will go in the oven soon.
Lynn (The Old Girl) and I just shared a bottle of Veuve Cliquot Rose while playing a best of three at pool (I won - hey! It's not as if it's a significant birthday date yet) and listening to a random selection of blues and jazz music. It's times like these that make me glad we bought the snooker table and dedicated a room to it. The room (the pool room see video) is also the music room where the stereo, records and cd's are housed. Great.
I make home-made gnocchi from time to time. Tonight I'm preparing kumara gnocchi in a garlic cream sauce. Yum!
I got the recipe some time ago from a New World supermarket but you can find it on-line as well. In case Richard wants to show off to his Italian guest here's some info on making it.
Maybe a bottle of Rockford sparkling shiraz will go well with it.
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