australians.. what are you eating at the moment?

[robinpud]

There's not a huge amount of reasonable veg in season.. what are you inspired to cook at the moment?

[arfishy]

I quite agree. Yesterday I got stung $7 for 6 courgettes [not paying attention emoticon]. Luckiky I was paying enough attention to notice that the microscopic punnet of raspberries I was homing in on was $11 and quickly swerved away.

I'm doing a lot of roast pumpkin, onion, sweet potato, potato & pepper with skewers of some description, and rice dishes - beef stroganoff, risotto and veg/pasta soups with the winter veg that's about.

[superloopy]

I am not really that inspired to cook at the moment.
Just moved to Melb from Lon, thats 2 back to back winters and I am sick of winter food.
If anything I would be happy to prepare salad and thats about it.
I am also 6m preg and have a 3yo DD, we are having lot's of soup too!!

[suzywong]

right at this precise moment I am eating some cold stuffed shoulder of lamb what I made for dinner last night. Stuffed with parsely, pork mince, garlic, lemon zest and anchovies and braised for 3 hours.



oh sorry, was this not a platform for me to show-off?



there is bugger all fruit around and banananananans have gone up again. I am eating a lot of salads of vine tomatoes, avocado, cucumber red onion and fried haloumi.

Not realy eating fruit other than granny smiths.
I'd kill for a nice cox's orange pippin and some kurly kale

[robinpud]

Glad it's just not me! I have noticed that prices vary much more dramatically here than in the Uk where so much of the stuff is imported. I'm doing all my old winter staples but wish I knew more Thai/stir fry recipes to keep it easy and use some of the chinese vegetables which are fresh and available.
My friend with 5 kids is in a fruit and veg co=op along with 12 other families. THey take it in turns to go to the veg market at 4am [shock ]and buy the stuff; however she spends $25 a week on fruit and veg and is swimming in the stuff whereas I spend far more for my family of 4.

[robinpud]

sounds divine Suzy- do the fragrant Wong boys eat with you?

[superloopy]

Update:

I am now eating Suzy Wong chocolate brownies by the handful!!

Ghosty kindly gave me the recipe...YUMMY!!!

Much better than fruit, veg and other healthy proper food.

[Leati]

I am making spaghetti. Carb overload here I come....

[robinpud]

NO!!!!!

I have a dh with borderline high cholesterol and kids with their mother's sweet tooth-
I need to cook healthy, cheap delicious meals with lots of green veg






and Brownies for dessert!

[suzywong]

Mwuuuuaaaaaahhh! I have begun my conquest of the Southern Hemisphere.

No, Fragrant Wong boys do not eat with me. Older one is OK but younger one only eats dry food or chicken and rice or noodles. He is punishing me for what I know not.

I have recently been getting my varied veggie intake by making Asian style risotto with basmati rice and one of those laksa paste packets and lite coconut milk and fish stock and then bunging in half a back of stirfry frozen veg and a few raw prawns. That's low cholesterol if you go easy on the prawns.

[eidsvold]

had some lovely grapes at the price but got them for dd1's party and scrummy strawberries.

we are having stroganoff, cannelloni, chilli, enchiladas, pies - home made of course, pizza from scratch.

cannelloni is easy

get premade fresh lasagne sheets - use low fat ricotta and spinach leaves chopped mixed together with a little garlic. cut large sheets in half - put ricotta mix in the middle, roll and put in baking dish - smother in fresh tomato pasta sauce and a sprinkle of mozarella cheese - scrummy.

sausages and veges - mash/jackets, corn, peas, capsicum (bell peppers for you lot) or zuchini, broc and carrot.

steak and salads.

dh makes a wild chilli mince mix which we have with brown rice.

[suzywong]

so all round to eids' for lunch

it's funny isn't it, we're talking about the distance between London and Moscow with Perth and Brisbane, and the produce is yet so standardised. Do you have much (sub) tropical local produce?

The Margaret River region here in the south west corner of the state is very fertile and a bit like the south of France in terms of what it could produce but we see little of the herbs and older varieties of fruit and veg. shame

[mymama]

I'm with eidsvold mostly.

risottos, soups, pies, chicken korma with basmati, enchiladas, steak/sausages with mash and veges.

Last night we had a lovely fish panfried with potato bake and carrots.

superloopy I will have back to back winters also. We are going to London beginning of October through to January. I don't imagine the waistline is going to do any good out of it.

[eidsvold]

mangoes - largely grown in Bowen ( but we have a tree)

lots of Pineapple near us

strawberries pick your own near us too.

suzy - too busy making wine and surfing margaret river

[NottsMum]

Too many packets of rice crackers - I just love 'em.

Had mangoes for the first time in weeks as Coles had them on offer last week, plus I have discovered a local(ish) market for cheap good quality fruit and veg.

Made my first pumpkin soup this week - YUM! Got bored with pea and ham.

Making various casseroles and the occasional risottos and my first ever fish curry 2 nights ago.

Finding fish here v. expensive so eating far less of it than I did in the UK.

Eidsvold - do you fancy posting up your dh's "wild chilli mince mix"? Sounds good to me. I need inspiration....

[arfishy]

Can we have an Aussie Recipe thread? All seasonal would be good.

I will go off and start with my veggie jumble.

[arfishy]

Can we have an Aussie Recipe thread? All seasonal would be good.

I will go off and start with my veggie jumble.

[eidsvold]

notts mum - even I don't know the recipe for it BUT it is something like this....

it largely consists of whatever is in the fridge - peppers ( bell/capsicum) mushrooms, onions, mince, tinned tomatoes, tomato paste, chilli powder and other assorted herbs maybe some minced garlic in there too. Fry up meat and onion, add veg, add herbs, spices tinned tomatoes and simmer.

Usually served with pasta and I have a dollop or two of greek yoghurt on mine.



SO do we want recipes for pavlova, lamingtons

[eidsvold]

friday night special

PIZZA - made from scratch - bases and all.

dds have ham and cheese

dh and I have ham or whatever we feel like in terms of meat, capsicum, mushroom, onion, even put baby spinach the other week.

really easy recipe. Makes four small bases for the dds or one huge one for us.

[robinpud]

Pizza on lebanese bread is my Tuesday night staple as the kids are out by 5pm.

Recipes for decent family meals I think...

Tonight we are having stir fried beef and snow peas...

[arfishy]

Recipe thread started. Head over to recipes.

Eids - am VERY impressed with the pizza from scratch. Pizza base making in my house involves slicing open a turkish loaf.