locovore- week 2

I promise I won't post pictures of our fruit/veg bags every week from here to eternity, but the novelty of these bags totally hasn't worn off. Understandable, I suppose, seeing as how it is only week two. Check out the new stash!

 

This week we have rocket, swiss chard, curly parsley, lettuce, spring onions, avo, turnips, bananas, oranges, satsumas, red onions, sweet potatoes and apples (another kg of them...not shown). Tonight there will be a swiss chard and caramelized onion tart for sure. 

This shot also gives a little glimpse at our (ok...let's be honest...my) cookbook collection, both stacked on the shelf and open for perusal on the table. I was planning menus for dinner gatherings last night and this evening, as well as scoping out a recipe for apricot almond muffins that are likely to show up on our breakfast table this weekend. You see the corner of that one called Super Natural Cooking with Heidi Swanson's smiling face on it? I have my lovely friend Mariel to thank for bringing Heidi into my life and kitchen. Her website is inspirational and that cookbook (a wedding pressie from Mariel and her equally lovely nearly-husband Brett) is pure deliciousness and healthy to boot. I am hoping some little birthday fairy might set me up with her new cookbook for my birthday. I have a thing for cookbooks...I'll either need a bigger shelf or a 12 step program soon.

becoming a locavore

I recently read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a book about her family's quest to eat locally and sustainably for a year. It was an enjoyable and thought provoking read that made me reconsider how and what I eat. While I'm not ready to raise chickens or grow most all of my own food, it did get me keen to put a bit more energy into eating seasonally and locally. I want to become a locavore, or at least more of one.

My first step was to sign us up for a weekly local, organic, seasonal food bag from Wild Organic Foods in Woodstock. For R150 (about 20 American bucks) we got a big bag of fruit and veg grown in the greater Cape Town area. This week we got our first bag and I was delighted by the contents.

In addition to the butternut, beets, celery, baby leeks, carrots, sweet potatoes, satsumas, and mushrooms you see above we got a packet of herb salad, 1 kg/2 lbs of apples, a load of green beans and these little babies...

Gooseberries! Cape gooseberries are a real treat to me. I grew up in a place where the native gooseberries are very sour and totally inedible unless a horrific amount of sugar is involved (or at least the ones that grew on the bush in front of our house were like that; my brothers and I used to dare each other to eat them). I'll admit the gooseberries in our bag are a little on the tart side, but I think they will bake up nicely with some of the apples. I smell an apple gooseberry pie in the making.

I ate a satsuma as soon as I got home. They are delicate, sweet, and (best of all) seedless. Fruit with seeds that get in the way is pretty high up on my list of ridiculous things I don't like, along with meat on bones. We are cooking dinner with friends tomorrow night and a beet and satsuma salad is on the menu. Yum. For dinner last night we combined the lettuces, half the beans, half the celery, and a handful of the carrots along with some other veggies lying around to make a salad with prosciutto, goat cheese, and a poached egg on top. We are WAY into poached eggs at the moment, and have declared this our "winter of the poached egg"...but that is a whole other blog post.

Here's my take on all this: Could we have gotten conventional versions of all these fruits and veggies at the grocery store for less? I'm pretty sure of it. And while I'm not an organic food nut, I like that these veggies are organic...it is better for the soil they are grown in and better for our health (mostly in cases where we are eating the skins of things). It also just feels pretty stinkin nice to support local growers. Perhaps most of all, I like the challenge of getting a bag of whatever is in season now and making a plan with that. I love beets, but I never buy them. Now I have them and have to make a plan to eat them. And if I get a repeat veggie, I need to come up with ways to prepare it to make it novel. It's all a really fun, culinary game to me. Next week's bag will include pears, satsumas, bananas, avocados, oranges, salad mix, parsley, spring onion, rocket/arugula, swiss chard, sweet potatoes, red onions and turnips. I'm thinking there will be a roast chicken with turnips, onions, and sweet potatoes, and maybe a savory tart with swiss chard and caramelized onions...I can't wait.

Mo-vember

This month, Brendan is celebrating Mo-vember. Mo-vember is a charity movement that is done worldwide where men get pledges of monetary support for a month of mustache growing. These endeavors raise funds and awareness for men's health. While the concept is a bit silly, it is a great way to target male involvement using a jocular means to a very worthwhile end. Brendan is taking a slightly different angle and is raising money to support Dream Worker, a really fantastic local NGO that provides work opportunities for the unemployed. They also have a great program called Links of Love, where you can sponsor an unemployed person's day of work for R100 (approx $14) and this person will be sent out into the community to care for the elderly, tend a township garden, or assist people living with HIV/AIDS. Check them out here.

If you would like to make a pledge of support for Brendan and his future mustache send me a message. I will post updates on his progress throughout the month, but seeing as how yesterday was the first of the month I figured we needed to start with a "before" picture.

(hello, hot stuff)

I am hoping that by the time the month is over he can achieve something akin to Tom Selleck in Magnum PI...

Now that is hot (and the resemblance is uncanny)!

Don't you agree?

dhal nirvana

I'm not one to toot my own horn, but I would be doing you a disservice if I didn't share my dhal recipe with you. It is simply that good. It is so good we eat it once a week (well, twice if you count the leftovers we have for lunch the next day). Every Wednesday after yoga we eat dhal over jasmine rice and swoon. It also feels incredibly restorative to eat something so hearty and healthy. We also figure it fits in as part of our Nepal training, as the word on the street is that we are going to be eating a whole lotta dhal during our trek.

This recipe is short, sweet, highly adaptable, and nearly impossible to mess up...my favorite kind.

Wednesday Dhal

1 cup lentils (we like the yellow split ones because they cook up wonderfully creamy)

splash of olive oil

1/2 onion finely chopped

1 clove minced garlic

1 generous tsp curry powder

1/4 tsp cayenne

1 can of diced tomatoes with juice

1 tbs grated fresh ginger

3 tbs butter

salt and pepper to taste

fresh cilantro (coriander, if you are in SA)

plain yogurt

Put the lentils in a pot and cover with about 2 inches of water. Bring this to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 8-10 mins. Drain into sieve and set aside. Heat the olive oil in the pot and saute onions for a few minutes, then add the garlic,curry, and cayenne. After about 30 seconds, add the lentils, tomato (include the juice), ginger, butter, salt and pepper and let this baby simmer away for up to an hour so it gets nice and thick. You can, however, eat this straight away...sometimes I steal one quick bowl because I can't wait any longer to taste it.

You can add a splash of cream, which makes it rich and smooth (and less healthy and a heavenly treat). You can add other veggies (carrots, celery, peas, bell pepper). You can make this using some other legume. I've been wanting to make one with little pieces of roast lamb in it. Just go wild!

Serve over rice (or not), garnish with cilantro and yogurt and get ready to fall in love.

look good, do good

I was at a bookstore here about a week ago and ended up buying something other than books for Brendan and myself.

The Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria receives $1 from the sale of each bracelet (each costs approximately $3.50), and that money is specifically used for malaria prevention efforts. Malaria is the number one cause of death of children under five in Africa, with 850,000 preventable deaths occurring each year. The money helps provide things like mosquito nets, and each net protects two children for up to three years. Ending malaria will improve maternal and child health, education and will significantly reduce poverty in Africa. Plus, the bracelets are handmade as an employment project for people without work, many of whom are HIV/AIDS survivors or caretakers of AIDS orphans. So proceeds from these bracelets are helping in more than one way.

So if you are in South Africa, you can find them at Exclusive Books. If you are not in SA, but would like one, let me know and we can make a plan!