FOOD & a Vacation

Back from an AMAZING trip back home to Australia and just had my first day back at work - into the deep end, the only way to return from a vacation.





Faced with a decent sized kitchen, draws of exciting accouterments and a food processor I couldn't resist cooking. Anyone who knows me
also knows -


1. I'm a feeder (I prefer enabler haha) and I talk about food ALL the time.
2. I love to preach, or rant, both good ways to lose people's attention.


I love, love being a fake vegetarian or pescitarian episcopalian (not the latter, just think they kind of work well together). So naturally I had to do some cooking and rave on to my gorgeous family about how to cut fat when cooking, what's freakin crazy good for you and how awesome Susan V. at the fatfreevegan.com is. Answer: Extremely awesome. They're all pretty health conscious so I always learn from them too.

Some things I made -

1. Fava beans or foul mudammes

2. Egyptian Tomato and Cucumber Salad

3. Orange, Mint and Pistachio Almond Meal Cake (my Mum always gets me to make this when I'm home)

4. Tonnes (capital T) of Hummus

5. Quinoa Paella

6. Rice Paper Raw Spring Rolls with Chili, Mint, Peanut, Ginger & Coconut Dust (my brother asked what the sawdust inside was, so there it is)

7. Tomato & Turmeric Moong Dal

8. Tzaziki (just bc it's crazy delicious)

I ate this bircher muesli in Byron Bay for breakfast with two strong, strong cups of coffee after camping and a gigantic walk across the beach up to the lighthouse there. The photo of me eating fish and salad was on the beach there, and the one of the first photos is another fab breakfast down at Bondi Beach in Sydney with my beautiful sister Janeyo.

Holy crap we ate some much good food, some highlights, bbqd salmon, felafel kebabs, barramundi and smoked trout, cheeses, my Mum's killer yum ratatouille, a leaning tower of frosting, carrot cake and toffeed nuts, artichoke and cheese heart attack dip and the MOST incredible, incredible CHERRY PIE. I'd never eaten it before and it rocked my world - didn't expect the cinnamon.

Jess, Brittany and I are planning some kind of quinoa extravaganza, so get excited bc we're on the hunt to find it, and then cook it up and destroy it. Hopefully there will be some time to take a photo :)

Great to be back in the High, with Craig, gorgeous friends and stinky Foxy cat.

xXXXXXXXXXXXXClaire (and the fish!! they're alive and kicking!!)

Holy crap the fish are alive.

Dear Claire.

I absolutely can't believe I didn't kill your fish. I also, in a fit of something or other, in the store across the street, did not buy bacon and cook it in your house.

I did make some incredible soup using your blender, and I will make it again. It's almost vegan, but not quite. Pretty vegan. It does involve a lot of broccoli, tofu some onion and some potato. And a blender. The vegan part is the cheese after. But I suppose that's optional even! One time I might try a version where I fry the onion in bacon and then blend everything together else separately and have onion and bacon crunchy bits. Maybe one day when I'm feeling the need for heart attack food.

Anyway, here is a picture of me and the Fox eating, and here is photographic proof at least 3 of the fish are alive. This will be considered complete sucess, because even though I think there might have been four of them at one point, the entire tank is not a dead black mess which is what I was pretty sure was going to happen.

Horray! I'm so happy you're back.

Brittany and the case of the missing fiber

So, I made something delicious the other day for dinner. My roomie, does not like to eat vegetables that much, and although she loves healthy food, sometimes you have to hide the fact that she's eating it from her. So I made up some delicious extra-fiber/protien potatoes which are also awesome due to the fact that you can also...OMG!!! I just had the best idea ever. You can also turn them into something called 'champ' which is like...the most delicious/decadant mashed potatoes ever and it would totally be (slightly) a healthy version.



Here's what you need for Brittany's fibery mashed potatoes:



1 can of white beans (3/4 drained)

2 medium potatoes (cubed)

1 clove garlic

1 small onion (chopped into bitty pieces)

some sage, or rosemary or some kind of herb mixture you like

salt/pepper



1. Boil the potatoes and the garlic clove until soft, then drain

2. Fry the onions in a bit of oil, add the herbs, fry a bit more until the onions are soft and translucent.

3. Add the beans and the liquid leftover and fry for a while, until you feel like it's time to start smushing them around. I waited about five minutes to cook them, then started smushing.

4. Add the cooked potatoes and the garlic, and continue smushing and cooking it all together until you're satisfied with the mixture.



If it gets too dry, you could add some stock I suppose, or milk, or whatever suits your fancy. The point is you want enough bean juice that you don't have to add more liquid.



CHAMP!!!!



1 bowl of Brittany's Fibery Potatoes

1 T (yes, that's a T and not a t) of butter

a bunch of blue cheese



With the resulting mashed potatoes in a bowl, make a little well in the top and put the butter in it. It will be like a delicious butter/potato volcano. Then add the blue cheese around the crater like rocks. If you like you can make some little passages for butter to run over the potatoes like LIQUID HOT MAGMA.



When you eat it, you're supposed to have a forkfull of mashed potato, some cheese, and then dip it in the butter. Holy crapola I haven't had that in years.



I didn't take pictures because we ate it too fast. Next time I make it (soon!) I will.



Claire I miss you!!!! I'm eating a really small banana and I'm going to eat strawberries soon and then have way way way too much energy!!!

Claire!!!! She's only been gone since Friday, but I miss her anyway

Dear Claire, here is what happened over the weekend.

I was going to do some awesome making of breakfast bars this weekend, but then I realized that my cereal of choice for said breakfast bars contains wheat flakes, and sigh...I have to give up on the delicious delicious breakfast cereal idea all together. So it's going to have to be an oat/bran based bar. Maybe some soy flour, but apparently that's actually quite hard to bake with. I need to do more research.

Brittany and I took a giant bike ride through what was supposed to be a sunny day but ended up being a cloudy, cold and windy day. We went to Origins, which is a beautiful, delicious, organic and can be vegetarian brunch in Taikang lu. I highly recommend we go there when you get back. They also have slammin lunch specials. Also for the brunch you can get a 'bowl' of coffee, which is perfect.

After we went to Marks and Spencer and got a bunch of canned soups and tins of organic tomatoes, which is so so so so so exciting I could pee. I think that on Wednesday night I'm going to make a big pot of lentil soup and then I can maybe freeze some of it for delicious eating next week.

Erika sent me an email and said that she wants to do more vegetarian cooking, and I don't know if you know her but she's super fun. So next time we cook we'll try and invite her. She also has a wicked kitchen, so we should try and convince her to let us cook there. I cooked one of the Thanksgiving turkeys there.

Today at work was fun, I had a few meetings, made a presentation, did some power-pointing (I'm about to do more, I also learned how to do screen capture shots on Friday, so that made me feel awesomely special.)

I hope you're having a great time in Australia, and are going to blog about how much fun you're having and the awesome things you're buying for use when you get back.

Miss you!!!!
Jessi