mindful living

this week

Autumn has most definitely arrived in Tasmania. We woke up to snow on the mountain on Wednesday, and while I sipped this glass of Chardonnay, as it was a warm afternoon, yellow and rust-coloured leaves danced on the pavement outside in the breeze.

Favourite experience/s of the week

I’m an unofficial writer in residence at an old building in the city - the same building my main character lived and worked in in the 1820s - and spent a happy afternoon there working on my book. Afterwards, I met a friend for a wine and long overdue in-person catchup. We met at a media launch in 2019 and might have had every reason to lose touch because of the pandemic, but regardless of everything she’s had going on, she’s made time for me regularly over the last few years and that warms my heart no end.

I also loved being on campus this week for International Women’s Day where our school had an afternoon tea for staff and HDRs and it felt so wonderful to see people in the flesh again after so long. The campus feels alive again, in a way I haven’t witnessed for three years now…almost to the day.

I had a pretty good run on Thursday too, the morning after overnight rain. The smell of wet gum leaves was quite incredible, not to mention mind clearing.

Another of the week’s highlights was going round to spend an evening with my sister and her family. Her daughter, who is three, utterly adorable and heavily into Frozen, sang us most of the soundtrack. I held back tears watching her sing (and take a bow at the end as we applauded!) - not just because she’s so sweet and expressive, but her innocence, the complete innocence of all young children, just undoes me.

Reading

I adored Minnie Darke’s latest contemporary romance With Love From Wish & Co - as she’s a Tasmanian writer, the setting always feels quite Hobart (and therefore very cosy) to me. This was a delightful escapist read - Marnie is a young entrepreneur desperate to buy back her grandfather’s old store, currently in the hands of her cold and distant uncle with a grudge against her deceased father. She makes a career-ruining mistake with one of her best clients, throwing his 40-year marriage into jeopardy. He offers to help her try to buy back the family store, if she will work her magic and help him win his wife back. It’s whimsical and full of heart, and I just loved it.

A wonderful interview on Kate Forsyth’s website with the writer Alison Croggon, whom I always knew as the blogger behind theatre notes, a popular and acclaimed Australian theatre blog in the 2000s. I loved it when I lived in Melbourne and I loved it when I lived abroad, it helped me keep a somewhat steady finger on my country’s cultural pulse. I am so intrigued now to read her latest book, a hybrid memoir called Monsters. A lot of what Alison said in the interview I can really relate to. I think a book similar to hers might be in my writing future!

Lit Hub: Clare Pooley on Writerly Perseverance and Knowing When To Give Up and I’m also a subscriber to LitHub’s wonderful newsletter The Craft of Writing which this week featured one of my favourite writers, Xiaolu Guo on translating the self. I adore anything Guo writes and was intrigued to hear that this was an excerpt from a forthcoming anthology, Letters to a Writer of Color edited by Deepa Anappara and Taymour Soomro. Having looked at the contents and contributor list, I am so curious to read this once it’s out!

I absolutely devoured Julietta Singh’s No Archive Will Restore You in barely a day. One of my supervisors got me on to a fascinating hybrid genre of thought experiments centred around the theme of the archives - works that blend memoir, poetry, historiography and essay. This book is one of them and is so personal yet also embedded in the literature and theory of the body, subjectivity, and identity. Singh considers her body, aware of it “as both archive and archivist” (p.32), and poetically catalogues its legacies of pain, sexuality and desire, the “feral moan of childbirth” (p.70), identity and race, and finally, the unconscious, the “the most evasive archive of all” (p.97). It reminded me that our bodies hold historical traces of everything that has happened to them, everything that has gone in and come out. We are everything we have experienced. I found it absolutely fascinating and quite unputdownable. And I love the sound of the publisher, punctum books, too, for their tagline is spontaneous acts of scholarly combustion.

A favourite poem.

The Thesis Whisperer: Preparing for a binge-writing session (this will be me very soon) - I highly recommend this website to all PhD candidates. I subscribed to it perhaps in my very first week back in 2019 and Inger’s generous wisdom has been very reassuring over the years!

Sydney Review of Books: Jessie Cole on Art as Love

Finally - OMG, I cannot wait for this book! And this one!

Listening to

My nouveau pour l’écriture playlist

Katie Wighton’s new single Narcissist - absolute banger of a track and great official video too!

Tom and I have been working with our friend and indie Melbourne musician Mezz Coleman on her forthcoming album release - the first single has dropped and it’s amazing! We’re pretty proud of the artwork, I took the photo and Tom did the rest!

How to Fail: Rick Astley - really enjoyed this interview with an icon of 1980s music who would have every reason in the world to have a big head but he really doesn’t. Also Margaret Atwood on wisdom, witchcraft and womanhood - any interview with Margaret is bound to be wonderful, I listened to this one on my run and felt her strength push me on, up the inclines.

Best Friend Therapy - Inside the therapy room - what it’s like to be a therapist, how to find a good one and lots more.

Picking

Our neighbour texted me to say come round, pick whatever I wanted - I didn’t need to be asked twice! I came round with a small bowl, which she took one look at and replied, “go home and get a bigger bowl!” She very kindly gave me some 4kg of tomatoes, some zucchini and cucumbers, as well as a bag of rocket and dill.

I picked some of my own zucchini (the only one left that the possums hadn’t got at! Well, I hope it’s possums. The other possibility is too ghastly to contemplate), silverbeet, rhubarb and strawberries. The wind picked a lemon for me! And I picked all the ripe figs on my tree and left them on my neighbour’s doorstep. A few days later, more have ripened.

Eating

Rather than preserve all the tomatoes my neighbour gave me, I’m trying to cook with them all instead. Hence, our diets will be quite high in lycopene for the forseeable!

I made this Nigel Slater tomato pasta recipe but I found it a bit…grassy. I think that was my olive oil! The grassiness was remedied by plenty of nutritional yeast.

I also made Nigel’s tomatoes and couscous recipe from his A Cook’s Book which I ended up making with rice instead of couscous because I didn’t have enough….and only checked this once I had embarked upon the roasting of the tomatoes. I will never learn. But the citrus spiced rice from Elly Pear’s Green was a lovely accompaniment - and the citrus was my lemon from my own tree. Though I’m not sure how the recipe is meant to serve 6-10. It served me and Tom, with no leftovers!

Two more recipes from Elly Pear’s Green cookbook for seasonal produce - Piedmont peppers (red capsicums stuffed with tomatoes and garlic, and roasted) and zucchini agrodolce. Both eaten with rocket salad and bread for lunch.

My zucchini and butter bean soup, the perfect vehicle for the giant, more marrow-like zucchini and all the lovely soft herbs from my neighbour’s garden. The green chilli I used was from a bag in the freezer of chillies my lovely beautician Lisa gave me last autumn!

Some lovely Deliciously Ella recipes including a sweet potato and lentil stew and a tofu chickpea korma.

An epic lasagna made from ragu I had in the freezer from last year, and we made the pasta dough fresh using this recipe. This fed us for three dinners and reminded me of how delicious and comforting lasagna is - I must make it again very soon!

A three-fruit crumble made with rhubarb and strawberries from my garden, and apples from my aunt’s garden. Eating it reminded me that there are many consolations of it getting colder and darker.

The Full Vegan of course made an appearance at the weekend, with sausages, and I managed to have one of my favourite silken tofu bowls on a less cold morning!

Lots of plans for the rest of the tomatoes in the coming week - including a tomato and cashew pilaf which I’ve cooked before and really enjoyed. Though, after reading quite a bit of Nigel Slater, I am now of course craving potatoes and wishing those were ready in my garden right now. I suspect I will have to wait a few more weeks at least.

Drinking

Quite a bit of Chardonnay.

I also had the most incredible cold drink at Hobart institution (and all vegan, I was surprised to learn!) Bury Me Standing - the Grandma Barb, which is iced coffee with vanilla. It sounds simple but it was like drinking a (I want to say warm, but it was iced!) hug. Tom tasted it and immediately regretted not getting one too!

Watching

We decided to go with an absurdist theme for our weekend viewing, and started with Noah Baumbach’s adaptation of Don DeLillo’s White Noise (Netflix). Personally I can never resist a Greta and Noah film, regardless of who’s directing or acting - I know it will make me think and laugh. I studied White Noise as an undergrad and was surprised by how much I loved it (a rare thing for assigned texts, I found). Having not read the book since I was 18, I was intrigued to see how much of it I’d remember.

Set in 1984, White Noise centres around Jack Gladney, a professor of Hitler Studies (a field of study he invented, his colleague wants to do the same with Elvis Presley) at a small college, who lives with his wife Babette and their blended family - it’s the fourth marriage for both. Almost immediately, the film’s themes of consumerist domination of our culture and fear of death are apparent - the supermarket is a central setting for many key scenes, bright and dazzling and confusing, urging people to buy now, buy more. Jack and Babette (played brilliantly by Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig) have their idiosyncrasies and quirks, but mostly their life with their startlingly mature and insightful children is quite idyllic. This is shattered by an “air-borne toxic event” - a train collision with an oil tanker releases toxic chemicals into the air near their town (scarily quite similar to the Ohio train derailment which happened just last month) and they must evacuate their home. Almost instantly, we see the children remaining calm and more knowledgeable about what is going on while the adults panic, finding they can no longer contain their deep fears about death and struggle to cope with the impending doom. It turns out much has been going on for Jack and Babette without the other knowing.

It’s (unsurprisingly) noisy, hard to follow at times, funny, moving, well acted and terrifyingly prescient in some respects. Most of all, it’s about how we try to keep the chaos of life, and our fears of death, large-scale ruin and destruction, at bay by filling our lives with, you guessed it, white noise. And shopping.

“Well, if you liked that, you will have no trouble following tomorrow’s film,” Tom remarked as the end credits rolled!

Everything Everywhere All At Once (4K BluRay) was one of the most creative, mind-bending films I’ve possibly ever seen. It’s weird, daring, fantastical, and very funny but its beating heart is the universal search for love, belonging and meaning. I absolutely loved it.

Evelyn Quan Wang (played by Michelle Yeoh) is a middle-aged immigrant whose life is both mundane and spinning out of control. She runs a laundromat with her husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) who feels increasingly lonely and disconnected from his wife, even going so far as to prepare divorce papers. Two decades prior, they were full of hope and passion, for life and each other, when they eloped to the United States where their daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu), was born. Life in the US has entailed a lot of hard work and sacrifice for them both, and now they are being audited by the IRS - something that would give anyone anxiety and sleepless nights. To top it off, Evelyn’s father (James Hong) is visiting for the first time in years which is also putting the family on edge.

Not quite the setting for an epic kung-fu adventure in the multiverse, right? WRONG.

From hotdog fingers, to googly-eyed rocks, the everything Bagel and some impressive martial arts, this is a film that is not only visually stunning and imaginative, but it embraces its wackiness and takes the audience along for the ride. You can tell that every member of the cast had a ball being involved. It’s worth watching for Jamie Lee Curtis alone, who is almost unrecognisable and incredibly funny. We’ve all known a Deirdre. And even she is humanised!

Everything is put together with care and passion, and the performances, particularly Michelle Yeoh’s, are just stunning. Underneath all the dazzling visuals and kooky-ness of the parallel universes is a simple story of a family struggling to connect with each other. It’s about living with regrets, unmet needs, dreams you didn’t dare to have. It’s about how love and kindness are so very healing.

Ann Lee at The Guardian has discussed why it deserves Best Picture at the Oscars and I also enjoyed seeing a therapist decode and react to the film. UPDATE: It cleaned up at the Oscars, and most deservedly so!

What else have we watched - we finished Season 5 of The Crown (Netflix), which was gripping and addictive, particularly as we’re now in the era we remember. I wasn’t convinced by all of the cast changes but Imelda Staunton as the Queen and Elizabeth Debicki as Diana were very convincing. We’re also re-watching the last season of Succession (Binge) so we’re ready for when the final season drops in a few weeks!

Wearing/using

LUSH’s latest shower gel Sticky Dates which smells like toffee and vanilla. Perfect for autumn, I love it!

Jeans, for the first time all year.

Quote of the week

Courtesy of some hard rubbish that was on our street! It felt poignant and poetic, and like a sign from the Universe.

All we have is now.

If you’d like to share your thoughts on this post, or anything else, with me, please do!

I hope you’re also finding things in your world to savour, that give you joy, that make you think and smile.

Please note: this blog post has affiliate links with retailers such as Booktopia which means I may receive a commission for a sale that I refer, at no extra cost to you.

when the bottle breaks

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay

“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” - Andre Gide

I think we are getting a very clear message from the Universe that we need to get better at living in the moment.

When I started a daily meditation practice nearly three years ago, my aim was to get better at living in the present and meeting life on its own terms. To relinquish my need for control and simply be here now in my life instead of creating an identity out of stories, whether they were past dramas and traumas, or worries about a future that hadn’t happened yet.

I can’t say I’ve mastered it. I still get lost in drama and stories every now and then. But right now, with everything the world is facing, I am grateful for my meditation practice. For the past three years, I have been training my mind to accept every thought it has, including my deepest fears, and to listen to them with mindfulness and compassion.

And yet, until the recent pandemic crisis unfolded, I was still just as guilty as the next person of putting things off until X happens or when I’m fit enough to run a half-marathon again or when I’ve had my hair cut/brows waxed or whatever feeble excuse it might have been.

I still did this, despite having learned the lesson long ago that the present moment is all we have. A lesson which current circumstances are really hammering home.

Let me tell you a story.

A few years ago now, I was living in a tiny flat in the centre of London and I had a bottle of expensive body lotion on my dressing table. It was a Christmas gift and I'd been saving it - but for what, I'm not sure.  I would occasionally put a tiny daube of it on my hands when they felt dry and I wanted them to smell nice.  That's what I was doing one morning as I was about to leave the house for work, just picking up the bottle to put a tiny bit on my hands and be on my way. 

I must have squeezed the bottle too tightly because the next thing I knew, the bottle had broken, with jagged pieces of sharp plastic now sticking out of the thick lotion, and it had also sprayed lotion on to the floor and the wall. Just what you want when you’re running for a train, right?

Luckily, once I had wiped up the mess and got rid of the shards, I realised that if I lay the bottle on its side, with the broken side up, I could still use what was left of the lotion.  But it couldn’t be "saved" any more.  I would have to use it. So I did and, for the few weeks it lasted, I smelled lovely.

Why am I telling you this? you might ask. Because, like many epiphanies, it was a very small thing that held a much larger lesson.

Once my bottle was broken, that was it.  I couldn't save the body lotion for another day or once we move to the new house or whatever reason I wasn't allowing myself to just use it.  I had to use it now.  I had to just get on with it. The choice had been taken away from me. As it has with many far more basic everyday essentials, things we used to take for granted, now.

I don't think there is anything wrong with saving things for "best" or for a special treat. When you do indulgent things all the time, they stop becoming special and just become the norm.  So I think it's important to have a balance and definitely have some things that you do save for special times to add to that sense of occasion, and truly savour them when you do. 

But I'm not talking about buying a bottle of Pol Roger every weekend (though that would be amazing) and indulging in all kinds of extravagances as a distraction, although we all need those occasionally.  I’m also not talking about blowing your rent money on things you don’t need or can’t afford when you need to prioritise other things at this time.

What I'm talking about are the small things that you deny yourself, or put off, or only let yourself have when you’ve “earned” them, when actually those things would add so much joy and contentment to your life right now.

It could be a mug of that gorgeous, vanilla-scented loose leaf tea you love. The expensive shower gel that makes you think of ripe pears and spring flowers. New bath towels. Using the ‘good’ wine glasses, or the pretty dinner plates that your Mum gave you once a week, not just once a year.

It might not even be a thing. It could be allowing yourself to plant a garden. Get a puppy or a kitten. Learning to knit or play the piano.

Why, before everything changed, were you denying yourself these things? Why would you not have wanted to be the happiest and most fulfilled that you could possibly be? And are those reasons still valid now? It’s worth thinking about.

You never know when the choice is going to be taken away from you or when the illusion of control will be shattered. When you realise that even the ability to put something off for another time, an undefined moment in the future, was a privilege in itself.

When we save things for "later" or "for when X happens", we’re convincing ourselves that the future is going to be somehow better than what we're experiencing right now, in the present.  The truth is, the future is an illusion - it doesn't exist yet.  And the past is gone.  All we have is now.

So don’t put off your big dreams and your tiny joyful indulgences for another day, for a far off time where you envision you might be happier, more deserving, more accomplished, more worthy.

You are worthy of your dreams and your desires in life, right now. Just as you are.  

I realise that some things you want to do or treat yourself to may not be advisable or particularly do-able right now. You’re probably prioritising the basics like food and medicine and making sure your loved ones are OK over fancy hand cream, as I am.

But things won’t always be this way.

When all of this is over, I hope you will go and do all those things you’ve put off. And in the meantime, let yourself have the small moments of happiness and pleasure in your every day, whatever they might be for you. Don't wait until the bottle breaks. Or until you’re forced to stay at home.

Tell me, how are you going to look after yourself and live in the moment today?

no-waste lockdown meal plan, week 2

hummus.jpg

Glad you enjoyed my lockdown meal planning suggestions! I know it’s a scary time for a lot of us. I say let’s try and find comfort where we can and if that’s in cooking, enjoying your food and learning to make your own sourdough or yoghurt or whatever you fancy, then I say go for it. We’re all coping as best we can.

As promised, here is this week’s plan (subject to change, naturally!) and some encouragement to use this time to nourish yourself and your family, make the most of what you have already, and waste as little as possible.

Have a look at your fridge, freezer and cupboards
We have to minimise trips to the supermarket at the moment, so it makes sense to use what you have at home before venturing out to get more. Scan your fridge, pantry and freezer and see what ingredients you have already. You could even log it all in a spreadsheet and update it as you buy or use things if that’s helpful. That’s what I’m doing, but 1) that’s my project management training and 2) I kind of like taking things to the extreme!

Make a list of meals you can make
Once you know what you have in, make a list of all the meals you can think of using the ingredients you have. This is a lot of fun. You could also write down a list of all your (and partner/family’s, if you’re cooking for others too) favourite meals and see which ones you have the ingredients in for - it might be more than you think, or you could make some substitutes (grate halloumi instead of parmesan, for example).

Make a plan
Once you have your list of dishes, organise them into a week’s worth of lunches and dinners, prioritising using up the perishable items first like fresh vegetables and fruit, already-opened dairy and protein, half-empty jars of pastes/sauces in the fridge, that kind of thing.

Be adaptable and flexible
I anticipate that my meal plan might have a few switches as the week progresses. That’s cool! I think one of the best things we can be right now is flexible and roll with things, day by day.

What about breakfast?
Breakfast is probably the meal that has changed the most for me these past few weeks.

About a month ago, I stopped having a big smoothie for breakfast, which I used to do at least three times a week, if not more. I realised that, while it was a very nutritious breakfast, with the amount of fruit, almond milk, oats, peanut butter, etc I was putting in it, it was far more calorie-dense than I needed. And of course, with everything that has happened, I’m now keen to use oats, fruit, milk and other smoothie ingredients in other ways, to make them stretch further.

So our breakfasts now are pretty simple - porridge (which I make a little extra of, to make porridge bread); toast (mostly aforementioned porridge bread, with butter and Vegemite, butter and jam, ricotta and jam; or pesto and pickled tomatoes for something more substantial); or a small bowl of plain Greek yoghurt, if we want something light. I often swirl in a spoonful of homemade apple butter into the yoghurt, which is sublime.

On with the show!

Here’s this week’s plan for me and Tom. I will update with links to recipes as I make/photograph them!

Sunday 5/4
Lunch: Zucchini and butterbean soup + bread
Dinner: Roast pumpkin pizza

Monday 6/4
Lunch: Zucchini and butterbean soup + avocado toast
Dinner: Shepherd’s pie + broccoli

Tuesday 7/4
Lunch: Pumpkin and feta toasties
Dinner: Chickpea saag + rice

Wednesday 8/4
Lunch: Chickpea saag leftovers made into soup + bread
Dinner: Pumpkin, broccoli and silverbeet risotto

Thursday 9/4
Lunch: Pickled tomato and cheese toasties
Dinner: Pasta with rich chickpea sauce (adapt this recipe)

Friday 10/4
Lunch: Baked potato with beans and spinach
Dinner: Veggie burger, salad + chips

Saturday 11/4
Lunch: Poached eggs on sourdough avocado toast
Dinner: Eggplant, tomato and ricotta bake + green beans

I’m planning a lovely roast for Easter lunch on Sunday - but am not sure which nuts I have in for the traditional nut roast. That should be a fun experiment!

What about you? What’s on your meal plan this week?

lockdown meal planning

Fresh food is still plentiful. Hashtag grateful.

Fresh food is still plentiful. Hashtag grateful.

Life has changed a great deal for most of us over the past month.

The act of popping to the supermarket, knowing you would be able to find exactly what you need and purchase it in whatever quantity you desired, and knowing if you ran out of something you could easily replace it, feels like a long time ago.

Let’s be honest, it was a privileged and fortunate time.

We have to adapt to our new circumstances, given that the current way of things is probably how life will be for the foreseeable future.

Yet, every time I have braved the local food shop (or Woolworths or Coles), I have been comforted by the fact that there is still plenty of fresh produce available. You might not be able to get tinned tomatoes, but there are still plenty of fresh ones, as far as I can see. Friends and neighbours have been lavishing their excess produce on me, in exchange for some of what I make with it. And I’m learning to be flexible too. If I can’t get red lentils, I buy yellow split peas instead.

I don’t think we’ve had this varied and interesting a diet for some time. As a result, I’m enjoying cooking, preparing food and eating it more than ever. I can’t remember the last time I planned every meal with such care and thought, determined to make the most of what I had. It has been a welcome distraction and helped me feel focused and purposeful.

It’s also ensuring we use what we already have in, preventing any unnecessary trips to the supermarket. I was as guilty as the next person of picking up bits and pieces at least once a week, even when I had plenty already at home. Now that I plan each meal, I’m minimising waste and ensuring everything is used.

I hope this is a permanent change in my habits, whatever happens.

So, what are you cooking right now?

What other people cook, and their favourite standby pantry dinners, have always intrigued me, and never more so now. It gives me new ideas and encourages me to try different things.

So I thought I’d tell you what we’ve been eating this past week, and tomorrow I’ll post what my plan is for this coming week. Please join in!

As Tom and I are both working from home now, we’re enjoying all our meals together so I’m planning lunches as well.

I made a list of all the meals we have ingredients for and then made a plan based on what needed to be used up first (fresh vegetables, already opened dairy/tofu/pastes, leftovers). We have a small vegetable garden still producing ample silverbeet and zucchini (though I suspect the latter’s reign is coming to an end).

I am also making bread every few days. I’m not sure what we’ll do if we run out of flour! But we have plenty for now.

Phil’s No Waste Lockdown Meal Plan

Sunday 29/3
Lunch: Veggie burger
Dinner: Tomato, coconut and silverbeet dhal + rice

Monday 30/3
Lunch: Leftover dhal turned into soup + bread
Dinner: Tofu noodle stir fry 

Tuesday 31/3
Lunch: Leftovers fried rice (rice from Sunday, tofu from Monday, with greens, soy sauce, chilli)
Dinner: No Waste Buddha Bowl

Wednesday 1/4
Lunch: Silverbeet, lemon and risoni soup + bread
Dinner: Zucchini slice 

Thursday 2/4
Lunch: Leftover soup and zucchini slice
Dinner: Jacket potato, beans, spinach

Friday 3/4
Lunch: Zucchini slice
Dinner: Silverbeet and ricotta cannelloni

Saturday 4/4
Lunch: Haloumi and fried egg rolls
Dinner: Leftover cannelloni + green veg

I don’t know about you, but cooking has been something wonderful to focus on these past few weeks. It’s helped quieten and focus my mind. I waste nothing, I think before I use anything, and value my food in a completely different way than I used to. I hope that seeing what I’ve been up to inspires you to do the same.

no waste buddha bowl

no-waste-buddha-bowl-philippa-moore

This is more of a suggestion than a recipe but I’m finding Buddha bowls like this, where you assemble a number of savoury things you have on hand or need to use up, are very useful in minimising food waste and also absolutely delicious.

Here’s how I made the one in the picture:

  • Grains/carb: use any leftover cooked rice, quinoa, lentils, beans, etc. I made 100g couscous (50g per person) and put in some harissa seasoning and finely chopped silverbeet leaves in with the boiling water. Left for 15 minutes with a lid on, come back and fluff it up with a fork. Yum!

  • Protein: Chickpeas, egg, tofu, tempeh, or whatever you’ve got on hand. I had two chickpea burgers that needed to be eaten (they had already been defrosted from a pack of 4) so they were grilled and chopped up.

  • Ferment: Kimchi, sauerkraut, or some kind of pickles, for interest and gut health. I used some pickled tomatoes that I made last week, which are sensational. I got the recipe from Elly Curshen’s Green. This is what I plan to do with all cherry tomatoes that enter my house from now on.

  • Vegetables: Whatever fresh vegetables you have to use up, throw them in. And get creative! You can leave them raw or find an interesting way to cook them. I had a zucchini (of course! Plus flowers) and two small potatoes. I cut the zucchini into thick slices and the potatoes into thin slices, and roasted them all together with cooking spray and some flavoured salt. OMG. Not all the slices made it into the bowls, let’s put it that way!

  • Fresh herbs: if you have any to hand. Basil, thyme, dill, parsley, coriander - any of the soft herbs work well here. Avoid anything like sage and rosemary, unless you’re going to cook them with the vegetables.

  • Dip/sauce/dressing: Pesto, hummus, tzatziki, tahini, mashed avocado….whatever you have or like. My friend very kindly shared some kale, walnut and basil pesto she made and dropped it on our doorstep, so I was keen to use that.

  • Finally: I squeezed a lemon wedge over each bowl and ground some pepper over the top. There might have been a bit of pickled chilli put on my bowl too.

Mindful, conscious, no-waste eating never tasted so good!