Redeeming Features Food.

Redeeming features food.<

 

I try to strike a balance in our house. It can be frustrating for me sometimes as I have very adventurous tastes compared to my husband and then there are two small boys to try to work around (but most of their issues don’t come from the actual food, more from some misplaced power struggle which whilst exhausting normally results in them loving the food and eating seconds!) and of course a baby who refuses to eat anything she doesn’t feed herself (which appears to be a side effect of baby lead weaning).  I am quite happy eating  quinoa, kale chips, seaweed – (I really do!) etc but I am aware that people have different tastes to me so I don’t push too hard. Ideally of course we would eat heaps of home grown veggies, eggs and fruit but this has to balance with our current reality so I try to make sure that our food has as many redeeming features as I can fit in without protest.

It’s not about being obsessive. I see a lot of people really obsessive about what goes into their food and a lot of people saying they don’t want to eat like that, so they are the other extreme; eating absolute junk and shortening their lives. I try not to be either. I try to keep both sides down to a dull roar.

Today I made pumpkin blueberry muffins (also oil and egg free) so there is a bit of fruit, vegetables and flaxseeds, biscotti are fairly high in protein, no added fat but do have lots of healthy almonds, and cheesy pumpkin scones. None of these things are perfect foods but they have more goodness than those 100 biscuit mixes or similar and they get eaten! I would love everyone to eat like I try to but for now ensuring the food they do eat has redeeming features is a good start!

Having a Thermomix helps me but also ensuring that we have enough “healthy staples” so that there is always an option of some sort is really the key.

Here are mine:

Pantry:

Coconut cream (use for icecream with frozen fruit whizzed in the Thermomix, fudge, curries, smoothies etc)

Couscous (good with veggies)

Onions

Sweet potato

Garlic

Agave syrup

Honey

Jaggery or Rapadura

Passatta (bottled tomato puree)

Yoghurt (dry mixes)

Dinosaur shaped pasta.

Long life tortillas

Seeds (sesame, sunflower, pepitas, chia, flax)

Almonds

Bulk premium flour

Rolled oats

crio bru

coconut oil

Fridge/Freezer:

Frozen )

Frozen spinach

Frozen peas

Frozen corn

Cheddar

Shredded parmesan

Eggs

Milk

Carrots

Pumpkin.

Using these things I can whip up something fairly healthy without meal planning (which I keep forgetting to try!) and often times don’t use recipes (except for baked goods, boy do I have some disasters when I try to get all substitute-y with baked goods!)

Do you have any must have foods on your list of staples that I should add?

Hello and Welcome to the Show!

Welcome Cake!

I have moved! Well not me exactly but my blog,( I will be moving but that’s a whole other adventure!).

I am over here and looking lovely because it was time for a blog overhaul, The Dull Roar Philosophy has become much more than just the least waste and money , it is also about the least effort but the most result, it has extended to more than just thrift and eco approaches (it’s hard to blog about thrift with a straight face when you have just tweeted about buying a supercar but I promise you my approach is one of thrift, it was half price!) to looking good, feeling good, problem solving and generally juggling everything life has at you whilst staying on an even keel.

Sometimes I succeed at this and I think I am getting better so I hope you will join me as I explore keeping the bad things in life to a dull roar and squeeze the most out of what I have (hopefully gaining even more experience and happiness along the way!

What Sundays are For

Some people have Sundays as a day of worship, others a day of rest, for us it’s a day of recovery and reflection. Also gratitude.

We aren’t religious but it doesn’t mean a lack of reverence or gratitude in our lives. If we can’t find another (exhausting!) activity on a Sunday we head out of town and eat Gelato on the village green in Westbury.

 It is amazing restorative being under giant trees in the cool shade, sitting on the grass and admiring the view. My eyes recover from screen time and whilst ever patient Husband and father eats Gelato with the boys, baby kicks on a blanket and coos at the trees. 

I take this opportunity to kick my shoes off and walk barefoot across the green to the Whitehouse bakery to see what they have made today from local produce and baked in the 100 year old bread oven.

 It is beautiful and calm in the bakery and the people who serve are amazingly soothing. It’s like a mini retreat, with cake!

The boys (all sugared up) attack the play equipment with vigor and today we all went to explore the grounds of the church opposite the park.

A bonus is that the drive to Westbury is absolutely picture perfectly gorgeous. It is a good recharge and a good day for all of us.

 Do you have a spot for reflecting, restoring and recharging your family?

The Bum Wiping Cake and Other Tales

A mentioned in my last post our four year old is a character. He came running to me full sob- tears plopping off his red face- yesterday because the cat had eaten his salmon sandwich whilst he had left the sandwich to see what the noise was- he thought it was Zombies. Lesson learned, take your sandwich with you when you check for Zombies.
I found out the other day he has been calling one of the carers at day care fat so I apologised on his behalf and found he has also been congratulating her for wearing her not insubstantial breasts “Oh good, you’re wearing your boobies today!”.
I have also mentioned that one of his current little quirks was a failure to attend to his hygiene as he should. Yes I am talking bum wiping. He didn’t. I think it may have started because his arms were too short to reach but then it started getting stupid. No details (I don’t want to be a poo blogger…)but needless to say something had to be done so I asked him what to do. His answer was swift and decisive. He wanted a cake. Actually it’s his standard answer for most things and not always appropriate but I saw a chance for some blatant food bribery here  a reward system for appropriate behaviour. Anyone who thinks that food shouldn’t be used as a reward doesn’t live with my family but is welcome to take over proceedings to show me a better way, they can also clean my house whilst they perfectly parent the children. Anyway, enough of my defensive rant, back to the cake. It was decided that yea verily, every day he wiped his backside would be recorded by putting a chick pea in a baby food jar and once there were ten he could have a cake. It took two and a half weeks but we are there! He was so excited to make a marble cake with me using the Thermomix he was shaking with excitement like a little Chihuahua (I did mention he really likes cake right) It looks a bit odd, I can’t ever seem to get the marbling right.

 So feast your eyes on the Great Bum Wiping Cake and some Iced tea in an old seventies Tang bottle  a vintage jug and I will try to forget the name whilst I eat it!

P.S. I couldn’t hack the dairy free thing, I also got hideous Gastroenteritis three days in and the baby wasn’t any less or more windy either way so I thought “sod this” and ate some cheese.

Living Free..!

I have closed my Facebook account (well deactivated- they are hoping that you will return and will resort to emotional blackmail to try to ensure this.. Robyn will miss you…Danielle will miss you.. etc). This has been a great relief to me as I feel it is one step too far in the degeneration of human communication. (Whoops being a bit militant here- I am hormonal so you shall have to forgive and  maybe also give me cake and icecream) ok maybe not that bad but I don’t like the cynical targeted marketing on the side. The insular selfish quality makes me uneasy-for some reason- I should love that side of things! But at least in rabbiting on in a blog or discussing on a forum I am forced to be creative rather than just tick a box- here is my personality I “like” the following things. It seems to reduce us all to the level of 14 year olds raving about the latest Ke$ha song(oh no don’t get me started) and consenting to further bombardment of advertising for things we don’t really want or need. I don’t like the fact that none of our info is really secure, it sort of gives me the feeling that I am owned by Facebook. And lastly 2 million new users sign up every week and it made me feel too conformist “Baa I joined Facebook, Baa, I got an iPhone, Baa I am wearing what is in fashion and bought far too many owl ornaments” (Ok some of the owls are cute but you go onto Etsy and type Owl into the search I dare you- were are suffering from Owl saturation here soon we will reach Peak Owl! That was a pun you see on Peak oil which is bad- even though is sounds good). So no Facebook for me. If you would like to read another rant against Facebook I recommend reading this by Tom Hodgkinson whose works I have been reading lately and does raise some interesting points in his books- although he is rather more enamoured with smoking, alcohol and ukuleles than I am.

We are slightly at the mercy of seasonal income having our own business but I don’t think we could go back to full time work for someone else- not in the same soul crushing working for the Government way we used to, we are too addicted to the flexible lifestyle we have. I wouldn’t give up that much of my time for meaningless work for any money- it is not fulfilling and not enriching and your life can just slip away before you know it. money spent on trinkets and alcohol etc to try to make up for the fact your life is being sold pointlessly. well that’s one perspective anyway.

Working full time in an unfulfilling pointless endeavour whether it be call centre or Public Service can be so draining that you find your creativity stifled and your motivation sapped so you find yourself too tired to cook good food, too apathetic to enjoy your garden and experiment and create. well that’s what we have found anyway- I suppose it must suit some people or it just wouldn’t be the done thing!

If it sounds like you have the same empty feeling from working full time at an unfulfilling job I thoroughly; recommend reading Tom Hodgkinson books, they really touched a nerve with me!

In the mean time I have been harvesting some volunteer potatoes, eating purple podded peas, experimenting with kefir, finding doors people have thrown away (the right size for our house with lovely brass and ceramic hooks as well!) making random Christmas things (a stocking and a choir of angels made out of gumnuts- crude but I hope endearing!) not being able to control our “spirited” “interactive” children (read between the euphemisms there) and being thankful for my life.

we had a great riverside picnic for our Sir talks A lots fourth birthday with a cake made out of what was on hand- a surplus of eggs and a pint of low fat cream (can’t be whipped) which was on special- this turned out to be a chocolate pavlova topped with vanilla bean creme patissiere. Absolutely wonderful and I will make it again!