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.
Years ago, when we were living in Christchurch, one of The Old Girl's associates, Lindsay who's wife and he has become good friends of ours and she would once a month meet up for a meal and a glass of wine in the city. They discovered a great Japanese restaurant - the name of which I can't remember and it probably ended up under tonnes of rubble seeing that it was in the 'danger zone' - which we used to go to. It was one of those interesting Japanese eateries where you can sit at a 'bar' and have drinks while the chef, in front of you, cooked on tremendously hot and large griddles producing fantastic dishes amidst shooting flames, steam and sizzling sounds.
Teppanyake style
One of our favourite dishes at this restaurant and one that was new to us was okonomiyake, which is a Japanese 'street food' type of pancake made with vegetables, rice flour, eggs and seafood - usually prawns. Every time we went there, as well as sampling other delectable dishes we would default to okonomiyake.
After leaving Christchurch in about 2000 we went to many other Japanese restaurants in Auckland, Wellington, Australia, NYC, Toronto, York and London but never again discovered okonomiyake or at least not anything like the dish that enthralled us in Christchurch. We did come across variants in cafes but they were pale imitations.
We tried to make it ourself at home on occasions but without a recipe (we did search) it was a bit hit or miss.
On Monday The Old Girl had to go down to Auckland and stayed overnight with the lovely Ilse and Lindsay who - surprise surprise had discovered a recipe for okonomiyake. Obviously Lindsay had been going through withdrawal as well. The recipe that she discovered is by the outstanding and favourite of mine ,Annabel Langbein whose recipes I follow with relish. Well, not with relish unless that was one of her recipes ( a pedantic old schoolteacher joke there).
Ilse cooked the pancakes for Lynn, them and their son on Monday night but also made two extra pancakes for Lynn to bring home with her. We warned these up and had with salad last night. Outstanding and very reminiscent of the pancakes we had in that Christchurch restaurant nearly 30 years ago. I'll be cooking these in the near future - that's for damned sure.
I hope that you can read the recipe and recommend trying it out. We used Hoisin sauce on top with some Japanese mayonnaise.
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