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I’m not a dietician or a nutritionist

I’m not a formally qualified cook or gourmet chef.

Photography isn’t one of my strengths either:

I just grab the phone and take a quick photo before we eat each night.

Sometimes, I’m so quick you’ll even see the steam rising in the photos.   

I’m beyond mid seventies.

I’ve spent fifty plus years as a teacher/academic: fifteen as founder and director of Gallery Sunshine Everywhere, showing mainly the work of kindergarten and school children at the Granary Café in Sunshine and on this site. www.gallerysunshine.com

 

I have always been interested in food.

I like to cook.

Really, I’m just sharing here what I cook most nights for dinner.

(Instagram) plantbased_home_eating

Take care

Stay well

Happy Days

Maureen Ryan

mryangallerysunshine@gmail.com

SETTING THE SCENE

We do eat some seafood but there is no need to be deterred by this. It is always prepared separately from the vegetables that make up a particular meal.

This is certainly a tuna mornay free zone … and most importantly, all meals are cream, butter, cheese and egg free ….

No depersonalized supermarkets: haven’t been into one of those huge barns for years.

We shop weekly at farmers’ markets and chat to the sellers who have come to know us. Beyond that, it’s mainly small local grocery stores where they know us by name or by face.

I don’t have any fancy equipment: mainly a saucepan steamer, a frying pan, an elderly food processor, an old much loved knife but very best of all, beautiful newish kitchen scissors.

I don’t have anything much in the way of measuring devices so I won’t be including those or temperatures: it’s mainly intuitive, experimental and attentive.

I don’t plan a week’s meals or even what I’ll cook each night until I look at what’s available, consider what I can do with it, recall what we had last night  … it’s always a mix of colours, textures, shapes, cooking methods: ever mindful of the limited implements available and the time to draw it all together and the lifespan of the various vegetables bought on Saturday.

It is a simple matter of good seasonally available vegetables, steamed and sometimes then oven roasted. Always buy fresh peas to shell: only frozen vegetables are edamame and only chickpeas are tinned.

Olive oil, flaxseed oil, apple cider vinegar are the main additives along with herbs, capers, caper berries,  pickled cucumbers, olives, pickled artichokes, lemon, salt and pepper ….

You’ll note the repetitive use of various items as I try to use everything soon after I’ve brought it home: only have a small food cupboard: no super stocked pantry… usually have rice, couscous, some pasta, polenta, rice noodles, nuts, currants, sultanas and barberries at the ready.

If you’re looking for recipes, I mightn’t be for you. I really just put things together and those things depend on what I buy every Saturday ….