Potato and Eggplant Curry

Potato (2 lg, 3 med or 5 small, in large cubes)
Eggplant (300gs in similar sized cubes)
4 tbsn oil
1 tbsp garam marsala
1 tbsn cumin
1 tbsn ginger
1 tbsn garlic
1 large fat onion
6 tomatoes
Salt

1 can of coconut milk

Use a blender or food processor to mince the onion, garlic and ginger into mush. Fry in oil with salt until it starts to go red brown. Add the garam marsala and cumin and fry until fragrant. Add more oil if need be. Process the tomatoes in the blender until liquid, add to frying pan and simmer until reduced. Add potato and eggplant and any water you might need to almost cover the vegetables. Simmer until sauce is very thick, and vegetables mostly cooked. Add coconut milk and simmer until sauce is at a consistency you like and vegetables are cooked.

Serve with rice!

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Sarah P

Five Minute Artisan Bread - Recipe Three

Bread!

I have been working on my soups this year, and I have learnt a lot. I like to make the bread to go with soups too, and enjoy a lovely chewy artisan style by preference with soup. I find that sandwich bread tends towards mush, whereas artisan soup adds texture and flavour of it's own to an otherwise mushy (or pureed) dish.

I really like this dough for the simple reason that I can pull off as much or as little as I need, and let it rise and cook. There's not much wastage, and if I felt enthused I could make buns or sticks or anything. One day I could even make bowls out of bread for a good solid stoo.

I'm afraid this is the last post on *this* batch of dough. I did not finish the dough, there's still a good chunk left to use, but this is now past the 2 week limit. My diet has changed somewhat, and there's a lot less wheat at present! But when I start wheat again, I'll cover some of the other recipes.

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Sarah P

Five Minute Artisan Bread - Recipe Two

PIZZA!

I made the kids help put the toppings on, there's even tiny mini pizzas shaped by my 4yo. Yum!

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Sarah P

Sprouted Nourishment

Sally Fallon's back to basics cook book Nourishing Traditions is an inspirational guide to old school nutrition. And when I say back to basics I don't mean like the CWA cook book (thought that is an absolute gem in itself) I mean really back to traditional ways of preparing food for maximum nutritional benefit. It is a bit scary to think that to return to the practices discussed in the book would require a complete overhaul of our current popular methods of food preparation.

Now that I am no longer pregnant and the consequences of mildly poisoning myself are not quite so huge I am planing to slowly and steadily introduce these practices into my kitchen.

This weeks adventure into nutrient enhanced food is... sprouts!



I have been looking forward to getting back into sprouting for a while now (sprouts are one of the foods recommended against during pregnancy due to food poisoning risk (I think salmonella? maybe listeria??) Mind you, I do wonder which risk is greater during pregnancy--food poisoning or malnutrition considering how many generally healthy foods are recommended against at this time... but that is another post entirely...)

So, yes, where was I? Oh yes, sprouts. Basically sprouting takes food that is already pretty good--legumes, grains, nuts and seeds--and by letting it do what it does naturally, it decreases the harmful chemicals and increases the available nutrients. Fallon writes:

The process of germination not only produces vitamin C but also changes the composition of grain and seeds in numerous beneficial ways. Sprouting increases vitamin B content, especially B2, B5 and B6. Carotene increases dramatically--sometimes eightfold. Even more important, sprouting neutralizes phytic acid, a substance present in the bran of all grains that inhibits the absorption of calcium, magnesium, copper and zinc; sprouting also reduces enzyme inhibitors present in all seeds.

She also mentions that sprouts are easier to digest than unsprouted grains/seeds as they have an increase in digestive enzymes and a reduction in gas causing complex sugars.

Fallon adds a few cautions, she recommends against the over consumption of raw sprouts, advising light steaming instead, and also recommends against the eating of alfalfa saying that this seed can inhibit the immune system and also contribute to inflammatory arthritis and lupus.

Another great thing about sprouts is that they dramatically increase the volume of your food substance, making them an extremely economical way to prepare the food source. The picture above is of mung bean sprouts--I started with a handful of dried mung beans, soaked overnight then rinsed in clean water twice a day and three days later had a jar full of food.

Also, they are actually incredibly tasty. Even monkey moo will eat them!

Five Minute Artisan Bread - Recipe One

Five Minute Artisan bread after a few days and one recipe.

This is a basic flat bread. I pulled off tiny balls of dough, literally about 2 tablespoons full, dumped lots of flour on top and rolled them as flat as possible before frying in a non-stick frying pan with a tiny bit of oil.

It was just a snack, so we ate them with jam on top, and they were lovely.

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Sarah P