Tag Archives: Fruit and Vegetable

It’s starting to feel like Summer

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It’s finally starting to feel like Summer. Yesterday and today we had maximum temperatures >30 °C. It’s just a pity it was so dry. The weather would be perfect if we had more humidity and some rain.

After a breakfast of scrambled eggs I spent today Spring cleaning for a rental inspection this week. I used my new Magic Bullet to prepare the eggs with a little cream. I served it on quinoa and flaxseed toast. I really needed a good mug of coffee after another poor sleep.

Fluffy scrambled eggs on quinoa and flaxseed toast with coffee. Good morning world.

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This evening I enjoyed an almost tropical meal of salmon with mango coleslaw. The coleslaw has red cabbage, red onions, carrot, coriander, mint and parsley.

Atlantic salmon served on a bed of mango coleslaw. Tropical yumminess. #YummyLummy http://garylum.com

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This afternoon I received a visit from a friendly magpie.

I have a visitor. Ping @ohwir

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This morning while walking I captured an image of the trees down Benjamin Way. Using Diptic I posted to Instagram a comparison of the Winter and Spring images. Canberra truly has the best expression of seasons in Australia with true demarcation between each of the four seasons. While it is beautiful I miss the simplicity of the wet season, dry season and build up in Subequatorial Australia.

Winter compared to Spring. #igerscanberra

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Reed avocado. My verdict.

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In yesterday’s post I wrote about buying a Reed avocado for the first time. After a day of ripening with a banana I tried my first Reed avocado. When I picked it up it was still firm to hard. As I sliced through to the seed it didn’t feel green and felt like a just ripe avocado should. On cracking it open though the flesh is very light and creamy. There was also a milky substance which oozed between the skin and flesh. I had been warned of this by Instagram and Twitter friends.

The avocado accompanied a piece of skinless chicken thigh which had been in a moderate oven for forty minutes, a cob of sweet corn which had been oven cooked with the chicken too. The chicken sat on a bed of mashed potato which I had prepared through a ricer and had a little light cream and olive oil spread added.

Chicken with Reed avocado | I like my potato ‘mashed’ with a ricer, that said, I like it having a slightly rustic and rough look.

Chicken with Reed avocado | The avocado looks like it isn’t ripe, yet it is soft and creamy. I was so happy it wasn’t stringy which is what I really feared.

 

 

The flesh was soft and creamy, it didn’t have a strong flavour of avocado so this may suit some people who don’t like a strong flavour. It wasn’t stringy which was a big plus for me. The flesh itself tasted nice with the corn and potato.

I have another Reed avocado which I will use tomorrow night. We’ll see how that goes. At the moment, the Hass avocado remains the variety of choice for me.

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Steak with savoy cabbage, asparagus and broccoli

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So tonight it’s more steak. Along with some savoy cabbage, asparagus and broccoli. The red stuff is cranberry jelly. I was going to make a pepper sauce with cream but I’ve been thinking about the amount of fat I eat and had second thoughts.

Click on the image for a higher resolution version.

Steak and vegetables with some cranberry jelly (Nikon D90)

I am hopeless with presentation. That said, I liked the way the steak was cooked.

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Slowly cooked lamb shoulder and cauliflower soup

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Last night after making a pot of cauliflower soup I set about preparing to cook a shoulder of lamb for my lunch this week at work. Having now seen the result I think I’m going to swap around and have left over cauliflower soup for lunch and lamb for dinner when I’m at my place this week.

Yesterday afternoon I returned to Canberra from Brisbane and immediately started shivering on leaving the aeroplane and walking on the air bridge at Canberra airport. My mind immediately went to warm comforting foods hence the need for soup and a joint of meat.

The cauliflower soup is pretty basic. I sauté some onions and bacon pieces and get the bottom of the saucepan nice and sticky. Once the onions are soft I add a splash of white wine, some diced potato and the cauliflower florettes. To this I add some chicken or vegetable stock and then enough water so that after 30 minutes of simmering it has reduced to enough to blend without being too watery. I know what you’re thinking, I’ve spent most of my career in a laboratory; I should be able to be more precise than that. Like I explain to my medical students, medicine and pathology included is like a main meal, experience is what is needed. That is different to dessert and pastries where you need precision. Once the cauliflower and potato is soft I use my trusty Bamix® to blend the contents into a smooth soup. To this I add a few generous lumps of blue cheese and some pouring cream. This gets heated through and then served with crusty toasted bread and butter (or as some tweeps have commented served with butter and some toasted crusty bread).

Cauliflower soup with bread and butter (iPhone)

For the lamb I wanted to cook it slowly without a slow cooker. I decided on a large casserole and a low oven and a cooking period of about six hours while I slept. The preparation is pretty basic with onions, celery, carrot, tomato, red wine, beef stock, bacon pieces and the lamb. In my refrigerator I also noticed some old lup cheong and I thought, why not? What I enjoyed most was getting my boning knife out and having some fun dissecting the joint of meat.

When I woke up this morning my apartment was filled with the aroma of slow roasted lamb. It was amazing.

Lamb shoulder (Nikon D90) I wanted to capture a rustic look

Lamb shoulder (Nikon D90) Vegetables have been cut

Lamb shoulder (Nikon D90) I love a bit of blunt and sharp dissection

Lamb shoulder (Nikon D90) Everything tastes better with bacon and lup cheong

Lamb shoulder (Nikon D90) You should have smelt this when I opened the lid

Lamb shoulder (Nikon D90) I could just devour the meat, it was falling off the bones

Lamb shoulder (Nikon D90) Oh look vegetables too

Tomorrow I head off to Darwin for a night. I’ll be back late Wednesday night for the second half of the second State of Origin match and I’ll be enjoying some lamb stew. Yum!

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Out of work early and a simple dinner

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I was so happy to leave work at 1730 AEDT tonight. It meant I got to my kitchen a bit after 1800 AEDT. I have so much work e-mail to get through as well as personal e-mail so I thought a bit of skinless chicken thigh and some vegetables.

I had a good day when I think about it. It was busy and there were lots of things to do. On the good side I got to see Bron and I spent time with team mates talking about food and cooking and eating. I also had a very positive meeting with one of my bosses in the morning.

Chicken, sweet potato, avocado, asparagus and broccoli

The sweet potato was tossed in a little flour with the chicken. The chicken and sweet potato was cooked in the oven at 150 °C for 45 minutes. The avocado was just ripe. The broccoli and asparagus were simply zapped in the microwave.

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Today’s food diary

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Today I managed to stay near my calorie ceiling.

Breakfast was a single egg.

Fried egg on toast

Then this morning at work a new work mate brought in macaroons her son made. They were delicious.

Chocolate macaroons

For lunch I had a really nice chicken breast, lettuce, aioli and avocado toasted sandwich.

Tonight I had a small rack of lamb (180 g) and some stir fried vegetables (200 g).

Rack of lamb

I hope to sleep well tonight.

Dinner in a saucepan

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I felt like vegetables but was pretty unmotivated. I watched Jamie Oliver do a 30 minute potato bake so I thought I could do it with a food processor.

I used a small potato, a small sweet potato, a large flat mushroom, a small onion, a dash of cream, some nutmeg and hot water. I brought this to a boil on the stove top and then whacked it into the oven for 30 minutes. Of course cheese was added at that point.

I cooked the steak blue because I like it that way. I thought it would be nice sliced and laid on top of the vegetable bake. It looks bad but tasted fine.