Archive Page 2
the food co-op box
i’ve been getting the $20 box at the uni food co-op for a few weeks now, and it feels nice to be back in the swing of things (albeit fully aware that i’m leaving in a month)
this week we had a bounty of fruit and veges, mainly due to not getting enough supplied last week so having an excess of cash for this week. as part of my plan to make sure i use everything in the box, i’m going to track it all here.
so, this week’s box had:
green apples
oranges
half a pineapple
red grapes
rockmelon
a whole cabbage
sweet potatoes
broccolini
on thursday i stayed late at uni getting the program ready for open fields, and adam and i ate a couple of the apples and some grapes. then i went to an exhibition opening and saw lucas; he saw my bag of veges and asked if there was an apple in there that he could eat, so he had one.
i left the exhibition with another crowd to go to chess club, where i offered the remaining grapes around.
yesterday i made a pineapple and carrot cake, using a recipe from the CWA cakes recipe book. but with a few changes, due mainly to my laziness.
this is my accidentally vegan carrot and pineapple cake.
1.5 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon bicarb
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup grated carrot
a handful of mashed tofu
half a pineapple, chopped finely
1/2 vegetable oil
put the oven to 180 degrees
mix the dry ingredients, add the wet ingredients, pour it into a pan and tap hard on the bench (the new technique i learnt from the cwa ladies).
i put an experimental topping on it – nuttelex, brown sugar and chopped almonds melted together. interesting an not the crunchy crumble i was expecting, but good still.
there’s more to come from the food co-op box this week.
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labels of all varieties
this is my cumquat marmalade. one of the two remaining jars from the batch i made back in october last year, as part of my project of endurance and then subsequent theorising.
when i made the marmalade the last step in the process was make labels for it. which i did do, eventually, with an alphabet stamp set and white stickers. this label isn’t one i made. instead, it’s my official entry label for my marmalade into the newcastle show.
labels have different forms, different purposes, and carry different information. this was the first time i’ve entered anything into a show competition (other than the bumpy pottery i entered as an 8 year old to the mt gambier show), and i was definitely a novice. i had no idea what the class or cat numbers were – eventually i worked out the class was the number of the section i’d entered (’101 – any other citrus marmalade’) but i’m still at a loss on the cat.
instead of the label carrying meaning and giving the container and its contents an identity, this label anonymised it all. like a brown bag in a wine tasting, suddenly my marmalade was just that – preserved cumquats in a jar, to be assessed against other similar preserves.
or so i thought.
Filed under: cumquats, preserving | 2 Comments
i started this phd a year ago today, officially at least. it’s been a great year of ups and downs, thoughts and insecurities, startings and then starting again and again. writing and thinking and making marmalade and chutney and jam and pickles. talking a lot about my thoughts and trying to capture them in some way.
last night i had my second annual phd monumentalising dinner. making a monument of my (literally) everyday.
i cooked a meal for eleven people – four (five including texas) of us were at last year’s dinner, the other seven are people i’ve picked up/attached myself to along the way in the last year or so, and very happily so.
i made a zine at the beginning of this year which sums up some of the thinking i’ve been doing. email me if you want a copy. i sent 10 copies up to susy pow’s zine shop in newcastle (bird in the hand) and they all sold. instead of getting the $28 cash for them, i got a copy of ‘vegan with a vengeance’ (susy sells zines and vegan cookbooks, it seems). the food i cooked for dinner came from my new zine funded recipe book; full circle.
there was bbq pomegranate tofu (baked tofu smothered in the most amazing homemade bbq sauce, complete with liquid smoke, maple syrup and pomegranate molasses), coconut rice (with lime and cinnamon), steamed squash and green beans, and a crunchy bean sprout salad. and wine and ginger beer and grape juice.
then dessert was the most amazing vegan pie i’ve ever eaten: no-bake black bottom peanut butter silk pie.
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beads of beth ditto’s sweat
last night gossip played at the enmore. i was tired and worn out from another hot day, and was on the verge of bailing but decided to go just for their set.
i made dinner for me n fruzsi instead of watching the support acts.
this is tempeh, eggplant and mushroom pizza.
fry in a good amount of oil a chopped onion and half a cubed eggplant. add half a block of cubed tempeh along the way, and stir until golden. at this point i decided to pour in a bit of the leftover mushroom soup that was in the fridge. (from memory i made it with mushrooms, onion, stock, flour and rice milk. and tamari and tabasco)
i stirred the soup through, and then cooked it till it wasn’t runny. more of a paste kind of consistency.
i rolled out the pizza dough to fit a tray (it was a 1 cup warm water, 1 packet yeast, 2 tbsp sugar + 3 cups flour, 1 tsp salt dough) and put the tempeh mixture on it, then put ricotta on that, then grated some parmesan on top. baked in the over till golden and delicious.
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stewing over things
I’m in Melbourne for a few days, meeting people and reading and watching and thinking and writing and all the other things this Phd has me doing. today, after a couple of threatening days, the skies crashed down onto Melbourne, with a very spectacular storm. So loud it set off the fire alarm at the state library.
The storm also means it’s cooled down a lot and I had a night in, by myself, in Brunswick. Listening to new music of jon’s and reading, feeding myself the best in comfort food: stew.
This is tempeh mushroom and spinach stew. Made to indulge in the vegan delicacies Melbourne has to offer.
Fry cubes of tempeh in oil till golden (I used blue lotus pepper tempeh), drain and set aside.
Sauté a chopped onion and 2 cloves chopped garlic in olive oil. Add 3 chopped field mushrooms and a big tablespoon of nuttelex. Keep frying till the mushrooms go soft. Add a bunch of chopped spinach, stir through, add the tempeh cubes and a tin of chopped tomatoes (I accidentally bought tomatoes with Italian herbs – icky but ok) and a couple of bay leaves. let it simmer for a while, adding water if it gets too dry.
Served here with sourdough bread slices and this to-fetta I found at the IGA. Melbourne is so tempting sometimes…
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vegan corn fritters
the fritters:
in a bowl mix
4 heads of corn kernels
a handful or so of soft tofu
a few tablespoons rice flour
a tablespoon white miso
half a cup rice/soy milk
a few chopped spring onions
half a cup of dried cranberries
salt and pepper
add more flour or milk to get it to a good fritter consistency
put half cupfuls into an oiled fry pan and cook till golden on each side.
served here on rye toast, with a slice of the huge, amazing beefsteak tomato sef brought over, mushrooms fried in nuttelex and thyme, and a home grown tomato and garlic salsa. with the mango chutney i made last week from anthony’s mangoes on the side.
Filed under: breakfast, corn, tofu, tomatoes, vegan | Leave a Comment
sunday mornings
i’ve been spending a lot of time at home lately.
lots of morning time at least – it’s difficult for me to leave the house before midday, given the delivered newspaper, the company, the cat, the outlook onto the street, the sunshine streaming in. and it’s probably me trying to hold onto some sense of order in the crazy disordered and manic life i’ve fallen into at the moment. most nights are out seeing bands or friends or at home entertaining, and it’s pretty tiring. and hard to keep up with the other things i should be doing.
last sunday morning i made french toast for me and paul. this is my adapted version of the recipe i found on frolic blog – i didn’t make the butters, used rice milk instead of cows milk, and bush honey yoghurt instead of heavy cream. but i did use a pandoro, which mila had left behind before xmas and has been hanging round our living room for a while. there’s still lots left, which might turn into a bread and butter pudding tonight.
the stone fruits are amazing at the moment, as per usual in sydney. and we have managed to grow herbs on the back deck – not much else survives out there in the heat. the mint has started to flower which is beautiful and surreal, and made me realise i’d never seen a mint flower before.
here’s to a new exciting year, full again of travels and adventures in whatever city i’m living in. there’s lots of words to be read and written this year, and i’m looking forward to the time i spend with them.
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“i’m making meat pie for dinner”
paul screwed up his nose (virtually, over chat) when i said this, and so i had to clarify it wasn’t really.
not-meat pie (aka leftover pie)
soak a small handful of tvp in boiling water
chop 3 golden shallots, a clove of garlic and a carrot, saute in olive oil.
chop 5 or 6 mushrooms and add to the onions etc.
chop half a block of tempeh into small cubes, add to the onions.
fry for a little while
add a tin of chopped tomatoes, stir through
add a bunch of chopped spinach. drain the tvp and add it to the pot. add half a tin of chick peas (or whatever is left in the fridge)
add a few chipotle chillis and a teaspoon of cumin, stir through.
simmer for 10-15 minutes
while it’s simmering, blind bake (of sorts) a sheet of puff pastry in a pie dish. when the pie filling has simmered put it into the pie base, put a piece of pastry on top and bake in a hot oven until golden.
served here with green salad and my homemade beetroot chutney!
Filed under: carrots, dinner, mushrooms, pie, vegan | Leave a Comment
i scribbled this out on request, after a tasty friday night dinner. it was also great for breakfast (according to emma) and made for super tasty mini pies that i took to knitting club on sunday.
Filed under: dinner, pumpkin, tofu, vegan | 2 Comments
Tags: pumpkin curry
containing
more on the cumquat project: the process of containment and storing the transformed fruit.
(as a recipe aside, at this point i’d added a few tablespoons of grated fresh ginger to the simmering pan of fruit, sugar and water, as per the recipe. so this is now officially ‘cumquat & ginger marmalade”)
once cooled a little, the marmalade mixture needed to be put into jars. over the years i’ve lived in the house there’s always been a steady collection of jars under the sink. a reluctance to recycle something that can be reused i suppose, and often they are filled with little treats from the co-op, or the bigger ones with flours/beans/nuts. and a lot of jam gets eaten in the house, so there’s a great selection of ‘appropriate’ jam jars.
one of the key steps that recipes emphasise in preserving is the sterilisation of the containers. in the past i’ve been fastidious, boiling jars in water for 10 minutes, drying the, not touching the inner glass. this time too i was fastidious, but relied on modern technologies to sterilise for me – they went through the dishwasher, and then i half filled each one with water and put them in the microwave for 5 minutes. the water boiled, the jars were clean and fresh, and left to cool on the bench. the cleanliness of the container so as not to contaminate the thing being preserved inside; the same way an archive box is clean, empty and meets archival standards.
so the sterilised jars are filled with the marmalade, and left to settle into the jar (and cool a little) before the lid is screwed on. most of them even worked to ‘suck’ the press button of the lid back in, indicating an unopened jar of jam (‘just like you get at the shop’).
and now all 9 of those jars have been sitting on my kitchen bench for over a week, waiting to be labeled and put in the cupboard, or given away to people (most are promised already). and in this project of endurance, of the length and effort involved in preserving things for the future, i still have a while to go.
Filed under: cumquats, preserving, project | Leave a Comment
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