Joy and the YamDaisy

Ful Bit Tewm - Broad Beans in Garlic

2011-11-05T19:01:00.000-07:00

Broad beans belong to a list of foods that I hated as a child, but that my mum loved. When I came to love the taste I felt truly grown up! (Coffee and mushrooms are on that list too.)

An extra treat that came with liking the taste of broad beans was the delight of growing them! They grow so quickly, and have such pretty flowers, and then such cute little pods! They were often my first harvest after winter, and especially loved for that. And that soft velvet inside the pods! So lovely!
They are one of the really seasonal foods for me.

I do eat them smaller than my mum prefers them, she would let them get huge and blue grey. I like them small and tender, but I don't mind that earthy metallic taste of their skins. To me, that is what the flavour of broadbeans is all about.

Since living in my little flat I haven't been able to grow them, but my local greengrocer will sometimes have them fresh and crisp (I don't buy them otherwise) and it is with great pleasure I then make Ful Bit Tewm.

This is a recipe I found so long ago I have no idea of the book it was in, except that I remember it being the first recipe book I read that contained recipes from around the world unanglicised.... or not very much!

FUL BIT TEWM
900g fresh broad beans
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tbsp finely chopped parsley (or coriander)
1 1/2 tsp of lemonjuice
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
300ml water

Place all the ingredients into a sacuepan.
Mix well.
Bring to the boil.
Simmer until the beans are tender.

How easy is that!

This is my favourite way of eating broadbeans, the flavours come together perfectly.
I have written the recipe as I copied it originally, but I don't follow the quantities any more! I start with however many beans I have and add the lemon, garlic and parsley according to my fancy! It always works!

Ofcourse you could take the skins off the beans for a sweeter flavour and a greener look!

This makes a wonderful side dish, but I ate them as a light lunch with cous cous and a little chopped salad with tomato and preserved lemon.
I thought it might be my only taste of them this year, but my sister just rang and said they are picking them in their veggie garden, so I just might get another dish of Ful Bit Tewm this year!

What a Week!

2011-10-19T16:58:00.000-07:00

It's Anti Poverty Week and Carers Week.
Two really relevant issues for YamDaisy Cafes!

This is just a quick post to outline these issues:

ANTI POVERTY WEEK
World poverty is a huge issue and the work of wonderful organisations like the World Food Program
(on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/WorldFoodProgramme ) happens a long way from thriving cities like mine. But there are lots of people struggling in my city, and like everywhere in the world, the gap between the rich and the poor is widening.

My experience with chronic illness has taught me that EVERYONE with a chronic illness gets poorer. If it is a parent the whole family becomes poorer and the cycle of poverty can set in. But any person or family is vulnerable to the cycle: illness and disability, not being able to manage employment, losing housing, and all the time everyone's health becomes compromised.

The role of YamDaisy Cafes are important here because the provision of delicious, healthy, affordable food lessens the burden of shopping, preparing, and cooking meals, and ensures that the meals available are not only delicious but nutritious in the way that helps prevent chronic illness and helps manage chronic illness, and therefore helps break the poverty cycle.

The importance of keeping YamDaisy meals affordable, without compromising the taste and nutrition is central to the model!

More about Anti Poverty Week here

CARERS WEEK
Mums have already put up their hands for YamDaisy Cafe food:
"Will there be takeaway?"
"Please have drive through!"
"O I would love to be able to pick up food for the family on the way home!"
But think of those families where chronic illness and disability, or just old age, mean that extra caring is needed. Schoolchildren who are caring for their ill mother through their teenage years, breadwinners who have to give up breadwinning for the sake of loved ones who need fulltime care.

If anyone ever needed a YamDaisy Cafe up the road, these families do!
I remember a woman who had a family crisis, and for several months her mum (have a guess, yes! she is Greek!) cooked a full meal for them that Maree could pick up on her way home to work.
YamDaisy Cafes are for all the families who don't have a wonderful Greek Grandmother Cook to help them through the crisis. And YamDaisy Cafe's can keep helping even when the crisis goes on for year after year.

More about Carers week here

I am talking to the local Council about a Pilot YamDaisy Cafe. Fingers crossed! It's needed!

Lentil Tomato Soup with Cheese Scones

2011-10-16T03:11:00.000-07:00

It's time to go shopping for fresh food, but I am stretching it out for a couple more days, using up bits and pieces and seeing what I can make from odds and ends.
Today I made this lovely lunch, a tasty comfort meal..

LENTIL SOUP
1/2 cup of split red lentils, rinsed and drained
3 small onions and 1 big clove of garlic, finely chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp turmeric
pinch cayenne pepper
440g tin of diced tomatoes
1 cup of stock
S and P
chopped parsley
lemon

Heat the oil in a big saucepan and fry the onion and garlic gently until just beginning to colour.
Add the spices and fry for another minute.
Add the lentils and water to cover well. Bring to the boil and then simmer gently for 20 minutes.
Make sure the lentils are cooked before adding the acid (tomatoes) and the salt (stock)
Add the tin of tomatoes and the stock, get it back to the boil and simmer another 20 minutes until the tomatoes have that rich orange look.
Check the seasoning, adding salt and pepper.
When serving add some chopped parsley to each dish and a squeeze of lemon.

CHEESE SCONES
2 cups SR flour
pinch salt
125g finely grated cheese
buttermilk (I thin down yoghurt with water)

Sift the flour and salt, mix in the cheese
Add buttermilk to mix to a soft dough - it took about 200ml

Roll it out on a floured bench to 2cm thickness and cut out scones (I got 14 little ones).
Brush the top with milk or buttermilk and top with a little grated cheese.
Cook at 220C for 15 minutes, they should be well risen and golden brown.

Then if you are like me, you can put them on a tray and have lunch in bed with a good book!
(Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold)

At Home With Julia

2011-09-24T01:08:00.000-07:00

Comedy series in four parts:Three of them have aired (on ABC1 Wednesday evenings), the last one coming up thisweek.

Julia is Julia Gillard, our current Prime Minister (and the first time we have had a woman in the role). When I heard that they had made a satirical TV series about her I had no idea what to expect!Britain has Yes Minister,the USAhas The West Wing…. What were the Australians putting together?

In a word ~ Sweetness.

I love this show.

There isn’t much sweetnessin Australian TV. It is there in spades in Junior Masterchef, it surprised mein our first Big Brother series... but in satire? At Home With Julia has the kind ofsweetness Jane Turner and Gina Riley gave Kath in Kath and Kim. And then extends the sweetness to her partner Tim Mathieson.

I am so sorry that so manypeople think it unfunny and/or tasteless. I have enjoyed all of it, and (bigtest of comedy series) believe it will get even better with rewatching.

I adore the home base of theshow. Listen to all of the people complaining about Tim being shown as the homebound partner with his hairdressing skills! It’s a fabulous subverting of thepolitics we all know best: politics in the home.

Why are people saying ‘they wouldn’t show male Prime Ministers andtheir wives in that way’ with their lips all pursed and their eyebrowslifted. OF COURSE THEY WOULDN’T! Look again! It’s fantastic! Everytime you seea busy working man with his girlfriend home alone and bored, remember this! Youwouldn’t even notice if the Prime Minister was the man! They aren’t teasing TimMathieson; they are teasing us, people!

It is the brilliant factthat we have a female Prime Minister and her partner, unmarried, that allowsthis delight.

So there is the heart of thestory, and it is never brutal, always poignant.

I wonder how it will end.

And to make this show extra gorgeous, its tender heart is set amongst the back drop of taking the piss out of federal politics. What fun they have had with the characters and the issues, the slogansand the gossip. Perfect.

That swinging between domestic Australia and domestic Australians, the national stage and the home kitchen, all perfectlyembracing the essential sweetness of two good people doing the best they can.

And the piece that hascaused the greatest outcry is the portrayal of Julia and Tim who have made upwith each other after a bitter morning and used the Australian flag to snuggleunder (they are on the floor of her office!). What a beautiful symbol of domestic politics meets federal! Go guys!

I hear all the complainingabout this show, and the falling numbers who watch it, but for me it ispriceless. I am so glad it was made. And I think that more and more people willsee it for the gem it is as time goes on.

It's great to be at home with Julia!
At Home With Julia

2011-09-13T04:22:00.000-07:00

Hello!
I have been so hectic with non blog things!
But until I can get back to my own blogging I can offer you a couple of links to wonderful blogs I have seen today.
Enjoy!

Extreme Tidying Up

Mysterious Paper Sculptures

the mysterious paper sculptures might have come from this artist::

Su Blackwell

On the radio!

2011-08-28T19:35:00.000-07:00

How I got my first YamDaisy radio interview:

I follow 'Food Fight' on facebook. It is the food program on 3CR, the long running Melbourne community radio station.
A week ago a link went up about a US report showing how local food systems benefit local economies (see here).
I commented how YamDaisy Cafes would add to the local economy and put a link to my webpage.
Shortly after, 3CR's Food Fight added this comment: Hey Joy, I know it's short notice, but would you want to discuss YamDaisy on tomorrow's show?
And so I wrote: Ooo, I would love to!

In true Hollywood style, a planned story had fallen through, I was able to take the spot! The pod cast is up now, so you can listen to it! Thanks to Jonathan for giving me such a lovely opportunity and so much support.
Look here: Food Fight Podcast and click on the podcast for Food Fight 23.08.2011 that mentions me and my YamDaisy Cafe!
What do you think?

I did my best!

At the end of the interview I ask people to 'like' my YamDaisy Cafe facebook page, so here is the link to make it easy for you! https://www.facebook.com/YamDaisy
(Thanks to you who already have!)

Yours sincerely,
almost famous!
Joy

Flying Ant Painting

2011-08-22T17:59:00.000-07:00

The round circle of loose sand that signals an ant's nest was a feature of life growing up in Victoria. We would watch out for those ants! They bite! The vibration of walking close would bring angry bull ants out to attack us.

I was reminded of them when I visited the wonderful blog Chandler A to Z and saw this post by Therese.So evocative of my Victorian bushland, even though she is on the other side of the world, in Arizona.

But I was also reminded of something closer to home. Something I could just turn my head to look at! The picture above!

When I was teaching in the Northern Territory I met with green ants, and read about honey ants, and then I was lucky to have an insight to flying ants (termites). I was teaching at Alekarenge, near Tennant Creek and I saw this picture being painted.

The artists who meticulously painted this picture about their country southwest of Warrego, were Fanny Walker and Sarah Holmes. The point of view is that of looking down on the landscape. They explained to me that the doughnut shapes are the ant holes. All the little lines that make up the background are the tracks of the little bird that has seen the ants beginning to come up and is busy catching and eating them.

When the women notice that they take their long wooden bowls: coolamon, those are the bar shapes in the painting. The women sit crosslegged, which makes the horseshoe shapes, and collect the ants in the coolamon, top them with hot ash, which is enough to cook them, and then winnow the ash off... and feast!

I really miss the beautiful Northern Territory, and I am so glad to have this art on my living room wall, that takes me back to such beautiful country.

Mystery Box Challenge

2011-08-19T18:06:00.000-07:00

This post might win the prize for 'blurriest photoes ever uploaded'! I don't really want to win that prize, but I had to post this story with what photos I had! Too late to go and take some better ones!

Here is my daughter and our friend cooking dinner for four. They were given the Mystery Box after school and had to come up with a main and a dessert using the ingredients within it (We are watchers of Australian Masterchef in our households!).

First we pulled the Mystery Box (read vegetable drawer) out of the fridge where we had been hiding it until it was time to start. The purple sarong was removed to reveal.......

Pumpkin, yellow pepper, beetroot, parsnip, beef mince and green beans!

They had to use at least some of these ingredients, plus whatever we had in the pantry.

We (the mums) kept well out of their way except for sneaking in to take a photo, and finding rows of lovely little meatballs sitting on the bench, all ready to go in the oven, and this wonderful scene:

Soon there was a long row of pasta hanging up to dry.

When we were called to eat we found our appetizers sitting on the table: thin rings of parsnip deep fried and sprinkled with salt. They were SO YUMMY! You will see a few of them in a little bowl in the picture below. Crisp with that parsnip sweetness and the delicious salt sparking them up! Such a yummy way to start a meal!

Next came our main course which included pumpkin ~ used in the pasta! No wonder it was such a golden colour! And beef mince used in the tasty meatballs, Green beans and yellow capsicum adding even more colour to the dish, and a simple tomato sauce to bring it all together.

(Sorry about the yellowness, I hope you can get an idea of how lovely it was, in spite of the photo!)

Now what could be dessert? What dessert could you have made that used an ingredient from this mystery box! Well, I will tell you what the girls made: Chocolate pudding with beetroot cream! Truly! They grated half a beetroot and squeezed out the juice to colour sweetened cream. It didn't taste of beetroot..... but O the colour!

It was even more gorgeous that this photo shows. Such a glorious pink!
An uploaded photo of it to facebook and had 35 comments trying to guess what it was!

What a delicious, surprising and fun evening it was! Thankyou Masterchefs!

Soup for a sick friend

2011-08-14T17:36:00.000-07:00

I have a friend who has been battling with 'the dreaded lurgy', those colds and flu's that pounce on Melbournians all through the winter months. This one developed into bronchitis and sinusitis and just didn't seem to shift.
There isn't much I can do to help friends, but being ill myself I know absolutely what a powerful and tricky thing help can be!
The main thing I have learned is that helping someone is a process. There is the thought, the gift, the feedback, the learning... all leading around (hopefully) to the next gift. All against a background of politeness and appreciation that just might inhibit that process.
Let me explain!

I know that having easy, delicious food on hand can be a real help when you are sick, so I offer to make soup for my friend. She assures me that her husband and daughters have been wonderful at helping to cook while she has been ill.
But I think
a) she is being polite so that I don't feel obliged to cook for her
b) the whole family is likely to feel the strain and would appreciate some help
c) my food is a good token of my care even if it isn't needed
d) and it is good opportunity to learn how I can be an even better friend another time

I plan a soup that can be put in the freezer, or will sit happily in the fridge for a few days, so it will have the best chance of being useful.
Because my friend struggles with IBS (Irritable Bowl Syndrome) I check up information to work out the best soup to make. The information is so contradictory, I ring my friend to check what things she needs to avoid.

I decide on my Pumpkin soup, see recipe here, with less red pepper than usual. Because of the state of my pantry I used no garlic, and channa dal (small chickpeas) instead of the split lentils. Here are the lovely ingredients!

It is a very easy recipe to make in the pressure cooker. I strained out the sweet red pepper skins because I had an idea that they are hard on the digestive system (not sure about that though). I blended it smooth and then put a container for my friend in the fridge. I had a bowlful for myself ~ to taste test ofcourse! wink! But also because I didn't want to give her too much, so she wouldn't feel so bad if she disliked it and had to chuck it out.
It tasted delicious to me, so I took the gift to my friend.

Here is the tricky bit. I know my friend appreciates my gift, and will want to let me know that. Isn't that lovely!
But for my gift to be most useful, I need to know the bad with the good. I need to know if it wasn't to her taste. If it was too salty. If it gave her stomach pains. Even if she accidentally spilt the lot and so didn't taste it at all.
I have regretted missing this part of the conversation when people have given things to me. Often the first time of trying something doesn't work: the outing is too long, the food too much, the massage too cold. You aren't ungrateful, but you need to find the trusting, respecting place to be able to have that conversation. If that space isn't there, all you can give is gracious thanks.

But I would love the gift that goes on, that grows with understanding, and becomes the most useful gift, the most practical, easy and comforting gift, and that grows a friendship alongside.

I shan't demand a truthful report on my soup! But I will have my eyes and ears open to see if my gift might be a little bit stronger, a little bit longer, than a container of soup.

About my YamDaisy Project

2011-08-06T19:09:00.000-07:00

When I spoke to the people at the Local Food Conversation last Sunday I focused on the local, seasonal food used in the menu at the YamDaisy Cafes (ofcourse) and this was a nice change from focussing on business, health and the delicious menu (not that I mind talking about them!).

I had a list to remind me what I wanted to say, so this post is about the list! and, hopefully, pretty much what I said in my few minutes to share.

1. Isolation, poverty, difficulties with food:
It is an awful thing that as well as coping with whatever awful chronic illness you might have, you almost always have the added burdens of greater poverty, isolation, and difficulty preparing food for yourself and your family. The YamDaisy Cafe idea helps ease these burdens for people with chronic illness, disability, or anyone struggling.
(Yes, I know there are other burdens... housing being a most serious one!)

2. An idea as big as Macca's:
When I had my idea of small local cafe's selling delicious, healthy food at prices pensioners could afford, I thought I only had to let people know, and they would say "Ofcourse!" and get my YamDaisy Cafe idea going.
But no! So I have spent 4 years working on my project with my webpage, my blog (this one!), my YamDaisy facebook page, my Comfort Food poll, and with research.
It is a big idea, I think it could be as big as Macca's! And now it is time to get a pilot cafe up and running.

3. Small menu:
The aspect of my YamDaisy Cafe that makes it different to other Cafe's - and more like mum cooking, is the soup, 2 main meals and a fruit based dessert on the menu each day. And it is like the BEST 'mumcooking': cooked from scratch with fresh, seasonal produce.

4. Local, Seasonal Food is integral to the idea:
I have entertained the idea of doing a deal with a huge supermarket chain to get this project going, but I rejected it because the Best Practice for a mum cooking for her family has to be the use of fresh, local ingredients. Wanting good health outcomes and deliciousness - as well as convenience- making use of small local producers has to be part of the model for YamDaisy Cafes.

5. YamDaisy Cafes can be good for local producers
As a business that is committed to local ingredients the YD Cafes can be a wonderful support and generator of local produce. This could include backyard producers as well as people running larger or more specialised businesses.

I gave out my little homemade cards so people could look up my webpage and like my facebook page
NOTE: Please everyone! 'Like' my YamDaisy facebook page! It is my best indication of how much support my idea has, and at the moment it only has 27 followers (Precious people every one!)

And I had my presentation folder available for people to look at. (I am working on how to share it here).

I am so pleased to say that there was lovely feedback from people there!
The very first question was "Will there be take away?" (Yes!) Thinking of those busy nights for busy families.
And when I said that my next step was to talk to local Councillors to say if they would get behind the idea for a pilot cafe I would find the money.... And then all I would have to do is find the million dollars! Someone said "How can we help you find a million dollars!"

In the nice chatty bit of the meeting when people were milling around and eating, I had to sit down, but it was lovely that I wasn't left alone and people who came and chatted and looked through my book showed such serious support for my project and gave such good feedback.
It was great to get hear that the model would suit small local producers.I left the meeting so bouyed by the great feeling of good stuff happening and that there was a swell of support for my idea.

(So it has been a bit frustrating that it has taken a week to write this blog, sigh! But slow and steady will win the race!)

The picture above shows the display on the food swap bench last Sunday, and below is my (1st draft) business card! It's onward and upward now!

Gorgeous meeting!

2011-08-02T17:47:00.000-07:00

Because of my YamDaisy project I try to keep in touch with all the good community food things that are happening around. So through a mention in a post, that sent me to a facebook group, that put up an event ~ I ended up at Edendale Farm at Eltham on the outskirts of Melbourne for the 'Local Food Conversation'.

I'm always a bit worried going to something for the first time. Will the trip be so hard I get there exhausted? Will I have to park far away and walk long distances.... or worse, have to climb stairs?
Will I find out that the meeting wasn't what I thought it was about at all?

In this case: no, no, no and no! Hooray! Plus it was a lovely sunny morning.

We had a room full of gorgeous people involved in local food projects happening in the North East of Melbourne. It was lovely to see the diversity of people and the common themes.

This post is to let you know about all the lovely things happening around here. I am sure I will have missed out some, but I have a good long list and I will put the best link I can find to them. Let me know if there is a better one! (And any information to add!)

I wonder if you have heard of any or all of them?

Local Food Connect: Facebook Page

Sustainable Gardening Australia: About SGA

And SGA's Pod Program: SGA PODs (Productive, Organic, Diverse, Sustainable Neighbourhood Gardening Groups)

GM Free Network Nillumbik

Transition Town Bundoora: Transition Towns

Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation

Edendale Farm: Local Food Task Group

Food swaps every where and a recipe book being developed to show how to use less common produce!

O, and ofcourse....

YamDaisy Project!

I took my (completed!) presentation book and some little cards with web address etc on them, and I had 10 minutes to talk to the group about my project. So next post I will share what I said!

There and back again!

2011-07-31T00:53:00.000-07:00

Today I went to the Local Food Conversation at Edendale Farm in Eltham.
This was a meeting put on by Local Food Connect.
They wanted to hear from people in the North East suburbs who had food projects, so I put up my hand and went along.

I can't wait to tell you all about it! It was wonderful and I think I have a few posts to write as a result of it.
However, YamDaisy activism and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are tricky bedfellows! One of my CFS symptoms is Orthostatic Intolerance, and that means that while I am out and about: (even when sitting at a sociable meeting) my body thinks it is setting out from Everest base camp and trudging steadily up the mountain. I start to develop all the symptoms of altitude sickness.

So I am taking it easy for a day or so and then will post again. But in between doing all the things that help me recover I am thinking of all the interesting things there are to blog about.

As I was leaving the meeting I
a) didn't put in a gold coin to help with room hire
b) did take some food swap chillies and tamarillos even though I didn't have anything to swap with.
(Going gaga is a symptom of altitude sickness!)
I am owning up now and will remedy the unhappy situation next time I go!

You can see a tamarillo on this meal I made when I got home: Mushroom and polenta bake (ready to go) with fresh avocado, parsley and tamarillo, with some marigold petals to finish. Lovely!

The photo at the top is the huge beautiful picture in the meeting room.
Cheers folk!

Daughters make dinner!

2011-07-27T18:56:00.000-07:00

What a treat!
An evening at a friends house, where my daughter and hers were out in the kitchen cooking up a storm.... while we sat and chatted in the cosy living room!
It was a magnificent dinner with chicken stuffed with herbs on a bed of sauce flavoured with red wine and mushrooms, and beautifully cooked veggies to accompany it!

How wonderful it was to come out to the table with the plates presented so beautifully!

And here are the cooks!

A Cleaver, A Cleaver, A Pumpkin

2011-07-24T19:59:00.000-07:00

See the small cleaver in the middle of the photo? That is my everyday knife. Every day it chops for me!

If I remember rightly (I am going a little Chairman Kaga here), it came from a shared student household on the outskirts of Bendigo. When everyone moved out, I was left with the clean up ~ and this handy chopper!

My friends, that was a quarter of a century ago! And since then the cleaver has chopped my veggies every day. And finally, on Saturday, I took it to a professional knife sharpener, and it is now the sharpest I have ever known it. Crikey it has been blunt the last few years and all the steeling hasn't been able to do much.

As a (mostly) vegetarian, this is pretty well all I need in the way of knives.... except for a couple of things!
Meet Big Cleaver!
Big Cleaver lives at the bottom of the drawer and comes out especially for pumpkins and coconuts! (Sharp side for pumpkins, blunt side for coconuts).

I needed it yesterday when I cracked the lovely Jap pumpkin that has been waiting patiently in the fruit bowl for a couple of months, Thankyou Big Cleaver!

I made a lovely hearty winter soup (we are in the depths of winter here) with celery, pumpkin and split peas and both my cleavers were in such fine form!

Hooray for professional knife sharpeners, for beautiful pumpkins and for all sizes of cleaver!

Beetroot Pasta Sauce!

2011-07-21T23:26:00.000-07:00

I have seen a couple of recipes for using beetroot in a sauce, and they were typical, straightforward pasta sauces using beets along with tomatoes.
I couldn't really imagine what such a sauce would taste like: but I loved the colour!

So I made a pretty typical pasta sauce by putting in my blender tomatoes (from a tin) onion, garlic, olive oil and a little chilli, plus the two cooked beetroots (see here) with their skins and stalks rubbed off. I blended them all up and then popped them in a saucepan to cook for half an hour. The sauce spat a bit and made glorious coloured splatters all over my stove, but other than that - it couldn't be easier!
While I cooked up the pasta (big tubes which I broke into thirds to make them more manageable) I also cooked the beet leaves by slicing them thinly and braising them in a little butter and the water left on them from washing them.
The walnuts made a lovely garnish!

Then I ate it. YUM! I couldn't imagine the tastes of tomato and beetroots together, but it was glorious! It was a delicious comforting tasty sauce that was beautifully balanced by the greens and walnuts. Simple and very special! I can't wait to wow some visitors with this dish!

Highly recommended!

(Plate when finished!)

A beetrooty gift!

2011-07-21T04:29:00.000-07:00

A friend called in after shopping.
"Help!" she cried! "How on earth do you shop for one?"

I laughed (sympathetically). I have been through that transition too!
When you are cooking for a household you buy in bulk,. When the carrots are all used up and the potatoes are getting low.... you know it is time to go shopping again.

But when there is just you, it is amazing how little food is needed! When all the carrots and potatoes are gone, you can still find meals for the next three days!

"Look, I've bought too much!" said my friend. "Please help me by taking some. Have half the bunch of celery. Half the lettuce. O please take a couple of beetroots! They have their lovely fresh leaves attached too! O and I couldn't resist this bag of potatoes. Take 8!"

So here are the beetroot. I pressure cooked them for a short 10 minutes (maybe 8?) which was perfect. Their lovely fresh leaves were removed first.
What do you think I made with them?

(I'll tell you tomorrow!)

Breakfast

2011-07-17T18:19:00.000-07:00

I was delighted to discover a few weeks ago, that this blog rated on the BIG List of Food Blogs! and It had 6 recommendations!
It was at number 5649 I think! I went back to check the listing exactly ~ and it had gone. O sad face! That's what comes of being such a sometimes blogger and, not to mention, putting up blogs about non food subjects.
O well, fame is fleeting!

But here I am doing a lovely food post to show you my delicious breakfast! Every component was special. I'll tell you what I mean:
The toast is made from my delicious chestnut bread (about 2/3 cup of mashed chestnuts from my friend's trees added to the usual ingredients).
The arrabbiata sauce I made for my sisters visit. It is a pasta sauce with chili in it. My sisters have gone home, but I had sauce left over! I heated a little of it until it was very thick and smeared it on my toast.
The avocado was a gift from one of my sisters. It grew on her farm! It had been sitting in my fruit bowl ripening and when I cut into it it was so soft and creamy!
A friend introduced me to these big fat green olives they have for sale at Cozzella Brothers Thornbury, and gave me a container full!
And the parsley is growing in my garden.

And it all came together for my delicious breakfast!
Wishing you all delicious breakfasts too!

In love with linen teatowels!

2011-06-26T17:52:00.000-07:00

Here are two of my linen teatowels. They are sitting on my purple spotted ironing board! Not the best background, but they have just been ironed!
I am new to the delights of linen tea towels! For a long time I lived in shared households and with hand me down tea towels. When I began buying my own I worked out very quickly I wanted to avoid any polyester in them, and looked for pure cotton.
I knew linen teatowles were cosidered high quality, but I didn't know why ~ I had gone off linen after being exasperated by such easily crumpled clothes.

Recently I have had one friend educating me about patience with linen clothing (which means finding second hand linen clothes is a boon!) and another enlightening me on the quality of linen tea towels. She has just been given a glorious pile of beautiful linen teatowels that are really works of art. And so she kindly passed on to me a couple of the lovely teatowels she had made, as well as a large brocade one.

Now I understand! SO absorbent! Resistant to dirt and stains! (And better for the environment).

I love them.

Well, I am never too old to learn, and how glad I am to learn this one before I begin my first YamDaisy marketing venture. I plan to get teatowels designed and printed with a yam daisy to promote and raise money for my YamDaisy Cafe project. Guess what! They will be pure linen!

Cheers for the Childless

2011-06-15T17:32:00.000-07:00

We celebrate Mothers Day and Fathers Day because it is so important to appreciate their care and hard work in bringing up the children that are our future.

I would like to celebrate another group of people whose decisions, care and hard work also affect our future.

I know several people who have made the decision to be childless. Two very dear sisters are among them.

Thank goodness for those people who are not having children!

Whether their decisions were easy or hard, simple or complicated, their decision means the pressure of populations on our dear Earth is that little bit lessened.

When I grew up the common view was that a woman without children was not ‘fulfilled’ not a ‘proper’ woman, not ‘complete’. No doubt men are maligned similarly. Hopefully we have come a long way from that point of view. But we need to go further. We need to say Hooray! We need to celebrate those people for the decision they have made that benefits every country, every continent, every ocean of our planet.

And I want to include those men and woman who may not have chosen to be childless, but were made so by cruel fate or circumstance. After all, we celebrate Mothers and Fathers who may have had their children as a result of cruel fate or circumstance! Fair is fair!

I have been thinking about blogging this for a while, watching as Mothers’ Days and Fathers’ Days blossom and blink all over the world. What special day could I use to celebrate those childless men and women?

Well, today is the day. It is my birthday, (don't believe the date on the blog! It is Thursday here, and the day began with this lunar eclipse just before dawn!).

I am dedicating it this way. I really hope that if you are childless you hear me cheering you, and if you know someone who has decided to be childless, please pass on a cheer from me, and give them a hooray yourself!

Thankyou for reading, and a special thankyou to you childless ones!

Producers

2011-06-13T20:42:00.000-07:00

Our Melbourne paper. The Age, has a Tuesday Epicure section which was dedicated this week to small, specialist producers.
There are a lot of them!
Animal welfare, respect for the best quality, innovative marketing (eg buying a whole lamb at a time) and lots of specialising. Organic, Permaculture... There is even a new shop opening to cater to the needs of bee keepers!
It is nice to think this part of the food industry is growing up in time to be useful for the Yam Daisy Cafes! And, ofcourse, the YD Cafes will be very useful to them.
While the YamDaisy isn't a high budget enterprise, the idea is that it works like a family home. The economy of bulk cooking, avoiding waste, using what is in season, and in plentiful supply, means that there is room to buy beautiful produce.
And imagine what a difference it will make to such local producers when there are lots of YamDaisy Cafes, feeding lots of local families. Lovely!

Hug a Climate Scientist!

2011-06-09T21:00:00.000-07:00

There has been such a crisis throughout the world as the evidence of Climate Scientists has shown us truths about our behaviour and the likely consequences on the Earth's systems. To respond properly to the evidence we need drastic change in behaviour, and this is threatening to people who hold a view of the world that will not admit the evidence.
We have seen the sad result of this in nasty threats to Australian Climate Scientists, including death threats. These people work to get us the best information so we can make the best decisions, and we need to show our support.
So today has been declared Hug A Climate Scientist Day.
The picture above comes from First Dog on The Moon: See HERE

How can you help?

If you see a Climate Scientist ~ Give them a hug!

Share this blogpost! (Or the one in the link!)

If you are on twitter, make it a world wide trend by tweeting a message #HugAClimateScientist (or even with all lowercase!)

Or you can follow me on Twitter and retweet me! Find joystevenson

Or find your own special way to highlight Hug A Climate Scientist Day!

Best wishes to you on Hug A Scientist Day June 10 2011!

Win! Win!

2011-06-08T20:51:00.000-07:00

I am up to the last page of my presentation folio about my YamDaisy Cafe idea, and it is called Win Win!
But really it is Win Win Win Win Win!

The customers win because they are getting delicious home style food at prices they can afford.

The Chef/Managers win because they are getting fair, satisfying employment.

Communities win because YamDaisy Cafe's can break down isolation and foster community connections.

The Health System wins because access to nutritious food is key to the prevention and management of so many chronic illnesses. And also because the YD Cafes can be a useful research point.

All levels of government win because better health and community connections save money.

The environment wins because using local produce cuts down food miles, making things from scratch cuts down on packaging, good systems restrict waste, innovative sustainable designs save energy.

Local producers win because they will have a steady, responsive, local market for their produce.

I wonder how many more I will think up before I am finished!

6 months....

2011-06-07T03:21:00.000-07:00

It is 6 months since I cut sugar out of my diet, although it took about 4 months before I got serious enough to research the sugar content of foods. I blogged about that HERE.
And I have just finished a course of probiotics too.
It is really clear that cutting sugar out of my diet as much as I can has been very good for my health, in fact I feel pretty sure that sugar has been affecting me badly all my life. (I am not sure if the probiotics made any difference at all. That's okay, I can do without spending $60 on them again).

As well as all the symptoms that I describe as being poisoned (I still can't think of a better description) that I am SO glad to be without, the by product has been that I am quickly losing the extra weight I was carrying around, and that is a lovely relief too. Sugar was clearly messing around with my appetite, and now I can eat what I like and know that when I am full I will stop.

So I won't put sugar back in my diet any time soon. I will have to play by ear what I will try and how much. I had a piece of apple that seemed to have no consequence, a Chinese meal that surely had some sugar in the sauce, no problem, and a poached pear that might have been a problem.
A little bit of not too much sugar every now and then seems to be the way to go!

~ I have missed sugar though.
Now when I look through the blogs I follow I skip over the cakes and desserts, too painful!
I do feel a pang in the heart when I see a fresh baklava a friend is having with her coffee.
I SO wanted to make Pasteria Napoletana at Easter.
But it is not too bad, and well worth an occasional regret.

I am finding savoury treats! That is a fun adventure. And ofcourse my main meals are still very easy. The one above is a spicy bean stew with potato wedges, cheesey corn chips and salad from my garden. Tomatoes and sweetcorn are the highest sugar ingredients, and they aren't too bad!

So that's my update. I feel so lucky that I worked out something that was making me so crook and what a simple thing to remedy! Life is heaps better! Cheers!

World Environment Day

2011-06-04T21:28:00.000-07:00

June the 5th is World Environment Day.
The first time I responded to it was in 1986 when I did a series of classroom activities about it. The favourite one was where the children picked a card with the name of an animal or vegetable on it. Then we linked them with string between the animal and what they ate, so they could start to see the web of life and all the connections. It was VERY webby by the time we had finished!

Today there are three World Environment Day items I would love to share with you.

My first thought is for my YamDaisy Cafe idea:
Last year I gave a list of the role YamDaisy Cafe's could play to lessen the environmental footpprint. Chick here to see.

Today I would like to focus on the delight that good environmental practice would give to the YamDaisy menu by quoting the wonderful Eddie of Hoos Cooking, talking about the YamDaisy idea of using local seasonal produce:
"The idea of opening places that use local ingredients and is affordable is a wonderful plan, though. I would say that some places grow certain things while others may not. For instance, in my area we have a history (even a tradtion) of growing Gravenstein apples. My problem with the local chains (restaurants and markets) is that they don't carry them and many growers have ripped out their orchards and planted vineyards in their places. If a chain restaurant offered a Gravenstein apple pie in midsummer when they are at their peak, I would break my rule of staying away from chains and gladly indulge just to support local growers."
Isn't that a wonderful point! To have an area celebrating, and feasting on, their magnificent local produce with delicious affordable meals.
That is what I am on about!

Celebration of Place:
As well as celebrating local produce I recently began a facebook page to celebrate my place of living. Because I spend a lot of time housebound I really appreciate what is around me when I get out. Even though I live in a big city, all around me is the wonder of nature and the examples of people responding to the particular climate, geology and geography of this place.
Would you like a look at my place? Here it is: Fairfield ~ Around and About.
And here is a picture of Darebin Creek, just a few blocks from my home:

And one final World Environment Day link: The Conversation is a news site where the information comes straight from the researchers. It is a great place to look for reputable science and has a terrific section on environmental and energy research.

Cheers for our beautiful, precious world this World Environment Day.... and every day!

The First Magic Dal

2011-06-03T19:16:00.000-07:00

I had tasted dal before. But this was the first Magic Dal!
I was living in a shared student house on the outskirts of Bendigo and we were having friends over, and everyone made an Indian dish for our feast.

I found a recipe using yellow split peas and I made it carefully: I remember how long it took for the split peas to cook, and how careful I was not to let them catch on the bottom of the pan as they got thicker and mushier.

And I remember adding the tarka and having a taste and being bowled over by the delicious addictiveness of it. So yum!

I carefully copied out the recipe and remade it often. It was several years later that I heard people recommend Madhur Jaffrey's books, and then found my recipe in one of them.

Now I live in a very multicultural part of Melbourne, the ingredients are easy to come by, and I make the recipe with the little chana dal instead of yellow split peas, and I double most of the spices that go in it too!

You can see Madhur's recipe here: Chana Dal

This is how I do it:
I wash a cup of chana dal about 7 times (saving the water for my garden) until the water runs clear.
I cook them with 1tsp of turmeric powder and a teaspoon of finely grated ginger.
(I do use my pressure cooker being extremely careful to skim the pulses when they begin to boil, then adding the spices and a little oil and pressure cooking for 15 minutes. Often they need a little longer cooking after that, but it is SO much quicker than the hour and a half they take on the stovetop.
Disobey your pressure cooker instructions at your own risk!)

When done, add a tsp of salt and 1/4 tsp of garam masala and stir to mix.

Now I heat 3tbsp of ghee (yes you really need that much!) in my small cast iron frying pan. When it is hot add in 1 tsp of cumin seeds and then 2 crushed garlic. This browns so quickly in my pan that I turn off the flame as soon as it goes in. By the time I add 1/4 tsp of my chili powder (which is on the hot side) the garlic is golden and the cumin is fragrant. The chili powder (properly cayenne, but here in Melbourne we mostly call it chili powder. And usually spelt chilli!) froths a little.
Now pour this alchemical mixture into the dal and stir it through. Magic has happened!

Addictive!

For a friend

2011-06-01T16:51:00.000-07:00

Best Wishes
Sometimes life is like this:

Wishing you
and everyone
a good month with plenty of hilltops!

This could be a YamDaisy meal!

2011-05-31T18:59:00.000-07:00

Pan Fried Fish Fillets with Rockety Salad and Oven Chips

My daughter is staying with me for a short while and has cooked some great meals. When she made this one she said "I think this would be a good meal for your YamDaisy Cafe". And I had to agree.

I am really sorry to say I can't remember what fish it is. I asked the woman at the fish shop and she suggested a few varieties, and I chose the palest. (Yes I am a fish wimp). Rose coated them with a dusting of seasoned flour, a dip in some egg, and then coated with crushed Savoy crackers and corn chips (making do with what was in the pantry).
Oooh they were delicious! Just perfect!

The salad went well with it, based around rocket but with lettuce leaves from the garden, red onion, cucumber and tomato. The lemony dressing was perfect.

And then she finished off with oven cooked chips, but mentioned that potato wedges might be a healthier version and a good alternative for the YamDaisy Cafe. Good point.

And this was our delicious plateful. How I would love to have a meal like this available to all the people who need a homecooked meal tonight, but just can't manage to make one for themselves.

Thanks Rose!

Songs of Freedom

2011-05-29T02:17:00.000-07:00

I have been looking forward to this documentary, and it was wonderful to see it on TV (SBS) last night!
Check out the trailer HERE to see why, and I hope you might get the chance to see this sometime!

Cutest

2011-05-27T21:29:00.000-07:00

Let's see if I can embed this video:

Yay I did it!
I am so reminded of my sleeping with my own baby in my arms!

World Turtle Day

2011-05-23T01:11:00.000-07:00

This beautiful design comes from a cloth I bought from the women's textile group at Borroloola when I was teaching there.
Borroloola is in the subtropics of Australia in the Gulf of Carpentaria. These long necked tortoises lived in the lagoons and hibernated in the mud.
But my favourite turtle experience when I was up there was seeing two huge green sea turtles mating (!) in the sea as our boat passed by them.

(I am using turtle and tortoise interchangeable as they mean generally the same thing used differently around the world).

Turtles took on a real importance to me a decade later when I used them symbolically.
I had left work because of my bad health... but I wanted to do something! I decided to start a community development project for people with CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME/CFIDS) in my area.

But I knew I had to manage it carefully for the sake of my own health and for everyone who got involved.
I thought of 'Slow and Steady' wins the race and decided to call it the Tortoise project. That name would be a continual reminder for me to take it slowly and never to take on more than I could do.

What a difference to most of my community development work! It usually consisted of crisis after crisis and deadlines rushing at me headlong!

I thought I would be very slow and getting things done, and I was philosophical that going very slowly was better than not going at all.

But what I discovered was something quite different!

Tortoise behaviour: going step by careful step, actually resulted with things happening at a very good pace. With no crisis, no rushing to get things done before deadlines, less shortcuts and decisions made on the run, the project developed wonderfully!
Every decision was the best decision that could be made. Holding back and taking time to consider meant we moved forward in the most efficient, productive way!

Noting the same kind of philosophy by the Slow Food Movement I dubbed this style Slow Community Development. I champion it every chance I have! (Like this one!).

Thankyou turtles!

Life is a Steam Train!

2011-05-20T21:04:00.000-07:00

But a slow day of sunshine is calling me!

We have had a couple of weeks of such wintery weather, but we are back to lovely Autumn today. That is my front door with the draught stopper rabbit my niece made holding it open, and warm sunshine puring in!

My life isn't always a steam train! But the last couple of weeks have felt just like one! Puffing and chuffing with whistles and steam billowing out! And saying to myself "I think I can, I think I can!"

Even getting used to winter clothing has ramped things up! All those extra layers feel cumbersome at first! And it is hard to get the warmth levels quite right!

Also, I still haven't got the last graphics for my YamDaisy Cafe folio quite sorted! And I am focusing my mind on the next step, it is not quite clear yet.

My daughter might be here for a week ~ such a treat! But I have to get the spare room sorted! Chuff chuff chuff!

The big new thing has been the possibility of working with a local organisation with their strategic planning. This one is in the process of incremental small steps just to see if we can work together. But I have been sorting and polishing my community development skills and preparing for a presentation. I am really excited about this, because if there is one thing to learn when living with chronic illness it is strategic planning!
I would so love to be able to contribute to my community in this way! Wish me luck please!

In the meantime blogging and cooking have fallen down to the bottom of my basket! Eep! Time to pull them out and sit them in their proper places! Yesterday I made a big pot of minestrone and today I am planning an eggplant curry and a cauliflower one! If I have got things right you just might see them in a blog post very soon!

Cheers everyone,
I am off for a walk in the sunshine!

Mother's Day Best Wishes

2011-05-07T18:56:00.000-07:00

YamDaisy and Fair Trade

2011-05-06T19:33:00.000-07:00

It is Fair Trade fortnight in Australia.

Fair Trade is about making sure that our business exchange with third world countries is not based on taking cruel advantage of the difference in power and wealth of the countries. You can read more about it HERE.

This is something YamDaisy can really help with! While the main focus for YanDaisy Cafes is on local produce, there will be items we need to source from Fair Trade companies and we can proudly do so. As YamDaisy Cafes become a bigger organisation, these decisions will have greater power and do more good in the countries where they are based.

Baby Eggplant Coconut Curry

2011-04-30T03:44:00.000-07:00

There were more beautiful eggplants at the greengrocers this week. Teeny little baby ones! So sweet.

I searched through my cookbooks to find a suitable recipe. I was a bit worried, because I have worked out the tongue-bitey-ness I find in eggplants is in their skin, and I have taken to peeling them as much as possible. But how could I peel these sweet little things? Their gorgeousness would be gone!

I found a recipe that specified baby eggplants (and was sugarfree). I had made it before but with large eggplants and almonds instead of cashews, and noted it as YUM! Time to try again with all the right ingredients.

Here is the recipe from Tyler Florence:

Baby Eggplants in a Curry Coconut Sauce

and HERE and HERE are a couple of blogs from people who have made it.

It worked really well!

The sauce is so tasty and so thick and creamy and the eggplants get so smoky and sticky charred, so that when the two come together the result is fantastic! I just cut the little ones in half. And once cooked there was no tongue-bitey-ness!

I wish I had taken a picture of the eggplants frying as that would show the two parts that come together. O well.

In fact, I added some cauliflower towards the end because it seemed by eggplants were even babier than the original, and I could have had twice as many. The cauliflower was a good addition though! And I lucked out with the timing so that it was cooked perfectly by the time the eggplant was done.

I used oil for frying the onions, but kept to the ghee for the eggplant.
Even with the tablespoon of curry powder, this is a very mild curry.

Thinking about serving this in a YamDaisy Cafe... well, the smokey and creaminess is fantastic: but it could be confronting to some tastes! It is also quite rich, and so better as a smaller potion. So while it is a lovely vegetarian curry and a complete meal served with rice and green leaves as suggested, I have added a piece of roast chicken so the curry serves more of a side dish and could be easier for people to try.

(not the best photo ~ sorry)

Once they try a couple of mouthfuls, of course, I'm betting they will love it as much as I do!

YamDaisy College Memories

2011-04-26T19:48:00.000-07:00

Here is my blue plate again! Full of the last of the Punjabi Rajma with roasted potato and pumpkin and some freshly picked parsley to garnish. Perfect! (It is sort of related to this post!)

When I first went to college, studying to be a teacher, I was such a wholefoods vegetarian type that I completely avoided the cafeteria. EXCEPT for one pleasure: The apricot pie. These were small pies, no doubt bought bulk, frozen and heated until the insides were molten and then left int the pie warmer until the end of the day.

My main memory is of buying a hot apricot pie and sneaking it into a lecture one cold hungry day. I remember the delicious taste of the apricots against the pastry and the challenge to avoid burning my tongue and also avoid getting drips of apricot filling over my notes. An altogether satisfying memory of food at Toorak Teachers College in the late 1970's ~ and probably just as well that it is my only one!

I dropped out of that course, but in the '80's I tried again and finally completed my Teaching at Bendigo. O Enlightened times! The cafeteria was there selling tired chips and sad other junky things as usual, and lots of soft drinks (but no apricot pies if I remember rightly!). But in the other corner of the Student Lounge was the health food cafe! I can't remember what it was called: Green something probably!

Truthfully.... it was not much better. I didn't bother with the salads there, they were so much tireder than the ones we made at home. An occasional piece of carrot cake (very ordinary, a bit oily) with a coffee is my memory from there, and, well, it isn't nearly as good as my apricot pie experience!

My WORST memory of college food came in the late 1970's when I went on a trip to Northern Europe with the Architecture students at RMIT. We stayed at a university in London and the vegetarian meal I was given consisted of a thawed pizza (a horrible one) topped with instant mashed potato.

These college food memories are in response to (another) Jamie Oliver Forum post about the dreadful food options in a British college right now today. That's a quarter of a century after my last experience college food. O dear, O dear, O dear, O dear!

So here is another plug for my YamDaisy Cafe concept. Instead of the college tendering out to whatever company sells food cheapest, they can put in a YamDaisy Cafe and get fresh, seasonal, delicious food that gives the students health and does their brains some good too!

And those red kidney beans with roasted vegetables just might be on the menu!

YamDaisy Menu for Someone Who Needs It!

2011-04-21T05:02:00.000-07:00

This was posted on a food forum I follow (Jamie Oliver.com/forum):
"My mother lives on probably less than $100 USD a month for her food budget. She has many health problems, many of which could disappear if she could eat healthier. To my knowledge there is no program or organization that could send someone to go shopping with her to make good decisions on what she buys when she shops. I live over an hour away from her, and honestly, I'm not too savy myself. Can anyone give me (and others) good low cost veggie and meat ideas? Goal to make $100 USD last a month and still be healthy."

I asked if I could use this post, because it talks about such a big issue. This woman is a grandmother with chronic illness and few resources. I think she deserves some looking after.

There is advice about buying fresh cheap food and preparing and cooking, and avoiding waste, and storing and so on.

But how I wish THIS is what was happening for her:

A YamDaisy Cafe is opening in the neighbourhood and the local paper has a big article on it. Mrs Inlinet has signed up and filled out a questionnaire about her favourite foods.

She has also agreed to be part of the research they are doing, and so has given them information about her health problems. A young woman came around and interviewed her, and explained that there would be another interview after a year, to see how her health is then.

Mrs Inlinet is on a very low income, but the meals are low cost, and each week there are member specials.

The first menu has come out and Mrs Inlinet is looking it over to see what she will choose.

YAMDAISY MENU
(Springtime in the USA)

SOUP

Pea Cream Soup from Love Lives In The Kitchen, (LINK HERE) with melba toast

MAIN 1

Spice Crusted Cod Fillet with Zucchini Salad from Angie's Recipes (LINK HERE)

MAIN 2

Polpettone (from 3 Hungry Tummies LINK HERE)

with Roasted Potato and Asparagus (from Cinnamon Spice LINK HERE)

FRUIT BASED DESSERT

Rhubarb and Icecream from Belleau Kitchen LINK HERE

A choice of beautiful seasonal food lovingly cooked is what we all deserve!
Especially someone who has is struggling with illness and poverty, who has cared for a family, and needs to care for herself.
Mrs Inlinet can eat at the cafe, or choose takeaway. Why not both? And have a whole day of being looked after foodwise, whenever she needs one.

As you have seen, I put this menu together from wonderful blog posts. Hooray to those bloggers!

More info about the YamDaisy Cafe idea is HERE: and more menus are HERE:

Red Kidney Beans Punjabi Style

2011-04-18T00:48:00.000-07:00

I am so pleased to share this recipe with you ~ because it is absolutely delicious!
It is so rich and creamy I don't make it often, but I absolutely relish it when I do make it.
The recipe is from Madhur Jaffrey and it is so different from the other red kidney bean curry recipes that are full of tomatoes and chili!
This is how I make it:

Punjabi Rajma

Soak one cup of dried red kidney beans overnight in plenty of water.
Drain and rinse (there they are above).
Put them in the cooking pot and cover with water bring them to the boil. Let them boil for 10 minutes. Skim of any froth if necessary.
Then add 2 thin slices of ginger and cook them until tender. This takes 8 minutes in my pressure cooker.

When they are cooked drain them, reserving the liquid.
Put them back into the pot with enough liquid (about 3/4 cup) to make into the 'gravy'.
Mash about half the beans so that they thicken the dish and create the texture (you can blend half and then add them back in)
Then add
a teaspoon of salt
1 1/2 tbsps of lemon juice
1/4 tsp of garam masala
3 tbsp rich cream

In a small frying pan heat 3tbs ghee (I use half oil)
when it is hot add
1 tsp cumin seeds. let them sizzle for a second and then add
2 finely chopped garlic cloves and 1/2 tsp finely grated ginger
then add three whole dried chililies and let it all sizzle until the chilies are puffed.
Pour the spices (the tarka) into the beans and stir.

Let it sit on a low heat, stirring as it heats up, just so that it begins to bubble.
This makes the gravy turn into the sexiest garlic cumin cream with the lemon and ginger giving it a wonderful lift. O yum it is gorgeous!

I ate them simply for lunch with rice and lettuce,

but they would really prefer to be eaten with fresh chapatis.

Guess what I am making next!

Edit: If you use small whole dried chilies, remove them before serving! Otherwise you or a guest might get a horrible shock!

Edit 2: It goes SO WELL with roasted veggies! Yum yum yum!

Waiting til it comes around on the guitar....

2011-04-15T18:40:00.000-07:00

Do you recognise the line from Alice's Restaurant?
(Are you THAT old! wink)
He is singing his song in a storytelling way, chatting in between singing bits and, near the end of the song, as it comes up for the chorus he says 'I just have to wait until it comes around on the guitar'.

I think of this so often with my health going up and down in waves. If I want to do something, I often have to wait patiently until a time when my health is in the right place to attempt it. It can be very frustrating, but the best way is to think of my life as an Arlo Guthrie song, travelling along in a storytelling way and waiting until the right moment comes around on the guitar.

This is the state I am in with my YamDaisy project. Pretty well EVERYTHING is waiting on me updating the website, and it will take a fair amount of mental effort and sustained work.... and I just have to wait until it comes around on the guitar!

In the meantime.....

I am eating a lot of miso soup! That's why there is a picture of it at the top!
I went to the Friends of the Earth shop because they have large containers of beautiful fresh miso and I can fill up my jar with the soft, rich wonderful stuff. The darkest one is my favourite at the moment!

I cook my vegies in water or stock and then use Madhur Jaffrey's hint to put the miso into a small strainer with the bottom in the soup (now off the heat). I use my soup spoon to work the miso into the liquid through the strainer. This allows me to check that I have the strength right more easily, and also mkes the mixing in smoother. It is so easy and delicious, and healthy too!

You can see the bowl in the photo is full of veggies, but sometimes I make it with no veggies at all, or with an elegant few. And then there are additions like noodles and chicken.

It was my New Year's Resolution to eat more miso soup, and I am so glad I am doing it! (While I am waiting to get on to that website of mine!)

Here's a link to Alice's Restaurant on youtube just in case you are wondering what on Earth I am talking about! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8DtpdXZi0M

Cheers everyone!

On my way to Imam Bayildi

2011-04-08T22:37:00.000-07:00

I was inspired to try Imam Bayildi again by these small, perfect eggplants at the geengrocers last week.

Imam Bayildi is a dish I have known forever. It is a classic Middle Eastern dish, a classic vegetarian dish. I have copied it out of books so often the recipe I have in my notebook is one I melded from three different sources.

But it has been a while since I tried to make it.
The reason? I have never made a good one.
Edible? Yes.
Delicious? A dish so wonderful it is in a million recipe collections? A dish so good that the Imam fainted?
Not mine.

I have just realised that I might never have tasted anyone else's version of this dish! Could it be that other people have the same problem as me? My attempts always tasted boring. Always tasted like eggplant cooked with onion and a bit of tomato.

Then I read the recipe from Theodore Kyriakou who concentrated on heaps of olive oil (something I tended to cut down on, rather than beef up!) and long unctious cooking of onions, and then another long roasting of the eggplant.

I did try his recipe a couple of years ago but still didn't make anything marvellous...
But look, the most perfect little eggplants, just the right size to be fried all over! Time to try again. And this time I would concentrate on the long roasting ~ I have learnt how much eggplant likes such treatment!

I didn't worry about the recipe this time, I just had 'long slow cooking' and 'plenty of olive oil' in my head. I chopped up the onion and set it to fry long and gently with a bit of garlic added. And turned my attention to the eggplants. I was so worried about not cooking them well enough that I cut them in half ~ probably not necessary. I peeled them in stripes and let them brown on each side, one side in the frying pan and the other side under the grill.
Then I added a whole tin of diced tomatoes to the onion (overkill, none of my recipes ask for that much tomato!) and when I had the eggplants done I popped them into the baking dish with onion/tomato under and on top. 40 minutes in the oven with foil covering, and then 10 more minutes with the foil off.

Delicious!
I am not quite sure that I can call this Imam Bayildi, but I know I am on the right track. I've got the foundation right, so next time I will follow the recipe (one, or a combination) with confidence and let you know the results.
But in the meantime.... Any tips anyone ~ to help me on the way to a classic dish?

The YamDaisy Cafe Dragon

2011-04-01T19:38:00.000-07:00

This dragon picture describes just how I am feeling about my YamDaisy project at the moment.
The different dragons fighting, dancing, some hardly visible, but one standing out strongly!

It is a common problem, but still really hard, to have a good idea and not have the resources: health, money, networks... to get it into practice.
I am an ideas person and even on my worst days can have six impossible ideas before breakfast! But my impossible ideas have got better and better, and this one, the YamDaisy Cafe idea, is one that just should be possible.

It is the idea that could most simply and sustainably solve the most problems, and improve the most lives, of all the good ideas I have ever had.

But here I am with the worst health, the least money and the fewest resources I have ever had in my life. What to do?

My current aim is to get it into as complete an argument as I can, in as engaging a form as I can, on my website and then see if I can invite people to consider it for their community, or other endeavours, that have the YamDaisy aim of providing delicious healthy food in a sustainable way to everyone who needs it.

But even the work of sorting ideas and finding the right words and images and the right presentation style is hard work and my health has been in a down swing for a few weeks, so the project feels like my knitting, sitting patiently in my workbasket for years, waiting for me to get back to it.

While I always knew I might never get the project off the ground, my heart hadn't quite believed me. But I was giving my heart a good talking to over the last month. That is.... until the feisty black dragon jumped out again.

I only need to hear them talk on the TV or radio, or see an article in the newspaper, about worsening food statistics, the awful health of people who can't feed themselves properly, the different attempts of people to address the issue.... and that heart of mine jumps up again saying 'Listen to my idea!'

So here it is at the top of my priorities again, hoping for a health upswing to come quickly!

Cheers dragons! Keep moving! My heart believes.

And who knows, I might even be able to do some knitting again too!

PS The dragons come from a beautiful book 'Chinese Textiles' by Verity Wilson.

Summer End and Gomasio

2011-03-30T17:23:00.000-07:00

Deja Vu?
This meal was inspired by the one my friend Em made for me not long ago.
I haven't made rice paper rolls for a while (isn't it lucky the rice papers don't mind sitting in the pantry for a long time!). It was always a meal for a hot evening when my daughter was still at home. The big tray of salad ingredients and the leisurely rolling and eating is perfect when the weather is so hot and heavy no one has much appetite.
It was hard to make it just for me.. but then Summer gave a last hot day and I was hungry for the eggs and the sesame greens that Em introduced to my rice paper roll repertoire!
So I puddled around and got it ready and then rolled them all up.

And it was great!

It also inspired me to make Gomasio which I haven't made for years and years and years.
Nothing could be easier! Just toast sesame seeds (I made about a cup full) by putting them in a dry frypan and stirring them over the heat until they are lightly coloured and smelling toasty! Then add enough salt so it is perfect to sprinkle on top of things (about one teaspoon full was right for me). Cool completely and keep in an airtight jar. And sprinkle away!
It is especially good on greens, but try it on roast veggies, or as a lovely finishing touch to a salad.

Tribute

2011-03-28T21:14:00.000-07:00

I have been counting back the years to finding my first DWJ book in the children's section of Belgrave public library.
I always searched through the children's section, partly because I was a primary school teacher, and partly because I often found better writing there than in the adults bookshelves.
Do you know, it was more than thirty years ago! That is how old I am!
But how pleased I am that I discovered Diana Wynne Jones back then and so for my whole adult life I have had the pleasure of her writing.
I was stunned by her stories. I hadn't read anything so rich and full of complex ideas and so satisfying. So full of magic and so full of reality.
The first one I read was 'Spellcoats' and the second was The Power of Three.

The Power of Three remained my favourite until Hexwood. But then, there are so many favourites.

Her writing is like inverted science fiction. Instead of taking the newest ideas from science and extrapolating them forward with stories of people trying to cope in those challenges. She goes back to the old traditions, ancient mythologies and folklore and pops these into the modern world, alternative worlds or future worlds (yes science fiction mixed in!).

Her worlds are so rich and complete and full of wonder and magic. And for years it was her ability to make magic real that I thought was what satisfied me most in her stories. It was the magic in the worlds and the way her characters engaged with it that brought the stories to their satisfying conclusions.

But really it is her families that are the best. She understands how truly awful families can be! Families made of individuals struggling and surviving and interacting according to their character: ineffectual mothers, blundering fathers, narcissistic sisters, ignorant brothers, cruel and selfish or distracted and oblivious. Families that almost work and families cracking to pieces. She does them all with insight and where possible with respect, and generally with great dollops of humour.

In her magical worlds and her complicated families she is writing about power and powerlessness and the jostling of realities. They all work together to make each wonderful book of conflict and resolution.

Here is a picture from Howl's Moving Castle. The movie by Hayao Miyazaki, based on Diana's book. I love the movie, but I love the book more.

I heard yesterday that Diana Wynne Jones had died on the weekend and that is why I have been thinking so much of her.
I have borrowed Hexwood from the library. It has the most complex magic, the most horrible family and the most intricate mix of our traditions of magic (and of science fiction). Every time I read this book I understand it more and respect her vision and talent more. Every time I read it I get lost in the story, the wood, the people, the confusion of time and place ~ and the way it can all come together at the end to blessed reality.

Thankyou Diana Wynne Jones.

Roasted Ratatouille and a Green Visitor

2011-03-23T04:30:00.000-07:00

Here is a lovely meal to share with you! It is a healthy made-from-scratch meal, but also full of cheaty bits.
One day I am going to make couscous properly, rolled in a little oil and steamed lovingly over a pot of simmering stew.
But for now, I take the 'smallest pasta in the world / fast food' view of couscous.

I bring one cup of water to the boil in a small saucepan with a pinch of salt and about a teaspoon of olive oil. I turn off the heat and tip in one cup of couscous. On goes the lid and I leave it two minutes. Then I scrape a tablespoon of butter onto the end of a fork and start tickling, combing, it into the couscous until the butter is melted in and the couscous is fluffed up with each grain separate. Then I put a folded tea towel over the saucepan and the lid on top, and let it sit for a few minutes fluffing itself further.

All done quicker than it took to write this!

And the roasted ratatouille is easy too, but hush! don't tell the rat in the movie! This recipe came from 'Moosewood Simple Suppers' and it is so easy, yet the flavours are true to the traditional pot version. I love it.

Turn the oven to high and put in a big roasting tray to heat up.

Cut 1 zucchini, 3 onions, 1 eggplant, 2 tomatoes and 2 bell peppers into 1 inch chunks and put in a big bowl.

Add 6 cloves of peeled garlic, whole or as chopped as you like.

Sprinkle 1 tsp of salt and 1/2 tsp pepper over the veggies and then add 1/3 cup of oil, and give it all a mix.

(I added some springs of rosemary too).

Then get the roasting pan out of the own (without burning your hands) and tip the veggies in.

Pop it in the oven and let it roast for 15minuets. Give it a stir and then roast for 20 minutes. Another stir and it will only need 5 or 10 minutes more. The veggies should be juicy and fork tender, and the flavours intense.

Serve with some fresh basil leaves.

I added a salad which was less elegant but perfectly delicious. Mmm and there are left overs that are SO easy to warm up!

Here is my green visitor. Sorry she (or he?) is so blurry. In real life she was neat as a pin, waiting at my back door. Well... tucked neatly in to my back door!

Sugar Content Lists

2011-03-18T20:06:00.000-07:00

Realising sugar was making me feel very sick I have cut it out of my diet for a while. I began 4 months ago, and during that time I have been to the doctor and confirmed I don't have any signs of diabetes or pancreatic disease, also that my diet has been healthy and fits well within a Low Glycemic Index. I also don't have signs of fructose/lactose etc intolerance. But cutting out high sugar foods, and then cutting out fruit, definitely improved my health. Very interesting!
I have now decided to eat as strictly sugar free as I can for a couple of months and take probiotics at the same time and then reintroduce some fruit and see what happens. I could figure out high sugar foods, but what about medium and low?
So I checked around to find what the actual sugar content of fruits and vegetables are (the simple sugars: monosacharrides and disaccharides) and I thought I would share what I have found, even though there are still some contradictions and things I would like to know that are missing (like how much sweeter are cooked onions that raw ones?).

I am sharing this not because I think anyone else needs to do what I am doing but because everyone I spoke to had the same confusion as I did about the relative amounts of sugar in foods. and were interested to know what I discovered.

The two most helpful sites were this one http://www.dietaryfiberfood.com/sugar-content.php
that has taken data from the United States Department of Agriculture and arranged it into order of sugar content (instead of alphabetical order). Most of the list is processed foods I have never heard of and would never eat, so I copied down the fruits and veggies and a few other things that interested me.
(I ended up approximating some things, and changing them to their Australian terms etc, so please go to the original for accuracy.)

Grams of sugar per 100g

100g - 37.5g Very High Sugar

Sugar, honey, dates, maple syrup, raisins, dried apples, dried apricots, dried figs, dried tomatoes

37.4g - 18.6g

Rhubarb cooked with sugar, hoisin sauce, prunes, plums

18.6g – 10.5g Medium Sugar

Grapes, mangoes, canned apple pie filling, cherries, bananas, croissants(!), apple juice, canned apricots, tangerines, milo drink

10.4g – 6.6g

Canned tomatoes, apples, plums, oranges, apricots, grapefruit juice, baked sweet potato, orange juice, peaches, beets, nectarines, melons, pistachios, sweet wine(!), yoghurt, grapefruit, nashis, eclair with custard filling and chocolate icing (!)

6.5g – 4.1g Low Sugar

Coconut meat, watermelon, miso, bread, paw paw, boiled sweet potato, canned beets(!), milk, cashews, potato chips, parsnips, strawberries, peanuts, peas, yoghurt, carrots, onions, blackeyed beans, raspberries, canned tomatoes, red peppers, macadamias,

4.1g – 2.6g

Feta, shiitake mushrooms, carrots, white corn, pecans, tomatillo, cabbage, cornchips, pine nuts, yellow corn, green peppers, eggplant, soybeans, turnips,

2.6g – 0g
Fresh tomatoes, walnuts, buckwheat flour, zucchini, lemon, avocadoes, onions, brazil nuts, pumpkin seeds, radishes, scones, brussel sprouts, chives, cottage cheese, mushrooms, broccoli, potatoes, cauliflower, cucumber, lima beans, swiss cheese, asparagus, pita bread, beans, lettuce, eggs, pumpkin, garlic, unsweetened chocolate for baking(!), tofu, seaweed, mozzarella, beet greens, cheddar, oats, chicken, coffee, cornstarch, fish, ham, butter, oil, rice, salt, tea.

The second was a pdf file for Pediatric Diabetes Guidelines for a completely sugar free diet.

Pediatric Diabetes

Fruit:
Allowed:
Avocado, Rhubarb
Avoid:
all other fruits

Vegetables:
Allowed:
Celery, globe artichokes, mushrooms, spinach, watercress, legumes, potatoes, eggplant, asparagus, bean sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, zucchini, cucumber, fennel, leeks, lettuce, pumpkin, radish, spring greens, swede, turnip, seeds (sesame, sunflower, pumpkin)

Avoid:
Beetroot, brussels sprouts, carrots, green beans, okra, onion, parsnip, peppers, squash, sweet corn, sweet potato, tomato.

Inspite of some contradictions I have a good idea now of what I will base my diet around ie the foods allowed on the Pediatric Diabetes diet, with some supplementation from the lowest reaches of the other list!

A note about raw and cooked veggies! Generally baking veggies intensifies the sweetness and so the veggies end up with more sugar percentage, while boiling veggies means some sugar is lost into the water and so the vegetable ends up with a smaller amount of sugar. However, the differences are small!
I included some baked pumpkin, carrot and red capsicum as part of the meal pictured! That was before I had this list, but I don't plan to cut those beautiful coloured veggies out of my diet altogether, even for a couple of months!

Do let me know if you found the lists interesting!

PS As far as I can work out, this is completely separate to my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

French Savoury Cakes

2011-03-15T18:39:00.000-07:00

I wrote about cutting sugar out of my diet in my last post. I'm still at it!
First I cut out all the obvious things like dried fruit and biscuits and cakes.
O Therese, honey and maple syrup are out too! (And as for wine ~ Boo hoo, I have been pretty alcohol intolerant for several years!)

I got a book out of the library about the Glycaemic Index. It told me that my diet was already Low Glycaemic (I'm a healthy wholemeal vegetarian from way back!).

The real hardship came when I cut out fresh fruit and realised that made me feel even better.
That has sent me on a hunt to work out how sweet some vegetables are. It has been quite a research challenge! I will do a post about it next because I think a lot of people will find the information interesting.

I have decided to be as sugar free as I can be for a couple of months, and maybe find some good probiotics too. Then I will add back a bit of fruit and see how I go.

(Note: My doctor has ruled out diabetes and pancreatic problems.)

So this brings me to the recipe I would like to share today.
French Savoury Cake is great with soup or stews, and I am enjoying it as a 'little something' to have with my cuppa! I have made it successfully in a loaf tin, in a tray, and this time I tried savoury cupcakes using my muffin tray and that worked perfectly too!

I will give you my basic recipe (originally from Kye at the Jamie Oliver forum).

FRENCH SAVOURY CAKE
150g SR flour (scant 1 ¼ cups) with salt and pepper sifted in large bowl
100 ml oil or melted butter
125 ml milk
3 eggs
Liquids in 2 cup jug, whisk then fold into flour
Fold in additions corn/olives/cheese/capsicum/sorrel/herbs etc

In oiled, lined white loaf pan
210C oven for 10 minutes then 180C 30 minutes

This time I added some finely shredded sorrel, finely chopped green olives, red capsicum, and crumbled feta. And they took about 25 minutes to cook.

Other times I have added corn kernels, chives, a variety of herbs. I have also used part cornmeal in the flour.
It is such an easy delicious mix I am glad to share it.

Cheers everyone

Rice Paper Rolls and Yes but!

2011-03-11T15:58:00.000-08:00

I had lovely visitors last week in among a set of vaguely disappointing appointments. Thank heavens for Em and Simone!

The vaguely disappointing appointments included
The hairdressers: a very expert style, but not me! Simone I need that recommendation!
The doctors: very good that I haven't got diabetes or any signs of panceatic problems but nothing useful to understand why sugar is making me so sick.
The ex Federal bureaucrat upstairs: good feedback on my YamDaisy project but it just highlighted that with my ill health I am not really well enough to take it much further.

I know my cheery optimism will pop up soon and I will chase up Simone's hairdresser, rejoice at how much better I feel with sugar out of my diet, and focus on the lovely work I will do to my YamDaisy website.

In the meantime I am so glad for a lovely afternoon with gorgeous people. Em brought food for a whole feast that she laid out on the table.

Fresh greens, egg, vermicelli noodles, cucumber, dressed/pickled zucchini, the amazing greens and sesame mixture and a kick arse dipping sauce. All rolled up into a ricepaper package. Scrumptious.

Joy and her camera and...

2011-03-04T14:58:00.000-08:00

Hello,
I have a new camera! So small and light and it can do so much! These photoes are from my first experiment with it!
Above is the beautiful bark from a tree near my house. And below is a dahlia from a garden near mine.

I just walked out and began playing!

Oh, and yes... I am still working on my presentation!
I am very grateful for the supportive comments from you! Thanks!
I got sidelined by the dentist (again) and a visitor, but my useful contact (!) is back from holidays and I am hoping to get a federal government bureaucrat (retired) view of my project from him this week.! I will let you know how it goes!

YamDaisy and Children

2011-02-21T16:24:00.000-08:00

I am still working on my presentation folder, and it is a great discipline in thinking what I need to say and show. It is also a lovely creativity, which I am cheating at as much as I can, to get it done quickly! I find illustrations to help me explain the points I want to make, and I am enjoying these pictures from the 1944 book 'Ameliaranne gives a concert' very useful!

As you may have guessed I am doing a page about children at the moment.

There will be children's meals at YamDaisy Cafes, half the price of adult ones. But no chicken nuggets and chips here! They will be child sized portions of the daily meals.

And children will have the same opportunities as adults for feedback and a level of negotiation.

And both children and adults need to know that bad behaviour in a YamDaisy Cafe is not acceptable!
Maybe we need something like this to keep people in line! (wink).

Okay, okay, I will keep that one out of my presentation folder!

Joy and the special bags

2011-02-16T00:45:00.000-08:00

My lovely neighbours gave me this wonderful present!
They are net bags to take shopping at the greengrocers. I can put fruit or veggies in them and then they can go straight in the crisper drawers of the fridge. I am so looking forward to trying them out.
I have popped them in my shopping bag so I will have them on hand when I need them.
How nice to be kind to the environment and pretty too!

Joy and the message quandry

2011-02-13T15:33:00.000-08:00

Am I the only one who sits confronted by all the forms of communication and is bewildered?

A friend asked me if I, or my daughter, might like an old printer she no longer needs.
I have a ptinter, but I didn't know if my daughter needed one. So all I had to do was ask her.
I could have phoned her, but she might have been at work and her voice mail doesn't work very well.
I could text her, but my mobile probably needs recharging, and I would have to find my glasses....
I could email her ~ she prefers that for long complicated messages that are easier to answer in an email.
But this is a short simple question.
So I sent her a message on facebook. She got that on her phone, and answered promptly.

So now I need to let my friend know. I could ring her, but she will be at work and maybe have her phone off.
I could text her, but my phone does need recharging (yes, I have plugged it in now!).
I could message her on facebook, but she rang me and I think it would be polite to ring her back. Besides, I don't think she checks facebook so often.
Okay, I will ring her home phone and leave a message.

That was easy now, wasn't it?

YamDaisy Presentation

2011-02-10T17:52:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago I made a book/folio to help me explain my YamDaisy project. I am now revamping it to prepare for the next phase. So I thought I would share my work with you!
These are the first 2 pages:

YamDaisy, M, and Obesity

2011-02-08T19:55:00.000-08:00

My correspondence with Maree has really helped me to consolidate where I am with this project. Feedback number 4 said:
You'll need to spend +++ on an accountant familiar w franchising;
Issues that spring to mind:
*Storage of ingreds (I paid $+++ on my business insurance policy) for same (and that was human-grade pet food);
*Storage of prep'd food;
* Transport of food (will need refrigerated vans or insurance will not cover you)
* Just realised that, while I can cook from home for human-grade pet food, I (we) need a commercial kitchen(s) for cooking for humans.
Just stuff for you to think about. And it's stuff I've been through.
Am no way trying to discourage you but you need to think about.
Add the (NSW) Central Coast to my area :)
M xo

This makes me so hungry to have things starting! I can't organise on my own but I need to get things moving at the level where resources and support start building.

To respond to Maree's comments, I explain that I am not able to start off the cafes myself. (I bought a tattslotto ticket last week, but unfortunately missed out on the $6 million. Such a pity! Again!).
The cafe will be set up a little like a family kitchen, and a bit like a restaurant. A cold room and other storage is important. Organising how to bring the food in will vary from place to place, and so will getting the food out. Perhaps there might be home delivery as well as eat in and take away!
Certainly health and food safety regulations will be followed conscientiously!

After two years of blogging about my idea I am more confident of how I can communicate it, more solid in the structure I have for it and really grateful of the support shown to me by so many of you out there!

In my last post I mentioned looking at completely revamping my website. Right now, the energy I would need to put into that is being rechanneled. I will update the current website and get my presentations ready. And I will do the big revamp as soon as possible.
My objective now is to get to the movers and shakers (she says confidently! Yes! I can do it!) and convince them that the time for YamDaisy cafes is now.

Look at this news item from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation!

Today's teens 'the heart attack victims of tomorrow'

By Lucy Carter

The first comprehensive national study of young Australians since 1985 found a quarter are overweight or obese. (ABC News: Giulio Saggin, filephoto)

Health experts are warning the current generation of Australian teenagers could be the first with a decline in life expectancy and an increase in heart disease.

The first comprehensive national study of young Australians since 1985 found a quarter are overweight or obese.
Run by the Cancer Council and Heart Foundation, the study of more than 12,000 teenagers also found 85 per cent of respondents are not doing enough exercise.
The survey questioned teenagers at 237 different Australian schools about their diet and exercise habits.
"The secondary school students' poll showed that one in four were either overweight or obese, and this sets them up for chronic diseases such as cancer and heart disease later on," Cancer Council CEO Professor Ian Olver said.
He says the future does not look bright for this generation.
"What we're going to see is an increasing incidence of heart disease and diabetes and cancer," he said.
Heart Foundation CEO Dr Lyn Roberts is even more dire in her predictions.
"Some of these high school students today are going to grow up to be the heart attack victims of tomorrow," she said.
"There are predictions now that this next generation of children may not live as long."

Responsibility

Professor Olver says the results show obesity is more prevalent in areas of low socioeconomic status.
"I think governments have to adopt a very broad approach to this," he said.
"At one end of the scale there is making sure that good food is both available and affordable; at the other end of the scale it's perhaps restricting advertising to children of junk food that will be harmful to them."
Dr Roberts says parents also need to take responsibility.
"This study showed that the majority of students have at least three television sets in their homes and almost half of them have a TV in their bedroom," she said.
"There's really recent research that shows that if you've got a TV in a bedroom it's associated with a risk of [being] overweight, particularly amongst males."
Teaching young people good habits at school is recommended by both organisations.
Patrick O'Reilly is the principal of Southern Cross Vocational College in Sydney, where they have incorporated the preparation of healthy meals for the students into their hospitality course.
"In our canteen we offer a cafe service before school and a canteen service in our two break times," he said.
"It really was about looking at the ingredients that have gone into the food preparation as well as sourcing good nutritional food and drink."
He says it is an option other schools should look at seriously.

Comment Help and The Year to Come!

2011-02-04T21:31:00.000-08:00

I know a few people who have been pulling their hair out trying to leave a comment on a blog: including this blog, which I have set up so that anyone can leave a comment and there isn't even a password to fill in
For one friend, the difficulty is doing it from her phone, another is following the site, but still is having trouble writing comments, and yet another is trying to work out how to follow my blog, and a few others.

I seem to stay logged in and I can't remember how I started. Help? Any clues or words of advice I can pass on?

And since I am on a technological theme, I wanted to mention that I am really hoping to have a better health year and make a big push in getting my YamDaisy project on. It seems to keep coming back to updating my website though, and I have just been talking to a website savvy friend who has put me on to Drupal and I think I will be doing an even bigger upgrade that I planned. (Why does everything have to be so much work!)

O well, one step at a time. I'd be grateful of any good wishes you can spare, and any advice or tips too!

Cheers!

YamDaisy, M, and Gluten Free

2011-02-01T18:28:00.000-08:00

This is the third in a series of posts inspired by feedback from Maree as she read about my YamDaisy idea.

Maree wrote:
* I'd add more gluten-free /lactose free options. Such intolerances didn't exist 15-20 years ago but are all the go, these days.

(The picture above is an example of a gluten free and lactose free dish from Portugal: Pork with Pickles and Potatoes, from Tess Kiros' beautiful book 'Piri piri and Starfish')

It is very true that food intolerances and allergies are so much more common now, and the numbers are only likely to go up. The YamDaisy is 'mumfood' and needs to feed all the children.... customers!

This is the basic obligation that the YamDaisy Franchise would ask of every cafe. Everyone should be able to have suitable food for their diet, at least once a week. So anyone registered with their local cafe can explain their needs to the chef and expect that at least once a week there will be a meal they can eat.

Each YamDaisy Cafe will have its own Chef/Manager who will sort out the menu that suits the community (for more about this see here). If there is a large number of customers with particular allergies, it will affect the local menu.

Gluten free and lactose free meals will suit those people who want or need to eat them, and others may not even notice that the meal they choose is wheat free. I think it would be simple to have a wheat and/or dairy free meal on the menu every day!

Because more people are being diagnosed with such food allergies and intolerances, there will be people who would find it so useful to have their local cafe showing examples of wheat free meals, alternatives and substitutions and recipes as well! The YamDaisy chef can be a really useful resource!

Some people with coeliac disease would not be able to eat at a YamDaisy Cafe unless no wheat or other gluten grains were used in the cafe at all. They could not risk a gluten free meal from a kitchen that also uses wheat etc.
In large populations (inner Melbourne or Sydney for example) I think there would be a place for a completely gluten free YamDaisy Cafe. Locals would still find everyday, delicious, seasonal food there, and people with gluten allergies could come from the wider community to get those delicious affordable meals they need.

YamDaisy, M and Hospital Food

YamDaisy, M and Drop the Sick Bit

YamDaisy Menu through the blogs

2011-01-28T15:51:00.000-08:00

I am easing back into blogging after a delightful few days with Mr 7 year old staying with me.
So I thought I would share a YamDaisy Menu gleaned from the posts of others!

In my idea for the YamDaisy Cafes the menu is simplified to a soup, a choice of two main meals, and a fruit based dessert. This simplified menu makes it more home like, and more practical for the busy chef/managers.

I often see posts in the blogs I follow that would be perfect for a YamDaisy Menu, and as well as giving an idea of how the menu might work, it showcases some great blogs!

YAMDAISY MENU
SOUP: Miso Soup with Tofu and Vegetables
MAIN 1:Panfried Prawns in Soya Sauce
MAIN 2: Simple Couscous with Lamb and Vegetables
DESSERT: Carrot Halva

This menu may be just a little bit of a mixture of cuisines, but I am glad to have a vegetarian option, a seafood option and a hearty meat option. There is something for people who need to avoid dairy, soy, or wheat products. There is a lot to take into consideration for a menu!

SOUP
Miso Soup with Tofu and Vegetables from Foodstuff
Those who read my blog regularly will know this is my daughter's blog and.... (Proud mum alert!).... look at her most recent post! her blog was seen as a kind of folio in her interview and so helped her get her apprenticeship.
But back to the menu! What a lovely soup, full of vegetables and a meal in itself for those who want something light!

MAIN 1
Panfried Prawns in Soya Sauce from The Little Teochew
There is an upcoming post I will write about seasfood, but here, I have got some on the menu!
If you follow the link you will see that the recipe is here with such an interesting introduction.
I would serve with rice. I hope Ju will come and tell me if there is anything else that should be added! Please Ju!

MAIN 2
Simple Couscous with Lamb and Vegetables from Goodbye, Butter
I am new to this blog that is working through the recipes in The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook. Very appropriate because the Mediterranean Diet Guidelines are one of the foundations for the YamDaisy Menu. This recipe looks so delicious and hearty!

FRUIT BASED DESSERT
Carrot Halva from Not Another Food Blog
Firstly: Yes I know it isn't a fruit based dessert! But the point of the fruit based dessert is that there are some vitamin and minerals and not just empty calories. It is adding to the fruit and veggies in the diet. So a vegetable based dessert is quite acceptable!
Secondly: I love carrot halva! I want everyone to have the opportunity to try it!
It was this that made me decide to make up a menu from recent posts I have seen. Dessert isn't a huge focus of the menu, but we want to have something for those who can't do without!
What a treat for them!

YamDaisy, M, and Drop the Sick Bit!

2011-01-21T22:15:00.000-08:00

Part 2 of the Maree Posts: see Part 1 here

The first response from Maree (via phone text) after a quick glance at my website was:
"* the thing-ummy stacker boxes (name will come to me as soon as I sign off) - love that they are sustainable and not disposable;

* I'd play down the "sick/ill" thing. It should appeal to all and you should push this or risk putting people off (food for invalids- eww- "that's not me");
You could push the "light and easy" thing- meals for the week for the time poor..."

I loved, loved, LOVED this feedback!
(Especially because our conversation had begun at the 'hospital food' level!)
But Maree had her businesswoman hat on now and a businesswoman's feedback is very welcome.

It is true that people would be put off with the idea of coming in and eating invalid's food!
If YamDaisy Cafes have the impression of being food for poor people and food for struggling people and food for people with no money.... well, that would be a worry.
I know that the chronically ill, or the people with brain injuries, and every one else would be thinking 'Eeeuw, that's not me!'

Just after I put the concept together (a few years ago now!) I started seeing the Lite and Easy ads, and at the same time perfectly healthy friends with families and busy lives were saying,
"I would love to be able to go to a YamDaisy Cafe on those days that I just can't get a meal organised!"
And that was when I realised YamDaisy Cafe's have the potential to be an important part of food culture for everyone.

BUT, I am in there fighting for the sick people, the disabled, the mentally ill, the homeless, the struggling people. Can I sell this as a wonderful vibrant food idea that emotes 'mum food' (the best selling point ever!)?

The truth is that YamDaisy food is for everyone, and making it for everyone is a social justice issue.

There are lots of ways to make the cafes exciting and cool.
The first is that the cafes look good. The use of artists and designers should keep the look fresh and edgy and expressing the local character by using local artists.
The second is that they work: the food is delicious and easy to buy, the IT applications all work and are as innovative as needed!
Each chef is skilled and engaging.
The advertising, specials and rewards are appropriate, community based and have integrity.

That way the YamDaisy Cafes would be inviting and useful for EVERY one.

So in my next website upgrade I do need to consider this and get it right!

All suggestions welcome!

YamDaisy, M and Hospital Food!

2011-01-20T17:03:00.000-08:00

This is the first of some YamDaisy posts inspired by my friend Maree who has given me a whole progression of interesting feedback about my YamDaisy idea.

I will begin where we began: with Maree stuck in hospital and disgusted with the hospital food.

(The picture above comes from an article in Sydney Morning Herald about Traction Man's blog. He is a journalist who was stuck in hospital and wrote about the horrors of the food. He has recuperated enough to be at home now, but you can find his blog here: Notes from a Hospital Bed.)

It was Traction Man's blog that made me realise the YamDaisy Cafe model could fit perfectly well into hospitals (like the Macca's in Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital but much better!).

It could be an extra, that served visitors and those staff and patients who could get down to it... But there is plenty of possibilities for a greater role than that. There could be one on every floor, or in every wing. Or maybe there could be several in the hospital, one catering to people with allergies, another catering to religious food restrictions. In some places it would be possible for a YamDaisy Cafe to supply all the meals for hospital patients. There is enough flexibility in the YamDaisy Cafe model to make it suit a whole variety of contexts!

That is why, after I had commiserated with Maree, I invited her to look at my YamDaisy Cafe Website and tell me what she thought. I asked the right person! Maree has run several food businesses, building them up and looking to Franchise them! So much so that I have several more posts to write exploring the things she raised, and then the YamDaisy Menu she has given me, that I will share with all of you.

Lovely!

Joy and her car!

2011-01-19T14:27:00.000-08:00

Look! Isn't she lovely!
I have named her Cherry Red ~ because she is!

She isn't too old and she hasn't done too many kilometers (unlike me!) and she just squeezed into what I could afford.
My darling mechanic gave me advice and checked her over, and I am going to bake him a cake! (A kugelhopf I think).

How can I express the relief and delight I feel?

Since my health has been bad, a car has been what has stopped me from being housebound. A car has given me my dignity. There are many things I cannot do ~ but with a car I can look after myself. I can manage shopping, appointments and being a mum!

Freedom and dignity! What a precious combination!

Thankyou so much for the kind wishes and support people!

PS When I have made Peter, my mechanic, the cake.... I can DRIVE over to give it to him! Whoopee!

Joy and Her Daughter

2011-01-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

(Removed photo because of suspicious
stats activity)

This is what my daughter looked like 17 years ago! In the crusty back yard of the shabby elegant terrace we lived in, and in the gorgeous outfit her Aunty Jan made.

Now she is 18 and what a treat to see her a young woman living independently and embracing life.

She even has a blog!

So while I am determined and exhaustedly trying to find the perfect little second hand car to buy, I invite you to check out my daughters blog here http://lovefoodstuff.blogspot.com/
(she is so laid back and I am SO proud!)

And please cross your fingers that the little green car I am going to see tomorrow is just the one I am looking for!

YamDaisy Take Away Containers

2011-01-07T22:37:00.000-08:00

When I first was thinking about my YamDaisy idea I wasn't thinking that takeaway would be a large part of it. But as I have looked more at the needs of those who struggle to provide themselves with delicious, nutritious fresh affordable food, I have realised that takeaway may be the biggest part of the service.

But how to avoid hundreds of disposable, wasteful, environment damaging containers?

There are some eco friendlier options ~ such as this one. But one of the features of the YamDaisy Cafe is to have local people who use it again and again and so reusable containers become an option.

My first thought was something like these:

I imagined the cafe having a big industrial washer so it could wash them as well. But what a lot of extra work! and they aren't microwavable.

There are local health laws that need to be taken into account, but I was very relieved to find that it isn't impossible for customers to bring their own containers. I kept thinking, thinking, and then I saw Ju's blog about the tupperware tapau container: The Little Teochew

How exciting. I checked out this product ~ and I must recommend watching the add on this page which is daggy to start with and even more so when dubbed into English!

The other package that I saw to impress me is the cute green one I put at the start. Here it is open so you can see how it works:

And also the laptop box shown in Mrs Q's post which is also inspiring.

I think the YamDaisy organisation (when it gets really big and there are thousands of little local cafes) will be able to work with manufacturers to design a range of suitable containers: for hot food, cold food, families (as a backpack perhaps?), so that YD customers can easily transport takeaway in a safe, practical way that is also good for the environment.

Joy and the Heart Bunker

2011-01-04T02:51:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share this beautiful cartoon by Michael Leunig from last year's calender.
I love it because I have really worked to make my home a lovely bunker of comfort since I am so housebound, and have been even more so after losing my car (written off after being bumped into 6 weeks ago ~ but I am hoping to get another one in the next week!).

I do hope that all of you have a lovely bunker ~ a safe and friendly home, or if not that, a room of your own, and if not even a room of your own, that you can be beautiful and safe in your own heart.

btw I am seeing this year if I can use this blog for some personal posts (that will have 'Joy' in the title) and posts for my YamDaisy project (guess what they will have in the title) and YamDaisy food posts that will clearly be about food. Maybe I will pop some other ones in too.

Cheers everyone!

Chickpea Curry

2010-12-31T01:11:00.000-08:00

Here is another delicious curry to share with you.
I have three Chickpea Curries I make often, and another couple to try if I fancy them!
In some ways this is the most inappropriate one to share because it includes ingredients like asafoetida, tamarind and chaat masala, that aren't so well known in the West. But O it is a delicious curry. The first time I made it I wrote 'Such yummy sauce!' beside the recipe in my book.

Also, this is the one I made recently, so I have a photo! And another good thing to share is that I froze half of it, and it defrosted and warmed up scrumptiously. This makes it precious in my household where there is only me to feed!

It is also good to consider what a treat it might be on a YamDaisy Menu, a delicious curry that you might not make yourself, but would be delighted to eat every time it is served at the YamDaisy Cafe.

CHANA MASALA (That pretty well means Chick Pea Curry!)

250g chickpeas, soak and cook, reserving liquid (= 2 cans of chickpeas)
2 tsp tamarind paste soaked in hot water and when cool put through a sieve to get a thick puree

Roughly chop and then blend to a paste:
1 large onion
2 garlic cloves,
2-3 cm fresh ginger
1 green chili
Now heat 2/3 cup of oil and gently fry the onion mixture until golden brown

Add
1 tbsp ground cumin,
1 tbsp ground coriander
1 tsp chili powder
a pinch of asafoetida
stir for a minute, and then take the pan off the heat and carefully add
2 tbsp of thick yoghurt,

1 tbsp garam masala,
stir until it is completely mixed in and then back on the heat gradually add
3 cups of reserved water from cooking the chickpeas (or just water!) and bring to a simmer

Add the tamarind paste,
the chickpeas
half a lemon (the whole thing, not just the juice!)
3 green chillies (also whole)
Simmer 30 minutes and remove the lemon. If the sauce isn't thick, keep simmering until it is.

Stir in
2 tsp chaat masala
1/4 tsp garam masala

I have adapted the recipe from a book called "Food of India" and this day I served it with rice, beans (a favourite lately!), chopped tomatoes and lots of fresh coriander. Absolutely delicious!

Curried Peas and Cheese

2010-12-27T01:26:00.000-08:00

I found this recipe so many years ago that Charmaine Solomon knew Australians would generally have no idea what paneer is, so she made use of ricotta to make the cheese that goes with the peas.
This was the first curry recipe I made that wasn't bought curried powder fried up and turned into a vegetable stew with a few sultanas thrown in (this might give you a good idea of how old I am!!!!).

I loved this recipe so much, and I still get the same pleasure every time I make it. While most of my cooking has become more authentic as I have learned about Indian food and ingredients, and I can buy paneer at my local shops, I still make this recipe in the same way. It is just such a delicious dish. If you want to get more authentic, look up Muttar Paneer, but maybe you will love this recipe too!

Cheese and Peas
250g ricotta, drain on paper towels, form into small balls.
Heat 1 tbsp ghee and 1 tbsp oil together and fry the ricotta balls til golden.
Lift out and drain on paper towels while you do the next steps.

In the same pan fry
2 finely chopped onions,
2 crushed garlic cloves
2 tsp of grated ginger
until soft and golden.

Then add
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp cayenne powder (optional)
cook stirring for a minute

Add
2 firm ripe tomatoes, chopped
1/2 tsp garam masala
stir in and cook until the tomatoes are mushy

Add
750g shelled peas
cover and cook until almost tender (add a little water if too dry, but it should be right)

Add the ricotta balls and
1tbsp of chopped coriander leaves and
salt to taste
Cover and cook gently 10 minutes more

Sprinkle with another 1/2 tsp garam masala
and one more tbsp of chopped coriander leaves
and serve hot with rice or chapatis

and in my case with some strips of red capsicum!

Dal Makhani

2010-12-21T22:09:00.000-08:00

When I come up with YamDaisy menus (for more info see here), I try to make sure the soup and each of the main meals are quite different to each other ~ if one is dairy based, another will be dairy free, if one is spicy, the others won't be, and so on.

But I am having a little break from posting menus and thought I might do a little celebration of Indian dishes. I am thinking of how popular curry is as a meal and that maybe, in some areas, the YamDaisy Cafe would have customers who want curries on the menu all the time!

My last post was a delicious spiced vegetable curry, this one is a dal, and maybe the most comforting dal of all. Dals are cooked beans or lentil dishes and are the delicious, nutritious foods the YamDaisy Cafe is all about.

Dal Makhani is quite a rich dal, but balances out when served with rice and a fresh salad of tomato, cucumber and avocado. It is a bit of a procedure, but what a dish! It is made with a mixture of beans and lentils, and it took me a while to get this recipe just the way I like it. That is because I am not that fond of urad dal ~ it doesn't cook to the creamy softness of other pulses, but that does mean it gives this dal a bit of back bone, which is why it is such a classic. I do put less urad dal than some recipes, but I find this ratio perfect!

DAL MAKHANI

Place 1/4 cup split urad dal and 3/4 cup black or red kidney beans in a bowl and cover with water and leave to soak over night
In the morning rinse 1/2 a cup of channa dal and put to soak for an hour.

Next put the urad and black beans in a pan with water to cover by a couple of centimetres. Bring to the boil and boil hard for 10 minutes. I have a tea ball that I fill with 6 cardamom pods, 4 cloves and a piece of cinnamon bark that I let boil along with the pulses. This adds a depth of flavour.

After the 10 minutes, remove the spiceball if you have put it in, and add the chana dal. Bring back to the boil and remove any scum foam. If I have removed the scum, and add a little oil, I find I can then pressure cook the pulses for 15 minutes, but you need to be sure of your cooker, most pressure cookers warn against cooking lentils under pressure.
It would probably take an hour and a half of simmering to cook in a saucepan. Stir occasionally and top up with water as necessary.
When they are cooked you can squish them with a wooden spoon to make a thick mash with each pulse giving its own texture.

Next stir in a big tablespoon of butter and a big tablespoon of cream and season with salt to taste. Then stir in a tin of diced tomatoes (or equivalent fresh if you are so lucky) and keep the pot on gentle heat while you fry the tarka.

Now heat a tablespoon of oil or ghee in a small frypan. Have all these 'tarka' ingredients ready to add in.
Add a tsp of cumin seeds and fry til crackling
Then add four finely chopped garlic cloves, and as they fry add a small finely chopped onion and fry til golden brown
Next add 2 sliced fresh chillies and 2 tsp of chili powder ~ you can add less ofcourse, but the cream softens the chili heat, so it can be surprising how much this dal needs
Add a tsp of turmeric powder and let it sizzle for another minute and then stir it all into the pulses.

You can finish it off with a tsp of cream in a swirl, and some chopped coriander.

Delicious!

Mixed Vegetable Curry

2010-12-18T21:54:00.000-08:00

This delicious curry has been sitting in my files for several years. It comes from Margaret Fulton, one of Australia's National Living Treasures and Super Foodie.

I gave it a try because of the beans I had bought. These were lovely fresh green beans, but cheaper because they had been mechanically harvested, and this meant they would not keep as long. So I made up a big curry of veggies and then ate it in all sorts of lovely ways until it had gone. It is so easy and tasty! I must have had it with four or five meals and still wasn't sick of it.

It would be a great YamDaisy recipe!

It kept well in the fridge and warmed up to deliciousness on the following days.

I used corn chopped into pieces instead of the cauliflower in the recipe, chard from my garden instead of spinach, and the only other change I made was to use 1/3 cup of oil instead of 1/2 a cup, which was plenty.
O and I cooked it in the wok instead of a large saucepan. Now you know you can change those things back if you want!

MIXED VEGETABLE CURRY

1/3 cup of oil ~ heat in a wok and add

1 tbsp fresh grated turmeric (or 2 tsp ground)

6 - 8 curry leaves

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2 cm grated ginger

pinch chili powder (cayenne)

Fry for a minute or two

Then add

2 fresh corn cobs sliced into rounds

250g green beans in short lengths

1 carrot finely sliced

And fry over medium heat until half cooked but still crispish

Add

6 chard leaves torn into pieces

And fry for about 5 minutes

Then season with salt, cover, and cook on low heat for 2 - 3 minutes.

There is enough steam for the veggies to cook to perfection.

Isn't it easy! If you don't have curry leaves you could just make it without.
In the picture you can see it served with brown rice and a crispy fish fillet, but it is hard to think of something it wouldn't go with!

Yum, I will be making it again soon!

Catch Up and Thanks

2010-12-10T21:08:00.000-08:00

I am very grateful to the lovely people who have left such kind notes on my blog. I haven't posted for a couple of months because I have had to prioritise my health.... it hasn't been too bad, but there has been one thing after another! I can't tell you how nice it has been to check my blog and find good wishes there.

Things are still a bit tricky in my life, but I am hoping I will ease right back into my posts and my YamDaisy project ~ there is so much I want to do.

My way of easing back and catching up is via two blog awards I have been given (in spite of not posting! How cool!)

The first is from Jutta the Happy Valley Cook Thankyou Jutta! Goodness there are two!

Her awards ask me to:

1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded this to you.
2. Share 8 things about yourself.

3. Pay it forward to 15 recently discovered great blogs.

4. Contact those bloggers and let them know about their award.

The second is from Michael Toa at Me, My Food and I Thankyou Michael!

His Award asks me:

1. When did you learn to cook?
2. Name three things that are always in your fridge.
3. Do you have any food guilty pleasures?
4. Tell us about your most memorable meal...
5. What is your drink of choice?

When you received this, you can set up your own questions and pass it on to other bloggers of your choice. I look forward to reading your answers.

So here goes.

Thanks and links done!
8 Things about myself: (making them up as I go along)

I am Joy by name and Joy by nature!

The picture at the top of this post is precious to me. It was painted by two women artists living at Alekarenge in Central Australia, where I was a teacher. It is about women catching ants that are good to eat. The horseshoe shapes are the women sitting down. The doughnut shapes are the ant holes, and the bar shapes are the coolamons that had hot ash in them to cook the ants as they were dug out. The wiggly background is the little birds jumping around eating the flying ants which has let the women know they are ready to catch.

I have a grown up daughter which is so exciting. That little baby that grew in my belly is out making her own life and it is full of wonders!

I learn from my mistakes (eventually, wink!), which is a big relief because I make them all the time!

Living with Chronic Illness, has intensified my life. It has been one of the best possible reality checks, and reality is a great thing to have in my life!

I love to create! Textiles are my favourite and I knit and am learning sewing, very practical! I write when I can and SO want to get my stories done! I also love to draw.

I am a social justice fighter and in my working life I chose causes and situations where I thought I could do good. (I always seemed to get more out than I put in though! ~ thanks to wonderful people everywhere!). Now my passionate cause is my own YamDaisy Project.

I love our Mother Earth!

1. When did you learn to cook?
I chose to be vegetarian as a teenager and I had to learn to cook vegetarian food! My passion grew as I discovered World cuisines. But my focus on excellence developed after my friend Carole made the most wonderful soup for me when I was ill. It was out of the world, and it raised the stakes for ever more!

2. Name three things that are always in your fridge.
Milk, home made chili/onion paste, bakers yeast.

3. Do you have any food guilty pleasures?
Tim tams, Lindt and cashews! I have pretty much given up chocolate... but Ooo those cashews! Yum!

4. Tell us about your most memorable meal...
Drinking red wine with friends at sunset on top of a huge rock outcrop in Kakadu National Park after climbing up through the wonderful rock art galleries. (Red wine is a meal, right?)

5. What is your drink of choice?
Coffee with milk. Thankyou little Napoletana pot that means I can have it every day!

Now my big apology, I am not able to pay these awards forward at the moment. But I am hoping to do so before too long! I haven't been discovering new blogs, but I have some very dear ones. Let me see how I go for a bit, and then I will act!

Next Post: Food!

Muhallabia

2010-09-19T17:35:00.000-07:00

This is the lovely dessert from my Meatless Monday Menu.

It is a milk pudding made with rice flour and almonds and scented with rose water. I knew it first at the wonderful Turkish restaurant that flourished in Bendigo when I lived there in the 80's and 90's. We went there often and this was always my dessert.

I found a recipe some years ago, (Tess Mallos, Middle Eastern Home cooking, she found it in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan) but I have only now managed to make it.
I changed her recipe to strain out the almond meal, which gives the smooth beautiful texture of the dessert I remember.

Traditionally served with pomegranate seeds sprinkled on top, I found it goes beautifully with raspberries and would work with many other fruits.

MUHALLABIA
3 cups milk
3/4 cup ground almonds
Mix and bring gently to the boil. Leave to cool a little and squeeze out as much liquid as you can through muslin.
Bring the milk back to heat and add:
1/4 cup of rice flour blended with 1/4 cup of milk
a pinch of salt
1/4 cup castor sugar
Stir over a medium heat until bubbling gently. Let it cook for a few minutes. Keep stirring so it doesn't stick.
Remove from heat.
Stir in 1 tbsp of rosewater.

Pour into a bowl or bowls. I wet the little bowls so that it could tip out, (that is how it was served in my Turkish Restaurant) but it works fine to serve it set in bowls or spooned out from a large one. Let it get cold in the fridge before you serve it though! It is so delicate and delicious! Enjoy!

Egg Noodles with Cabbage, Mushroom, and fried Tempeh

2010-09-12T22:59:00.000-07:00

Here is the next dish of my Meatless Monday Menu (finally!).
I love this quick dish and am pleased too because for many years most of my attempts at a quick wok meal tuned into sog ~ and I was doing SO many things wrong that it took a long time to sort it out and a miracle that I didn't give up in disgust part way through! Well, to tell the truth I did give up: but then I would gradually come around to another try.

I got this right thanks to a little Vegetarian Chinese Recipe Book I found in a supermarket many years ago, and I follow the same basic process of soaking then draining the egg noodles and giving them a fry, setting them aside and frying the vegetables and then adding the noodles and the dressing. Now I have got it, within that formula I vary just about everything!

This meal includes tempeh which I dice and then fry until crisp. So easy and such a lovely savoury taste and crisp texture to add to the mix.

Here is everything ready to go:

I kept most of the flavour in the sauce (soy sauce, Chinese cooking wine, chili paste, cornflour, sugar, orange juice) so the rest was extremely simple. I fried garlic, ginger and spring onion, and then the cabbage, adding the mushrooms and noodles when it was cooked and then poured over the dressing and stirred so it was hot and a little thick and shiny, served with the tempeh on top.

This is a life saver of a recipe because it has comfort and zing all in one plate!

Moroccan Meal

2010-08-27T03:07:00.000-07:00

Here is that Moroccan dish again! (see here for the original post).

It consists of a Moroccan/Syrian bean dish I got from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian. (Fabulous book!) with Moroccan carrot salad and couscous flavoured with preserved lemon and currants.

The recipe I am giving here is the bean dish. It is very yum, so I hope you try it
.
The carrot salad was delicious ~ eventually. I was disappointed with my recipe, but by the time I had done a lot of fiddling it was good, and I think next time I might make a beautiful salad straight off. I will post it when I perfect it! But to give you an idea: garlic is fried, then the carrots and spices are added and gently cooked and then a sweet and acid dressing finishes it off.

I just made my usual couscous, but added some currants and finely chopped preserved lemon to make it more exciting.

BLACK-EYED BEANS WITH HERBS
225g /8oz black-eyed beans just cooked (I use one cupful cooked 8 mins in the pressure cooker), keep one cup or so of the cooking liquid.
Meanwhile
Heat 2 tbsp olive oil on medium in a pan
Add a dried chili and let it puff up and turn dark
Add 3 finely chopped garlic cloves and stir.
Add the beans, liquid and:
3 bay leaves
1 tsp chopped oregano
1 1/2 tsp fresh thyme
1 tsp paprika
1 1/2 tsp salt
Simmer gently for 20 minutes. The liquid will have reduced to a sauce. Serve hot.

I have been very flexible with the herbs, adding whatever I have on hand. One time I added heaps of spinach and that was good too. Today I added spring onion and parsley as well as oregano and thyme.

Sorrel Soup

2010-08-24T20:10:00.000-07:00

This is the soup selection for my Meatless Monday Menu for the YamDaisy Cafe.

I was so inspired (about 15 years ago!), by Jane Grigson writing about Sorrel Soup that I went out and bought a plant, and I have been growing it ever since, in a big pot right near the door. She spoke of the French country housewife with such a pot, and able to whip up this soup if a visitor called unexpectedly.
I have never lost the pleasurable feeling of this scene, even though I didn't particularly enjoy my first few attempts at sorrel soup.

Here is my sorrel. Snails love it, as you can see, but it is still a gorgeous pot full!

Sorrel tastes just wonderful, it is a bit like spinach but with a sharp lemony flavour. It does go grey when it is cooked, but it doesn't taste grey. The first sorrel soups I tried were blended, and it wasn't until I saw one in a book called Potager by Georgeanne Brennan that I was able to make a version that is just perfect for me!

This is the recipe of how I make it for that unexpected visitor and myself!

SORREL SOUP
1 tsp olive oil and 1 tsp butter, heated in a saucepan
Add a finely chopped small onion, or 1/2 a leek and
1 potato (a yellow fleshed one is my preference for this) in 1 cm dice
(like the littlest blocks in the cuisinaire we used at school!)

Saute until glistening 5 - 10 minutes
Add 2 cups of vegetable stock and simmer
In the meantime cut the stems off 6 - 8 leaves of sorrel and then roll them up and slice them finely.
Add half the leaves just a few minutes before the potato is tender, and season with salt and pepper.
When the potato is cooked, stir in the rest of the sorrel and serve.
This way you get the green of the sorrel, and it is tender enough to melt into the soup.

I often make this when there is nothing in the house but a potato, and onion and a bit of stock!
If I don't have that unexpected visitor I think I will have a bowl and then keep the rest for later. But I never do, I always have a second bowl straight away, because it is so lovely!

Meatless Monday Menu

2010-08-22T18:27:00.000-07:00

In my dream of YamDaisy Cafes in every neighbourhood, providing delicious, everyday food, the manager/chef will have as much leeway as possible to make the cafe suit the community and fulfil its mission.
One possibility would be to take on 'Meat Free Monday'
This is how it is descibed in the Wikipedia link:
Meatless Monday is an international campaign that encourages people to not eat meat on Mondays to improve their health and the health of the planet. Reducing meat consumption by 15% (the equivalent of one day a week) lessens the risk of chronic preventable illness and has a strong impact on the environment.

It is a good fit for the YamDaisy Cafe. Many people want to eat more healthily, want to do better by the environment, may even have their doctor telling them to cut down on meat ~ but they may have no idea how to go about it. A local YamDaisy Cafe could make it all easy: here is the meatless meal, cooked beautifully. The recipe could be in the YamDaisy Magazine or available on the phone app. The chef is there to give advice.

Even the meat eater who is scared of vegetarian meals can come and have a nibble and become familiar with the variety of things, and maybe find some meatless foods they like.

So here is the Meatless Monday Menu
Soup: Sorrel and Potato Soup with Bread and Butter
Main 1: Moroccan Meal of Black-eyed Beans and Carrot Salad accompanied by Couscous made with Currants and Preserved Lemon.
Main 2: Egg Noodles with Cabbage, Mushroom, and fried Tempeh
Dessert: Muhallabia with Raspberries

In coming days (health permitting) I will put these up in full because they are all so yummy! The Moroccan dish is pictured at the top and here is the Muhallabia!

Cheers everyone!

The ABC for the YamDaisy Cafe

2010-08-07T20:12:00.000-07:00

I am beginning to think that there isn't one person who wouldn't find a YamDaisy Cafe useful sometime! But I began this list to show the times where making good meals at home can be just too hard.
I put them up on the YamDaisy Cafe facebook page, but here they are, all together. I expect you can think of more!

Mr A has been diagnosed with Diabetes, he is really confused by the diet. He would love a YamDaisy Café so that he could eat there, the chef will help him find meals he likes, and he can grab some takeaway when he needs to.

Mrs B needs a YamDaisy cafe. Her mum is in hospital, her work is busy, her sisters family is down to see the mum in hospital and two of her kids have allergies, they all need sustaining home style food!

Ms C is a single mum. Life is chaos with 2 young children and study and part time work. She needs the YamDaisy cafe for an early family tea a couple of times a week, and some takeaway available to make the day easier but still to have delicious healthy family food.

Mark D is recovering from radiation therapy and trying to get back to work. He needs the Yam Daisy cafe so he can drop in on the way home and pick up a good meal that will help him recover his health by its good nutrition and by making life so much easier.

Ms E wants a YamDaisy Cafe. She picks up a frozen packaged meal twice a week to take to her housebound neighbour, but it isn't the delicious fresh cooked food YamDaisy would provide.

Mr F is lying in hospital dispairing about hospital food and thinking what a good idea it would be for a YamDaisy Cafe to open in every hospital.

Lindy G wants a YamDaisy Cafe. She is 14 but her mum has MS so she has to do the cooking. She knows her mum needs good meals and her mum says Lindy needs good meals. They don't like the local Meals on Wheels more than once a week. They really need the YD café.

Dr H would love to recommend her diabetes patients to a YamDaisy Cafe. They could walk there and eat well: diet and exercise just like that! This week is National Diabetes week.

The I family want a once a week no cooking, no washing up delicious seasonal meal they can afford. No junk food. Bring on the YamDaisy Cafe!

Mr J looks after his kids every weekend, but he finds it hard to cook for them. He wishes there was a YamDaisy Cafe to take them to.

Sue K has been homeless for 5 months. She has just got a flat and is working hard to manage her new life. She wants a YamDaisy Cafe for good meals and to feel part of her community.

Tim L is perfectly healthy and not a bad cook, but with his new job and sports commitments he would like to get meals from YamDaisy a few times a week to make life manageable.

M is moving out of home. Her parents would be so relieved if there was a YamDaisy Cafe nearby.

N has moved to a new address and is gradually working out how to negotiate everywhere with his wheelchair. He would like a YD cafe to just make life a bit easier!

Ambulance driver O has long difficult shifts and organising meals is difficult. She wishes for YamDasiy Cafes so she can get a good meal when she needs it.

P has broken her arm. Everything is hard. O for a YamDaisy Cafe down the road!

Quentin is moving to independent living after five decades of institutions. He would like to eat at a YamDaisy Cafe every day.

Ms R is learning to cook. She finds help and inspiration and a welcome day off at the YamDaisy Cafe!

S has just begun night shift and the hours are making everything hard. He wants a YamDaisy cafe to make good meals easy while he settles in.

T has 4 children and is a great cook, but just one night a week she wants a break and regular dinner at a YamDaisy Cafe would be perfect!

Jen U is organising help for her neighbour who has had a tragedy in the family. She would love to bring them food from a YamDaisy Cafe.

V is looking for work! It takes longer and is more stressful than working full time! She would like a YamDaisy Cafe to get her meals from during this hard time!

W is looking after his elderly mother. He needs a YamDaisy Cafe to help them eat good food every day.

X burnt the rice and then dropped the casserole on the floor. She wishes a YamDaisy Cafe was there for emergencies!

Y can't cook, and has no interest to learn. But he would like to eat well on his small income. He would like a YamDaisy Cafe nearby.

Z is isolated, not exercising, and eating poorly. A walk to a YamDaisy Cafe each day, to eat good food and be with other people, would be the perfect solution.

Lentil Soup and Toasted Onion Bread

2010-07-26T04:02:00.000-07:00

This simple soup came out of a botched recipe that left me with some red lentils being cooked in vegetable stock and, strangely, some burgul wheat, finely chopped onion and flour mixed into a slurry. Intrigued?
I will try that recipe again very soon, and let you know all about it!

In the meantime I had some cooking to do, and luckily I had my kitchen mojo and popped the slurry in with some flour, with yeast and salt and a little oil and mixed it up to a lovely dough. I gave it a long slow rise and let it turn into this delicious loaf. The burgul gives it an added toastiness and the onion a sweet savouriness (if you know what I mean!)

The soup was easy ~ I had carrot, zucchini, corn and tomato, so I chopped them up and added them in. I fried red capsicum, onion and garlic with a little chili paste, and popped that in too. Salt and lemon juice finished it all off.

And there it is, the warmest, tastiest simplest lunch.

YamDaisy food!

Pear and Raspberry Almond Crumble

2010-07-23T18:38:00.000-07:00

Pear and Raspberry Crumble! YUM!
Ofcourse it would be delicious! My friend Lin had made it the week before, and since I was conveniently shopping at the greengrocers with her when she told me, I immediately bought 3 big beurre bosc pears, those brown skinned ones that are so easy to cook with.

I peeled and cored them and stewed them with a little orange juice and a sprinkle of brown sugar. Then into the pie plate and topped with frozen raspberries.

I made the crumble topping by melting 50g of butter (pyrex jug in the microwave) and adding in:
1/2 cup flaked almonds
1/4 cup plain flour
1/2 cup dessicated coconut
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp freshly ground cinnamon
Mixed up and sprinkled over the top and then into a moderate oven until golden ~ I let mine go for twenty minutes.

And then this!

Fruit based, seasonal (sneaking in the raspberries), delicious dessert!
As I said at the start: YUM!

Cheers!

Yiota's Summer Menu Part 2

2010-07-19T17:58:00.000-07:00

Yiota's Menu

Soup: Potato Soup with Fresh Thyme
Main 1: Chicken and Diced Vegetables Gratin
Main 2: Vegetarian Pastitsio
Fruit Dessert: Cherry Pie

Vegetarian Pastitsio

I was so excited to make the pastitsio and share it with you. When I first read Yiota's menu I had no idea what pastitsio was, although when I saw pictures I realised I had seen it before: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastitsio
It seemed a perfect dish to make into a vegetarian version and I made a big vegetable sauce that my food processor makes very simple. I roughly chopped up 2 onions, 2 garlic cloves, 4 small apples, a zucchini, and 2 red peppers and 6 dried tomatoes that had been soaked and then chopped. I minced them with the steel blade of my food processor and put them in a big pot with heated olive oil (about 4 tbsps).
While they began cooking I put the grater attachment on my foodprocessor and grated 3 carrots and 4 celery stalks and added them to the mix.
Next goes in 2 400g tins of diced tomatoes and a teaspoon of salt, and then the whole big potful needs to simmer for about three hours. For the last hour I added 500g of chopped mushrooms. Once it was simmering happily I put the heat diffuser under it and only had to give it a stir now and then. It ends up so thick and soft and tasty! I added a little freshly ground cinnamon right at the end, and it really added a magic touch to the whole dish.

I had a couple of serendipitous events. My good friend Lin said out of the blue that she had made pastitsio the weekend before, and how wonderful it was. So I told her that it was on Yiota's menu and she sent me her recipe.
Also Mary at One Perfect Bite posted a recipe. She wasn't completely happy with hers, so I concentrated even harder on making this a good one!

Apart from the sauce, I followed the recipe Lin gave me:

PASTITSIO (Serves 10)
Olive oil to grease
2tbs dried (packaged) breadcrumbs
1 x 500g Mini Penne Rigate pasta
2tbs olive oil
1kg beef mince
1 brown onion, coarsely chopped
3 garlic cloves, crushed
2 x 400g bottles passata (tomato pasta sauce)
80ml (1/3) cup plain flour
1tsp ground cinnamon
70g (1 cup) shredded parmesan
BECHAMEL SAUCE
80g butter
50g (1/3cup) plain flour
1l (4cups) milk
4 eggs, lightly whisked

Preheat oven to 180c. Brush a 6.5cm-deep, 26 x 33cm (base measurement) ovenproof dish with oil to grease. Add the breadcrumbs and shake to coat.
Cook the pasta in a large saucepan of salted boiling water until al dente. Drain and return to the pan.
Meanwhile, heat half the oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Add half the mince and cook, stirring, for 3-4 mins or until mince changes colour. Transfer to a heatproof bowl. Repeat with the remaining mince.
Heat the remaining oil in the pan and add the onion and garlic. Cook stirring, for 5 mins or until the onion is soft. Add the mince, passata, water and cinnamon and cook, stirring, for 5-8 mins or until the sauce thickens slightly.
To make the béchamel sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat until foaming. Add flour and cook, stirring for 1 min or until the mixture bubbles. Remove from heat and gradually add the milk, stirring constantly until smooth. Place the pan over a medium heat and cook stirring constantly until the sauce thickens. Remove from heat and whisk in the egg. Season with salt and pepper
Add 310ml (1 ¼ cups) of the béchamel sauce to the pasta and stir until well combined. Place half the pasta mixture in the prepared dish. Spoon over the mince mixture. Top with the remaining pasta mixture. Spread the remaining béchamel sauce over the top. Sprinkle with parmesan. Bake for 45-50 mins or until golden. Serve.

I wished I had just one more centimeter in the tray as I was scared to put all the sauce in! Next time I will put less pasta on the bottom level so that more sauce can sink in to it (is this a good idea pastitsio makers?) But for my first effort I need to serve it with some added sauce that I didn't fit in! Making the bechamel and mixing it into the pasta worked really well.
But let us pretend I got the ratios right and serve it here with some lovely braised green beans for the YamDaisy cafe!

Cherry Pie

O yum! How much the short cherry season is loved around the world! It will come to Melbourne in November. I think the YamDaisy Cafe would want Cherry Pie on the menu at least once a week as long as the season lasts!
Since I cannot make it at them moment I can link instead to a mouthwatering cherry pie I have seen on the beautiful Cherrapeno blog: http://www.cherrapeno.com/2010/07/fresh-cherry-pie.html

Thankyou Yiota for a menu that inspired me so much, gave me new dishes to add to my repertoire, and that are such a pleasure to share with everyone else. These dishes are just what the YamDaisy Cafe idea is all about! Delicious, seasonal, mouthwatering, not fussy... but heartwarming food to the people you are feeding.

The first part of Yiota's menu is here
The YamDaisy website is here

Good wishes to everyone!

Yiota's Summer Menu

2010-07-18T02:07:00.000-07:00

What a treat it is to present this menu. It comes from Yiota in Greece and is full of the flavours of summer.
There are four menu choices each day in a YamDaisy Cafe. They must reflect the seasons, the everyday needs of the clients for delicious nourishing food, and of the chef(s) who need to be able to cook them up in a small (but well equipped) kitchen. Read more about the idea of the YamDaisy Cafe and it's menus here.

Yiota's Menu

Soup: Potato Soup with Fresh Thyme
Main 1: Chicken and Diced Vegetables Gratin
Main 2: Vegetarian Pastitsio
Fruit Dessert: Cherry Pie

In Yiota's email she wrote:

'So here's what I thought of: because summer vegetables are at their best here, I've used them in both main dishes; zucchini, red peppers, green peppers, carrots, mushrooms, green beans - you choose... Cherries are also in season and I love, love, love them!'

Potato Soup with Fresh Thyme

O yum, this is one I love, and if the weather is very hot it can be served ice cold.
Here is how I make it:
Mince 3 finely chopped leeks and one finely chopped onion and saute in 2 tablespoons of butter.
Add 3 peeled and diced potatoes and 4 cups of stock.
(I used a vegetable stock flavoured with thyme)

When the potatoes are cooked, puree briefly and season with salt and pepper.
Add 1 cup of milk, cream, or a mixture of both and reheat without boiling.
I garnished mine with some thyme. It is winter here as I write, but in Summer I would sprinkle a few tender thyme leaves and maybe some chopped chives too.
The toast is made with buckwheat and oats and was a lovely accompaniment.

Chicken and Diced Vegetable Gratin

I avoided flooding Yiota with millions of emails asking about this dish, and so instead I had a real adventure with it. The only gratin I know is made with sliced potatoes, and certainly no chicken. Not only that, I have such trouble cooking it as whenever I try the potatoes never get soft!
I googled away and realised what a big number of bakes come under the name 'gratin', and remembered a friends suggestion to cover the dish with foil for part of the baking time to help the vegetables cook.
I struggled most to imagine how to include chicken (some of you know I am an old vegetarian, only recently learning to cook chicken), so I was glad to find this recipe:

Chicken and Potato Au Gratin

I played around with it a lot!
I started with 2 chicken thigh fillets that I browned in a mixture of butter and olive oil and then cut them into bite sized pieces. For vegetables I had carrots, butternut pumpkin (squash), heart of celery and a potato. I diced them up and added them to the chicken in the dish.

I followed the recipe for the dairy mixture (except I had no pimento) and no crumb topping. I was feeling VERY pleased with myself!

So in to the oven it went with the foil covering for the first 20 minutes. And when I got it out:

sadly.... it had curdled.

I blame the lemon juice! But maybe covering it brought the temperature up too high. I would use ordinary cream instead of sour cream next time too. It broke my heart that it curdled but I did taste it and was delighted that the chicken came through beautifully: tender little morsels among the veggies.

It is definitely one to try again and get right! Then I would serve it with green leaves and tomato salad.

The second part of this menu will be up very soon, before the cherries have finished!
Jump to it here

Diabetes and the YamDaisy Cafe

2010-07-13T19:52:00.000-07:00

It is Australia's Diabetes Awareness Week this week.

My YamDaisy claim is that the biggest thing that a community could do to help in prevention and management of diabetes (type 2) would be to set up YamDaisy Cafes!

How nice for a doctor who is faced with someone who is ill, exhausted and whose life has just been changed completely by the diagnosis of type 2 diabetes, to be able to include in all the information that there is a YamDaisy Cafe in their neighbourhood.

At the YamDaisy Cafe they could be assured of getting delicious meals, cooked from scratch, that are exactly what health educators are recommending for people with diabetes. They would be affordable. The cafe would be within walking distance, and the walk there and back would contribute to the recommended exercise.

The chef at the YamDaisy Cafe would understand the necessary diet, and the community aspect of the cafe means that the chef would get to know favourite foods and special needs.

The back up from the YamDaisy Organisation would include IT and magazine style news, articles, specials, tips and recipes.

If necessary every meal could be supplied from the YamDaisy Cafe. Breakfast might be tricky, but there are several possibilities that I will post about in the future!
The easy thing would be stopping by the YamDaisy Cafe for a freshly cooked lunch and delicious, healthy takeaway for supper from the days menu also.

And why would the doctor wait until things got so far! What a relief to be able to recommend the YamDaisy Cafe to patients who showed the danger signs for developing diabetes? Think how many people could be saved from the trials and complications of diabetes by the presence of a beautiful, little YamDaisy Cafe in their neighbourhood?

The sooner they start going up the better!

For further information about the YamDaisy Cafe idea, check out the website (and it would be lovely if you could show your support by joining the facebook page too?)

For further information about diabetes and check out Diabetes Australia.

I found the excellent cartoon by googling, but I don't know who did it. Let me know and I will put the info up (or pull the cartoon down if that is what is necessary!)

All Best Wishes

Vale Marie

2010-07-11T19:14:00.000-07:00

For those of you who sent such lovely wishes when I posted about the Appeal for Marie Cook I need to let you know with sorrow that Marie died on the 7th of July from complications of her cancer.
This is the poem that has connected me most with my feelings about her death

The Swan

The labouring through what is still undone,
as though, legs bound, we hobbled along the way,
is like the awkward walking of the swan.
And dying – to let go, no longer feel
the solid ground we stand on every day
is like his anxious letting himself fall
into the water, which receives him gently
and which, as though with reverence and joy,
draws back past him in streams on either side;
while, infinitely silent and aware,
in his full majesty and ever more
indifferent, he condescends to glide.

By: Rainer Maria Rilke

Farewell Marie

Nice times ahead

2010-07-06T18:27:00.000-07:00

After a week full of changes and visitors where I have hardly been able to glimpse into my nice internet community, I am now headed for lovely uninterrupted times when I can really focus on my YamDaisy project.

I have a gorgeous new menu coming up, given to me from Yiota in Greece! And I get the delight of trying out some dishes I have never made before, all in the cause of research and photoes!
I am also preparing a post on the ABC of YamDaisy customers!
And it is Australia's Diabetes Awareness Week next week so I will try to do a post then ~ about that!

I have talked about living with Chronic Illness here before, and how this means I often cannot do the things I want to do and plan to do. My current game plan is to try to blog more often even if it can't be the post that takes a bit of work to get right. I will see how it goes!

Best Workplace

2010-06-26T19:12:00.000-07:00

A piece of research into good workplaces highlighted that things like gyms and massages being available made the biggest difference to workplace enjoyment.
This is an important issue for YamDaisy Cafes. No, I don't mean putting a gym into every YamDaisy Cafe! But I am thinking about the things that really make a difference in the workplace.
The whole idea of the YamDaisy Cafes running as a franchise is to give a whole system of back up to the individual Chef/Managers.

Just a couple of things: Gyms and massages! The YamDaisy franchise could do a deal with a local gym so that chefs have access to gym and massages. I think this would be a good thing when the job is very physical and no doubt stressful.

Another thing I keep thinking about is the isolation of working in a small cafe. There is a lot that could be done with internet groups, but more is needed. The franchise could organise training opportunities. As well as learning or sharing skills, the YamDaisy chefs would have a chance to get to know each other and share experiences.

This would open up another strand of employment: 'Emergency' Chefs who are able to go in and take over the Cafe while the chef is away. This is important to give the flexibility of training and so that a chef can take time off for family or in case of illness, and even a vacation. Someone can have fun working out how this would work: maybe it can be built into the insurance. Anyway, it would take away that load that so many chefs have that they have to keep going no matter what is happening to their family or their health.

The YamDaisy idea has a social justice aim. The idea is to improve lives, and we don't want chefs burning out under the strain of a poorly organised, stressful position. A lot will be asked of YamDaisy Chefs, and so it is important that all that can be done to best support them is done, and is done well.

YamDaisy Cafe and the Question of Cake!

2010-06-21T19:15:00.000-07:00

This wonderful cake, made with whole pieces of dried and apricots, pears and other fruits, is so healthy it is hard to believe it tastes good. My sister discovered it many years ago when my mum was following the Pritikin diet which didn't allow any added sugar or fat. The sweetness and richness come from the fruit ~ bananas are used in the cakey bit that holds the fruit together.
As we were sharing this cake, my sister commented that it would be a good one for the YamDaisy cafe, and that inspired this post, because I am still working out what place cakes and biscuits should play in the YamDaisy Cafes.

Delicious, Everyday, Affordable food.

That is the mantra (and extends to 'seasonal. local, made from scratch' ). It is the 'everyday' bit that brings up questions about cake. There is 'everyday' food, and there is 'sometimes' food. Which category does cake go in?

Do you have that 'little bit of something' with your cuppa everyday?

This is Chocolate Beetroot Cake, it is luscious and moist with a deep, wonderful flavour. Then there is Carrot Cake, Banana and Walnut Cakes... Should the YamDaisy Cafe make a specialty of fruit anf vegetable cakes?
Here is a whole book of them! (Thanks for the link Jutta)

Support Local Cafes

I call the YamDaisy Cafe a cafe, but it is different to most cafes with their display of mouth watering pastries and the industrial coffee machine sitting on the counter.
The YamDaisy Cafe isn't meant to be in competition with the local cafes, we want their support.
If someone wants a coffee and cake, that is the place to go.

So should the YamDaisy Cafe have coffee and cake at all?

Celebrations
This pretty one contains beetroot and almonds!
It is a birthday cake.

Surely the YamDaisy Cafe can make a Birthday Cake for a valued customer! I already wrote a post about this here: http://background-joy.blogspot.com/2010/03/birthdays-and-yamdaisy-cafe.html

Off Display

One thing I have considered is that any cakes and biscuits in the YamDaisy Cafe should not be displayed. It can be like a mum's kitchen where they are kept in a tin and brought out when needed.

What do you think?

(Wondering what these YamDaisy Cafes are all about? Here is the website!)

Simone's YamDaisy Menu Part 2

2010-06-12T19:03:00.000-07:00

The first part of Simone's wonderful menu is here

Simone's YamDaisy Menu

Roasted Vegetables and Braised Pork Belly

I talked a little in the last post about coaxing this menu out of Simone when she was in the middle of moving house. Well, as I begin talking about her second main, you will see how this has come back and bitten me. She said roast vegetables, and was thinking about what to have with them... by then my conscience was pricking me and since I had just roasted a couple of chicken legs I jumped in and suggested roast chicken. "Fine" said Simone.

It was a little bit after this that she told me that she was a vegetarian, and so she would never have chosen a chicken to go along with her roast. Sorry again Simone!

And it was when I started thinking about this post I realised that I keep popping chicken in these menus because I want to cater for meat eaters and, being a vegetarian myself for so long, I am really ignorant about meat ~ except I am cooking chicken sometimes and learning about it. However, after my experiment cooking chicken legs I have to admit I have no idea how I would serve bits of them with the roast veggies.

I thought to myself that since Simone didn't choose the chicken, maybe I could change it for some other meat, and just grabbed braised belly of pork out of the ether! When I went searching for what it is actually is ~ it sounded a bit more complicated than I expected, and I realised I was just getting deeper and deeper into things I am totally ignorant about! O dear!

I had to have a conversation with my friend Lin about whether it was something that could be considered for a YamDaisy menu, and really, how big a bit would end up on the plate?
Lin calmed me down and I can picture now a plate with a lovely bright array of veggies and a succulent square of pork, and maybe a nice smear of apple sauce. Yummy?

I just love to make roast veggies, crispy with caramelised edges and all their colours were bright and glistening. I love making a big tray of these because they make such wonderful left overs! It is easy to be creative with the mix, but this is how I did this lot:

Put the oven to high heat.
Pop in a baking tray that will fit your veggies in one layer, or as close to that as possible.
In a big bowl, peel and chop your veggies. I used potato, parsnip, carrot and pumpkin. I made them only a few centimetres square (not that anything was that regular) so that they had lots of surface area and so they would cook quickly
Then I added some thinly sliced onion and chopped red pepper to add extra flavour.
On top of these I drizzled some olive oil, soy sauce, a bit of golden syrup, and lots of dried oregano.
I mixed this all up so that every piece of vegetable was just coated with the oily mix.
Next get the very hot pan out of the oven and tip the bowl full of vegetables in it. It makes a great hiss and crackle!
Shake or push the veggies a little so that they cover the pan evenly, and pop it back in the oven.
After almost half an hour I gave the veggies a mix, turning them over as much as possible, and after another 10 minutes they were ready.

And are you surprised to find I didn't actually cook the braised pork belly myself? But I looked very carefully for a recipe that looked delicious and possible for the YamDaisy menu. Here is what I found: Braised Pork Belly

Apple and Rhubarb Crumble and Creamy Yoghurt

The YamDaisy Cafe philosophy is all about 'Made from Scratch!' For anyone who takes the shortcut of using tinned pie apples for their apple crumble, the difference in a YamDaisy version will be a revelation! Apples are in season at the moment, and the bright, sweet, flavour of fresh stewed apples makes it most understandable that this is such a popular dessert. Adding rhubarb adds another level of flavour and colour!

Simone's topping for apple crumble has the butter rubbed into flour, and then the additions of allspice, almond meal, and oats, with the sugar. Drained Greek yoghurt makes a thick creamy counterpoint.

It is really cold and grey and wet in Melbourne at the moment. Winter has set in. How wonderful to have a menu so full of warmth and colour! I think everyone walking past the Cafe would have to come in and eat! This is a menu that will nourish body and soul!

Simone's YamDaisy Menu Part 1

2010-06-06T17:11:00.000-07:00

Note to Self: When a neighbour who is moving house comes over because the Estate Agent has accidentally locked her out of her own home, and you get her a cup of tea while she is waiting for the Estate Agent to return, it is not polite to press her for a YamDaisy Menu.

But it worked! Simone has given me a really interesting menu. Here it is:

Simone's YamDaisy Menu

SOUP: Thai Pumpkin Soup with white Sourdough bread
MAIN 1:Chickpea Stew with Jasmine Rice and Coriander
MAIN 2: Roasted Vegetables and Braised Pork Belly
FRUIT BASED DESSERT: Apple Crumble and Creamy Yoghurt

The YamDaisy menu is for my idea of little local cafe's that provide delicious, everyday, affordable meals. There are only a few choices each day, made from local, seasonal ingredients. Read more about the YamDaisy Menu here.

Simone's menu is really interesting to me. Her choices really highlight the popularity (around here at least!) of a number of dishes. The very last menu I posted also had a pumpkin soup and an apple crumble dessert also! Is this a Melbourne thing?

It has really made me think how each YamDaisy Cafe could make similar menus their own! Imagine the annual YamDaisy Cook Off Awards. This year we could have a prize for the Best Pumpkin Soup. Would Rose's Cafe, with its glorious sunset coloured pumpkin soup, rich with red capsicum and lentils win? Or would the judges prefer Simone's contribution, with coconut cream and Thai curry paste? I had better not be a judge! I would score them both 10 out of 10!

Thai Pumpkin Soup with White Sourdough Bread

This is a lovely pumpkin soup. I based my recipe on this one from the 4 Ingedients book but I made my own curry paste (thanks Charmaine Solomon) and I fried the paste in the thick cream from the coconut milk until fragrant. I was also lucky to have pumpkin from my sisters farm. This was SUCH a delicious soup!
Not having sourdough starter, I made a light white bread to go with it: Hokkaido Bread and what delicious toast it made! I don't know that the YamDaisy chefs will make their own bread, but hopefully they will have wonderful baker suppliers!

Chickpea Stew with Jasmine Rice and Coriander

This stew is made by frying onions, chillies, garlic and chopped tomatoes, adding potato and frying for about 5 minutes, and then adding other vegetables, including kumara, as well as the (cooked) chickpeas and seasoning, and letting it stew gently to mix and meld flavours. Credit goes to Simone's mum for this wonderful winter Chickpea stew.

I will finish Simone's Menu next post!
Jump to it here

More Flat Talk for the YamDaisy Cafe

2010-06-02T18:54:00.000-07:00

I thank you SO much for your comments on my last post. I love the kind support, but even more I love the comments and criticism that help me see clearly the place of my project in the real world.

Sometimes I don't respond to comments, but I keep them in my head, or written in my notebook. I have some lovely little lists that will turn into posts soon.

My YamDaisy Project is an unusual one because my health is so bad. I have trouble even managing to post a blog more than once a week! (Ofcourse, if I managed to win $90 million in Tattslotto I could have paid people to do all the work. I could set up a few cafes then! I am sure I could manage that very well. But sigh, I didn't win it.).
So my strategy, until the next $90 million Tattslotto Draw comes around, is to develop my idea, and find out how to communicate it SO well that it will be self evident that it has to go ahead!

So, back to the flats.
Retrofitting IS possible, but I am very, very glad not to be chasing planning permits myself!
Ofcourse, Councils will come to see that it is in their interests to have YamDaisy Cafes in areas of need, and before you know it they will be bending over backwards to help get them going!

When Jutta talked about not wishing to have one in any block of flats she was living in, I did understand. In our flats there is someone who works night shifts, and I think they would hate extra noise and bustle around here. We have also had tenants with new babies here, and I remember that feeling of being ready to KILL someone who made such a noise my 'I've just got her to sleep' baby might wake up. I am also thinking of people with chronic pain, migraines, anxiety disorders, or simply a strong need for solitude.

However I do think there are places where the current residents in a block of flats may be very glad to let a YamDaisy Cafe in. The issue should be with just the block that has the cafe put in. All the ones nearby get the convenience without the irritation (hopefully). If the block had mostly people who would get home from work just in time to buy something delicious for dinner before the cafe shut up for the evening and peace and quiet reigned, it might be very welcome!

And during the day, people from all around (with the emphasis on walking distance) could visit and, if the flats are like the ones around here, it would be a very quiet, easy atmosphere.

The YamDaisy Cafes need to have a 'mum's kitchen' feel. Welcoming, full of deliciousness, conversation and company. But no mucking around!

A YamDaisy Cafe must have the invitation of all the residents, and owners, before setting up in a building. Once it is there, at least new tenants will know what they are letting themselves in for!

I have been talking about the places with a high number of flats and apartment buildings that are two or three stories high, and mostly fit on an old house block. That is what it is like where I live. But there are the big apartment buildings too, 8, 10 and more stories high. Just like a hotel has a shop and a restaurant in the lobby, it makes sense that these could too.

In most places I imagine a YamDaisy Cafe fitting in to places like an old corner shop, or some such building: nicely among the houses, and absolutely suitable for a food business. In some places it might be best placed in a small shopping strip easily accessed by the community. I have talked with a church minister who was excited about refurbishing an old church hall as a YamDaisy Cafe.

Wherever there is a need for one of these cafes, the trick would be to look around and see where it might work best. The wishes of nearby people and disability access are right up there in importance with food safety and kitchen size!

A YamDaisy Cafe needs to come to each area on the groundswell of demand from the local people. And once it is there, the onus is on the cafe to make sure it continues to be a welcome part of the community!

A YamDaisy Cafe in a block of flats!

2010-05-28T21:46:00.000-07:00

Here is a flat in a block of 8 flats. Two bedrooms each. Next door is another block. 9, one bedroom flats. Next to it is another block, and then another... (They call them apartments or units of course. It is me who is old fashioned and daggy and likes calling them flats!)

On the other side is a bare paddock. They pulled down the house that was there and they are planning to put up 4 townhouses. On the other side of that? You guessed it, another block of 4 town houses.

You get the picture? Lots of people, few children, the tenants are young and busy in the main, but there are old people here too, people with disabilities and chronic illness. There are small kitchens here, and not many cooks....

What a great place for a YamDaisy cafe!

It IS possible to get planning permission to turn a flat into a cafe. I have checked. It probably isn't easy! But I think it might be worth it.

Take the flat in the photo for example. These flats are quite basic, but they are well soundproofed. The flats above and beside can be protected from the noise of the cafe.
The living room and main bedroom could be opened up to form a reasonable eating area, the small, cool, second bedroom could be the store room. The kitchen is small, but what cafe kitchen isn't! So long as it is well set up, small can be good!

How convenient for everyone in the neighbourhood to be able to drop in for a meal and eat it in their community, or take it home for convenience.

There is even room in the courtyardish area for herbs to grow, or even an outside table or two.

Here are the benefits:
Convenient, delicious, affordable food
Good health outcomes
Fostering a sense of community

Before long, every big block of flats built would have a central place put aside for the YamDaisy Cafe to be!

YamDaisy and the Budget! Fascinating!

2010-05-23T19:08:00.000-07:00

When I was working out the viability of my YamDaisy Cafe structure I started with two different needs: affordable meals for customers, and a reasonable income for the chef/manager.

This was made trickier because the customers include the poorest people in the community.

With my housekeeping budget skills I pushed and pulled until I came up with something that I thought would work. In a housewifey way I figured that if we could get so many meals sold at so much each, and cover all the overheads we would end up with an amount for ingredients a week for ingredients. (You can look at my number crunching here. Feel free to comment!)

But then I read a chef friend talking about it a completely different way. He went from running a restaurant to working for a catering company.:

"The pricing scale was completely backwards to the way I was used to working out gross profit from a meal. In a restaurant you come up with an idea for a dish, then order in the food, cook a meal, tweak it a bit, then when it is good you cost up how much it costs to put that meal onto the plate then add 80 percent! simple... that gives you a price to charge for that dish... every one you sell ensures you that 80 percent profit!

Here I was given a capped chargeable price ... and had to make profit working backwards from that... the price was the starting point, not the finish point as it were!"

I remember Jamie Oliver complaining in a similar way under even more straightened circumstances trying to make school meals affordable, but also delicious and healthy. He talked about his usual practice of looking at wonderful ingredients and being inspired by them to cook something, rather than surveying the cheap ingredients and trying to work out something good that could be made from them!

My first thought was that family budgets are capped! The poorer you are, the more capped your budget is. The more you are stuck with the cheapest, saddest ingredients.
But the YamDaisy chef must not be like a stressed mum trying to cook good food with not enough money!

Yes, it will be topsy turvy thinking for a restaurant chef, but hopefully it will be good domestic economics for the YamDaisy Chef. There MUST be enough money to buy good, local, seasonal ingredients and to cook great, delicious meals with them. There must be room to be inspired!

This is another way the YamDaisy Chef must be like a great Mum Cook using the wonderful ingredients to hand and developing a community based menu of the best food. Not expensive, rare, food, but treasured local seasonal, loved food! .... and affordable!

Rose's Autumn Menu Part 2

2010-05-16T20:48:00.000-07:00

Look at Part 1 here

ROSE'S AUTUMN MENU

SOUP: Pumpkin Soup with a Fresh Bread Roll
MAIN 1: Macaroni Cheese and a Green Salad
MAIN 2: Chicken Caesar Salad Meal-in-a-bowl
FRUIT BASED DESSERT: Apricot Crumble and Custard

This post is a demonstration of how intentions morph as day follows day!

As my proposed YamDaisy Cafe structure currently stands, the first two dishes are available from when the cafe opens. The next two come on as soon as possible afterward (but certainly by the time the lunch traffic starts picking up). I hope this will be a more practical way for the chef than trying to have everything going right from the start.

I talked about the Pumpkin Soup and The Macaroni Cheese dishes in the previous post, and then looked pleasurably forward to the final two dishes for this post.

Chicken Caesar Salad ~ Meal in a Bowl. As a vegetarianish person I am still not very used to chicken, but quite happy, and even excited, to be making it for this menu. My mouth still waters at the taste of the Caesar Salad dressing I made last time (see here), and I was fascinated at the idea of turning the classic salad into a chicken one, and into a particularly Autumn dish.

I found a lovely, simple recipe for roasting chicken legs Italian style and thought that would be a good start to getting nice chicken ready for the recipe. (And it sort of was!)

And I was thinking about Autumny things to be adding to the dish. Having a mum's point of view for feeding people with delicious, nourishing, home style food, I wanted to have a balanced plate with some good veggies in it. Especially since the Macaroni cheese is a bit lacking in these!

I went a googling and a thinking.... and then I saw this: http://cafefernando.com/chicken-caesar-salad-recipe/

O dear. It uses breast, not leg. It has no added vegetables. It uses a different dressing.

But isn't it just perfect?

I decided that if I was running the Cafe I would make it just like this (the dressing is SO easy!), what a treat for my customers! And I would just harangue my customers to start off with the soup to get some extra vegetables in them! (That's the sort of YamDaisy Cafe chef I would be!)

So that is how the Chicken Caesar Salad went in unexpected directions. And what do you think happened to the Apple Crumble and Custard?

Apricot Crumble and Custard
I bought the apples. I was considering the crumble: (The righteous ones have equal amounts of flour and butter as their crumble, and that is that. They would call my sort of crumble 'Apple Crunch'. Which way would I go with it this time?).

I was also considering the custard. How to have custard ready for people coming in over several hours?

How to cater for those who like it hot, and those who prefer it cold? This was my thought:

Sweet little jugs filled with custard that people could have as warm as they like, and use as much of as they like. I was all set!

Then what should happen but the very Rose who composed this menu offered to make Apricot Crumble for dessert! Well, I wasn't going to say no! I just got her to take the photo (above!) and tell me how she made her crumble (crunch) topping:
Oats, flaked almonds, brown sugar, mixed with melted butter and sprinkled over the fruit and baked til hot and crisp. We had our custard hot!

Not what I planned, but supremely delicious! That is what is important at the YamDaisy Cafe!

Rose's Menu Part 1

2010-05-10T22:47:00.000-07:00

This was one of the first YamDaisy menus I was given, and I have needed to wait for the seasons to roll back around to be right for it!
I asked Rose for a menu that would suit the YamDaisy Cafe that provides delicious everyday food made from scratch. When a customer comes in they find only 4 dishes to choose from! Therefore it is important that those four dishes cover a wide range of tastes and appetites.
There is always a soup, so customers know that wherever there is a YamDaisy Cafe open, there will be a fresh soup made from local, seasonal ingredients at a low price.
Then comes two mains and a fruit based dessert is the fourth dish, for those who feel that a meal just isn't a meal without one!

ROSE'S AUTUMN MENU

SOUP: Pumpkin Soup with a Fresh Bread Roll
MAIN 1: Macaroni Cheese and a Green Salad
MAIN 2: Chicken Caesar Salad Meal-in-a-bowl
FRUIT BASED DESSERT: Apple Crumble and Custard

Pumpkin Soup with a Fresh Bread Roll

There are a hundred ways to make a Pumpkin Soup, but this one is my all time favourite because of the gorgeous colour and taste the added red pepper give and the extra body from the little red lentils. It is also a supremely easy soup. And I made it up myself!
I start by putting 1/4 cup of the little salmon coloured split lentils to soak, so they will cook really quickly.

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil and add
1 onion chopped,
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 large red pepper flesh, chopped,
(and maybe some fresh chili pepper, chopped)
Fry gently while you are chopping up about half a kilo of pumpkin in to chunks. I use Jap, a small dense sweet pumpkin, but any lovely pumpkin (or butternut) would be good.
Add the pumpkin and let it fry a bit while you rinse the 1/4 of a cup of the little salmon coloured skinned lentil you have been soaking.
Add them with a litre of vegetable stock and bring to the boil.
Simmer until the lentils and pumpkin are soft, about 20 minutes.
Season to taste with salt and pepper. When cool enough, blend til smooth.
Reheat and serve with a fresh roll and a little pat of butter!

Macaroni Cheese and a Green Salad
I think Macaroni Cheese might come up a few times in YamDaisy Menus, it is such a wonderful homey comfort food and I am discovering that there are lots of different ways to make it.
I was delighted to see this delicious version on 3 Hungry Tummies blog, http://3hungrytummies.blogspot.com/2010/04/mac-and-cheese-from-tummies-kitchen.html
I think it would work beautifully here. What a treat of a presentation it is! And I love that the peas are mixed in.

I imagine presenting the salad in a separate low plate to compliment the bowl of hot macaroni. I would use all the fresh greens that are growing now the heat of summer is passed: rocket, sorrel, coriander, lettuce, cress, chives ~ and then I would brighten them up with some marigold petals and maybe a couple of fine strips of juicy carrot. Just the lightest dressing!
Yum!

I think if I went into the YamDaisy Cafe on the day this menu was served, I would eat my Macaroni Cheese and Salad, and then takeaway Soup and Roll to have later. But remember, you can get a 2 course meal for $10, which could be soup as a starter and the Macaroni Cheese as a main.

There are two other menu choices for this day, and I will present them in my next blog. I am looking forward to revisiting the Caesar Salad as an Autumn dish, and O yum, Apple Crumble! Jump to it here!

For more about the YamDaisy Cafe and the YamDaisy Menu check the website.
(I am updating it, it is taking me a long time!)

Marie Cook Needs Help

2010-04-27T20:13:00.000-07:00

Hello,
This is a special blog to introduce you to Marie Cook.
I met Marie on the Jamie Oliver Forum, one of the big online food forums. The loveliest thing about the JO forum is the core of lovely people from all around the world who post regularly and share some of their lives as well as their love of food.

Marie has a lovely presence on the forum, she has been part of it for more than twice as long as I have. Her posts and her blogs there show her love of food, entertaining, growing things, and her humour! Although she has been battling cancer all along, she has a warm, upbeat presence. I just love the photo she blogged of her birthday dinner last year. She has her bandanna and big smile and is giving her son such a loving hug.

Marie's battle with cancer intensified this year and we mostly kept track of her through updates from her friends. Then came the frightening news that she was finishing her scheduled cancer treatments without success, and her next option is cutting edge laser surgery that costs 22,000 pounds, way beyond anything she can afford!
Marie is desperate to keep fighting for her life and for her boys.

The forum swung into action! "We just need 22,000 people to donate a pound each!"
The Marie Cook Appeal Facebook Group was started.
A paypal account has been set up so that anyone anywhere in the world (almost!) can donate their 1 pound to help her.

"Let's give them something back for donations over 5 pounds" said Deb.
She suggested a downloadable recipe book full of our most special recipes, ones that hadn't been posted before. (I am in there with our Fallen Chocolate Souffle Cake!).
Within a week she had enough recipes from foodloving forummers across the world to make a book (there are 34 fabulous recipes, we had to stop there or it would get too big to email). It is beautifully designed pdf file that it can be used on the computer, or printed out and folded to make a book.

So now our aim is to find those 22,000 people to donate a pound, or 4,400 people to donate 5 pounds (or more!) for the very special recipe book.

Here is what you can do to help Marie:

Go to the Marie Cook Appeal Website and press the donate button to put your pound in through paypal (it is safe and easy).

To get the very special recipe book: donate 5 pounds or equivalent, and when you are emailed the receipt send to themariecookappeal@gmail.com.Your recipe book will be emailed to you.

If you don't want to use paypal you can send your cheque made out to The Marie Cook Appeal to
89B Hammersmith Grove
Hammersmith
London W6 0NQ
(with a note including your name and address so they can keep a running account please)

Join the Marie Cook Appeal Facebook Group

Spread the news! Make a link to this blog on your blog, your facebook page, or anywhere you think might help!

Note 1: Paypal is easy and safe (that is why we chose it!) When you put your amount to be donated in pounds, and then click your country, it shows you the exact amount it will be in your currency. You do need to fill in the whole form, but we so hope you will do this for Marie.

If you already have a paypal account it is even easier, just press the donate button and log on to your account.

Note 2: The recipe book is best printed out double sided to make a lovely little A5 book. I took mine on a USB stick to Officeworks where they printed it out in black and white for $1:50 (Australian). It printed up just beautifully. Colour is a lot more expensive, so I will have the colour copy on my computer and my handy little book to drip things over in the kitchen! I tied pink cord to keep it together:

If you have any problems with payment or recipe book, please let me know and I will try to help. If you get the recipe book and love it we would like that feedback too!

Thankyou for reading this! I will be back to the YamDaisy Cafe next post!

YamDaisy and Mumfood!

2010-04-23T20:52:00.000-07:00

When I thought about the food at the YamDaisy Cafe I was inspired by Georgio Locatelli telling how a Locanda (small Italian inn) would simply serve the food the the family was eating that day. I knew that that was what people needed. Mumfood. Comfort meals. Delicious, everyday meals. Local seasonal ingredients. Slow food.... That is what I have based my YamDaisy idea around.

I developed the idea of a small homelike menu of few choices each day. A soup, 2 mains and a fruit based dessert. A small number of dishes to make it easier for the chef, and to reflect the 'mumfood' nature of the menu.

Then I had to consider how a chef would manage this day in, day out. The chef needs the balance between the interest of new foods, and the ease of bringing out a tried and tested menu. I thought about how I would like to set up the menu if I was cooking for 150 locals every day. The formula I came up with was to have a different menu every day of the week, but to repeat that menu for the four weeks of the month.
I will put an example of this below so you can see what I mean.

Chef
The chef can come up with a menu based on the local seasonal produce. Planning one week pretty well plans the month and hopefully each week will get easier to prepare and serve (plus each week responding to customer feedback ~ and variations in produce), and just when it might get boring there is a new month to plan for.

Customers
It is really easy to plan how to eat at the cafe.
If your favourite meal is up on Tuesday you can plan to eat at the cafe each Tuesday (or call in for takeaway). If you like trying a different dish each time, and you always eat at the Cafe on Tuesday, you have the variety of a soup one week, and each of the mains, and then whatever was your favourite on the last week!
If you eat there almost every day, you will get plenty of variety.
Or if you have particular food requirement, you can search out the gluten free option, the vegetarian one, or the meat and three veg one, and work your visit accordingly.

Problem

The biggest problem that has been pointed out to me is the issue of waste. Someone who had been involved with restaurants talked about having the same meal day after day on the menu means that left over ingredients etc aren't wasted. I do think this is an issue, it is important to avoid waste on every level! but I feel strongly that with the small menu there needs to be the variety over the week.
I am in favour of running out of food every day! I do know this is considered restaurant blasphemy, but it really can avoid the waste issue. It would work fine if the cafe had an excellent relationship with the customers so that there was a good sense of who will be in and what will they need. The community aspect of the Yamdaisy Cafe helps here. The personal relationships and the help of electronic communication make it easier.
The chef could twitter "Sorry we are out of Irish stew'
or "We have takeaway containers of fish cakes and fennel on special for $5 each. Hurry, only 20."
Also, careful menu planning means that the carrots in the salad on Monday could feature in the soup on Tuesday (for example), and in that way ingredients can be used most efficiently.

So that issue hasn't changed my mind! But please, argue with me! Can you see a better way to do it? Convince me.
I get a bit nervous structuring it all based on my own limited thinking! Let me know what you think. Cooks view and customers view welcome!

SAMPLE WEEKLY MENU to be repeated through a Melbourne (Autumn) April

Monday (Joy's Autumn Menu)
Soup: Zucchini Soup with a Dinner Roll
Main 1: Fried Rice with Coriander and Pepper Paste
Main 2: Mexican Polenta Stuffed Peppers With Refritos Beans and Salsa
Fruit Based Dessert: Apple Puree with Custard and an Oat Crisp

Tuesday
Soup: Wild Mushroom Soup with Thyme Scones
Main 1: Dal Makhani with Lemon Rice and Carrots Roasted with Cumin Seeds
Main 2: Red Bean and Chicken Bake with Green Salad
Fruit Based Dessert: Greek Yoghurt and Berries with Rosewater syrup.

Wednesday (Jinie's Menu)
Soup: Potato and Leek Soup with crusty bread
Main 1:Pasta Bake made with Grated Vegetables and Bolognaise sauce.
Main 2:Veggie Slice (a frittata with lots of vegetables) served with a Side Salad and a little bowl of Sweet Relish
Fruit Based dessert: Fruit Salad with Honey Icecream.

Thursday (Rose's menu)
Soup: Pumpkin Soup with a bread roll
Main 1: Macaroni Cheese and a Green Salad
Main 2: Chicken Caesar Salad Meal-in-a-bowl
Fruit Dessert: Apple Crumble and Custard

Friday
Soup: Autumn Minestrone
Main 1: Cornish Pasty with Autumn Salad
Main 2: Black Bean and Chilli Rice Vermicelli garnished with Spring Onions, Lettuce and Coriander
Fruit Based Dessert: Poached Pears with Baked Ricotta

YamDaisy Ambiance

2010-04-16T18:41:00.000-07:00

Just when I am trying to update the food and menu sections of the YamDaisy Website, along comes a reminder of another important aspect of the cafe experience, and such an important one!
On my weekly 3RRR community radio treat of a food program 'Eat It' they had a segment about design in restaurants and how important it is.
These were the figures bandied around about what makes the visit a great experience for people:
25% Service
35% Chef and food
and another 35% on Ambiance ~ the feel of the place, the atmosphere, the culture, the coolness and the comfort!
(They also had a bit of discussion about how important the coffee after the meal is!.... Very important!)

I do respect these figures! But isn't it fascinating how some multimillion dollar redesign with all the latest everything might make no difference, and some greasy spoon tucked away somewhere just might zing!

These are important issues for the success of the YamDaisy Cafes. To work well, they need to be popular!
The Chef and Food are the core of the outfit.
The Service ~ the relationship staff have with the customers, and the way food is served is also very important.....
But every YamDaisy Cafe will need a wonderful Ambiance!
How is this done? How will it be done on a franchise level? Because I want the YamDaisy Organization to be setting up cafes wherever they will work, and each community needs their one to be a great place to go to.

Here are some of the ideas I have had:

A space that is easy to be in for people with all different abilities. This is always tricky because the cafes will be small, and we will need wheelchair and maybe scooter access, lovely practical lighting, big chairs for obese people, comfort and space for mums with little children, coolness for teenagers, peace for the frail elderly and, ofcourse, set up really well for the service of the food.
A vibrant space, full of the richness of art, colour, form and texture that makes each particular YamDaisy cafe fresh and different and a jewel in its community.
Changing the ambiance throughout the day or the week or year to suit the cafe customers: lighting, music. warmth, even space (e.g.between the tables) can change if it is designed well.
A sustainable space, design that uses eco friendly materials and minimizes waste.

Well, really I have had only one idea for putting all this together, but I think it is a good one!

Design Students!

Wouldn't it be great if Yamdaisy worked with the places that taught Design. What a brief to give to Design Students! What a way to be incorporating fresh bright ideas and at the same time adding to the experience and skills of upcoming designers! What a wonderful real life practical exercise for them!

The YamDaisy organization would have a great deal of work to do overseeing this (but what a great job!): networking with the University or TAFE or Design School setting up rigorous plans, consulting and checking the practicalities, costing and so on. But this would also be on a scale which means the systems could be set in place and streamlined. I would imagine the cafe's design should be refreshed every 5 years at the most, bringing in issues of retrofitting and renovating in a way that interrupts business as little as possible. More good lessons for the design students to learn!

I love that this sort of process would help develop the feeling of community ownership, keep bringing fresh ideas forward, feeds back to help the students (great for their CV's) as well as bringing wonderful design to the YamDaisy Cafes! Each one will be so different and so cool! (I hope!)
And Yes I have an eye on the cost saving! And indeed, the students could be encouraged to factor in more cost saving: recycled furniture, decorating with found objects, working with local school children to design art pieces etc.

Do you like this idea? What have I missed out? Are there things that you feel are very important when creating ambiance?

PS My plan was for a picture to illustrate this post that showed some art, some style and a sense of music.... but I got up this morning and found all the ambiance I wanted in my morning cup of coffee!! I do hope it created a welcoming atmosphere for today's post! Cheers everyone!

Anniversary!

2010-04-11T23:03:00.000-07:00

It is a year since I posted the first time, and I am celebrating what a lot I have learnt and what a treat it has been. I hadn't a clue when I began, and it has been such a lovely surprise to find the blogosphere community and the generosity and support of people all over the world.
I chose a few things to put in the photo with my one year anniversary candle. The tortoise is my symbol of 'slow and steady wins the race' and that my project is Slow Community Development.
That is a crocodile tooth at the bottom! It comes from the McArthur River near Borroloola where I taught many years ago. That is a symbol of power (and how amazing life can be!).

The bird is hard to see, so here is another picture:

I was born in the year of the chook, and I like the mother hen thing balancing with the crocodile tooth!
And finally all the spirals: My daughter painted the one on a rock for me at a camp by a river. A friend brought the pendant as a gift for me from her visit to Bali last month, and the metal spiral has just come to light after lurking in a forgotten corner for several years. They show how you can go round in circles but still make progress! I can't have too many of them!

In my slow tortoisey way I am doing a big crocodile tooth update of my website to incorporate the things I have learnt about communicating the idea of my YamDaisy Cafes. And in my mother chook way I want to get it all nested and comfortable! And then I will be ready to spiral out again!

I am expecting this will instigate some interesting blogs to put up as I go!

It has been such a lovely adventure of a year thanks to you all, I am so happily looking forward to the next one!

YamDaisy Autumn Menu Part Two

2010-03-27T22:08:00.000-07:00

For a YamDaisy Cafe Menu the food must be Delicious, Everyday Food and Economical too. Not only that, there are only four dishes on the menu to cater to the (presumably) wide ranging tastes of the customers. The chef needs to cook them all in a small, but well equipt kitchen. O yes, they need to be made from scratch from local, seasonal ingredients.

It is just turning Autumn in Melbourne, the end of Summer vegetables are glorious, and my sister brought me eggplants, zucchini, cucumber and a huge bag of wonderful new season apples when she came to visit a couple of weeks ago. So I came up with the following menu to give an idea of what a Yamdaisy Cafe could do:

JOY'S AUTUMN MENU

Soup: Zucchini Soup with a Dinner Roll
Main 1: Fried Rice with Coriander and Pepper Paste
Main 2: Mexican Polenta Stuffed Peppers With Refritos Beans and Salsa
Fruit Based Dessert: Apple Puree with Custard and an Oat Crisp

I began writing about this menu last post, so to get the chat and recipes about the soup and the first main have a look here:

Main 2: Mexican Polenta Stuffed Peppers With Refritos Beans and Salsa
In the picture above you can see my attempt at the peppers.
I am not sure the photo shows how gorgeous they were, and of course it can't let you know how delicious they smelled. I just loved them! But I varied quite a bit from the recipe, so I will write it out and then tell you what I did.

This recipe came from "Moosewood Simple Suppers" and it was my first try at making it.

MEXICAN POLENTA STUFFED PEPPERS
5 large peppers - Cut in half lengthwise, keep stems on. Remove seeds, brush inside and out with olive oil (allow 1 1/2 tbsps). Salt lightly, place cut side up on an oiled baking sheets and roast at 450F for 15 minutes until tender but still holding their shape.
Polenta: Cook 4 cups of water, 1/2 tsp salt and 1 cup of cornmeal until thickened.
Stir in 1 1/2 cups of corn kernels, 1 tbsp oil or butter, 1 cup of grated cheese and 1/2 a cup of chopped spanish olives.
Fill the capsicums with the polenta, sprinkle more cheese on top and bake 5 - 10 minutes until the cheese has melted.
Serve with Mexican beans and salsa.

I really wanted to make this recipe, but I had the long red peppers which aren't so thick fleshed. Three instead of five! But I did have some sweet corn and some olives (Greek not Spanish). I thought of how I could slit the peppers open so they would be like a shoe shape to fill with the polenta, but how to get the seeds out?
I slit them, gave a tiny rub of oil where the pepper sat on the tray, and roasted them for 15 minutes. When they cooled I could open up to get at the seeds and membranes. They hardly had any! All very easy, and I had used a smear of oil, not 1 1/2 tbsps.
Next the polenta. I used my easy microwave method (thanks Barbara Kafka) where I put 1 cup of water, 3 tbsp cornmeal and 1/2 tsp salt in a 1 litre pyrex jug. Stir and microwave on high for 2 minutes. Stir again and cover with a piece of paper towel. Cook 1 1/2 minutes more on high. Mix in a generous teaspoon of butter and a grind of pepper, and let it sit for three minutes.
For this recipe I added about 1/3 of a cup of fresh sweet corn kernels with the butter and pepper. I don't like my polenta too cheesy, so I didn't add that, and I thought the olives would look nicer on top so I kept them back too.
I spooned the polenta into the peppers and topped with lots of grated cheese (that is where I like my cheese!) and the olives and then popped them back into the hot oven until the cheese was bubbling and golden. (It wasn't happening quickly enough in the oven so I finished them off under the grill).
They are SO delicious! I think I prefer them the way I did them, so that is now my recipe!

Next I looked for the Mexican Beans to go with them. I have a yummy recipe but it didn't quite suit (it had cornmeal in it for a start!) and I was feeling sorry for the carnivores so I looked on the internet for one with beef added. However, I found this one and liked it so much! It would match beautifully with the pepper dish! http://www.cooking-mexican-recipes.com/pinto_bean_recipes.html
And to finish it off a salsa with cucumber, tomato, herbs and avacado if possible would be just gorgeous!

And the final dish, for those who just can't survive without a dessert:

Fruit Based Dessert: Apple Puree with Custard and an Oat Crisp
Those of you who have been following my blog for a while must think I am fixated on apples and oats! Every time I think of a delicious fruit based dessert it seems to contain them! But this time I had that big bag of the most gorgeous fresh apples!

First I pureed the apple following a method my sister showed me that my mum perfected long after we had all left home! Cut the apples quickly into chunks. Cook gently in saucepan with a thick bottom, with a bit of sugar (2 tbsp for 8 apples I think I used) and a sprinkle of water. When soft, blend with a wand style thing in the saucepan, or if you are like me and haven't got one, cool until you can put them in the blender. The red skins give the puree a lovely pink colouring, all those added vitamins, and yet don't effect the texture. (Note: the skins do blend better if they are less than 2cm square pieces).

I made REAL custard, mindful of the YamDaisy 'make from scratch and not from packets' philosophy. I usually make a very nice packet custard, and this recipe was quite stressful since it was first time.... but O Yum! Eggs and milk really do make such a beautiful custard! I don't think I can go back to packet mix now!

And for a bit of crispness I made a round of Oat Pastry ( 2 cups rolled oats, 1/2 cup raw sugar, 100g melted butter ~ combine firmly and press mixture into a 20 cm pie dish. Fill and bake in a moderate oven til firm).
I just pressed it into the pie plate and baked til crisp and golden and when I had cooled it on a rack I tried to cut it into elegant wedges. I aimed for 16 and got a dozen, they did tend to shatter! I think a YamDaisy Chef would work something else out! They were nice though! The photo makes it look dark, it was really a lovely golden brown. Crisp and sweet and balanced the dish.

The nicest thing about this menu was all the yumminess I got to eat! My next job is to work on the YamDaisy website. I think I need to do a lot of updating to the menu page! You can check the site out here http://home.vicnet.net.au/~yamdaisy/
and see if I have done so! And give me some feedback on what more could be done there! And on this menu too please!
Otherwise thanks so much for reading! Best Wishes to you all!