By Injera, on February 7th, 2010%
Remember the Seinfeld episode The Comeback? George is at a meeting and is scoffing some seafood and a co-worker snarks “Hey, George, the ocean called. It’s running out of fish!”1. Given the amount of fish and other ocean life we’ve consumed since starting the 2010 food routine (footine?) I’m expecting that comment directed at me any day now. Less surprising, I guess, is that the meatless day hasn’t escaped beyond Monday.
Meatless Monday
Last Monday did not catch me unprepared. Having checked the weather forecast over the weekend I’d already picked up a variety of mushrooms for a risotto. Determined to do it properly, I raced home from work and popped a pot on the stove for vegie stock. Stephanie Alexander suggests halving a tomato and an onion and bunging them in the oven until they’re “black”, which I did, albeit only to “brown”. While they were caramelising, I was sweating a bit more onion and some leek, then threw in a bunch of vegies rescued from the bottom of the fridge. The result was surprisingly nice, as was the risotto2.
Fresh Fish Thursday
The Ponytail, aka Neil Perry, came to the rescue on Thursday with his suggestion of a tomato, green olive and caper sauce to accompany snapper. Simple and gorgeous. I added some smashed kipflers that were fried off with sliced spring onions for a bit of zestiness, which I adapted from the Strodes’ Two’s Cooking3
No Booze February
One down, three to go.
I won’t be making this routine a habit. As soon as March hits, I’m having a glass of wine. It’s only been a week, so I can’t say “this is easy” because… it’s only been a week. Perhaps if I was feeling better and could trace the betterness to not drinking, I might consider taking it further, but I’m not, so I won’t. I was dreading going out for dinner and having to wave the wine list away, but Friday’s seafood feast at Esposito was not ruined by the lack of wine and I doubt that Wednesday’s Libertine bouillabaisse will be, either. Maybe it really is all about the food (and the company!).
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1. For a recap of the whole episode, Wikipedia has this article. It’s very detailed, but… convoluted.
2. Full disclosure: I thought the stock was so nice that I was actually dancing ’round the kitchen singing “I am the stock queen! I am the stock queen!”.
3.This book has been getting a bit of a workout. The recipes are straightforward and reliable and perfect for weeknights.
By Injera, on January 22nd, 2010%
It’s still early days, but the new programme seems to be going well. Better still, it feels as though it could be easy to maintain.
Meatless Mondays
Week two and the weather had gone from hot-damn-hot to warming-stews within a matter of days. My options for our second meat-free day were therefore not restricted by a need to limit oven and stove use. Madhur Jaffrey’s Ultimate Curry Bible has a range of spicy goodies, but I wanted something one-pot and not coconutty. This led me to re-discover Jane and Jeremy Strode’s Two’s Cooking and I opted for the sweet potato and lentil soup.
The Tiger rice cooker has been idle lately and I’ve been craving rice. I adapted the recipe as suggested to turn the soup into a stew to serve over rice, and I also added some chickpeas to add a bit of variety. This also extended the meatlessness into Tuesday, as there were delicious leftovers to be had.
Fresh Fish Thursdays
As I’ve said before, Lifestyle Food tends to be white noise here. This works out well sometimes, as it did on Wednesday when I caught an episode of The Cook and the Chef. Simon cooked a fish curry and a roasted barramundi. The curry looked tasty, but it was the simple barra dish that caught my eye. The Vic Market fishmongers were well stocked with barra, so that’s what we had – easy and delicious!
No booze weeknights
I’m managing the alcohol free weeknights, although I feel as though a glass of Laurent-Perrier at Pearl with my duck curry followed by a chardonnay was cheating a little bit. Thanks to the twitterfolk who reassured me that lunch was not a night (but, seriously Daniel, your suggestion that “night” was “dark” almost defeated my best intentions!). It’s also easier when it’s not roasting hot. Hopefully February will be as cool as the BOM is predicting, because afternoon G&Ts are hard to resist.
Workout Tuesdays
C was in Sydney on Tuesday night, so I missed my workout (okay, so what I really missed was my Kopitiam Mamak roti and nasi kandar). I made it to the gym on Thursday before the market and I’m wondering whether I’ll make that a regular part of the routine – it was so easy! The early morning crowd had gone by 9.15 and by the time I got to the market, shopping was a breeze.
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Side benefits of the new routines:
- Using the cookbook library
- Better planning, therefore shopping more efficiently (budget and time)
- It’s extending into the rest of the week (that is, the set days are minimums and are making it easier to be in a fish/veg frame of mind for the rest of the week)
- Leftovers! (Not so much with the fish, of course)
