so tomorrow there will be another number | meat and three veg

After this lovely lady's post, I've been thinking about food choices a lot more this week: thinking about my own personal journey to the way I eat now, and how those habits developed over time. My food journey began last year - six months into my first "proper" job since finishing my degree, I found myself with a little extra money each week and the ability to be a little more flexible in what I ate. After four years as a student surviving off a very minimal weekly income it was a luxury to be able to afford to experiment a little more in what I cooked and what I ate. 

Prior to this, my food choices had been based around affordability: sometimes this meant two baked potatoes or two minute noodles for dinner in those weeks where there were bills to pay and shampoo to buy. At the end of my fourth year, busy with writing a dissertation, this changed a little to include time as a factor. Could I cook and eat in less than 20 minutes? If not, I didn't buy it. In those last two weeks of 18 hour writing days, I survived off plain pasta, canned tuna, apples, and a whole lot of caffeine. On the last night before my dissertation was due, I was writing all night in my office at university. A friend called me at 7pm: "I'm outside," he said, "come down, I've got dinner for you." And he handed me a warm plastic container full of pesto pasta, before skating back off into the night. I've never forgotten that gesture. 

Most of my friends and family know me to be a vegetarian. And that's mainly true - I only rarely eat meat, and when I do, it's important to me that it is local, free range, and organic; and that I feel like my body needs it for nutrients. This year, I've eaten meat on two occasions. The first was when there was no other option for dinner, out in the wilderness with family. The second was last night.

J returned from four days tramping (hiking for US readers) with plenty of stories of interesting people they'd shared a hut with. They had met some hunters who cooked freshly caught chamois (also known as "shammy" to locals), and also gave them some to bring back home to us. It ticked all my personal "boxes" when it comes to meat-eating and when J told me she planned to cook it for dinner on Tuesday night, I told her I'd love to try some. I'd never eaten chamois before. I made this sauce to go with it - I think it would make a great accompaniment to lamb or beef as well.

mushroom & black pepper meat sauce

This meat sauce would also be great served with pasta for a vegetarian dish. The quantities used here make enough for four people.

Slice two red onions into half rings, and soften them over a medium heat with a little olive oil. Turn the heat up a little and add some apple cider vinegar and honey or balsamic vinegar. Cook for around 30 minutes until caramelised. Add about 1 glass of red cooking wine to the pan - it should bubble a lot, if it doesn't turn the heat up. Chop 8 flat mushrooms (I used portobello) into quarters and add to the pan, letting them cook in the wine. Stir in as much freshly cracked black pepper as you'd like. Turn the heat down to medium-low. Add 1 tbsp flour - either white or wholemeal and stir. This will thicken the sauce up - add milk to thin it back and keep warm until ready to serve.

Last night I cheated a little - we had some french onion soup to use up, so I used that instead of caramelising onions. 

So it came to be - a traditional "meat and three veg" meal was served at Maitland St. The cooking was very much a team effort, with much discussion and consulting the internet as to how to cook the meat. The piece we were given looked like a beef fillet would, so we sliced it into medallions and cooked it, as T would describe "pshhhh....pshhhh..." - translates to one minute each side in a very hot pan. We ate it with the mushroom sauce, potato and kumara (known outside of Aotearoa as sweet potato), mashed together, and lightly fried cabbage and red onion. It was delicious.

I think the biggest mistake we can make is to be inflexible in our diets. I realised that it's important to me to eat mainly vegetarian, but that it's also okay for me to eat free-range, organic, local meat now and then too. After all, isn't it all about moderation?

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I've decided that each day I write a post I'm going to include a word or two about something I'm grateful for that day. I used to reflect once a week and take the time to be grateful, and I think that it's helpful for me to look back over my day with gratitude now and then.

day 1/365 
Today I'm grateful for clear and cloudless skies, and that I work in a place where I can take twenty minutes in the afternoon and sit underneath a weeping willow tree, looking at water and the old fashioned clock tower buildings of the university I work at, enjoying the fresh air in my lungs and sun on my skin.

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title from stars - celebration guns

sleep a little more if you want to | peonies and peppermint

There's something special about flowers and tea and extra special when your weekend combines them both. I cut short my Saturday morning sleep in to get to the farmers market early enough, I hoped, to purchase some peonies. When I got there, the woman had just sold her last bunch of closed up tight ones, and had run out of wrapping for them. "You're too late! They've gone!" she said, looking down at the bucket that was still full with already opened ones. "How much for this one...and this one?" I asked, pointing out a couple that were still closed and would probably last out the week in a vase. "They're just so beautiful," I said. She reached down, scooping up the entire bucket of greenery and petals, and said "Take the lot! They're my gift to you." And that was how my empty canvas bag to be filled with vegetables was instead filled with flowers, a huge bunch of peonies hanging out in all directions. 

Weekend lunches are such a flexible meal. They can be brunch things, like pancakes or toast, to more substantial things. I had a craving for mushrooms, so I sliced up bread from the farmers market, cooked some mushrooms in a little butter, added some feta on top and at the last minute, wanting something green, chopped up a little mint. I don't think I've had feta and mint together before - it was delicious.

Continuing with the mint theme, I've been having a quiet day today, putting on loads of washing, sorting, writing, and sipping cups of fresh mint tea. On a whim, I added some chopped fresh ginger - minty, spicy, delicious.

The weekend also involved a delicious vietnamese dinner out, at a place special to me, with friends, where discussions ranged from diving and lung capacities to an intense debate about the inner anatomy of a centaur; and a ride in a refurbished red mini. It's dark and a bit windy here, so I think this evening will involve clean sheets and an early night. Hope your weekend has been lovely too.

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title from belle & sebastian - asleep on a sunbeam