Planning Ahead

 equals

Trying to eat the nutritarian way  can be a challenge when you have to cook separate meals for yourself!   The farmer is still very resistant to this way of eating and the firstborn and Twin 2 is right there with their Dad.  Twin 1 is being a little more open although if she asks what’s for dinner and says she doesn’t feel like it,  I offer her whatever I’m cooking.  She usually replies with “lentil soup!?” and rolls her eyes!   

So I try to make my meals easy and fast to make.  Items like bean burgers I tend to make during the school day when no one else is around and keep them in the fridge till I’ve eaten them all and embark on another cooking spree.  

As vegetables are such a big part of eating this way, I look to cook them fresh, however beans and rice are time consuming and take a long time to cook from scratch, yet are a welcome addition to a stir fry or salad.  To get around this problem I cook up a whole bag and freeze in daily portions.   This allows for a quick defrost in the microwave and away you go!

I cooked a 1kg bag of brown rice yesterday.   I soaked it overnight in water, rinsed it and then cooked it with fresh water.  Soaking it overnight reduces the cooking time dramatically and as a bonus releases the protein in the rice so that it can be absorbed by the body.    I use the absorption method and this 1kg of rice took about ¾ of an hour to cook.   The end result was 19 cups (!) of fluffy, light and tasty cooked rice (below)  – shown above all put into 1 cup portions ready to go into my freezer.  

I don’t necessarily eat rice each day, so this will keep me going for 3-4 weeks.  In this case, organisation is a small price to pay for tasty, healthy food!

PS. The date/pecan slice from last week made into 'truffles' for Melbourne Cup went down a treat... and they never even knew how good they were for them!

Remote living, Chickpea flatbread, Date & Pecan Slice

Living on a farm has its good points and bad points. 

Good – 

• lots of fresh air
• peace & quiet
• the opportunity to have a vegie garden and orchard
• a more laid-back lifestyle (well, when its not calving, sowing, harvest and so on!)  

Bad – 

• lack of adult company (or any company!)
• access to anything – schools, doctors, professional services, et al
• lots of high fat, high-sugar, low-nutritional-value food at any event you attend
• lack of shops

OK I’m sure they are more for both lists, but the big drawback when eating a highly nutritious diet is the lack of choice or even total availability of some products.   For example, my local town does not stock tamari – about 4 different types of soy sauce apparently but not the wheat free tamari.   So frustrating!   And if you want anything different to the standard fruit and veg, well, you're out of luck.

And of course, you can’t grow everything .  Even if you could most of it would take months to grow, dry and so on.   Tinned beans is a lifesaver but hey we all need variety !

In my effort to find nutritional yeast as a reported “cheesy” taste to dishes, I thought I would go online and let my fingers do the walking … as they used to say in the old yellow pages advertisements.

I found a few places that had various sized bags, most were small and postage was expensive.  I’m not sure how I found it, but eventually I located the Organic Buyers Group in Sydney.  A webstore, free to join, they deliver FREE to Sydney suburbs and only $10 to everywhere else, regardless of the order size.   

There I found nutritional yeast (a big size), organic dried chickpeas, lentils and black beans (the black beans are called 'turtle' beans), GM free popping corn (I air pop it), sinful Medjool dates and mixed berries, sundried (and not oiled!) tomatoes, organic dried coconut, a bag to make my own nut milk and so much more.    They also were happy to order in specific items that I needed (but failed to get last time I was in Mudgee at the health food store) and got them in within the week.    

Their customer service is top notch, their prices competitive and best of all, its all ORGANIC!  Do check them out  and tell them I sent you :)

(Now, if only I could find a vegetable & fruit supplier who had some of the more unusual items and delivered I’d be set!)

Anyway, with a few of the more unusual items in my possession, I embarked upon some trial and error recipes.  I just had to try out that nutritional yeast.  I found the easiest to be a chickpea flatbread  or “omelette”.

Chickpea Flatbread/Omlette

Serves 2-4

(original recipe via Eat to Live Facebook group – the one below is ‘tweaked’ to be easy)

Ingredients:

1 cup besan (chickpea) flour

2 tablespoons nutritional yeast

½ tspn Herbs du Provence

1 small clove garlic, crushed.

For flatbread:

1. Mix all together and let sit for 10 minutes.   
2. Heat oven to moderate.  
3. On parchment or silicon mat, pour mixture to desired sized flatbreads.   
4. Cook approximately 15 minutes.  
5. Let cool slightly before peeling off parchment or lifting away from silicon mat.  

(NB. If you prefer to cook fresh each time, mix up the ingredients, without the water and garlic and leave in a jar.  When ready to cook use 1/3 mix 1/3 water and a tiny bit of crushed garlic for 1-2 flatbreads.)

For omelette:

1. Add ¾ tspn of baking powder.
2. Mix all together and let sit for 10 minutes,
3. Heat oven to moderate.
4. Line a small loaf pan with parchment paper and pour mix in.    
5. Add chopped lightly steamed vegetables if desired and stir through.   
6. Cook till mixture is firm (not runny).   
7. Let cool 5 minutes before turning out from tin and peeling off parchment paper.

(NB.  I tried this on the stovetop but without oil and a non-stick pan, it was a big mess!)

Now, these are tasty, but not “cheesy”.   The mix has its own unique flavour I guess, and its good.  Just don’t expect it to be like a cheese omelette or cheese bread!

The other thing I made that was super yummy, was date and pecan slice.   So sweet and “moreish”.  And possibly something that you should limit, but my answer is just don’t make it very often – if I only make it once a month then I can’t be over eating it :)

Date & Pecan Slice

(photo at top)

(amended recipe using as a basis the Date Pecan Squares recipe on Hallelujah Acres )

1 cup organic dates

½ cup pecans

1/4 vanilla pod, scraped

1 cup organic raisins

1 cup desiccated coconut

1. Using a food processor, grind pecans to a fine meal (but not to ‘butter’).
2. Add pitted dates and raisins and seeds from vanilla pod.
3. Process until a dough like consistency – if necessary add a tablespoon or two of water if too dry.
4. Add ½ cup of coconut  and pulse till blended.
5. Line a loaf pan with non stick baking paper and sprinkle ¼ cup coconut over base.
6. Place date and pecan mixture on top and spread to cover bottom layer of coconut.  Sprinkle with remaining ¼ cup coconut.
7. Cover and chill.
8. Cut into small bite size squares and serve.  
9. Keep in refrigerator in airtight container.

I have a Melbourne Cup gathering to go to this week and thought I would take these.  Although I thought I might make these to look like truffles instead.  I'm going to take teaspoons of the mixture and roll till round in my palm, and then coat in coconut. 

Enjoy!