Little Lemon Yo-yo's

I made these for Andrea's) fashion swap party tomorrow. I was racking my brain for something lemon-y to make the most of the fruits of our prolific lemon tree, and the course I was on today had giant y0-yo cookies for afternoon tea. Inspired by these I made a much smaller version.

Its a basic biscuit (thats cookie for you Americans reading!) recipe with lemon zest added, and the filling is almost like a butter cream icing but I ran out of icing sugar so added some custard powder, along with some lemon juice. Phil has pronounced them most delicious however I'm not too sure about the filling. Its a bit custard-y tasting.


Here they are in their tupperware container all ready to take along tomorrow.

The Winning Roast Pumpkin Soup

My friend Toby and I are having a fierce pumpkin soup making competition. Of course I will be the winner!

Here is my creation:

- Drizzle olive oil, salt and ground pepper over pumpkin and other accompanying veges of choice (I also had some kumera, onion and a couple of potatoes) and roast in a low-moderate oven for several hours until all soft and goo-ey.

- Cut the skins off the pumpkin and throw it all into a big pot with enough stock (I used chicken stock) to cover it all and simmer for an hour or so. I also added some sage and rosemary at this point.

- Let it cool and blend until smooth, return to pot and re-heat.

- Before serving stir in a dash of cream and re-season if neccessary. Garnish with green stuff and pinenuts!

Enjoy!

Nourishing Traditions

This is a book I'm currently reading and trying recipes from (see the pancakes a few posts back). Its pretty radical and different from what is usually taught about nutrition and I'm still forming my opinions about it.
It promotes the use of saturated and animal fats and using full fat dairy products and not the skim versions. It seems to have lots of research evidence to back this up. This is something which is pretty hard to get my head around as generally we are taught to use unsaturated and low cholesterol fats. I'm not entirely sure if I agree with Sally Fallon on this one, although I need to read the book in a little more detail.

She's also pretty big on the concept of soaking your grains before using them. I already do this with my oats (ie soak overnight before cooking) but don't do this for baking etc. The theory behind this seems to be that it makes the grains more readily digestible and therefore we are able to derive more nutrition from them

The concepts in the book I definitely do agree with are the use of whole grains and natural sweeteners instead of refined grains and sugars, trying to avoid excess chemicals and preservatives by cooking from scratch, and the importance of lots of fruits and veges.

Has anyone else read/heard of this book? what did you think?

Feeding the animals

As most of you will know, or will of figured out from the content of this blog, I am interested in food and nutrition. This year I have been doing some pretty detailed thinking about nutrition, where our food comes from and what we should be eating for optimum health. Kind of like - if we were animals in a zoo, what would the zoo keeper be feeding us to keep us all from dying. Because actually a lot of thought and research goes into what to feed animals in the zoo, yet a lot of us don't really think much about what goes into our bodies except for if it tastes good or not.

My thoughts, and bits and pieces of research are leading me down the path of exploring more wholefoods, cooking from scratch and trying to organic and locally sourced foods where possible. I'm not very good at it, and I'm taking small steps, but I certainly think a lot more when doing the grocery shopping, and our diet at home is definitely taking a more wholesome turn. My kitchen cupboards have a lot less processed junk, and a lot more raw ingredients these days. I plan on blogging a bit about these kinds of topics in the future.

I think a lot of people in New Zealand are beginning to think more this way also. With the cost of groceries rising fast it tends to force you to think carefully on what you're spending your money on. Often the most nutritious staples are the cheapest, like dried beans and pulses.

Thought/opinions? do you want to read my ramblings along these lines? My google analytics thingee tells me that people are actually reading this blog, so what do you guys wanna read about??

how to make a sick girl happy

Big mug of tea, stack of DVD's and a pain au chocolat. "What??" I hear you say - "pain au chocolate's hardly a health food for restoring a cold-riddled body back to perfect health". Well, upon hearing I am on deaths door *cough*, a kind friend just dropped it off for me and let me tell you it is making me feel better already. YUM!

mundane

Im eating my favourite breakfast as I type this, chopped up fresh fruit with organic yogurt, flaxseed oil and homemade muesli sprinkled on top. mmmmmmm... I usually have this, or a variation of it 3 or 4 times a week. The rest of the time I have porridge.

Last night we saw a movie at the Rialto - I'd never heard of it before so we took a gamble in going (especially given the title - 'A Feast of Love' - sounds awful doesn't it??) but it was very poignant with a well thought out plot and excellent character development. Don't take your mum though - too many sex scenes.

Best made plans....

I had big plans for our Saturday morning. The sun would shine, we would dress in cute, hippy clothes, take the bus to Lyttelton with our recycled cloth bags and spend the morning perusing the market, stocking up on fresh delicious local food and finish up lingering over coffee in one of the funky cafes. Then I would have a ton of cute photos to post on here about the wonderful morning we had.

It was pouring with rain this morning.

We were too wimpy to take the bus in this weather and we left our cloth bags at home, but we did actually make it to the market. Which, despite the rain, was still fantastic. Stalls and stalls of the most amazing food and produce (I need more superlatives to describe it). Armed with a mayan spice hot chocolate from the first stall we came to, we ran thru the rain and made our purchases before huddling in the car to finish our hot choc while eating the most tasty moroccan vege pastry.

Refuge in the car

Our bounty

Omega Plums

Has anyone else discovered the joys of these? I did, last year, and ive been waiting all year for them to come back in season. FINALLY I found them, ridiculously expensive, at a gourmet deli down the road. I captured the rapturous occasion of the first bite to share with you all..