Marvels
October 1, 2006 at 10:10 AM
by Ashleigh
This week I've been marvelling about all sorts of things:
My new pressure cooker. Wowee! Soups where you can still taste the individual ingredients and where the cannellini beans are cooked after 35 minutes under pressure without pre-soaking! Where a casserole that usually takes 3 hours takes an hour, where you have the heat on high for the first ten minutes to achieve pressure and then turn it down to a measly 1 or 2 on the dial to maintain the pressure. These machines are fantastic!
Organic vegetable bags. We have had two weeks supply now, and we've had vegetables that I wouldn't usually buy, and have never even tasted before - like curly endive, beet greens and fennel. In two weeks we've had mangos, oranges, apples, pears, fennel, leeks, green onions, broccoli, cauliflower, beet greens, fennel, endive, and avocados. A much greater variety than we ever purchased before.
Vegetarian cookbooks. My friend lent me the New Crank's Cookbook. Now that I have my organic vegetable bag subscription it's as though a whole new world of vegetables has opened up to me. I'm trying to make sure our family has at least 8 - 9 servings a day with most days completely meat free.
Less garbage. I've been making a very conscious effort to recyle compostable scraps in the last two weeks. What a difference! We have a 30 litre bin in our apartment that usually had to be emptied every two days or so. This last couple of weeks it's been emptied about twice a week. I use the compostable paper bag from my veggie subscription and hang it outside my front door for all the vegetable scraps, egg shells, tea bags, banana peels etc. That gets put into the compostable waste once a week. We live on the 6th floor so it's much easier on the number of trips up and down to the garbage bin too!
Re-usable cooldrink bottles for school. We had these as kids, but now they've been replaced with the convenience of boxed juices. I decided to reinstate the bottles. It's a little more hassle. The kids forget them at school and I need to remind them to bring them home. They need to be washed and dried before the next day and they have a pop-up mechanism that has to be taken apart. It's worth it though, just for the sake of the garbage! The kids also get schoolmelk at school starting from 2 October. It's subsidised by the EU and the packages get collected for recycling (unlike the cartons sent from home).
What kids will eat. Many many mealtimes at our house are spent with small people in tears being confronted by things they don't like, or think they don't like, or won't even try. So you can imagine my surprise when they were presented with andijvie stamppot and not only ate it all up, but did so with great gusto and feeling. I wasn't so sure myself, having an innate distrust of green vegetables, but I overcame my fears and ate it up :0 Next time I have some changes I want to make to the recipe to make it more 'me' and then I'll share it.
The company of friends. On Thursday night I spent the evening in Amsterdam with friends. It was really fun to just indulge in girly chat for an evening and be away from home.
Living without a microwave. Our combi microwave broke this week and we decided not to replace it. It's been a bit tricky not being able to defrost and reheat things on a whim. It was rarely used as anything other than a defrosting machine, although we did use the oven function quite a lot. Our big built-in oven will have to do it's job now, and I'll just have to take care that when it's on, I use it for as many things as I can rather than switching it on and off randomly. I'm usually quite good about that but sometimes I forget. We have lots more counter space now without a microwave sitting there taking up space!
And lastly, the Cannelloni I made last night. It was absolutely divine. Fresh pasta rolled up with a filling of beet greens, ricotta and parmesan, alternated with rolls filled with my bolognese recipe, covered with a thick and chunky tomato and courgette sauce, topped with a cheesy bechamel sauce and baked for 30 minutes. I don't think I've ever made a meal that has been so heartily devoured by the entire family. I loosely based it on Jamie Oliver's cannelloni recipe from his Jamie's Dinners book.
I wonder what marvels next week will bring.
Comments
I just can't imagine living in another country but I bet I would lose some weight! what are you stitchin?
Ash,
Thanks for talking about your pressure cooker. I have a nice one (Kuhn Ricon) but I don't use it very much. I would love to see more posts on what you cook with your pressure cooker. Your cooking sounds divine!
Oops, glad to see you invented a recipe to use the beetgreens! You asked and I was so busy here rearranging things pc- and interiorwise I just forgot to answer, I'm so sorry!!
I am nieuwsgierig about the pressure cooker, my mom used to have one and I think she only used it to make soup...
I like the your idea for the compost. As you're making it work in an apartment I really have no excuse. I keep saying "when our backyard is done we'll get a compost bin" but I can really start right now :-)
Had no idea pressure cookers actually worked either!
You've sold me on it - I'm buying a pressure cooker! It will really go from dry beans to edible ones in 35 minutes?!
I hope you're having a great weekend. :)
October 1, 2006 5:45 PM