tuesday morning is time to assess the end of the week vegie box situation – more things will be coming home in the evening and it’s good to make sure there’s room! so this morning i chopped up onions, carrots, turnips, garlic and celery, threw them all in the slow cooker with water, coriander seeds and black peppercorns and turned it on low before i left for work. coming home tonight there was a beautiful, rich coloured stock waiting to be filtered, half for the freezer, half for dinner tonight.

i diluted the stock with more water, and brought it to boil with snow peas, corn fresh off the cob and sliced mushrooms. in another pot i boiled some pork and chive dumplings from the freezer, and when they were almost done i added a big tablespoon of white miso and 3 chopped spring onions to the soup mix. the dumplings were split between 2 bowls, and filled with the vegetable soup. sesame seeds sprinkled on top, and it’s all ready to go!

perfect for the rainy night outside, sitting on the couch slurping dumplings and tasty soup.

These days cleaning the fridge means pulling out the vegies that are a bit limp, chopping them up and throwing them in the slow cooker in the morning; soup’s made by the evening and the fridge has room for more co-op vegies.

This is a spinach and chickpea soup. There’s carrot, onion, parsnip, garlic, spinach, green beans and home made stock in there, with a tin of chickpeas added at the end of the day. Served with super super garlicky toast (with lots of butter and olive oil!), and some grated Parmesan on top of the soup. It’s a nice clear soup that’s refreshing and nourishing. Perfect for a post yoga dinner, and the freezer is full of lunches for the week.

A couple of weeks ago I was interviewed for a research project about renting with pets; I loved having permission to ramble on about Lottie for an hour! They gave me a $25 Coles myer voucher as thanks, and I finally got around to spending it in the weekend on a slow cooker. So now when I cook with it I owe thanks to Lottie…


Today I used it for the first time; I had invited emma and Ricky for dinner and promised them pulled pork. I found a recipe, explored my local butcher (I bought free-range pork grown in Forbes) and threw it all in the slow cooker and turned it on. 7 hours later it was looking pretty amazing, falling off the bone and ready to shred.
We had pulled pork tacos with leftover black beans, pickled red onion, white goats cheese and some green beans. In soft tacos – delicious.
Dessert was red velvet cupcakes made by emma this afternoon; fresh and tasty.

today was a regular Tuesday, except I spent the morning at the hospital having a bag of iron fed into my veins. I won’t feel the effects for a month or two, but am really looking forward to knowing what having iron in your body feels like!

I also stocked up at the food co-op, coming home with a big box of fruit and vegies, and lots of treats and good food from the shop. And so then faced the regular ‘what to cook with what’s in the box’ challenge.
Tonight it was sweet potatoes, kale, tofu, onions and red curry paste. Then coconut milk made from a packet (a revolution!). Slowly cooked on my great new stove and eaten in my favourite bowls (bought in Pt Douglas).

all i ate for dinner was a bowl of hot chips with tomato sauce (at the opera bar and 10pm no less) but it was worth it for the pleasure of the company of these fine fine musicians. a last minute ticket offering to a sold-out-in-60-minutes show made my day, which is just what i needed after a few days of more downs than ups in this last week of living in this home of mine for the last five years.

it’s a time that’s being bookended in a way by loose messy endings, but there’s so much more now, 5 years on, that gives me strength and excitement and pleasure that makes it different. and after the last few weeks of an inability to be present in my home very well, and hence not care for my self with good food and slowness, i’m looking forward to some action on this blog again in the next few weeks as i settle in to an autumn/winter/spring of productive writing, nurturing and growth.