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Browsing tag: food

  • September 29, 2010

    Food diary: Week 4 (or, I’m a convert!)

    A picture taken, of A Green Salad.

    Image via Wikipedia

    Wow, that went fast! I can’t believe it’s over.

    This month I set out to challenge myself to eat better. Namely, eating fruit and/or vegetables every single day (previous weeks’ diaries here). I love – and eat a lot of – potatoes, and that was one of the parameters. Potatoes only counted for a half mark. I missed three days in previous weeks, and despite two days away plus T’s birthday this week, only missed one in this last week. (Well, half, considering how many servings of ‘taters I consumed. Still.)

    September 22
    Breakfast: Cereal and milk
    Lunch: Banana, egg sandwich, choc chip cookie
    Dinner: Mild bhuja mix, bacon and veggie quiche, banana fritter and ice cream, banana/choc chip muffin

    September 23

    Breakfast: Cereal and milk
    Lunch: Banana/choc chip muffin, Japanese donburi (crispy chicken and salad)
    Dinner: Udon noodles with crispy pork, bacon, onions and cauliflower

    September 24
    Breakfast: Two pieces of white toast with Vegemite
    Lunch: Banana, egg sandwich, chocolate chip cookie
    Dinner: A bit of quiche, a bit of left over noodle stirfry, a bit of pizza

    September 25 (Weekend out of town)
    Breakfast: Cereal and milk
    Lunch: Half of a lamb kofta at farmer’s market, piece of apple cake, scallops and green salad
    Snacks: Bhuja mix, bread and jam, instant noodles
    Dinner: Angus steak and salad

    September 26 (Weekend out of town)
    Breakfast: Handful of crackers, nachos
    Lunch: Spring roll, hot chips, some Asian noodles with cabbage, carrots, mixed meat
    Dinner: Pork roast with kumara/potato mash, red cabbage and watercress salad, cookie and ice cream

    September 27
    Breakfast: Cereal and milk
    Lunch: Red cabbage and watercress salad, two minute noodles
    Snacks: Cookie and ice cream, bread and dips – hummus, babaganoush
    Dinner: Leftover roast, apple pie and ice cream

    September 28
    Breakfast: Cereal and milk
    Lunch: Custard slice, Wendy’s chips
    Dinner: Steamed mussels, chips, sausage and mash
    Snacks: Bread and dips, cheese and crackers, apple pie and ice cream

    Errr, so, yeah, a rather snacky week. And quite possibly my unhealthiest week to date. Yet, I feel GREAT – probably mostly down to the amazing weather, Daylight Savings, and my upping the ante exercise-wise. (Two runs this week! And with the longer days, I can totally see myself going almost every day.) You’ve probably noticed that sometimes there’s a lot of repetition going on. What can I say? I try to cook in batches.

    I am officially converted

    I still have a sweet tooth. Sometimes there’s nothing better than a cheeseburger or a pie or even a pile of golden hash browns.

    BUT – my body wants to eat healthier. Not only do I feel guilty about eating poorly, I sometimes crave greens. Once, I would have cringed at the thought of a veggie stirfry for lunch. Now as I get more confident in the kitchen, my lunches are getting more varied and – from time to time – well-balanced, even?. The downside is it takes time, of course. Cooked lunches take way more work than sandwiches. But I’m not a big sandwich fan anyhow.

    Tastes change as you get older. I’m still not a huge fruit lover (I’ll eat berries, bananas, apples and citrus, but I won’t go near any of the tropicals like peaches and apricots) but until recently, I never used to eat spinach, or eggplant, or carrots.

    And perhaps most amazing of all is the fact that I am converted to lighter dinners. There are still plenty of days I practically crawl in the door after work, ravenous and impatient, and practically inhale whatever food is easiest to prepare. But a little control goes a long way. I feel so much better when I’m not groaning from fullness, so much more alive and energised. And running on a full stomach is, well, just not a good idea.

  • September 22, 2010

    Food diary: Week 3

    I’m aiming to eat fruit and/or vegetables every single day this month. 5/7 this week – the meagre veggies on pizza and in fried rice really don’t count.

    September 15

    Breakfast; Cornflakes and milk
    Lunch: Banana, homemade pizza
    Dinner: Tom Yum soup leftovers, roast beef with potatoes and squash
    September 16
    Breakfast: Two pieces of Vogel’s brown toast.
    Lunch: Veggie stirfry
    Dinner: roast beef/chicken with potatoes and squash
    September 17
    Breakfast: Two pieces of Vogel’s brown toast, topped with cheddar cheese
    Lunch: Banana, cornflakes and milk, veggie stirfry
    Dinner: Japanese ramen and tempura (meat and vegetables)
    September 18
    Breakfast: Two pieces of Vogel’s brown toast, topped with aioli
    Lunch: Homemade pizza, homemade sugar cookies
    Dinner: Spaghetti bolognese
    September 19
    Breakfast: Three pieces of toast with vegemite
    Lunch: Fried rice, homemade sugar cookies
    Dinner: Leftover pasta, potato and bacon soup with bread, blackcurrant pie and ice cream.
    September 20
    Breakfast: French toast and hash brown
    Lunch: Berry yoghurt, assorted sushi, choc chip cookie
    Dinner: Roast pork with red potatoes and cauliflower, blackcurrant pie and ice cream.
    September 21
    Breakfast: French toast and hash brown
    Lunch: Choc chip cookie, banana, homemade pizza
    Dinner: Chicken burger with fresh salad.
  • September 15, 2010

    Food diary: Week 2

    I’m aiming to eat fruit and/or vegetables every single day this month. Week 1 was almost totally a success; here’s how the second week went down:

    September 8
    Breakfast: Buttered toast
    Lunch: Apple, coconut scones, homemade vege/chicken pizza
    Dinner: Sausages with silverbeet and gravy/sour cream. Hot roll on the side. Chocolate cake with yoghurt

    September 9
    Breakfast: Hash brown and toast
    Lunch: Creamy potato and lentil dahl with rice, chocolate and almond muesli bar
    Dinner: Fried cabbage with roast chicken, chocolate cake with sour cream

    September 10

    Breakfast: Hash brown and toast
    Lunch: Creamy potato and lentil dahl with rice, coconut scones, apple
    Dinner: Pizza, a couple mouthfuls of chow mein (veges and meat), followed by ice cream.

    September 11
    Breakfast: Rice Bubbles and milk (okay, with a sprinkling of sugar)
    Lunch: Lemon curd muffin, chocolate almond muesli bar, six-inch from Subway (Spicy Italian on honey oat bread)
    Dinner: Baked potato with sour cream, roast chicken, two hash browns

    September 12
    Breakfast: Rice Bubbles and milk (okay, with a sprinkling of sugar)
    Lunch: Coconut scones, six-inch from Subway (Spicy Italian on honey oat bread)
    Dinner: Sirloin steak and silverbeet, followed by a bowl of Double Crunch and milk (a little like Crunchy Nut but cheaper)

    September 13
    Breakfast: Rice Bubbles and milk (okay, with a sprinkling of sugar)
    Lunch: Three bite sized lemon muffins, berry yoghurt, baked potato with aioli
    Dinner: A handful of Twisties, potato and egg salad, burrito wraps (chicken, lettuce, spinach, tomato, cheese)

    September 14
    Breakfast: Cornflakes and milk
    Lunch: Banana, berry yoghurt, burrito wrap
    Dinner: Tom Yum soup with noodles, chicken, mushrooms and capsicum.

    Result: Total win for me!

  • September 8, 2010

    Food diary: Week 1

    Various fruits, vegetables, nuts, and grains; ...
    Inspiration. Image via Wikipedia

    In the name of accountability.

    September 1
    Breakfast: Nutri-Grain with milk
    Lunch: potato and lentil dahl with rice, chocolate and almond muesli bar
    Dinner: Leftover eggplant/potato/pork curry-stew concoction, and breakfast for dinner (think sausages, hashbrowns, eggs)

    September 2
    Breakfast: Nutri-Grain with milk
    Lunch: potato and lentil dahl with rice, chocolate and almond muesli bar, apple muffin and sweet jam tart (I can’t resist freebies at the office)
    Dinner: Butternut squash soup with roasted butternut and wholegrain Vogels. Nom.

    September 3
    Breakfast: White toast with hazelnut spread/honey
    Lunch: Tomato soup with wholegrain bread
    Dinner: True blue Malaysian beef rendang, KK restaurant’s house special chicken and rice. Pretty carnivorous, but with a little bit of lettuce. (Dined out, obviously; review coming up!)

    September 4 (the work day from hell)
    Breakfast: Nutri-Grain with milk
    Second breakfast/Early lunch: Leftover butternut squash soup with feta
    Lunch/dinner: Pizza (three kinds: veggie, pepperoni, cheese. Courtesy of work)
    I also gave in to hunger pangs and chowed on a hash brown and a couple of sausages when I finally got home. Thought the pizza would sustain me, but it didn’t quite last.

    September 5
    Breakfast: Sausages, hash browns
    Lunch: Tuna and couscous, wholegrain toast
    Dinner: Pasta snack and dahl

    September 6
    Breakfast: Nutri-Grain with milk
    Lunch: Tuna and couscous, some ginger biscuits, strawberry yoghurt
    Dinner: Organic rib roast with cauliflower, followed by pub fries and apple cider later on.

    September 7
    Breakfast: Nutri-Grain with milk
    Lunch: Leftover roast and cauliflower, an apple
    Dinner: Chicken with baked potatoes, chocolate cake with yoghurt and sour cream.

    Sep 3 is a bit of a copout; I don’t really think tomato soup from a can can count, even when paired with a couple of lettuce leaves. (I count the squash soup, but that was freshly made.) So let’s say 6 out of 7 days…which is passable!
  • August 27, 2010

    Kitchen confessions

    Guys, I don’t think I’ve ever fully revealed the extent of my culinary ineptitude. I have been reduced to tears upon losing the battle to a jar of pasta sauce, or spilling half a bag of rice grains all over the floor. I have been known to come home, stare into the pantry, and then sit back and wait – absolutely paralysed – for BF to get home because I don’t know what I’m going to make.

    To be fair, the reverse has also happened once or twice. But that’s a pretty rare occasion.

    If it wasn’t for him (and Food TV) I would probably live off stir fries…of the bottled sauce kind…and pasta. Growing up, I didn’t eat a lot of flavourful food. Most of the food Mum made was fairly plain. She rotated a few dishes, which in hindsight didn’t have a whole lot of taste, but which I ate anyway. Beans. Cauliflower. Mince.

    I think it was Eddie Van Halen who once said that at some point, you look at your guitar, and you stop seeing frets. Instead of the fretboard, what your eyes perceive are notes, scales, chords – music.

    Eddie Van Halen Shredding His Guitar @ "E...
    Image by Anirudh Koul via Flickr

    I’m never going to get to that level. I’ll be happy to play the songs I love. I’d even settle for one day being able to play while standing up.

    I think it’s the same with cooking. Some people have an innate sense of texture, flavour and spice. BF has this in spades. If I mess something up, he’s always able to swoop in, shake some magic dust over it and redeem the whole dish.

    I’ll settle for one day, being able to look in the fridge and in the cupboards, and whip up something quick and tasty off the top of my head.

    The highlight of my cooking this week (fortnight? Month? Quarter?) was chicken with lemon/garlic/yoghurt dip, accompanied by rice risotto – from a box, slightly burnt – and sliced up leftover roast beef. It may sound simple, but I agonised over that yoghurt sauce. I maxed out my knife skills chopping the garlic as fine as possible. And as for the addition of beef – pure genius, once I opened the microwave and remembered its existence, that is.

    You may notice a conspicuous absence of real vegetables from that meal. Never fear. I will conquer the greens. That’s going to be my next challenge.

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  • July 31, 2010

    What qualifies someone to write about food?

    When the Shore’s most famous restaurant The Engine Room refused a request from Canvas (a food shot to accompany a review), the magazine responded by vowing never to return.

    Initially, I sided with the mag. What a diva, I thought. But then I watched this Campbell Live piece on restaurant reviewers and I started to doubt myself.

    If you don’t have the time to watch it, the story was pretty scathing of reviewers. Too many publications are just sending out staff writers with the company credit card; and hard-done-by restaurateurs putting their heart, soul and life savings into their business can be undone with one bad write-up. Reviewers need to know what they’re talking about in order to gain credibility (although it sounded as though the credibility was more among industry peeps than readers). Another gripe was they put too much emphasis on factors like decor and fellow customers … rather than spotlighting the food.

    Now, I couldn’t agree more with several of the points brought up. In this line of work, there can’t be anything more important than a) keeping your cover (I’ve always wondered how and when they get photos) and keeping your distance personally from chefs and owners b) dining at one place multiple times to get a fair picture. But, at least in NZ, this isn’t happening.

    I am still not sure refusing to cooperate is the best move. No doubt restaurateurs are sincere in merely wanting to check that the facts are right (and let’s be honest, journalists and writers can’t and don’t always get it right). But it’s a fine line. It’s hard to be objective about your own work, and what others may see as constructive or justified criticism may not be taken as such. The last thing we need is reviews being censored by restaurant owners and chefs before they go to print.

    Personally, I would not make the greatest of food reviewers. I like what I like and I am wary of strange new combinations (I really don’t get excited about top-end, innovative cuisine). I’m not a vegetarian, but am certainly picky about meat. And though I’ve waitressed in cafes, I don’t really know very much about the industry at all.

    But how much is fair to ask of a food reviewer? We can’t expect them all to be ex-chefs, realistically. (I guess you might get better hours in journalism but I doubt the money is better.) It would be great if all writers had a background in their industry – be it sport, science, entertainment, politics – but that is never going to happen.

    Personally, I’m of the thinking that restaurant reviews are just as much for the average person on the street as they are for those in the food industry. What about you?

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  • July 29, 2010

    Some of my favourite, frugal lunches

    Lunches are always a struggle. Even after I sat down and made up a master list of grocery items (lunch ideas, dinner ideas, and a list of all ingredients that we usually buy), I sometimes still find it difficult to plan what I’m going to take to work in that week.

    T and I are ridiculously big eaters, and days where we have leftovers are very much the exception rather than the norm. For me, there are three main criteria when it comes to lunch: Preparation, cost and how much it will fill me up.

    Potatoes – In a salad, with chickpeas in a curry, in a hash with spring onions and cornbeef

    Eggs – Frittatas, omelette sandwiches

    Pasta – Carbonara, or tomato-based sauces with beans/chickpeas/capsicum

    Rice  – with soy and veggies, or fried rice – vegetarian/chicken/ham/mince, with or without eggs – the combinations are endless

    Chili – With or without meat

    I guess I’m just not very much of a sandwich person. Though I’m quite partial to the odd Subway, or Vietnamese sub from Banh Mi Bale.

    What about you?

    [Photos – Click on each image for source]

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  • July 28, 2010

    Review: Piko

    It’s long been a goal of mine to dine at the Four Seasons – the restaurant run by AUT hospitality majors – and I’m proud to say, I can finally tick that off my list!

    To be precise, we visited Piko, which serves exactly the same menu and is right next door to the Four Seasons, but is a separate establishment in itself. I’m not sure what, if any, the point of having two identical-yet-not restaurants is, but it seemed to me like the Four Seasons offered a slightly more upmarket dining experience with lusher décor and more seating. Eating at Piko, on the other hand, made us feel a little like goldfish in a bowl. The lighting was very bright, without actually being harsh, and the stereo system that night was broken – the silence made us feel like we were constantly being watched by the staff.

    Add to this the fact that there was one waitperson PER TABLE, ready to leap to our assistance at the twitch of a finger. – and did I mention that our waitress initially told us we were in the wrong place and should be next door at the Four Seasons? Luckily, instead of complying right away, I asked if she could check with them directly – after all, isn’t that kind of their job? Turns out we were definitely booked in at Piko and another couple were ushered away. To her credit, though, she did apologise profusely.

    My prawn entrée was beautifully presented, although removal of the tails would have been nice. The boy enjoyed the smoked duck breast and his main (the pork belly) was accompanied, among other things, by two delightfully soft, pillowy steamed buns – he described the plate as essentially being a deconstructed pork bun. Meanwhile, the crab croquette which accompanied my pan-roasted fish was divine – bursting with flavour inside a crispy skin. Our portions were generous without being overwhelming, and we left with both stomachs and wallets satisfied.

    On the dessert and beverage front, Piko didn’t quite deliver. The drinks menu was fairly limited, even more so on that particular night as the beer tap was broken. Although the mousse hit just the right balance of chocolate and coffee, the strudel was small and anaemic and we both failed to taste any hint of coconut in the coconut cream.

    But on the whole, Piko held its own, with attentive service and appetising food. At $30 per person, it’s great value for money, and you’ll be supporting AUT students to boot. But make sure you book – we were lucky to get a table on a Monday, of all nights.

    (Yes, I know there are no photos! I can’t for the life of me get them off my phone – it has no USB cord and the only way to retrieve them is to send them to an email account. But despite my best efforts, it’s refusing to cooperate on that front.)

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  • July 18, 2010

    The bean conundrum

    So this is kind of an awkward post to write. I’ve been eating more beans and chickpeas, and especially trying to incorporate them into my lunches. The idea is to fill me up and keep me going, with healthy and frugal foods.

    Which is all very well and good. Except I have quite a sensitive stomach (I used to think I had a mild case of IBS, but eating better, more home cooking, getting more sleep and reducing stress seems to have sorted me out) and my body is reacting pretty strongly to the beans. In short: they’re making me super gassy, which is uncomfortable and awkward at work.

    Vegetarians, how do you do it?!

    [Photo]

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  • July 17, 2010

    An ode to food

    When T and I first moved in together – in the dark days before budgeting and saving – we bought anything and everything at the supermarket. At the local Foodtown, no less – one of the most expensive chains around. Result: our bills veered crazily, anywhere between $100 and $200, and kept ballooning.

    We have a grip on grocery shopping now, but it’s not as fun. A static spend means we eat a lot of the same foods over and over. Now that his mother kindly gifted us a slow cooker, he’s been experimenting with crockpot stews and soups (oxtail anyone?), but I still dream of being about to buy seafood and fish, cheese, good quality oils, berries, chorizo, dressings, and really good steak on a regular basis. And I’m sure there’s more divine yet expensive ingredients that I’ve forgotten. (For a country full of sheep and cows, our dairy products are NOT cheap. But at least they’re of good quality. Cheese should never be orange, IMO…)

    (Photo credit)

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