Recipes – ‘coz we love food!

Andrew and I love our food! Everything about it – not only what we eat but sourcing the ingredients, preparing the meal and sharing it together. It’s become an emotional attachment – we sit down with a big smile and say ‘wow! This looks so good!”. Then we tuck in. Morning, noon and night. We have been enjoying this love affair with food for a couple of years now – prior to our retirement. This meant getting up much earlier in the morning before work to prepare breakfast and also lunch to take to work – but it has been worth it.

This appreciation of  food appears to be something that’s not common in our ‘developed’, hurried society. I think the availability of processed, packaged, convenience foods sourced from supermarkets has something to do with this. And to add insult to injury, we bring these bland foods home and eat them in front of a screen.

Andrew and I have more time now to invest in this aspect of our life. It is an investment – in our health – so I really hope we can encourage you to spend more time chopping and sharing, whatever your life commitments are.

There is a group of people, world-wide, who subscribe to a ‘slow’ life – which includes a more traditional approach to food (Slow Food). We have recently joined this group. You can read more about this here.

We are individuals – we appreciate that some of the foods we eat may not work for you or may not be part of your diet, for whatever reason.

Picture us in our KK outdoor kitchen (particularly Andrew with his ‘grumpy cyclists’ apron!). We strive to use organic, free range produce/meats/eggs, raw dairy if it is available and white-fleshed wild caught fish. We’re also keen to learn about, and use, produce from the areas that we travel through as well as focusing on what is in season. We use pink Himalayan salt or unrefined sea salt, not refined, iodised table salt (refining has removed other beneficial minerals and trace elements – and anti-caking agent(???) has been added).

Breakfast Omelette
Serves two

Over medium heat, quickly sauté a couple of cloves of chopped garlic and a couple of chopped spring onions in a good dollop of beautiful, organic butter (you can add more garlic/onions depending on your taste – we do). Careful not to burn or overcook – just a quick sauté.
Throw in a chopping-board full of veggies, chopped as if you were doing a stir fry. We generally use carrots, broccoli, cauli, zucchini, capsicum, beans, whatever we have (sometimes left overs too – even spuds and pumpkin go well!) Lots of colour is what you are aiming for!
Stir the veggies into the butter, garlic and spring onions, making sure all are well mixed.
Add a small amount of boiling water to the pan (this creates steam straight away) and quickly put the lid on to capture the steam. This will cook the veggies but you don’t want to overcook them – it is a better texture in the omelette to have them just cooked, not soggy (and it’s healthier). Don’t put too much water in – you’ll need to experiment. As this is happening, whisk together five eggs (more or less depending on the size of the eggs and your appetite) with a little water and some freshly ground salt & pepper. We sometimes add freshly grated turmeric to the egg mixture as well – there are many herbs etc that you could add.
When the veggies are done to your liking (and there should not be any water left), add the whisked egg mixture to the pan, making sure it flows evenly through the veggies. Depending on your pan, you may need to add a little more butter to the veggies before adding the egg mixture – just to make sure the omelette doesn’t stick.
Let this cook for a few minutes – you’ll see the omelette ‘setting’ but it will still be runny on top – check under the edges, I like it to be lightly browned on the bottom before proceeding.
Put the pan under the griller, not too hot, to set the top and brown it up a little as well. The egg will puff up a little as it sets.
We then halve the omelette in the pan and serve each half  on a plate with avocado, bacon, left over roast meat, roasted tomatoes, mushrooms – whatever we have.
Or eat it on its own!
It looks so good on the plate – a sunshine smile of nutrition – and you will be sustained by it!

PS – if you can’t eat dairy, substitute the butter with a little coconut oil or lard. We don’t encourage the use of other oils for cooking (e.g. olive) as they can become unstable when heated and oxidise.